Make your own props for your American Girl Doll

Julie has always been very creative and imaginative.  She gets an idea in her head and runs with it.

So when she got a new idea book for her American Girl doll this week, we just had to take a trip to Hobby Lobby to get supplies.  For $25 we got supplies to make 11 projects.

Here is what she has made so far:

1) Lunch tray with lunch on it.

The tray is the lid to a plastic, Tupperware-like container.  She lined it with pink construction paper then added a blue tissue paper napkin, a sandwich and a milk carton.  The sandwich ingredients (bread, turkey and cheese) were all made from craft foam.  We got the sticky kind so it all sticks together easily without any glue.  The milk carton came with her idea book.  It was just a paper pattern that you cut out, fold and tape.

2) Pancakes - YUM!

 The pancakes, blue plate and butter were all made with craft foam.

3) Hand cast

 Poor Natalie seems to have broken her wrist.  Good thing we made a cast out of an old washcloth and some craft glue.  She should be as good as new in no time.  Unless of course Julie figures out how to make a leg cast...

4) Cup of hot chocolate

The little mug came from Dollywood (about $4).  The hot chocolate is a brown pom-pom.  The two little marshmallows are cotton ball pieces.

5)  Our crowning achievement - the piano and stool.

I can't take credit for all of this.  The directions were in the idea book, but I did fold it all up into a piano.  The hardest part was to find a 20"x20" piece of black paper.  Luckily, black posterboard is cheap and works well.  I followed the direction for folding the poster into a piano (I can post them if anyone is interested).  Then we taped on the row of piano keys that came with the idea book and the piano was done.

To make the stool, we bought a little paper mache round box and covered it with leftover black posterboard.

We bought supplies for Julie to make another 6 projects:  A birthday cake (made from another paper mache box), a campfire (cinnamon sticks with tissue paper), a board game (construction paper, foam, beads and buttons), hopscotch (construction paper, chalk, wadded papers, and pom-poms), balls (ping-pong balls colored with markers), and a wallet (made out of felt).

I'm so proud of her creativity.

She's had loads of fun making all this stuff.  And, heavens knows, it's tons cheaper than if we bought any of it at the American Girl store!

What about you?  Do you or your kids make homemade stuff for their dolls?