From the book, Colonial Kids by Laurie Carlson:
"Colonial girls loved dolls, but they had to make them from materials they could find. Adults made dolls for children, too. Colonial dolls were made from sticks, rags, bones, pinecones--even pieces of firewood with faces drawn in soot. Dried apples, prunes, and nuts were sometimes used for heads.
Wooden dolls were the most popular. Someone would carve the wooden head, paint its eyes with charcoal and its lips and cheeks with red clay. Some doll makers were so good that they made dolls to barter or sell."
We bought our spoon set at the Dollar Store. I thought the "spork" would make a cute boy (built in hair!) and the spoon would be the girl. The girls used washable markers, but since the spoons had been treated (not straight wood), their drawings were rubbing off. I plan on sealing the spoons with craft spray, but would use permanent markers next time. We used material from an old pair of paints and a white t-shirt. We had to turn the pants material inside out so when we flipped it over, it would be right-side out. Also, we used yarn instead of rubber bands because the colonial children would not have had rubber bands back then. :)
These directions are for using smaller spoons. I had to cut larger pieces of material for our spoons since we got larger ones, but I thought these would be easier for the girls to handle and play with.
Supplies needed: small wood or plastic ice cream spoons (we used full-size spoons), markers (permanent markers would work best), scraps of fabric, rubber band or yarn, scissors, glue, moss/yarn/wool for the hair
What to do:
- Draw/color a face and/or hair on each spoon.
- Cut a fabric piece about 4x6 inches.
- Scrunch the fabric around the doll's neck (the top of the spoon handle), with the skirt upside down covering the face (the spoon). *See photo at the top.
- Wrap or fold the fabric in place.
- Hold the fabric tight with a rubber band or tie it tightly in place with yarn.
- Pull the fabric down over the rubber band or yarn and adjust it to be the dress/shirt.
- You can also glue moss, yarn or wool on your spoon for hair.
- Now you have a new toy to play with!
My girls had a lot of fun making their spoon dolls. It seemed that Love Bug liked her dolls better without their clothes on. You could also wrap yarn around the handle of the spoon for pants for the boy. (If you look closely, Sweet Girl did this.) I've seen some instructions that glue on sticks for arms, but I really like the way our dolls turned out. As Sweet Girl said, "Now we have a whole family!"
**All photos and text are property of Angela Pounders and can not be distributed without permission.
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