I just want to take a few minutes and say thank you to all our readers for such an amazing month full of Halloween fun!! From Karen’s cool crafts to all the great photos of your dolls all decked out for Halloween – October will be a month that is tough to beat! We gave out about 30 Doll Diaries t-shirts to our parade winners and while I wish I could have sent one to everyone of you, it just wasn’t possible. However, I am absolutely LOVING all the photos that the winners are sending me of their dolls modeling the t’s.  I’ll have to come up with some more ways to reward our readers with Doll Diaries t-shirts… so, stand by!!

The winners from Week 4 – which had more than 60 entries – were:

• Linnea – Piper the Owl
• Ginger -Ready to Go
• Sue -Cathy in Wonderland
• Nora – Kim Possible
• Tari – Ginny & Abby

I still need to do the wrap up video for week 4, but in the mean time, head over to our YouTube channel and check out the wrap up videos for weeks 1, 2 and 3.

While I have you, have you entered to win the cute Chef’s Outfit and Kitchen Utensils set from the Queen’s Treasures yet? And if you think that is cute, you need to make sure you are visiting us often in the weeks to come – we have at least 3 more BIG giveaways (as in furniture for your dolls) scheduled and I’m pretty sure we will have even more.

Thanks again!! Doll Diaries readers are the BEST!

PS – yes, those are my daughters. Minnie Mouse collects Holiday Barbies and the fashion designer Barbies and Laguna Blue frequently answers comments here as Alex17 and helps me do all the product reviews.

Setting the perfect table for your dolls Halloween Party can be easy and a fun way to prepare for the holidays. In today’s post I wanted to show you some fun ways you can add to your doll play collection with items you may have already around the house that will help your dolls enjoy Halloween as much as you do.

I love the new Banquet Table & Treats from American Girl. As we celebrate Halloween I thought this Celebration deserved a party and including the cake. I have made a copy cat crafts that you can easily make with items you may have at home.

First let’s make the celebration cake.

For the Cake I used:

• 3 different sized white lids from Vitamin bottles and one from a prescription bottles that were empty (get your parent’s permission first and be sure to have them wash the lids thoroughly)
• 1 Orange juice lid (my favorite Green ones) They make great serving platters when they are turned upside down!
• Some craft ribbon (mine had pearls on it)
• Craft flower ribbons (small)
• A small Yellow Butterfly as the cake topper
• 1 glue gun and three glue sticks

• First stack the lids to see how they will look.
• Add a ring of glue where you think the second layer should rest
• Press down the second lid and hold it until it dries. Add the third layer the same way.

• Glue the ribbon around the layers.
• Trim the small flowers and add a puddle of glue on the top layer and push the flowers down.
• When they are dry add a butterfly topper.

I love how it turned out. Flip over a green orange juice lid and you have a perfect cake stand!

Let’s make a punch bowl!

I also made a punch bowl and cups using a Mott’s apple sauce container, some flower embellishments from the dollar store and some 1 oz plastic shot glasses from the dollar store.

Glue the embellishments around the cup and the 1 oz shot glass

How to make Sponge Cake

• Using a kitchen sponge and some pink fun foam you can easily makee a sponge cake!
• Glue the fun foam to the sponge and make a “sandwich”
• Then cut out cake pieces and glue a flower embellishment like I did on the Celebration cake

Make a fancy Croquembouche

The “ Croquembouche” is a traditional cream puff pastry that you will see on the table that looks like a Christmas tree but is made here with pompoms.

It is easy to make and I have used another lid from my orange juice to make the base and I have glued the pompoms to the base and each other forming the “Croquembouche.” You can easily create your own using pompoms, I used orange but you can use any color you want.

To create a great buffet table for your dolls Halloween party I recommend using items you may already have at home and that you may have already made from previous posts here on Doll Diaries.

To give height to your dishes you can always turn over a small glass or in this case I used extra plastic 1 oz cups from the dollar store as I got 30 in a package and then I placed one of my doll sized plates on top.  You can use other lids from shampoo bottles or other lids you may have around the house to help give height to your table.

I also highly recommend that you put the American Girl Doll book Doll Parties on your wish list, it is a great book with lots of fun ideas and great doll play accessories that are ready to use.

I also made Halloween cookies like I did in the bakery post from September 16ths post, only using pumpkin and jack-o-lantern fun foam stickers.

I hope you have enjoyed today’s post and hope you enjoy your Halloween. Stop by next Friday for more doll craft fun with Karen of Karen Mom of Three!

This month is FLYING by and I can not believe that Halloween is almost here! We are heading into our FINAL week for entries and while we normally finish up the week on a Saturday, you have all the way until Monday, October 31 to enter week 4.  You may enter as many photos as you would like this week and if you entered in any of the previous weeks, we want you to enter this week, too. Week 4 will be the biggest Halloween Parade week yet!! 

How do you enter? Go to the Doll Diaries Halloween Entry page to upload your photo. Then return here to see your entry into the Halloween Parade and everyone else’s photos, too! Photos are not automatically entered – I have to approve each one, so check back often to see the new entries.

Click on the images to view them larger and on their own page (where you can comment separately on each photo).

*Note – Winners will be notified by email. Char, Karen & Alex17 may add photos to the parade each week, but don’t worry, we are not eligible for the drawing at the end of the week.

Week 3 of our Halloween Parade had over 20 more fabulous entries – and I am just loving all the creativity!!! It has been a crazy busy weekend in the Doll Diaries house but I am not going anywhere today, so I will be putting together the week 2 and week 3 roundup videos, opening the week 4 entries and hopefully sewing something from my new Liberty Jane patterns.

I don’t want to keep our Week 3 winners waiting, so here are this week’s winners of the Doll Diaries t-shirts:

• Charleen – Swift Liberty
• Mary – Emily’s Tea
• Katie – Pokemon Misty
• Evelyn – Bennett Girls
• Lauren – Halloween Tea

Remember, winners were drawn at random and I will be sending the winners an email shortly.

And here is the Week 3 Round Up video:

Congratulations! And even if you are a winner this week you can enter again – don’t enter the same photo as last week though, that would be boring You can use the same form for Week 4 entries as you used last week.

Weeks 1 and 2 of the Halloween Parade have been so much fun! You all are so creative and last week featured some of our best photos yet. Now it’s time for week 3. If you entered in Week 1 or 2 you are still welcome to enter this week. The photo should be different from earlier entries. If you were a Doll Diaries t-shirt winner in Week 1 or 2, you are still invited to enter this week because you could win again. The winners are drawn at random from the entries for the week.

How do you enter? Go to the Doll Diaries Halloween Entry page to upload your photo. Then return here to see your entry into the Halloween Parade and everyone else’s photos, too! Photos are not automatically entered – I have to approve each one, so check back often to see the new entries.

Click on the images to view them larger and on their own page (where you can comment separately on each photo).

The Week 3 recap:

Don’t forget to enter a new photo each week the entire month of October!! Here is the Week 1 recap and here is the Week 2 recap.

*Note – Winners will be notified by email. Char, Karen & Alex17 may add photos to the parade each week, but don’t worry, we are not eligible for the drawing at the end of the week.

View Week 2 Entries

Week 2 of our Halloween Parade had over 25 more fabulous entries – and some of them were seriously creative!!!

Here are this week’s winners of the Doll Diaries t-shirts:

• Jacsan – The Halloween Ensemble
• Anne – Baker Lanie
• Kat – Witch Allison
• Aisha – Fruity Julie
• Penny – Stacy the Springfield Bee

Remember, winners were drawn at random and I will be sending the winners an email shortly.

And the recap video for Week 2 is now available:

Congratulations! And even if you are a winner this week you can enter again – don’t enter the same photo as last week though, that would be boring   You can use the same form for Week 3 entries as you used last week and tomorrow I will start posting all the Week 3 entries.

I love Halloween!  My favorite part is definitely giving out the candy while wearing my Witch’s Hat (another dollar store special I have had for years!) of course!

I thought it would be fun to show you how to make some treat sized chocolate bars for your dolls and some little “kisses” out of items you may already have at home and if you do not then you can pick up these supplies for under $5.  I highly recommend the American Girl Doll book Doll Parties and these bars are similar to the ones made in the book.

Supplies Needed to make Doll Sized Halloween Treats

• Chocolate Brown Fun foam
• Construction paper
• Aluminum Foil
• Halloween Stickers
• A pair of Scissors
• Some extra small pompoms
• A glue stick

Let’s make the chocolate “kisses” first:

To make the “ kisses” I used some really small pompoms and some aluminum foil I cut in to squares. Simply place the pompom in the middle of the foil and twist around it and trim. I made 6, you can make many, many more. Just remember that if you have smaller brother and sisters or pets you need to keep them away from these small items so that they do not accidently eat them.

To make the candy bars (we call them Chocolate Bars where I live) you will need some fun foam, scissors, construction paper, a glue stick, aluminum foil and Halloween stickers as the labels.

• Start by cutting your Chocolate Bars out of fun foam or cardboard. I made mine 2 inches by 1 ½ inches wide.
• Cut out some aluminum foil to cover the Chocolate bar. *Now if you are not going to make “bite” marks out of your chocolate bar you do not need brown fun foam you can use what ever you have at home or cardboard, I like mine with bites.
• Cut a thin strip of colored construction paper to use as the wrapper and choose a sticker to cover the wrapper as the label.

I found these fun treat sized bags at Wal-Mart, I got 80 for $2.00 and I found they are perfect for Doll Play trick or treating. I just cut a small hole in the bag so my doll can hold her “treats”

Stop by next Friday for more doll craft fun with Karen of Karen Mom of Three!

Week 1 of the Halloween Parade was so much fun! We have some very creative readers and your photography skills are awesome, too. Now it’s time for week 2. If you entered in Week 1 you are welcome to enter this week. The photo should be different from Week 1′s entry. If you were a Doll Diaries t-shirt winner in Week 1, you are still invited to enter this week because you could win again. The winners are drawn at random from the entries for the week.

How do you enter? Go to the Doll Diaries Halloween Entry page to upload your photo. Then return here to see your entry into the Halloween Parade and everyone else’s photos, too! Photos are not automatically entered – I have to approve each one, so check back often to see the new entries.

Click on the images to view them larger and on their own page (where you can comment separately on each photo).

The Week 2 Video Recap:

Don’t forget to enter a new photo each week the entire month of October!! Here is the Week 1 recap.

*Note – Winners will be notified by email. Char, Karen & Alex17 may add photos to the parade each week, but don’t worry, we are not eligible for the drawing at the end of the week.

I just wanted to say THANK YOU for all the fabulous entries in the first week of our Halloween Parade and I can not wait to see what you all come up with for week 2! You can use the same form for Week 2 entries as you used last week and tomorrow I will start posting all the Week 2 entries.

But first…. here is a video recap of Week 1 entries along with the winners at the end. Remember, winners were drawn at random and I will be sending the winners an email shortly.

In case you just can’t wait until the end of the video to find out who won this week’s Doll Diaries t-shirts, the winners are:

• Gretchen – Tipi as a Pirate
• Caelen – Mia Says Boo!
• Iris – Ihee as Athena
• Hannah – Jessie as Mrs. Claus
• Annamarie – Chrissa & Sierra

Congratulations! And even if you are a winner this week you can enter again – don’t enter the same photo as last week though, that would be boring

You can make your doll an easy fun foam witch’s hat from items you may have on hand or that you can easily find at either the dollar store or craft store.

I used a hot glue gun when I made mine, I recommend it as it is a quick bond but you should only use one under supervision!

To make a hat you will need:

• Two pieces of black fun foam
• A side salad plate
• A pair of scissors
• A pencil
• A glue gun with replacement sticks
• *Ribbon and Plastic Spiders optional!

First you need to trace your salad plate on your fun foam and cut out. You will need to cut out two circles.

Take one of the circles and fold it in half and cut it along the line you just made. You can save the other half to make a second hat or you can save it for another project later.

Fold the half circle matching the flat edges and glue. This will be the cone part of your hat.

Cut small snips along the edge of the cone and fold them out so your cone looks like the photo above. This way it will sit flat on the brim of your hat.

To create your brim you can cut out a small circle or oval out of the center. This gives you placement for the glue. Add the glue around the oval and place the cone on the top of the glue line and carefully press down the cone into the brim.

When it is dry you can place it on your dolls head. This hat is just to sit on top of your dolls head. You can glue it to a hair band or you can use a hole punch to add a ribbon tie on either side of the cone and tie a bow under your dolls chin or leave it as is.

I decorated my hat with some orange ribbon I had on hand and a left over spider decoration from my party store. There are so many ways you could dress up this hat! You could add some yarn hair and glue it to the inside of the hat, you could use fall leaves or flowers, the choice is up to you.

So, if you didn’t know what costume to make for your dolls for week two of the Halloween Parade, now you have a quick and easy project to try! I hope to see some of these in the parade.

Stop by next Friday for more doll craft fun with Karen of Karen Mom of Three!