I don’t know how long these are going to be on sale, but all Michael’s craft stores have the American Girl Crafts and Party line on 50% off right now.

I picked up the Petite Party Settings for $2.99 which is a great deal and a super versatile set for your dolls. It comes with 4 placemats, 4 paper plates and 4 cups – all doll sized and too cute for words. I also picked up the mini sticker sets and some other goodies that will either go in the mystery prize packs (read this post if you have not taken the survey or left your comment to be entered) or will go up as giveaways of their own and some will be used in future posts.

At 50% off, it is worth stocking up for birthdays, rainy day projects and everyday fun.

Are you ready for St. Patrick’s Day?? You can easily get your dolls ready by creating a St. Patrick’s Day hat using construction paper and other items you may have at home.

To make doll-sized Leprechaun hat you will need:

• your doll
• 2 pieces of Green construction paper
• 1 piece of Black construction paper
• 1 piece of Yellow construction paper
• scotch tape
• scissors
• a glue stick
• a pencil
• a black marker
• a roll of masking tape or painters tape (to trace you will not need the tape)
• a side plate from the kitchen (to trace)

Step one- Trace the plate as shown on both pieces of green construction paper and cut out

Step two – Use the masking tape to trace a circle in the middle of  both your green circles

Step three – Fold your circle in half and cut out your traced lines  on both circles

Step four – Using the left over green construction paper, create your band for your hat

Step five – Tape two of the ends together as shown

Step six - Place the paper around your dolls head and tape it into place, remove from your dolls head

Step seven- Make cuts in the bottom edge of your hat all the way around

Step eight - Fold the edges out as shown below and place on one of your circles

Step nine – Tape in to place on the circle

Step ten - Place the other circle over the other circle and glue into place

Step eleven – Cut a two inch strip along the longest side of your black piece of paper and cut a three inch yellow rectangle. Glue it to the center of your black paper band.

Step twelve – Cut out three green hearts from your left over scrap green paper and glue in the shape of a shamrock as shown

Step thirteen – Use your black marker and outline your shamrock, giving it a stem as I have.

Step fourteen – Place the band around your hat and tape in place as shown, if your band is not long enough like mine cut enough paper to cover the gap and glue into place.

Step fifteen - Place on your dolls head and enjoy!

I hope you have a wonderful St. Patrick’s Day and that you have enjoyed this week’s craft.

Today’s post is very close to my heart. Every year for St Patrick’s day I make Irish Soda bread. This year I wanted to make a realistic doll sized Irish Soda Bread for the Doll’s St. Patrick’s Day Celebration. This craft is easy, inexpensive and fun. The best part is you should have all the items needed to make  today’s craft already at home!

To make your own Doll sized Irish Soda Bread you will need:

• My super easy small salt dough recipe (below) that makes ONLY enough to create 4 doll sized loaves of bread for your dolls! (I bet you never thought you would need fractions in the real world but I used them to create the easy salt dough recipe so you do not have too!)
• wax paper or parchment paper
• a measuring cup
• a butter knife or popsicle stick
• a small kitchen bowl for mixing
• a paint brush
• brown paint (can be just a paint box or acrylic, what ever you have will work)
• 1/4 cup of water
• 1/4 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of All Purpose flour
• one small oven proof pan ( I used a cake pan)
• a spoon
• A preheated oven to 350, a timer and a grown up for the putting in and taking out of the pan.

Step 1- Small Recipe for Salt Dough

• 1/4 cup of salt
• 1/2 cup of All purpose flour
• 1/4 cup of water

Step 2- In a kitchen bowl  place your flour and salt

Step 3- Add the water and mix your dough into a ball

Step 4-  kneed your dough into a ball over wax paper

Step 5- separate your dough into 4 balls

Step 6- Slightly flatten your first ball

Step 7- Using a popsicle stick or a butter knife make a cross in your dough as shown

Step 8- Place this ball aside and repeat the steps on two other balls

Step 9- Leave one ball whole. Take another and cut only one piece along the cross lines as shown, Cut the remaining ball in 4 pieces as shown.

Step 10- If you would like to make your doll another type of bread you can make a braided loaf like I have by using the remaining dough ball, breaking it in three, rolling out the pieces into “snakes” and braiding your dough, tucking the ends under.

Step 11- Place your dough onto wax paper in you pan (you can also use parchment paper)

Place in the oven at 350 Degrees for 45 minutes

Step 12- After about 45 minutes have a grown up remove the pan from the oven and check to see if the dough has a slight browning on the bottom and that the dough is dry to the touch. ***All ovens are different so you will have to get a parent to check on your dough while it is in the oven to make sure it doesn’t burn**** Let the dough cool completely

Step 13- Your Irish Soda bread is almost there! You can leave your dough plain or add a bit of watered down brown paint to give it a realistic finish.

In the next photo you can see the difference the paint makes:

Step 14- Add the paint to the tops of your Doll Sized bread loaves and let dry

Step 15- When your dough is dry  you can let your dolls enjoy! I have used a cupcake stand to display the dough and doll sized plates

I love how realistic this looks!

Step 16- Decorate your dolls table for St. Patrick’s day using your potted plant from last week as a centerpiece.

*I have used small green doll sized mugs from my dollar store (6 for $1.25) and a napkin as the table cloth. Olivia’s dress is one I made and Chrissa’s dress is a baby dress I bought last summer from the 99 cent store! They fit our dolls perfectly, with out the need to sew.

It has been a while since I have been to Michael’s Crafts so while my daughter and I were there picking up a gift for her friend we decided to check out the American Girl crafts section of the store. All I can say is, whoa! They have really expanded the line and have added some really neat kits for girls to use with their dolls, decorating their rooms, and being creative in general.

Attention Moms – summer is right around the corner and these kits are perfect to have on hand for rainy days, get togethers with friends and some will even work for travel. Click on the Michaels ad on my sidebar for a printable coupon you can use to stock up on the American Girl craft kits and other summer craft supplies. If you are not seeing the ad, you can get the printable coupon directly here.

Back to our project! We picked up the Doll Apron Iron-On Kit which includes a doll sized apron and 3 sheets of iron-on decals – 2 are “girl-sized” and one sheet has doll sized designs. Had I really looked closely at the kit and realized there were girl sized designs in it, too, I would have picked up a plain canvas apron for my daughter, too. There are enough decals in the set to do multiple projects.

My daughter had a hard time deciding what kind of design to do. She went back and forth between a craft themed one versus a cooking theme. We cut all the pieces out and did 4 or 5 dry runs before doing the ironing and then put all the extras in a zipper bag to save for another project. This project requires that the iron be very hot and took quite a few passes with the iron, so you need to have an adult do the actual ironing.

It turned out really cute! As far as craft projects go, this one produced a nice, high quality finished product for not a lot of time or mess. Now I need to go back to Michael’s and pick up a girl sized apron or two, and maybe a doll sized canvas tote bag (like you can get for favor bags) so we can use up the remaining transfer designs next time she has a friend over.

So, what do you think? Sonali likes it!

Disclosure – While Michael’s is running an advertising campaign on DollDiaries and some of my other sites, I purchased the kit on my own and all opinions in this post are my own and are not influenced by the advertising campaign.

When I was a kid, we didn’t go out and buy furniture for our dolls, we crafted it from anything we could find around the house – a cereal box made a great bed, paper cups could be used as chairs, and the list goes on. These days you can find even more creative ways to make doll furniture from re-purposing baskets to building your own from scrap wood to all out works of art. Here are a few doll bed tutorials/plans we found that we think just might inspire you to make your own!

Let’s start with the EASY – this doll bed is made from a basket and a piece of wire garden trim. For the complete tutorial, check out Make this Quick and Easy Doll Bed from Doll Clothes Patterns.

Slightly more complex and requires grown up help, plans and instructions for this Farmhouse Bed can be found at Ana-White.com. Too cute!!

If you really want your American Girl dolls to live like royalty, check out this amazing Castle bed for dolls from Sawdust and Paper Scraps. All I can say is WOW and what a great Mommy this lucky girl has. Sandra really went all out from the detail in the steps to the realistic paint on the bed. For the how to visit Sawdust and Paper Scraps Castle Bed for Dolls post.

Have you crafted furniture for your dolls out of everyday materials? We’d love to hear about your creations or email photos of your finished projects to share@dolldiaries.com and we may feature them!

So how cute is that little duffel bag for dolls? How about if I told you that you can make it for about $2?

I saw the duffel bag craft for dolls at one of my favorite sites – Dollar Store Crafts and the complete instructions for making the duffel bag for your 18″ doll are at Obsessively Stitching.

Go check it out and if you make one – or have a doll craft to share, be sure to email us at share@dolldiaries.com!

American Girl has teamed up with EKSuccess Brands and Michaels crafts to launch a cute new line of craft supplies and project ideas for girls – www.americangirlcrafts.com. The projects range from bracelets and mini purses and the products include doll stickers – like Chrissa, iron-ons and craft kits.

Based on the popularity of their previous craft kits and books, I think this is a natural progression and will give girls even more ways to express their creativity and connect with the American Girl Doll characters and stories.