making it ourselves
 

My DGD Miss M spent the night. She has been desperately trying to make Barbie clothes. At one point I bought a few clothes but she kept trying to sew some... I tried to help - but Barbie is so intricate... Miss M has vision problems and her coordination isn't up to much. SO I picked up 3 naked Barbies from the thrift store to see if I could figure out the clothes... Well I got to thinking about lycra tubes and something that would just slide on Barbie and be easy to make. I google searched and found Barbie clothes made out of socks. So we went back to the thrift store and rounded up some socks. Stained socks were our favorite practice pieces. With a little snipping and a little sewing we figured out this would work. All of a sudden Miss M quit - packed it all up and wants to wait until her two sisters are here and we can all have the fun. It isn't the clothes it is the MAKING them she wants - she doesn't CARE if they are durable or not. OK. I thought we should get some nicer socks so we went to the dollar store but didn't find much selection or the type of socks we wanted for a dollar.
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So we started a crazy quilt out of the pile of scraps I gave her to make Barbie some clothes. She was in hog heaven. She loves design work and fabric she can see well enough to do crazy. But now I understand why they call them crazy quilts... Then when she made 3 squares she was ready to change gears of course. We decided she could make a few squares when ever she was at my house.:thumbup:

We google searched about making a doll house. OH MY - three hours later we went to bed... I remember making my own doll house out of a card board box - I was busy for HOURS - made a big mess, too... :thumbup:

So my question.... What was your favorite MAKING it yourself project with a kid OR when you were a kid??? Any pictures? How about some ideas to share with other people? What about things to DO with boys?

My GD is 14 now but when she was age 3 to 6 I would give her a glue stick and fabric markers and we would make "pictures" using fabric. I would tear a piece of light blue "sky" fabric and a green "grass" fabric strip, she'd glue them together and then color on buildings, people etc. I did the cutting and she did the coloring and creation part. Oh, the artist should always sign his/her work.

Cheryl

When I was 10 or so I made a rooster using dried seeds and beans glued to a board. I found the pattern in a magazine at my grandma's house which was filled with her crafts. She made things with fried marbles and milkweed pods and all sorts of wonderful things!

One year I had a whole $10.00 to put toward a tree. Ex husband donated all Cmas tree and trimmings to his sister so nothing for his son. Friend of mine got a new refrigerator and the card board was perfect for a Cmas tree. Boys colored and trimmed the tree with paper cut outs and went through lots of crayons. Best tree we had. they still talk about it.

When I was about 4-5 years old, my Mother would put me and my brothers down for a nap with her and I would wait for her to go to sleep then I got the Sears catalog, found the baby clothes section, get her scrape material and make clothes for my doll. I did that for years. When I was 12 yr. old I had a baby sister and I did the same for her. I've always sewn.

Very cool. A fashion Barbie indeed.

I still have a rooster with dried seeds and beans that my son made years ago.

I made my Barbie, by hand, a leopard print vest when I was about 8. I am now 56, and still have it!
I liked Barbie way past the age my sister did but it was the 'making clothes' that I enjoyed.

I remember there was a little patch of some little plant, green but not grass, that I would go out and trim in ways that there were rooms and paths

I also remember cutting figures out of the Sears catalog and using them as paper dolls. I remember spending hours trying to find 'clothes' in the catalog that would fit 'the doll.'

I have one daughter that has never taken an interest in Barbie, but loved her Ninja Turtles. Or I thought she did. One day I found one of her turtles, bound and gagged with masking tape, in the oven of her Fisher Price kitchen

I tried to sew ANYTHING with her but never saw any interest UNTIL when she was in high school. She had scoliosis surgery coming up and had to go give blood a few weeks before. She was lying there, giving blood, and I noticed the skirt she had on. Where's you get that? (keep in mind she was just a tiny little thing) I bought a top at Goodwill and cut it apart and made it.
She got a sewing machine right after her surgery

Barbie never looked better! Great idea and good interaction with your very creative GD. Merry Christmas to you both.

Years ago I made a four room Barbie house for my DDs. I took two pieces of wood 15"x 36" with a 'width of wood' slit cut in the center of both to just the center. I also bought a precut 36" circle of plywood and a turntable to mount it on. I used small corner molding to secure the X walls to the circle and to each other. I did cut two holes in one of the wall boards for windows. We spent weeks making furniture and furnishings. We used wire to hang curtains, I even whitled a stereo and speakers one night to surprise them. I used a straight pin pounded in and bent sideways and a little piece of black plastic for the 'record player'. Have fun with it. I gifted the plain house to them at Christmas, then we spent all of Christmas break to accessorize it. As far as I k ow it is still making the rounds among my family as each child is old enough to be safe with it. Would it pass the stringent child safety rules of today? Probably not, but no injuries so far....

My son and now my grandson enjoy making model rockets together. Hobby Lobby and other stores like it have the kits. We always relied on Dad to help us shoot them off. Origami paper folding interests most kids. I got my grandson a daily calendar with a different design each day using the calendar page for the paper..

Job well done. My Grandmother hand stitched the Barbie clothes she made me over 55 years ago.

My grandaughter made her first quilt at 5 years (a teen now and no time to sew). Grand boys( 9 and 11) built a wood walkway a couple of years ago. Its not straight or level by any means but I love it. They measured, sawed, drilled and nailed while I sat in chair and "suppervised. Older grand boys built a split rail fence at 8 and 10. It took them awhile to figure out where to dig the next post hole so the rails fit but finished it. It still stands along my drive. Loved teaching them all how to do things. When mine were small there just was not enough time to do more than chores (we farmed and raised beef cattle). They learned responsibility without knowing it and became proficient mechanics in repairing equipment. Things that have taken them far in their adult lives.

We used to make air fresheners as a kid...still make some every few years. Just take an orange and poke a hole in the rind with a bamboo skewer, insert a whole clove...as time goes on, the orange shrivels and dries and the scent is just wonderful! We always made a big family project out of these, hung them in tulle bags with ribbons, They last for years.

http://www.instructables.com/id/Oran...r-airfreshner/

this tut says heat will speed up the process, but we never used heat and it always worked well.

My mom pdid not care for sewing but she did make clothes for my Penny Brite doll. I wish that I still had some of thos clothes for sentimental reasons. Mom hated Barbie so we never had one. I did get a Skipper tho. Skipper was not fully developed like Barbie. Mom did not think Barbie was appropriate for little girls. Yes, I played Barbie with my best friend who had Barbie, Midge and Ken. We made Barbie a stripper! Lol! Mom was not around to see us at play. Sandy