I have several little handmade projects I’d like to complete for Birdie this Christmas, I probably won’t get to all of them! But I found time for this little family – which I stuffed in her Advent Calendar yesterday! Can you tell which one is Birdie, myself and her Daddy-O? (Hint: She’s got the glasses!) They’re all the same size because they fit perfectly with our rather large collection of vintage Fisher Price Little People toys, barn, castle, cars, A-Frame house, tudor house, neighborhood, airport, etc!
Scroll below the images to see a list of the materials I used and some tips. Now it’s your turn: get to making people!
things I used:
- Blank wood figures from I Used To Be A Tree (I’ve seen some at Michaels Craft Stores too!)
- Luscious wool felt (similar felt at Benzie Bazaar)
- Acrylic Paint and Sharpie Paint Pens (in the end I had better luck with paint and brushes, than pens!)
- Black Extra Fine Sharpie
- Trusty Aileen’s Craft Glue
- Flax Seed Oil for a quick finish on the wood – but watch out, leave it on too long and it can make the Sharpie bleed.
- Copper wire, different weights, for glasses and hair barrettes
some quick tips:
- I didn’t do it this time, but next time I would lightly finish sand (maybe 180 grit?, 240?) on each piece before adding anything to them. Remove a little bit of the rough spots, and give it a uniform surface.
- The Felt hair was done in 2 layered sections, I cut templates out of soft paper towel first, then laid it on the felt to cut out the shapes and do some light trimming.
- Straight lines on curved objects are no fun. For the white faces, I used a piece of tape. For the bodies, I ended up holding a brush steady, and rotating the wooden piece underneath it.
- I used a nail the same thickness as the wire to pound holes on either side of Birdie’s doppelganger head. The ends of the bows on her wire glasses are pushed into these holes for stability.
What do you think? I’m in love with them, and Birdie recognized herself immediately! Now we’ll see how well they “play with others”…
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
So cute :)
Thanks Esther!
You’re such a good mom!
You are too kind, let’s just we have good days and not-so-good days. ;)
These are amazing, the cutest idea ever. I wish I had time to makes some before the holidays! I guess it will have to wait…
P.s. love love love your gift guides!
Have a great weekend :)
THANK YOU so much Celina!
I’m such a fan of your blog too.
Absolutely fabulous. They turned out so adorable. I’m going to show this to my kids so we can make some too!
Jen – that’s wonderful, thank you! Let me know how yours turn out!
hi, i just saw this on another website and i think they are very cute. i have one question though, which are only half of the faces white? i have never read your blog, so didn’t know if i was missing something. thanks for the tutorial! :)
Thanks! The faces are just a design choice, I wanted to give the eyes some more detail without losing the simple look of the overall paint job. You can certainly play with a zillion different faces!
I guess a while back when I commented, I had subscribed to comments, so when “food” commented, I was emailed.
I can’t help but say: really? Brain dead? Kinda rude… :( especially considering my son is actually functioning on basically half of a brain and is a special little boy who means the world to me. Wish people could just ask questions and not be judged by other random strangers on the value of the question or state of their brain. Hopefully “food” reads this and thinks twice about his/her remark before leaving something unkind.
Thank you SO much Reagan for supporting me. I removed that post because it also appeared to be spam. Thank you!!!
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