Personalized Peg Doll Case Tutorial (Make it in Minutes!)

by Melissa // October 14, 2013 // No Comments

This morning I pondered how to package the boys’ peg dolls for best effect. Just wrapping them up didn’t seem right. I could make little paper boxes to put them in, but those would get tossed or lost soon afterwards. As I was walking through the toiletries aisle at Walmart, looking for shampoo, I accidentally stumbled upon the perfect little peg doll case: a soap holder.

Estimated Time Required: 20 minutes*

You Will Need:

Soap Holder
Sandpaper
Acrylic Paint
Paint Pen (optional)
Paintbrush
Sharpie
Scrap felt
Glue Gun
Clear acrylic sealer

You might have noticed that a lot of these materials were used in the making of the peg dolls themselves. Convenient, right?

Step One: lightly sand the top of your soap holder wherever you plan to paint. The hard, slick plastic will not paint well otherwise. Try to be gentle – you don’t want to leave big scratches – but if your plastic is smooth and shiny there’s not much for the paint to adhere to.

If you’re trying to do this as fast as possible, now is a good time to plug in the glue gun so it can heat up.

Step Two: Outline your design on top with the Sharpie. This is not going to come off, so be sure that it’s somewhere you would like lines on the finished design.

Step Three: One color at a time, paint in your design. Allow to dry before moving on to your next color unless you want them mixing. (Using three different colors really ate into my time.)

Step Four: Cut a piece of felt twice as big as the inside bottom of your case (so that when it’s folded in half it fits into the bottom. Using glue gun, attach to inside of soap holder and then fold over and glue in place.

Step Five: Outline the letters on the top. I used a black paint pen for this step, since I bought one to do some of the details on the peg dolls. It’s much darker and nicer on the plastic than the Sharpie, but you have to be careful not to scrape your dry paint off with the felt tip.

Once that is dry, take your box outside and spray with acrylic sealer. You’re done!*

*I went back 15 minutes later and added another coat, and I may add a third. Plastic and acrylic paint only play together reluctantly, so I’m trying to fix it in place as securely as possible.

The soap holder I found holds four of the 2 3/8″ peg dolls securely, so since each of the boys are only getting two for their birthday, there’s room for more! Sweet! (Can you say Christmas?)

Secret Bedtime Peg Dolls

by Melissa // October 13, 2013 // No Comments

Birthdays! Birthdays are coming! I’ve been working on a cool set of peg dolls for the boys but…you know. I can only do it at night. When they’re sleeping. So they won’t see. Please forgive the dark and somewhat cruddy nature of the following photographs.

I’ve wanted to make some of these for a while now, but this was my first try. Begin with wooden pegs: these are available sometimes at craft stores or online. These are a little over two inches, so pretty small.

I used the following supplies:

A mechanical pencil
Acrylic paints
A fine-tipped paintbrush
Acrylic sealer

Begin by lightly penciling the outlines of your character onto the peg. Working with one color at a time, begin painting in your design. (Note: Once you paint over pencil, you can’t erase it, and it shows through some of the colors. Options: either paint beside it and then erase it, or put enough paint over it to cover.)

Fortunately the paint dries very quickly. Let it sit for an hour or two before placing it on some newspaper and applying two coats of the sealer. (Make sure you have good ventilation for this…I did it on my back porch.) This helps protect that paint job, as well as adding a nice shine to the pieces.

Then I added a pair of felt triangles to Batman’s head with my glue gun…

And done. How awesome are these? As my husband said, none of them are perfect, but all of them are amazing. To the side, guys!

I’m excited to see how Tommy and Teddy like them. They were really fun to make!

More for Now

by Melissa // October 11, 2013 // No Comments

I’m excited to be able to say that I’ve finished the bulk of the baby blanket I’m making.

Well, you know. That’s not to say that there’s not a lot to do still, because there is, but I’m glad to be done with the background. That is a LOT of single crochet.

However, I have to lay the blanket aside for a little bit, because there are some birthdays coming up in our family and I need to buckle down to get ready. Believe it or not, Batman and Superman are still A Big Deal to these two little guys, so first on the list (and first to get checked off!) are a pair of pillowcases with fun fabric.

I used this method, although as I’m a bit of a slower sewer they took me a GREAT deal longer than ten minutes apiece. Also note that these are a little on the small side –

See how you can see the pillow tag sticking out of the end? If I was going to use these direction again – which I might, as this was much more what I’d call a ‘proper bit of sewing’ instead of the ‘good enough’ sewing I usually do – I’d probably widen the main piece of fabric by two or three inches for a bit more coverage.

Still, they look pretty on a pillow (we’re buying Tommy and Teddy new fluffy pillows to go inside them, to replace their old, flat ones) and you know what? They won’t care if they’re a little short. After all – BATMAN. (And SUPERMAN.)

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