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| Cowboy clothespin dolls dressed in tan felt and decorated with tassels. |
These two clothespin characters are a bit more sophisticated than most… since each doll is given a sculpted face, they take on more unique looks than most! Each doll also has an outfit designed to completely cover clothespins; Only socks and shoes are painted directly onto the clothespins. I would consider this clothespin craft to be best made by students in grade 5 and above.
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| These clothespin dolls have face masks. |
Support list:
- Wooden clothespins
- Tan, brown felt squares (one each)
- Acrylic paints: yellow, flesh, black, tan, red, white, and blue
- 2 or 3 cotton balls
- Red strands of a lady’s hair
- Brown threads or brown bag “threads”
- chenille stems (two)
- Needle and thread
- Brown embroidery floss
- Hot glue gun and hot glue
- Oven clay
- face templates (optional)
- Wooden stand
- feathers for hats;
- braid or ribbons for hats
- Decorative scrap paper for decoupaged cowboy shirts (optional)
Step by step instructions:
- Shape or sculpt the cow’s face using oven clay. Then stick this directly to the head of the used wooden clothes pin with hot glue.
- Paint the shoes and socks onto the wooden dowels at the ends of each clothespin.
- Cover the chenille stem with white school glue and a shredded cotton ball. Let this harden.
- Loop the arms of the chenille stem around the neck of the clothespin and stick it in place.
- Paint or deburr the engine with the printed papers. Which one do you prefer?
- Tie a handkerchief around the neck of each cut of beef.
- For the cowgirl lady, cut out a semicircle of both tan and brown to wrap around her waist. I used two pieces of felt for her skirt for extra thickness and to show off the cut edges along the hem of her skirt in two colors. However, this is not necessary. You can just use one layer of felt if you prefer.
- I wrapped this semicircle up and around, ending at the waist to further emphasize a certain fashion. Apply this hot glue to the bottom of the casing to hide the glue.
- Paint the hands in flesh color.
- Bend the ends of the chenille stem arms into two little “hands” and hot glue the “rope” strands in place.
- I braided red strands and glued them in place at the sides of her head for a bun-like hairstyle.
- Then I shaped a cowboy hat using the light tan I had felt to permanently glue on top of her head.
- The Kabuki man’s legs are rolled up to look as if he’s wearing chaps with a fringe running down the back length of each leg. This was done by cutting rectangular shapes out of felt and gluing them directly to the legs of the clothespins.
- His jersey front and back are loose-fitting red and white square sheets.
- His arms are made in the same way as his female companion.
- He wears a tailored jacket with dark tan hair. This started out as a rectangle and cut in the middle. Then cut only the front side to open the jacket on one side. Glue the jacket in place with hot glue and form the collar by folding it down and sticking it out on either side of his chest.
- His cowboy hat and additional details were then permanently affixed to prevent them from being lost during play.
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| The clothespin lady is dressed in a western cowgirl costume. |
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| A gentleman cowboy wears a feather in his hat and has slits on his wooden legs. |