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| Two ballerina clothespins Dolls in coral and lavender fashions. |
These two little wooden ballerinas are made from old clothespins. Their skirts were made from pom poms but craftsmen could just as easily make them from tulle or tissue paper. Their crowns are made using cut paper but can also be made from pieces of lace as well. The materials used to make these clothespin dolls can come from any clean recycled material really!
Support list:
- Clothespins (wooden)
- pom poms
- Acrylic paints
- embroidery floss
- lace notions (optional)
- Hot glue gun and hot glue
- Chenille trunk
- One or two cotton balls
- white school glue
- Wooden stand
- permanent ink pen (permanent)
- Hair embroidery floss
Step by step instructions:
- Paint the heads, neck and legs of each doll with flesh-colored paints.
- Paint the ballerina’s torso a color similar to the tutu that you will attach to the clothespin.
- Unroll the cotton ball and cover the stem of the chenille with it, using white school glue and pressure from your fingertips. Roll the chenille stem between your palms to stick it evenly along the wire.
- Cut smaller lengths of the torso to make the ballerina’s arms raised in an arc.
- Poke small holes in the sides of the clothespins where the shoulders will be.
- Glue the chenille stem arms in place. Ends of wire inside filled holes, allowing ample drying time. You may need to bend the arched arms forward temporarily as they dry and begin to work through each doll’s hair.
- Hot glue the pom pom on the top of each clothespin to be the hair “buns” for the ballerinas.
- Apply white school glue around this bun and wrap the embroidery floss to finish the hair style.
- Glue on the crown.
- Bend the arms up and wrap extra cotton fluff around where the wire arms connect to the clothespin. This will help hold the cord in place and also looks like a little puff sleeve… just right for a ballerina costume.
- After drying, paint the sleeves the same color as the acrylic from which you made the doll’s tutu.
- Paint the arms the same flesh color as the rest of your doll.
- Draw on the facial features as you like.
- Now hot glue on five little balls around the hips of each ballerina. These are doll skirts.
- Glue the dancers inside their stands and paint on their soles.
- Use a permanent marker to make the doll’s eyebrows and also draw shoe straps from the ballet slippers on the lower half of each doll’s leg.
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| Details of the Ballerina Clothespin dolls. |
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