 |
| The finished clothespin doll wears a tiny dress made with silk scrapes. Her wire armature has attached porcelain arms. |
Little girls have been crafting clothespin dolls ever since their mothers have been hanging out the laundry to dry... The clothespin design we are using here is the modern descendent of a wooden "lathe dog" pin invented by David M. Smith in 1853. This one does not have a 'spring' in it, those variations are normally dismantled and used to craft doll furniture but the pins with round heads have been crafted into hundreds of thousands of dolls during the past 170 some odd years. Present day dolly crafters prefer to glue on an additional turned 'foot.'
 |
| Our sample doll made with a sculpted head. |
After surfing the web for only a few seconds, you will observe that there are several 'types' of clothespin dolls repeatedly created.
- A ordinary clothes pin without any additional bead or sculpted clay to the head, with or without a stand attached. This doll usually has a face with simple fainted features; it may have additional yarn hair or a simply painted head suggesting hair.
- The second most popular clothespin dolly comes with a larger wooden bead head, wire armature of some sort and a stand.
- The third type is a clothespin doll with applied features made from oven baked clay and this is the type I am showing readers here. (I will cover the others in greater detail under future posts.)
 |
| Seal the finished painted clay doll head with acrylic or transparent nail polish to protect the surface from dirt. |
All clothespin dolls, in my humble opinion, are charming because they are normally made by little children for their ordinary play. The doll that I made for this article is loosely based upon a Hitty doll illustrated by Dorothy P. Lathrop. It was requested by a youngish imp who longed to have her very own Hitty to play in the garden with. She will be joined by many fairies, toad stools and other furry critters just as soon as she is dressed and presentable!
 |
| The wire armature is wrapped just below the neck and fixed in place using a tacky white glue. Her arms are made of porcelain and attached over the wire using a tacky glue. Let these dry hard before continuing to work on the doll. |
- a clothespin with a tube shaped stem and a knob head (wooden)
- wooden stand for clothespin doll
- one chenille stem for the wire armature
- Sculpey oven bake clay
- acrylic paints: black, blue, white, flesh tone, white and red
- two tiny porcelain arm/hands (optional)
- tacky white glue
- white school glue
- scraps of fabric and a bit of tulle fabric
- tiny bit of flesh colored felt
- needle and thread
- two white cotton balls
- Select a wooden clothespin to start and glue on the wooden stand. Let dry completely.
- Sculpt a tiny face mask and clay hair features directly onto the wooden dowel. Bake in oven at recommended temp. If you use Sculpey clay, it will not shrink and so you may also layer this directly on the clothespin and bake at same time. You can also sculpt with air dry clay directly onto the wooden clothespin and let it harden over night.
- Paint the face using whatever shade of flesh color paint you prefer. Let this application dry.
- Paint the hair if you are not using yarn for this part of the doll.
- Now paint the details on the face carefully using a very tiny brush and patience! To paint doll eyes, you need to wait between the layered paint applications for each layer to dry before applying the next. First paint the whites of the eyes. Let dry. Then paint the color of the eyes. Let dry. Next paint the black pupil of the eyes. Let dry. Last, paint the white highlight of the eyes. let dry. Each application should be a dot shape.
- Highlight the hair with lighter shades of the same hair color.
- Seal the painted, sculpted parts of the doll with acrylic.
- Take a chenille stem and wrap it, twisting it just beneath the neck of the doll. Clip it off evenly so that both arms are the same length.
- Now you can choose to leave the chenille stem longer and double back to the chest so that the doll has arms and nubby ends for implied hands. Twist these left over length back around the shoulder connections to make the arms stronger.
- Alternatively, if you have some tiny doll arms made of porcelain or clay you could just twist the upper arm extensions from the chenille stem and cut these shorter. Glue the porcelain shaped arms onto the end of each side of the wires. Let these arms dry till hard.
- Apply a bit of tacky glue to the backside of the chenille arms to ensure a tough attachment. Let dry.
- Now unwind a couple of cotton balls and adhere these around the upper torso to fill it out a little. layer white glue between these wound cotton applications to form the breasts and upper arm flesh. (see picture below)
- Clip and shape a small bit of flesh colored felt around the cotton batting to seal off the torso. I used a needle and thread to shape the felt over the cotton torso.
- Cut and gather tulle for a small skirt around the doll's waist using a needle and thread.
- Paint the wooden stand black and position the doll upside down inside a cup till the paint dries.
- Now clip, gather and sew the fabric dress on the doll. I just used little rectangles cut from silk to do this. The dress is not removable.
- I finished the edges with ribbon trim using a needle and thread, however, a young child may prefer to do this step using a glue gun and guidance from an adult!
 |
| Left, the doll's upper torso is filled out with cotton batting and white school glue. Right, I gathered and sewed a bit of tulle around the doll's waist to make her skirt stand out. |
 |
| Left, see the stand is painted black through the tulle. Center, the stand attached to the 'feet' of our clothespin doll so she can stand on her own. |
 |
| Our Hitty clothespin doll dressed in silks. |
More cute examples of clothespin dolls:
No comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks for your thoughts. All comments are moderated. Spam is not published. Have a good day!