How to craft old-fashioned, wooden spoon dolls

       Children have been crafting dolls from wooden spoons for over 100 years! Our versions below have additional mini, wooden forks for hands. 

       I purchase the wooden kitchen spoons from a local grocery store and the wooden forks online. The rest of the art materials, I had within our family craft supplies at home.

       This doll craft is an excellent way to use up those random bits and pieces of scrap materials that are collected into junk drawers etc., 

       Certainly you could make wooden spoon dolls into any characters you like besides females with dresses, but, lady spoon dolls are by far the most popular. Many times you can find this old craft in books about puppet crafting as well. Doll or puppet, these cuties are fun for kids to make.

       Assembly of hair and clothing for this craft is far quicker when hot glue is used. However, the use of it must be over-seen by an adult or older sibling for it is very dangerous for young children to work with glue guns. Parents or teachers in a classroom environment may wish to use tacky white craft glue instead. If you should opt for this substitute just be mindful that the doll need to be undisturbed while drying overnight somewhere.

Old-fashioned spoon dolls have been
made by children for over 100 years.

 Supply List:

• yarn for hair, also pom poms
• acrylic paints for faces
• small 3-4 inch wooden forks for hands
• 12'' to 16'' wooden spoons (kitchen type, unfinished) for doll body
• scrap fabrics for clothing
• hot glue and hot glue gun (optional)
• wood glue
• needle and threads to match fabric scraps
• lace and ribbon trims

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Using acrylic paints, apply facial features: eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows, chin and cheeks to your wooden spoon.
2. See a long narrow tube of fabric to make the arms of the doll. Turn the tube inside out. 
3. Fold the tube in half marking the center lightly with a pencil. 
4. Attach this tube just below the neck area of the spoon. you may wish to attach it quickly using hot glue.
5. Now insert the mini forks into each open end with more hot glue. In the versions shown below you can see that I finished off the edges of this tube by sewing them under, but this step is optional.
6. Dress the doll using scrap fabrics. Cover the length of the arms with long sleeves sew into tubes and attached to a bib for the front of each dress.
7. Gather a rectangle of fabric for the skirt. Make sure there is enough flounce to allow for a child's hand to hold onto their spoon doll from underneath the skirt.
8. Attach fancy trims with glue if you like.
9. To make the wigs for the spoon dolls, simply wind lengths of yarn around your palm, cut and knot different hank lengths of yarn for hair. Attach these with hot glue.
10. Students may also wish to hot glue pom poms on the heads for hair alternatively.

Left, and center, you can see what the spoon doll arms look like before the clothing is attached.

Detailed photo of the wooden spoon doll hair style ideas. Glue yarn hair in place so that the doll
looks neat and clean. 

Front photo of painted faces and hair styles of our wooden spoon dolls.

 More spoon doll creations:

• Making a new toy by Pixar and sporky meets knifey
• Spoon Dolls - Show-And-Tell by Molly Whuppie
• Do-It-Together Wooden spoon dolls by Flying Tiger