The Cave Club Dolls

"Ever wonder who the first friends were? Meet the Cave Club, a truly unruly group of prehistoric
 kids who are way ahead of their time!"

       The first five Cave Club dolls: Emberly, Slate, Tella, Roaralai and Fernessa, are nine inches tall, have psychedelic, rooted wigs and wear outrageously gaudy animal prints. Every doll has eleven points of articulation.

More Attributes Cave Club Dolls Share in Common: 

• Their eyes and ears are giant compared with the rest of their facial features and their eyebrows are tinted with the same exaggerated hair color woven through the vinyl heads of every doll. 
• Cave club dolls come with multiple plastic, decorative attachments. These include a pair of ankle adornments, a head piece and either a belt or necklace, depending upon the doll. Some of the dolls also carry plastic implements.
• Every doll has a special attribute featured only in each character and every doll has a singular motif associated with them.
• All of these dolls have unique pets that accompany them on their adventures. 

"Roaralai was raised by sabertooth tigers so she always jumps into new adventures paws first."

        Roaralai's backstory includes an unusual beginning. She was raised by a sabertooth cat mother and therefore has painted whiskers on her face, teeth for decorative accessories and wears a costume featuring tiger skins. Her anklets are faux, plastic fur and teeth. Her color is fuchsia and her purr-fect pet is a sabertooth kitten.

       Emberly is the little inventor in this doll series. She, of course, invented fire, and eats barbecue! Her hair is flaming red, she sports a bone bowtie and carries a stone tipped hammer. She has a painted flame on her face and her color is a brilliant red. Her pink dinosaur pet's name is Flaire.

"Fernessa is wild about studying all plant and animal life, and she likes to help her friends bloom!"

        Slate is the artist of the group. He has blue and green paint streaked hair that stands on end. He carries a paint brush and palette too. He has paint splotches on each of his cheeks and his animal print clothing is decorated with additional hyroglifics. He wears bark adornments held together with shoelaces. His colors and green and blue and his pet, flying dinosaur, is named Taggy.

       Fernessa is adorned with plant motifs because of her obsession with all plants. Fernessa' hair is a natural curly hot pink and green. Her dress has an exceptional floral motif shaped from paw prints. Leaves and flowers decorate her ankles, hair, shoulders and waist. She has a little green leaf painted on one of her cheeks. Her colors are pink and green and her animal pet is a dinosaur with bat wings named Ptilly. 

"Tella can see into the future, so she's always been ahead of her time even if her visions
are a little blurry."

       Finally Tella is a cave girl who gazes at the stars through a crystal tella-scope. Her face is painted with tiny white stars too. She wears a distinctive lavender tutu beneath her animal skin dress. Her bright blue and white hair is pinned up with purple crystals. Her pet is a wolf named Hunch. Her motifs are stars and crytals, her colors are purple and blue.

Visit cavetales at YouTube for kids.

Crafts for Cave Club Dolls:

1. Make a waterfall from papier-mâché...
2. Mini Campfire Bundle  
3. DIY A Cave And A Rock Arch for Plastic Animals
4. Bake a Dinosaur Footprint Charm 
5. Cut and Paste Your Doll's Campfire

  Return to the Doll Guide Index Page 

Dinosaur Camp for Dolls

Phororhacos, a Patagonian Giant of the Miocene.

       The dinosaurs were a kind of great reptile that lived ages ago, before there were any men on the earth. They were of many different kinds and they varied in size from that of a house cat to that of great creatures fifteen or more feet in height and seventy-five feet in length.

       We know that these great reptiles lived on the earth because their fossil bones and skeletons are found buried in the rocks in many places. These bones are petrified or turned into stone, and have been preserved in the rock ledges through long ages. Sometimes only a few bones are found in a place, but sometimes entire skeletons are found together. From these skeletons, which have been set up in different museums, the scientists have been able to make out what kind of creatures the dinosaurs were.

       Fossil remains of dinosaurs are found not only in North America, but in South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. This shows that these great creatures lived in all parts of the world. It is not known that any ever reached Australia.

       The name dinosaur is taken from two Greek words which mean terrible lizard. They were not exactly lizards, but probably as nearly like the lizard as any other animal now living on the earth. Many of the dinosaurs lived in the water, but some of them were capable of coming out and walking about on the land. Some of them were plant-eaters and the plant-eaters grew to very great size. Some of them were flesh-eaters, and fed upon the other dinosaurs. This is known by the very sharp teeth that these flesh-eaters had and the marks that are found in many cases on the bones of the plant-eating dinosaurs. Even the broken teeth of the flesh-eaters are sometimes found buried in the earth, scattered about the skeletons of the great plant eating dinosaurs. This shows that the flesh-eaters were probably fierce animals and that they preyed upon the plant-eaters just as lions and tigers of modern times prey upon camels and elephants.

Stegosaurus skeleton.

       The dinosaurs vary greatly among themselves in their size and in the shape and the proportion of their bodies. The very oldest dinosaurs were quite small and most of them walked on four legs. Some of the later and largest of all dinosaurs also walked on four legs. These animals had small heads, very long necks, and long tails; the bodies were rather short and compact. The head was shaped very much like that of a lizard. Others of the dinosaurs walked on their hind legs with their bodies in a half upright position. Their forelegs were not so long as the hind legs, and some of them appeared to have been swimmers. Some of these swimmers had long heads with broad mouths and very small teeth and were called the duck-bill dinosaurs. Another another kind had great plates standing up in two rows and extending along the back from the neck to the tail. There were other plates which lay flat and served to protect the animal's back. 

Triceratops mounted skeleton at Los Angeles Museum
 of Natural History, Los Angeles, United States of America

       Another kind of dinosaur was truly armored. These animals were shaped like the little horned toad which now lives in the sands of desert regions, and had bony plates covering the back arranged like true armor. The flesh-eating dinosaurs were apparently the most agile and swift-footed of all the dinosaur tribe. Their heads were large in proportion to the size of the body, and armored with rows of sharp pointed teeth like those of a crocodile. They walked or ran upon their hind legs, and their forelegs were so small that they could have been of use only for the purpose of seizing and holding their prey. The largest of all these flesh-eaters now known has the very imposing name of Tyrannosaurus rex, meaning - king of the tyrant lizards.

       Fortunately, all of these creatures of the dinosaur tribe died out long before man came to live on the earth and before there were many warm-blooded animals of any kind. There were some very small mammals living at the time of the dinosaurs. Some scientists have thought that these little mammals may have eaten the eggs of the great dinosaurs and so helped in exterminating them.  Riggs.

Dinosaur Camp Crafts:

• Dinosaur "hands on" camp craft ideas from SimpleplayIdeas
• Summer Camp Programming features theme of the week - dinosaurs
• Dinosaur Camp Activities by ClubSciKidz
• Dinosaur Diorama by firstpalette

Silly Cave Dolls for Fun: People could never have survived living with dinosaurs but doll makers like to help children pretend to play and learn as though they did...

• Cave Twins by Jessie Louise Taylor
• Flintstones Family Dolls...
• The Cave Club Dolls
• Katy and K.O. wearing their leopard prints...

Dinosaur Natural History Lessons: Parents and teachers should know that the following articles were originally written for children prior to 1960s. Therefore some information about carbon dating has changed according to current scientific communities. The simple descriptions of ancient reptiles, animals and ocean creatures are generally described with articulate and entertaining language that can be appreciated by very young children. It is also possible that the naming/classification of dinosaurs has also been updated a bit. I recommend the articles be reviewed before using them in a classroom setting.

• The Adventures of A Pebble by Stromquist, 1955, 4.1 International: My Beginnings, A River Journey, My First Living Friend, Jet-Propelled Shellfish, Chicago's Coral Cities, Undersea Animal Gardens, Visitor From The Swamp Forest and Chicago's Great Ice Sheet
• Living Giants by Wood, 1943, 4.0 International: The Redwood Trees, Blue Whales, The Ostrich, The Reticulate Python, Whale Sharks, Bamboo (The Giant Grass), Giant Squids, The Komodo Lizard
• What is A Dinosaur? by Weaver, 1956, 4.0 International: Brontosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Diplodocus, Allosaurus, Turammpsaurus, Stegosaurus, Palaeoscincus, Protoceratops, Edmontosaurus, Why are there no dinosaurs today? 

Dinosaur Education & Fun Online:

• Dinosaur Education About: Fossils, Extinction, Lifespan etc...
• Dinosaurs - kid friendly films that look realistic
• Learn Dinosaur Names for Kids
• T-Rex Restaurant Disney Springs
• Dinosaur Coloring Pages
• Huge Box Dinosaur Toys!
• T-Rex Ranch - Dinosaurs For Kids (channel about T-Rex Ranch)
• Dinosaur Cannibalism by BBC Earth
• Megalodon vs Livyatan - Who Would Win?
• Marine reptiles and other animals of the time of Dinosaurs. Size comparison.
• Dinosaur Size Comparison 3D - Smallest to Biggest
• Here's How Dinosaur Figures Are Made
• The Dinosaur Farm - anything and everything having to do with dinosaurs for sale - kids and collectors welcome
• The Dino Directory at The U.K. Natural History Museum
• dinosaur-toys-collectors-guide.com

Dinosaur Field Camp Programs:

• Museum of The Rockies Field Camp
• Bighorn Basin Paleontology Expeditions

The Dinosaur Fossil Sites:

1. Seymour Island, Antartica: Read more, Exploring The History And Future of Antarctica with Dr. Paul Willis
2. Hell Creek Formation, United States: Read more, Visit Burpee Museum Of Natural Hisory Website
3. Ediacara Hills, Australia: Read more, Visit The Website
4. Joggins Fossil Cliffs, Canada: Read more, Visit The Website
5. Anacleto Formation, Argentina: Read more, Visit The Website
6. Stranska Skala, Czech Republic: Read more, Photos and detailed information
7. Red Beds, Texas and Oklahoma: Kansas Geological Survey page
8. Jurassic Coast, England: Jurassic Coast Trust
9. La Brea Tar Pits, California: Read more, Visit The Website
10. Jiufotang Formation, China: (pdf article) no internet access into China from U.S. sorry folks

Dinosaur Museum Collections:

1. Museum fur Naturkunde, Berlin: Read more, Visit The Website
2. Field Museum, Chicago: Read more, Visit The Website
3. Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Science, Brussels: Read more, Visit The Website
4. National Dinosaur Museum, Canberra, Australia: Read more, Visit The Website
5. Royal Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology, Alberta, Canada: Read more, Visit The Website
6. Wyoming Dinosaur Center, Wyoming: Read more, Visit The Website
7. Zigong Dinosaur Museum, Zigong, China: Video at youtube, Visit The Website
8. Iziko Museum, Cape Town, South Africa: Video at youtube, Visit The Website
9. Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Atlanta: Video at youtube , Visit The Website

Designated time periods used by scientists in these articles are based upon scientific theory. Here are a few links for those of you who are curious about how we teach Genesis and science at the same time to children. Understand Hebrew translations for the concepts of time in scripture. See also Christian parents can go and read here about teaching scientific theory to young children.

Bake a Dinosaur Footprint Charm

These little clay impressions will make perfectly charming additions to our local scout's SWAP collection.

       Our plastic dinosaurs are in the garden stomping around in the mud. How convenient for me! I pulled out the oven bake clay and slipped it underneath their feet to take a few impressions for our small friend's next scout SWAP! 

      We then poked a holes at the top  of each charm with a toothpick before slipping them into the oven at 275 degrees for seven minutes. Afterwards my small friend helped to add a few painted details.

DIY A Cave And A Rock Arch For Plastic Animals

Left is a cave with a smooth rock floor made from small, polished stones and black grout.
Right is a natural bridge or a rock arch shaped from heavier rocks, an old wire hanger and
crushed paper; it also has pebble mosaic floor.

       These two papier-mâché forms are just a bit more difficult to craft than the paper waterfall craft I published in an earlier post.  The primary differences are: the mosaic covered ground surfaces and the added rock weights included in the wrapping process of the natural bridge. Both land formations make fun additions to either indoor or outdoor playscapes! 

Supply List:

• clean newspaper, paper trash bags, old wrapping paper etc...
• masking tape
• white school glue
• papier-mâché  pulp (optional)
• brown, black, green and yellow papers or fabric
• Mod Podge
• paint brush
• black paint
• and old wire hanger
• pebbles or gravel
• black grout 
• clear acrylic varnish (water proof)
• heavier rocks
• old cardboard 

Step-by-Step Instructions For The Cave:

1. Wad a large amount of newsprint into the shape of a large boulder. (see photo below) This will be the shape of the inside of your cave.
2. Now wrap a layer of newsprint around the paper boulder shape. Tape a circular piece of cardboard to the bottom half of the cave. 
3. Crush more newsprint around the cave walls and mask the entire outside surface of your cave without getting any of the tape on the boulder shaped form.
4. Remove the boulder shape and toss it into the recycling bin.
5. Now crush and mask any additional cave formations/ boulders to the cave that you think would look awesome!
6. Cover both the inside and outside of your cave with masking tape. 
7. Now cover the surfaces with white glue and shredded brown paper bag completely to strengthen the cave shape. 
8. Then cut paper and fabric to decoupage the surface of your cave using the Mod Podge. Let the surfaces dry over night.
9. At this point, you may wish to mix up a batch of papier-mâché and smear it onto the surface of your cave to add texture, strength and interest to it's surface. I choose not to use it for this particular project myself. Let that added paper pulp dry completely before continuing.
10. Mix up the black grout according to the directions provided on the can and push your pebbles or gravel into it. Let the mosaic floor dry.
11. After all of the surfaces of the cave have dried thoroughly, apply a clear, waterproof acrylic sealer. 

Step-by-Step Instructions For The Natural Bridge:

1. Cut a abstract shape for the floor underneath your arch from cardboard.
2. Wrap some heavy rocks with newsprint and masking tape and tape these firmly on top of the cardboard on either end in order to weigh down the papier-mâché arch.
3. Take a large wire hanger and bend this into an arch shape.
4. Wrap it completely with newsprint and masking tape.
5. Tape the arch to the wrapped rocks and cardboard platform. 
6. Crush more newsprint and shape this around the entire arch and covered rocks. Cover the entire form with masking tape. 
7. Now cover the surfaces with white glue and shredded brown paper bag completely to strengthen the arch shape.  
8. Then cut paper and fabric to decoupage the surface of your arch formation using the Mod Podge. Let the surfaces dry over night. 
9. Mix up the black grout according to the directions provided on the can and push your pebbles or gravel into it. Let the mosaic floor dry.
10. After all of the surfaces of the cave have dried thoroughly, apply a clear, waterproof acrylic sealer.  

Left, I measured the height of my rock arch by putting one of the larger dinosaurs under it.
Right, I began to shape a cave by crushing a large rock shape and shaping paper around it.

See More Papier-Mâché Caves for Toys:

• Paper Mache Dinosaur Cave
• Hibernation Craft - using tin foil

Make a Waterfall from Papier-mâché...

Children can make some very charming toys from papier-
mâché. I must warn you, however, once they get started on
 projects like this one, their enthusiasm has no boundaries!

       Do your little ones collect dinosaurs to play with? Most American children love plastic dolls like these and what better craft activity for busy little hands than one that helps them to explore and shape a world where their toys can come to life?

       Gather the following supplies from your craft supply to begin shaping a similar "waterfall" for your plastic toy dinosaurs, jungle animals or action figures:

Supply List:

• a tall, empty circular can (like a oatmeal box)
• masking tape
• white school glue
• green tissue paper
• brown paper bags
• brown paper that reminds you of rock textures
• fabric that looks like printed water
• newsprint
• Mod Podge (optional)
• a small paint brush

Step-by-Step Directions:

1. Start by forming the shape of a papier-mâché cliff from crushed newsprint, masking tape and an empty oatmeal carton. Crushing and mashing newspapers into round rock shapes is easy to do.
2. Wrap your rock shapes with masking tape as you go and attach these to the empty oatmeal can in a random placement. Don't worry about the tape so very much until you've got a cliff that you like. This is a messy project!
3. When you have finished with something acceptable, neatly apply small pieces of masking tape to the entire structure. Overlap some of the masking tape as you go.
4. Now cover the entire form with generous smears of white glue and shredded brown paper bags. You are essentially layering the paper in order to strengthen your form. Let this dry overnight.
5. After everything has dried, you are going to decorate the structure by alternating green tissue paper and the brown or grey looking paper that has texture. Use white glue or Mod Podge to attach the paper to the papier-mâché surface. 
6. Attach the fabric that looks like water to an area of the papier-mâché cliff where you think it might be running between the rocks. I shaped a little pool at the bottom of my cliff where my dinosaurs could drink.
7. Apply a generous amount of glue to the entire surface of your finished waterfall to give the overall project strength. After the surface has dried, store your papier-mâché in a large plastic tub along with your dinosaurs and play mats. Special storage not only keeps your toys picked up, but helps to preserve them for future play as well.

Above, you can see the stages of application for my papier-mâché water fall. I used a bit of artist's gel to apply the fabric water because I was worried about it adhering well. However, I found that after many applications the Mod Podge  and white Elmer's glue worked just as well. Don't be afraid to experiment with different glues, you'll find that there is a big difference in the cost of this project depending upon which glue you choose.

A toy stegosaurus followed by his euoplocephalus companion drink from the papier-mâché pool below. 
A tapejara balances at the top of the cliff waterfall.

Craft projects like these are excellent ways for older siblings to make a special gift for a
younger brother or sister's birthday or other holiday celebration like Christmas.

Close up of the textures used in the papier-mâché water fall.

How to make a more advanced waterfall model...