August update: Our little clothespin doll kit giveaway is extended until next Friday, August 9, and the COASTCRAFT discount code for creativebug is evergreen for the rest of the summer. Yay!

When I saw my friend Amy’s post that she and her daughter Delia were teaching a brand-new craft class for the Camp Creativebug series – clothespin dolls! – I knew Pearl would love it.

I tracked down all the supplies and last Friday, we hosted a clothespin-doll craft party with our friends Guphy and Jenn. Once Everett (who at 2.5 is not quite gluestick age) went down for a nap, we picked out our favorite yarns, fabric scraps, ribbons, and laces, watched the workshop, and made fourteen dolls all together!

Here is the first batch before faces, and then taking a short nap afterwards, courtesy of thoughtful Pearl tucking them in.

And here are all ten of our dolls enjoying a summer afternoon outside. The top row are Pearl’s (you can tell by the more interesting faces) and the bottom ones are mine. Pearl’s first two on the left are Betsy and Tacy, who she loves, and we’ve been coming up with names for the rest as we go.

We both loved this class – Pearl has been asking every couple of days to have more friends over to make more dolls. It was simple, fun, and so easy to customize with special bits and pieces.

One thing I loved was using even the smallest scraps from other favorite projects and seeing them live again in a sweet new way. Monica gave me a treasured jelly roll pack of her Happy Mochi Yum Yum line a few years ago, and just a couple of inches of the pretty roses made a fantastic fancy doll dress. Most of the other fabric strips were left over from my quilts in Modern Log Cabin Quilting and I love seeing those patterns again, too.

Three of the yarns we used for dolls’ hair were last seen in one of Linda‘s Tribbles and in my Harry Potter scarf in World of Geekcraft, and I bought two new ones just for this (love the rainbow yarn especially). The laces are all estate sale and Knittn’ Kitten finds I’ve been saving in a big jar, and watching it all come to life was really fun!

If you’d like to try this class, or any of the others on the site, I have a nice discount to offer up! Creativebug sent me the code COASTCRAFT to share with anyone who’s reading along – you can use it at checkout to get your first month of unlimited classes for only $9.99. You can access any and all classes you want to take – or if you’d prefer to buy individual ones instead of an overall membership, you can do that instead.

Along with the discount code, Pearl and I would like to share some of our favorite clothespin doll supplies – everything in the picture above will be going to a lucky winner! Please leave a comment on this post with one of your favorite kids’ craft projects (from your own childhood or one you’ve tried with your own family) and I’ll draw a winner next Friday, August 9! We’ll send you a little prize package with ten clothespins, five mini-skeins of yarn, a glue stick, and a bunch of our favorite fabric and lace scraps. (You’ll need to get your own scissors, Micron pen, and craft glue, plus paint and a brush if you want more interesting skin colors.)

Meanwhile, we have been busy with another (free!) Creativebug kids’ class, the summer teepee. It’s been a good one to work on in stages… first we built the frame, then draped and tied the covering the next evening (more rainbow yarn!). This weekend we’ll be painting and stamping it which we are all really excited about! The teepee has already been a huge hit. Pearl has it all set up with two big floor pillows for her and Everett, her current Lego project, and one of her dolls. I’ll share some more photos next week when it’s all decorated!

So, please leave me a comment here (or on my instagram photos!) through 8/9 sharing a favorite kids’ craft project if you’d like to win the dolls kit, and feel free to try Creativebug out for a discounted month with the code COASTCRAFT… Happy weekend, everyone!

PS – Disclosures, if you are interested: This is not a sponsored post, I joined Creativebug with a paid renewing 3-month membership last year after another post of Amy’s, and have really enjoyed taking some grown-up classes (like Christine Schmidt’s on carving rubber stamps – here are the ones I made). I just think the kids’ Camp Creativebug series is super special, and was excited to share it, especially with a discount, thanks to them! I think our next project is going to be kids’ weaving which looks so fun…