December 15, 2004

More Loving and Inexpensive Holiday Gifts By Angela Hoy
printable version

Each year, I share an idea or two for homemade gifts that creative folks (writers!) can make for loved ones for the holidays. Last week I shared two new ideas, including how to make a quilted felt house and how to create photo ornaments. Here's a new idea for this week.

Iron-on Photo Doll

Many craft stores sell faceless, inexpensive cloth dolls that you can do many creative things with. They also sell iron-on fabric that you can feed through your laser or ink jet printer.

This year, I wanted to give my sister a gift that portrayed our sisterly bond. I manipulated photos of both of us using my graphics program and printed the photos on the iron-on fabric. I then ironed the photos onto the faces of the dolls I'd purchased.

Wanting to add some accessories, I sewed tiny t-shirts for each doll and printed several tiny photos of loved ones on the iron-on fabric. Then, I ironed the tiny photos onto the dolls' t-shirts. I purchased inexpensive fleece "shorts" for the dolls that were actually for some "do it yourself" teddy bears they had on sale, which completed the dolls' outfits. I also purchased soft yarn that looked like hair, cut it into several identical pieces, and sewed each to the head with one continous stitch (where the part-line appears). As a final touch, I sewed velcro to the dolls' hands so they can hold hands.

The final gift is a pair of sister dolls, each one wearing shirts that have photos of their loved ones.

Want more ideas?

Last week's ideas (quilted felt house and photo ornaments) are HERE.

Your Writing As a Loving (and Inexpensive!) Holiday Gift is on the October 29th posting HERE.

Read more ideas in the November 5th and 12th postings HERE.