Doll Glasses - le tutorial

Who doesn't need a pair of doll eye glasses - am I right? ;)

Well, for those of us in doll-land - we know all about the importance of details. Especially when you're creating a Harry Potter look-alike or an identical twin for your little one to love.

Here's my doll glasses making tutorial, enjoy!

Materials:
- pipe cleaner (preferably in the color you want the glasses to be)
- embroidery floss (in color of glasses - black, anyone?)
- Elmer's glue or other crafty glue that dries clear
- glass of red wine (optional)
- favorite tv show (necessary)

Time: I'm not going to lie, this doesn't take toooooo long - but boy, is it tedious. 1-2 hours.

How-to:

First, grab your fave dollie and cut enough length from your pipe cleaner to create a circle (or appropriate shape) around their eye, wrap the end around itself so the circle doesn't fall apart.

Brendan wanted to be my model today

Repeat for the second eye. Connect with straight section. Twist the ends around each connection so they don't fall apart.

Add the sides.

Now is when the magic happens!
Take your embroidery floss and start wrapping the floss around the pipe cleaner.
(* note - in hindsight, I should have taken pix with black thread and a white pipe cleaner so that you could see the definition, huh? heh heh heh...yeah.)

I started in the middle of the glasses, but you can begin where you like. Use a dab of glue to secure the floss when you begin and a little at the end. If you run out of floss, no worries, just start a new string with a dab of glue again.

tip: When you reach the end of the arms (temple) of the glasses, bend the end of the pipe cleaner before wrapping it so the ends are covered and not so sharp.

Don't be too particular your first time around if some of the "fluff" sticks out, you'll be wrapping them a second time and they'll start tightening up after the second round. It starts becoming tedious when you're wrapping wrapping wrapping around the eye pieces, but the handles (aka 'temples') will go by pretty quickly.

When you reach the place where the eye circles meet the temples, you'll want to wrap them a few times in an "x" pattern to make sure they're secure. Okee dokee,  here's what they should look like when you're half-way:

almost done!

If they're still looking a little fuzzy, you can keep adding layers of embroidery floss, or a little glue. Either way works just fine. When you're done the glasses will still be pretty bendy and very durable for little hands to play with.

Voila! Here's Brendan looking very dapper in his new specs:

2 cool 4 school

We'd love to see pix of your dollie glasses, give it a shot!

xoxoxoxo,
Lesley

PS. It's almost time to giveaway a doll - make sure you're included!! http://www.facebook.com/tansydolls