Burda Style For people who sew

We’re ready for hair and makeup! This is where our dolls get their personality. I realize that a lot of folks find this step intimidating. I know how you feel! When I first began making dolls, I left off the nose because the noses that I drew looked, well, strange. So I read dollmaking books and magazines and experimented. The result of this experimentation is an innovation that I’ve included in Doll Fashionistas makes it easy to create a sweet doll face. I call it my Face Template.

It is a stencil that is pinned right on the doll’s face and then the features are just traced in place. This way, the eyes, nose and mouth will always be in the right position and will always be about the right size. If you visit my blog – www.TheDollLoft.squarespace.com – you’ll see some of the dolls made by my readers and the amazing faces that many first time doll makers have achieved. You don’t need to be an artist!

The felt does a lot of the work for you because it is so easy and smooth to draw on. Our doll faces are drawn with pens and colored pencils so there are no worries about dripping or running or mixing paint. The only paint on the face is a drop or two for the white of the eyes. The book includes step by step instructions to draw each feature in a color-by-numbers fashion. You just color-by-numbers to finish the face however you want – eyes like topaz; lips like dark amethyst (very popular in some places on the globe); button nose – it is all up to you!