Ask CRAFT: Wooden Dolls

Craft & Design


fabricandlines on Twitter asked us:

Do you have any tips on painting or making your own wooden dolls?

Sure! You can make wooden dolls from pieces of scrap wood, old banisters, or even bedpost caps sold at the big box hardware stores. You can also use wooden clothespins, too. Sometimes the craft store sells wooden eggs or spheres that make great bodies and heads. If you go that route, all you need to get started is a drill (for making attachment holes) and your paints. You can use a hot glue gun to attach fabric for clothes.

You can use all kinds of paints on wood, but acrylics will give you a durable finish. Check out the acrylic paint section of your local art supply store for small containers in lots of colors. You’ll want to use a low or medium viscosity paint in order to hide brush strokes, so you may want to consider using a matte or gloss medium (sold right next to the paint) to get the right consistency and finish. If you water the paint down or use watercolors, you can get a faint effect that will soak into the wood. For geometric areas of color, you can try to mask off parts of the doll with tape; peel if off after painting for a crisp line.

Also check out the wooden dolls we’ve seen previously:

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Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

View more articles by Becky Stern

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