Make Your Own Monster Dolls
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Make Your Own Monster Dolls

Teaching children to sew can be a fun and rewarding lesson if you let them take the lead and design their own monster dolls.

let your child make their own monster doll

Make Your Own Monster Dolls

Aren’t they cute?! Okay, they may have a few imperfections, but I don’t want to hear about it because my boys made them! That’s right my 4 and 7-year-old sons made their own Monster Dolls (with a little help from me). It was a perfect way to spend a summer afternoon together. And as a bonus they learned some basic sewing skills.

My 7 year old really dove in and enjoyed every aspect of making his monster. He used the sewing machine with my help. My 4 year old needed a bit more guidance and help. He was very tentative about the sewing machine, but I convinced him to push the pedal. After one time pushing it, he was LOVING puttin’ the pedal to the metal! LOL!

Materials:

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Instructions:

Let your child draw their monster on a piece of paper.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Help your child draw the outline of the monster onto the backside of the fleece. Explain that you might need to fatten up any skinny appendages so you can turn the monster right side out and stuff (him or her) after sewing.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Pin two pieces of fleece together (right sides together.) Help your child cut out around the outline of the monster’s body. This will give you two identical pieces for the monster doll body.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Cut eyes, nose, and mouthparts out of colored felt. Pin the facial features to the right side of one of the body cut-outs. Let your child use the vanishing marker to mark other facial features that will be stitched.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Using the sewing machine, stitch the facial features and attach the felt pieces.

Helping Children Learn to Use a Sewing Machine:

To help my boys learn to sew, I let them depress the pedal on the sewing machine. We focus on light pressure, slowing down, and stopping. Meanwhile, I guide the fabric through the foot.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

To emphasize the features we drew over the stitching with the Sharpie marker.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Use buttons or the Sharpie to create pupils for your monster doll.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Pin the right sides together (facial features inside) of the doll. Stitch around the edge, leaving a small three-inch opening for stuffing.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Trim any excess fabric away from the edges before turning the doll right sides out.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Turn the monster doll right sides out. Use a pencil’s eraser side to poke out any corners and turns. Stuff the monster with polyfill stuffing. Use the pencil to push filling into small areas.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Whipstitch the opening closed after the doll has been fully stuffed.

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Your child’s monster doll is complete!

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Ugly Monsters or Adorable Monsters? What do you think?

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

Your child will surely love his creation and will definitely feel a huge sense of pride that he (or she) designed it themselves!

Monster Dolls Designed and Made by Your Kids | Pretty Handy Girl

I let my boys do as much as possible so they could feel a HUGE sense of accomplishment when they were done. They both were so proud of their monsters. They tote their monster dolls everywhere and tell friends and family, “I made it!”

 

 

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15 replies
  1. ashley
    ashley says:

    Excellent! The sewing machine is most *definitely* a power tool! (As is the serger. And the iron. And the hand needles are just like hand-tools in the wood-working world….) I don’t have my own kids, but have worked with quite a number of kids thru events put on by my local sewing guild chapter. (There are definitely women in the chapter that love their routers as much as their sewing machines! I hope to become one when I get my own router some day. 🙂 )
    One great way to get kids used to ‘driving’ a sewing machine (or serger) is to just have them practice sewing on paper with no thread (and an old needle in the machine or one that is already dull). That really helps those that are apprehensive. You can even start them without any needle in there if you’re working with a kid that needs to be eased into it.
    You can later put a colored piece of paper/construction paper behind the paper they sewed on so their work shows up better when it’s displayed on the refrigerator.

    Most kids have a blast playing with the different stitches and love to see how the stitches change when they play with the stitch length and width. Even if your machine only has a straight stitch and a zig-zag, kids love it. They love being able to control the settings — and who can blame them? Some really get into making a whole picture using different stitches. Those can later be used as a pocket or part of a pillow cover or a ‘blanket’ for a favorite toy or just displayed as a picture.

    Those kids are excellent Makers already! They did a fantastic job and so did you!

    Reply
  2. Becky
    Becky says:

    No matter if some one searches for his essential thing,
    so he/she wants to be available that in detail, thus that thing
    is maintained over here.

    Reply
  3. SE
    SE says:

    Those are awesome! PHB’s #1&2 are definitely talented! And great job, Mom, on such a cool project with your kids! I’ll have to do this with my kids…I just wonder what a Jedi monster and a princess monster will look like.

    Reply
  4. Lisa
    Lisa says:

    I HAVE to make this with my 4 year old. She will absolutely love it! Thank you so much for posting this project, your blog is wonderful. I read it every day.

    Reply
  5. Ann W
    Ann W says:

    You are so good! and pretty handy also. I never thought of making those with my kids. However when they were sick I did teach them how to make flannel drawstring pajama bottoms. They liked operating the serger. Ann

    Reply

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