Felt Dress Up Dolls
If you want to keep your kids occupied during the car ride, but don’t want to rely on the trusty old iPad for cartoons, put together this DIY felt dress up dolls for the little ones! Not only is this fun for children—it also makes great baby shower, birthday and holiday gifts for all your friends with kids.
Because this craft requires hot glue and precision cutting, creating the dolls and clothes is really an activity for the adults. However, this craft is also inexpensive and utilizes supplies you probably already have in your crafting kit.
Our fun felt dress up dolls are unique because you can customize the dolls and clothing to fit the personality of all your little ones. Because we used felt for this project, the dolls will attach to the ‘paper doll board’—the clothes and accessories have enough traction with the board so they won’t slide off when the kids dress the dolls!
Use our free printable template to cut out the shape of the doll and then give it boy or girl features. You can make a doll to resemble family members or friends. It’s easy to make cut-out patterns—dresses, shorts, blouses, pants, shoes and accessories…you name it! We have included a few patterns to get you started!
We had the most fun making the wardrobe for our dolls. By the time we were through experimenting with this DIY, our dolls had Ugg boots, multiple dresses, fancy handbags and even sparkly gold slippers! The sky is the limit! This DIY is a sweet, fun surprise for all the little ones!
How to make felt dress up dolls
- hot glue gun
- felt dress up dolls template
- scissors
- ink pen or permanent marker
- stiff felt for doll bodies
- 1 − 12″ x 18″ piece of foam core
- 1 − 12″ x 18″ piece of stiff felt (any color)
- plain, print and glitter felt pieces in assorted colors
- precision knife (optional)
- embellishments (googly eyes, yarn, sequins, pipe cleaner, rhinestones, etc.)
- Plug in your hot glue gun. While the hot glue heats up, download the felt dress up dolls template. Print and cut them out along the dotted lines and set aside.
- Now that the hot glue gun is heated, add a dab of hot glue on each of the four corners of the foam core, then align and attach the 12″ x 18″ piece of stiff felt to the surface and set aside.
- Next, using an ink pen or permanent marker, trace the paper dolls onto the stiff felt and cut out. Don’t worry about the ink—you will use the opposite side of the felt.
- Use hot glue to attach googly eyes and other embellishments for the doll’s face. We used small clippings of red felt to make lips, and colored felt to make bangs. Then we used unraveled yarn to make hair!
- Next, trace the clothes and accessories onto soft felt in the color of your choice. If you would like to make your own felt clothes, just use the paper doll body pattern to create one-of-a-kind patterns for clothing. To do this, print another copy of the free printable and draw a simple dress (or desired article of clothing) pattern on the paper. Use the dotted lines as your guide—we drew lines for sleeves, a skirt and the curvature of the neck. Then, cut out the pattern and trace it on a piece of felt to make the clothing.
- Use embellishments like yarn and sequins to make fur, buttons, etc., then hot glue onto the clothing.
- Once you have prepared all the dolls, clothing and accessories, place them on the foam core and present to your kids! They’ll have a ball dressing each doll.
what foam core do you use?
Hi Cheryl, I just wanted to say that I have enjoyed using your templates to make felt paper dolls. I got carried away and ended up making them for great nieces, both real and by “adoption.”. I showed some friends and have referred them to your Pain. I ended up also using fabric scraps bonded to felt and ribbon, lace, plastic gems, etc., from my stash. The idea adapted well for my 2 year old style which was very simple with no small pieces to the 9 year old with wiggly eyes and yarn hair. Thank you again!