Friday, December 5, 2008

Toothpick Doll Tutorial #5: Toothpick Salon

Tutorial & Giveaway!
All this week, I'm doing a toothpick doll tutorial, & at the end of the week, I'll give away my finished doll. To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on any of the Tutorial blog posts. Since there's a new post every day this week, you can enter every day! I'll announce the winner on Monday, Dec. 8. Enjoy the tutorial! Oh, & take some pictures of your dolls - I want to see them!


Hairstyling in Miniature

Ok, have you gotten over the stress of making your first head? Good! Now let's cover it.


If you got really ambitious, you should have curls by now. If working on tiny things can leave you in a stressed-out, jittery mess, may I suggest you go with straight hair. Quite fashionable.
Regardless, you're going to begin the same way. Put down a line of glue that starts behind one ear, comes up across the forehead, & ends behind the other ear. (No, there are no actual ears. You're making a craft! If your imagination isn't on yet, now would be a good time to flip the switch.) You're basically tracing the doll's hairline. Now follow that line with your first piece of thread (see picture above). When using curly hair, you'll have to finagle the thread a tad to get it to lay down in a straight line. Again, straight hair is all the rage with beginner dolls. Perfect for preventing nervous breakdowns.

Take a deep breath, ya done good. Now do it again, & keep right on going until your doll is bald no more. You'll be pretty good at the glue, thread, glue, finagle, thread, deep breath, glue, thread routine.

Yay, she's done! Beauty like none other! The Mona Lisa's smile is now tinged with deep envy. Oh, alright, if you don't prefer the "windblown by a hurricane" look, we'll fix her hair...

Now comes my favorite part - hairstyling. Have fun with this - it's the only time you can guarantee a good hair day because you get to glue the hair in place! Maybe this is why I struggle with doing real hair. Give her a trim where needed, & just start glueing the hair down wherever you like. I cut a short snippet of curls & glued them in place for bangs on my gal.

Tomorrow: Finishing Touches!

translation: You're almost stinkin' done!

Leave a comment to enter the giveaway!

You can leave as many comments as you like, asking questions, making astute observations, etc., although your name only gets entered once every day. Yes, you can go back & comment on past days if you missed some!

4 comments:

Malissa said...

I am going to try a doll soon. Can you believe I don't have any wooden toothpicks. We have those plastic dental floss kind. As soon as I do I am going to send you a picture. Oh, and good job with the life flogging!

Malissa said...

Oh, I forgot...I put yarn hair on my sculptures sometimes, and didn't know that little trick to curl the hair! Love it and I'm going curly for my first toothpick doll!

Carla Gabriela said...

Hi a love your dolls they are fantastic. I already started to make my first doll, the head my god very difficult but for the first one I think it's ok, now I'd like to know the trick how to curl the hair? I'd like to put curly hair on mine. If you you want to see my blog I do miniature dollhouses. I'm from Portugal.

Anonymous said...

Your toothpick dolls are sooooooo adorable! I couldn't figure out how you made the curly hair, though. Maybe you forgot to put in the instructions? Anyway, I love your tiny dolls! I make Japanese toothpick dolls using washi for kimono, and crepe paper for hair. I live in Canada