As I was saying the other day – the real reason I wanted to buy a laminating machine was to craft 18″ doll accessories for Chloe’s American Girl Doll.
She has been making little pouches and packets for months now (there are several YouTube channels specifically for crafting items for dolls), and she’s been using packing tape as her laminator – brilliant, but a tad difficult for little hands…. that’s where the laminator comes in!
We gathered several printables from various sites (click on any image to be taken directly to the site).
We grabbed a set of cereal boxes from AmericanGirlIdeas.com:
and a scrabble board and box:
AmericanGirlIdeas.com had some Harry Potter books and we printed off the whole series.
I also made a small Etsy purchase and bought an entire back-to-school set from JulieOldCrow for $2.50:
The girls and I sat down and cut out each individual piece and then placed them between the laminating sheets. We ran the printable 18″ doll accessories sheets through back-to-back.
Then we had to cut them out again. It seems a bit tedious, but the plastic film has to melt around the edges of every single piece in order to adhere properly, so laminating a full sheet of printables without cutting them out first would just mean that the accessories wouldn’t last long (the plastic would peel off). Besides, this gave us time to talk and giggle and carry on over crafts – my favourite past times!
The pieces each have special tabs for folding and gluing, so once we were done cutting, it was just a matter of folding and using a bit of two-sided tape to hold everything together.
The school set of folders and worksheets were easy.
The cereal boxes took a bit more time, but really weren’t difficult at all – the videos and website are focused on crafts for girls.
Just look how much Kit is enjoying serving breakfast! Imagine, all this time she’s been without cereal – the poor doll (wait until Chloe realizes she’s still without milk – uh, oh).
When friends come over she can play a rousing game of Scrabble:
(I talked Chloe OUT of cutting out each individual letter – for now she acquiesces, but I’m sure they’ll end up in my vacuum sooner or later.)
Chloe didn’t want Kit to suffer from “summer backslide”, so school’s in session with the 18″ doll accessories (back-to-school kit) we printed.
This is what we posted to Instagram last night:
our little Harry Potter books (smaller than my drink) filled with post-it pads as the pages.
Yes, I would agree that outfitting this doll with furniture and decor really has become more about me than about my daughter – but it’s time spent together and she is pleased with the nifty accessories we keep creating.
Have a great one!
Love the cerael boxes , but mine are not looking good, help please
Your best bet, and probably less expensive, is to send the file to Staples and have them print it on either glossy paper that you can laminate, or on thicker cardstock. I think this will come in around $.40 per sheet and will save you a TON of printer ink. Save the printable files to your desktop, go to the Staples website and upload them online. Good luck!
First, thank you for sharing. :) Next, I went to the website for the back to school printables and they are no longer available for purchase. Does that mean you can give them away free?
Unfortunately not. If you send the store owner an e-mail, she may repost them though? Copyright laws won’t allow me to share anything that was for purchase – I’m sorry.
They are available now. I just ordered them.
where is the download or the link to it?
All of the links (to each printable) are underlined/highlighted in the blog text. I’ve checked and they are working.