Crocus and Snowdrop Peg Dolls: Early Spring Bulb Peg Dolls

For several weeks i looked at the snowdrops in my garden. They are the first harbinger of spring in my garden, often popping up and then getting buried again in a snow drift, only to reappear, totally happy, a few weeks later after a March melt! I thought they might make really sweet peg dolls.

I picked the girl peg doll to use as their body. I painted the body of the peg green and the hair white with non-toxic watercolors. They I sealed the peg dolls with beeswax polish. Finally I added their faces with watercolor markers.

The three petals were cut from white wool felt and sewed onto a little circle of green felt. Then I glued the petal cap to the peg doll’s head. And yes, they do look like snowdrops!

Snowdrops

By the time I decided to make the snowdrop peg dolls, the crocuses were up too, so I decided to make a little cluster of 3 crocuses.

Crocus peg dolls

I chose small boy pegs to be the bodies of the crocuses. I prepared them exactly as those of the snowdrops but used a darker green watercolor for their bodies. I picked the darkest yellow for their hair, but in retrospect, a reddish orange would have been more accurate.

I cut 6 petals from wool felt and then sewed them together with perle cotton thread to match. I put a knot in my thread a couple inches from the end so that I could tie the two end of the perle cotton around the body of the peg. The petal skirt can be slipped off the peg doll for summer play if desired!

Crocus petals stitched together. I went back and cut the points off these petals. making them rounded like the crocus petals

Here the new spring bulb pegs in my Spring-themed Waldorf Birthday Ring. They are joining last year’s bunny and chick peg dolls!

Spring Waldorf Birthday ring

The knit bunny in the center of the ring is up-cycled cashmere from the Etsy shop WeeThingsFiberArts. The Waldorf birthday ring and wooden ornaments can be found at a number of stores which sell Waldorf toys.

Peg Doll Chicks and Rabbits

Time for some Spring Friends! Chicks and rabbits!

These are tiny friends. The chicks are 1 3/8 inch peg boys and the rabbits are 1 3/4 inch peg boys. The design is my own and they are easy to make.

First paint the pegs the colors you want them to be and seal them with beeswax polish.

Using wool felt, cut out yellow wings for the chicks and brown ears and pink centers for the rabbits. I felted the pink centers to the ears but they could be glued onto the ears as well. (Gluing is probably the way to go if a child is making these pegs as these pieces are tiny and the felting needles are oh so sharp)!

I made the rabbit tails from tiny balls of wool roving but a tail cut from white felt would work just as well.

Using a craft glue, attach the wings to the chicks and the tail and ears to the rabbits. I found the rabbit ears look best when glued to the back of the head, rather than on each side.

Finally I used markers to draw eyes, beak and feet on the chicks and eyes, nose and mouth on the rabbits.

Happy Spring!

Christmas Peg Doll Gnomes and a Pine Cone Wreath

The Peg Gnomes have on their Christmas togs and have decorated their Gnome Home with a pine cone wreath which they made.

I had a scrap of sherpa fleece that I was about to toss in the trash. But taking one last look I realized it would make fabulous fur trim for peg doll Christmas outfits. So now I have a even smaller scrap but am definitely keeping it!

The pegs are painted with a opaque non-toxic paint. They have a ruff of sherpa fleece around their necks made out of a 1/4 inch strip of sherpa fleece that is stitched closed in the back. The hat from the gnome hat pattern in Margaret Bloom’s book Making Peg Dolls with an added trim of sherpa fleece stitched onto the edge of the hat before the back was sewn together.

I saw these tiny pine cones on the sidewalk when I was walking my dogs this fall. Every day I picked up a few more until I had a little jelly jar full. The gnomes saw what I had and asked if they could use it to make a wreath. (Just what I’d planned to do)!

The gnomes cut out a base of cardboard in the shape of a ring, but as it turns out, just cutting out a circle would have been better. The pine cones are glued on using craft glue. The wreath looked a bit bare until they added the center pine cone. They trimmed the cardboard away around the pine cones around the outer edge and used a brown maker on the bits that could be seen to make the base “disappear”. Then the gnomes added the 1/4 inch red ribbon and a piece of green thread so the wreath could be hung up.

The gnomes are pretty proud of their handiwork. I think it looks great on their pottery home!

Christmas Gnomes