Making Peg Dolls & More, and a Give-Away!!!

What? Just because she looks like a person more likely to forge a pole axe and come after you with it than make a little peg doll? #watchyourback

I am participating in a Blog Tour! I know! And it's because I am just in love with this book, and when Margaret Bloom asked me to write about it here, I couldn't resist.

This is the first book.

Making Peg Dolls & More is her follow-up to the lovely Making Peg Dolls, and it's so deliciously gorgeous and inspiring that it is currently in rotation here as a coffee table book. [cough *Waldorf coffee table* cough *drink your Sereni-Tea*] Birdy and I pretty much compulsively leaf through it, all the time, and every page shows something we want to make: dreamy-perfect little dolls and toys and ornaments, everything so appealingly wool and wood, so pretty and gentle. Plus, the instructions are super-clear.

We got the book a little before the holidays, and Birdy immediately decided on the project she wanted to make for gifts: these little Herbal Comfort Friends, which are sewn from felt, completed with wooden beads, and filled with sweet-smelling herbs. She designed her own medallions: a sprig of lavender for her grandmother's lavender-filled friend, a little campfire for her friend Harry's that's filled with mint, and a little wind storm for her test doll, that she kept for herself. She loved making them. They are just the sweetest things and, I'm imagining, double nicely as drawer-scenting sachets.

I wish I had a scan of Harry's thank-you note. I think it says, "Thank you for that mint thingy." True, he might not have been the ideal recipient of this particular gift, but it's the thought that etc. 

Birdy was making a diorama for her Underground Railroad report, and she painted this little figure for it. Not a Making Peg Dolls project exactly, but certainly inspired by it. I love the way Margaret paints all the dolls with watercolors so the wood shows through. 

If there were 40 doll bodies in your house, then you could make a few yourself, and your kids wouldn't even miss them!

Making Peg Dolls & More, plus this set of 40 wooden doll bodies (pictured above), would make the world's most perfect gift for a crafty kid. It only gives me a little pang because I feel like my days of giving that kind of gift are truly numbered. Sigh. And then what? Mani-Pedi gift certificates? A Meth-Lab Kit?

I lifted this photo from the Wee Folk Studio post, because this is my very favorite project in the book. 

Anyways, thanks to Margaret's generosity, as well as that of Hawthorn Press, I am lucky enough to be hosting a give-away here. Just leave your name in the comments here if you'd like to be entered (!), and I will announce a winner a week hence. February 18th, 11:00 am EST. Or thereabouts. And for more chances to read about it and win, feel free to visit the other blogs that are hosting reviews and give-aways of this tender, optimistic world-view-as-book:

February 2nd :: The Crafty Crow 

February 3rd :: Clean 

February 4th :: Castle in the Air

February 5th :: Salley Mavor (Wee Folk Studio)

February 7th :: A Child's Dream

February 9th :: Forest Fairy Crafts

February 10th :: Bella Luna Toys

February 12th :: Twig & Toadstool

February 13th :: Wee Wonderfuls

Good luck! And lots of love. xo