Magical Golden Harp

My criteria for the doll was she had to be pretty, not a baby, not cloth, at least 11 inches tall, and not a famous character. I didn't want the audience thinking, "Look it's Barbie!" or, "Look, It's Elsa." You can dress your doll however you want. Let your imagination guide you. This is how I made my Magical Golden Harp. 

Materials needed, for the doll, include doll, doll clothes, hairbrush, wire vine (white circle in bottom right of the picture), golden leaves, golden ribbon, tulle circles, Czech Beads, beading wire, scissors, spray paint, thread, needle, hot glue gun, hot glue sticks, and spray Mod Podge.  

My doll came from the thrift store and her hair was a tangled mess, so I brushed her hair first. The ribbon with the flower was already in her hair. I liked the whimsy look, so I just snipped one end and hot glued the flower to her shirt, once it was finished. 

Next I hot glued the gold ribbon onto her shirt just straight across the whole shirt until I got to the arm holes. When I got to the arm holes I cut the ribbon a little longer than that part of the shirt so I could tuck in the ribbon and  hot glue the ends to the inside of the shirt. I also added ribbon to the sleeves to made her sleeves fuller. The back of the shirt will not be seen. 

I  measured the wire vine around her head, like a flower crown. Then I wrapped it around three times weaving it like a flower crown. Once that was made, I spray painted the  vine and about 7 of the tulle circles Metallic Gold/Copper. I wanted them to be a different golden color than the shiny ribbon. I tried to tie the shiny gold in with the darker gold through her necklace.

I strung the beads onto the beading wire in the order they came in. I used a little over half of the beads to make her necklace. I measured it on her several times until I got the length I wanted. I hot glued the beads to her shirt because they kept getting turned around showing where the wire was wrapped. 

The leaves I used for the wings were already gold. You could certainly spray paint them, if needed. I used 7 leaves for each wing. The size and amount of leaves will totally depend on the size of your doll. I layered them a bit off center and twisted the wire stems. I have the top three together, then two sets of two. Once I was happy with the way they looked I twisted the wires of the two wings together and hot glued it to the back of her shirt. 

I didn't realize that the tulle was leaving glitter everywhere. So I used Spray Mod Podge on it after I painted it. I stacked the seven tulle circles on top of each other. Then I folded them in half and cut a slit big enough for my doll to fit into. Once I slipped it onto her I played around with it a bit to get the skirt to fold how I liked and carefully spray painted just the skirt with Mod Podge Spray. My slit was a bit bigger than the doll so I had the sew a few stitches on either side. 

The kid, who owned my doll, used nail polish on her hands and feet. I thought the skirt would cover her feet, but it doesn't. 

Making ballet flat style shoes for BJDs from Lomi's Playground

Make Custom Fitted Shoes For Dolls from the Spruce Crafts

Marie-Anne