We have plenty of craft supplies (that may be an understatement!), and most plentiful of all seem to be pipe cleaners (a.k.a. chenille stems), beads, and yarn (oh my, the yarn!).  Thankfully, this project uses all three (plus anything else you’d like to throw in!)  This is the family we made, the dad is the turquoise one with beads for pants, I’m the tall one with pink legs and crazy skirt, and the children are ballerinas with hair long enough that you can really cut it !!!!! (emphasis is that of my six year old :)  [my apologies in advance for the awful pictures...hopefully you can make out enough to get the idea!]

Materials:

• yarn cut into 2″-10″ lengths (depending on how ‘cuttable’ you want their hair to be)
• a large bead for the head
• pipecleaner cut into approximately 3″ and 8″ pieces
• optional: felt scraps, silk flowers, pony beads, fabric scraps, glitter, etc.

Method:

Fold the longer pipecleaner in half and lay the yarn inside the fold.  Slip the large bead onto the loose ends of the pipecleaner and push it up tightly against the yarn.  Twist the pipecleaner a bit to keep the bead in place and form a neck, then put your short piece (arms!) in and keep twisting to make the rest of the body.  Leave the last couple of inches untwisted (legs!).

You can add all sorts of goodies to give the dolls personality.  We took silk flowers apart and slid the blossoms up to the waist as little skirts, or glued them on their head as little flower fairy hats.  We also cut little fringed skirts out of felt, and turned this little girl into a mermaid with a slip-on felt tail (two layers of felt glued around the edges to make a pouch for the legs to fit into).

More ideas with pipecleaners:

@Preschool Playbook: Add Cheerios to make a simple bird feeder

@Whimsy Love: Twist a few sparkly ones into the most awesome of tiaras

@Croqzine: A snippet of pipecleaner makes a ‘needle’ for a cute sewing card

@Just Tutes: Love these butterflies made from beads, pipecleaners, and (my favorite!) clothespins