Travis attends an art class where one of the free-play toys is a set of fabric swatches and wooden doll figures to dress up in different patterns. It’s a huge hit with kids in the class, so we recreated it at home!

Instead of fabric, I purchased a pad of decorative craft paper, in dozens of different patterns. For the dolls, we simply used wooden craft sticks!

If your child would like to, they can color in the craft sticks first with marker. I colored a few, but Travis decided he wanted the rest left plain.

He was way more into applying a layer of mod podge to the craft sticks, proudly squeezing a line of glue down the middle of each.

Another option is to brush on the mod podge with a foam brush, which we did a few times, too.

Then it was time to dress our dolls! I told Travis he could pick a shirt and skirt for each figure, and he loved selecting “fabric” patterns from the craft paper.

My plan was to cut rectangles out for him, but Travis insisted on cutting pieces himself.

And proudly glued them on.

As a result, we soon had very inventive fashion designs popping up. This one turned out to be the perfect shape for a skirt!

Then Travis layered two popsicle sticks together; I thought the resulting doll looked like she was wearing a kimono.

And we even had one wearing pants instead, when Travis made an accidental snip down the middle.

Once the glue dried, I markered in smiles, hair, and shoes on our dolls as the finishing touch.

Overall, I loved watching his creativity with this simple activity. Leftover craft paper soon turned into “leaves” around the apartment, so don’t let the inventiveness stop just because the dolls are done!