Beast'sbelle's Bakery, Compliments of "My Froggy Stuff" :)

I've mentioned on this blog before how much I enjoy My Froggy Stuff's YouTube tutorials.  Every time I watch one of her videos, I get this overwhelming urge to go stock up on pony beads, buttons, craft foam, and card stock. ;)  

It's been a while since I've tried out one of her crafts, and I wanted to do something special with the girls this weekend.  I've been struck lately with how quickly the time is flying by with my children.  I'm ashamed to admit that so often I don't take the time to enjoy things with them like I should.  You'd think a mom with a doll blog would be great at playing with her children, but I'm not.  Things get busy, they love playing together or by themselves, and I don't often stop to just spend this precious time with them.  

So today, we decided to make doll bread, using THIS incredible tutorial.

We started with salt and flour dough:

Salt and Flour...

...with warm water added.

We made our doll culinary creations and baked them in the oven.

Then it was time to color them.  My Froggy Stuff suggested using eyeshadow from the dollar store.  We found this great palette of brown tones at our local Dollar Tree.  Using our fingers (Little Gal is graciously illustrating this for us in the above photo), ;) we rubbed the colors on our bread. 

Then they looked like this.

After coating them with a layer of clear nail polish (also from Dollar Tree)...

...they looked like this...

...and my fingers looked like this! ;)  (I also ended up with a headache from the nail polish fumes, so make sure you do this in a well-ventilated area...or perhaps don't be quite as ambitious as I was and make a little less bread.) ;)

We left our bread out to dry: 

And I got to work getting the eye shadow off of the kitchen table. ;)  Clorox wipes did the trick quite nicely. 

In the end, we had a lot to show for all our labor. :)  I made some fun treats for my 18" dolls.

Maggie thought the rolls looked delicious. :)

But she also liked the pretzels...

...and the breadsticks (although she thought this one was a little too small).  Oh, and I did manage to get all of that stuff off of my fingers...just not before this photo was taken. ;)

Maggie's bread basket.

I also made a few things for my Barbie-sized dolls.

Belle was glad that I included something for her and her family. :)

I have to say, I'm quite pleased with how this roll turned out.  I think it's my favorite thing I made today.

Belle's bread basket (a random flash picture). ;)

I wanted to give the girls a chance to showcase their creations as well, so I had each of them do their own set up, and then I took the pictures. :)  All of the food you see in the following pictures was made entirely by them. :)

Here is Middle Gal's Snow White doll with her goodies.

Middle Gal made this blueberry pie from the salt and flour dough.  She used a blue marker to color the berries.

Some of her other rolls and breads.

Little Gal's Cinderella with her goodies.

Cinderella was very excited about this ginormous pie.  She seems to be checking to see if Prince Charming is near.  He'd better show up quickly, or there might not be any pie left. ;)

Cinderella's bread basket. 

Oldest Gal's Josefina with her goodies.

Oldest Gal had the idea to put flour on Josefina's cheeks to make it look like she was in the process of baking the bread.

A few sweets.

 

A tasty breadstick.

Oldest Gal also made some Barbie-sized goodies, so I let her do another set up with her Disney dolls.  She had a very involved story figured out here.  Belle was going to run an errand, and Bill (her Prince doll), thought she was going out with her friends, so he got a hot dog and some pizza dough to make a pizza, but then Belle unexpectedly came back with goodies. :)

Belle with her things from her errand.

I love the cute little roll Oldest Gal made. :)

Bill with his hot dog and pizza dough.  There was one color in the eye shadow that was the perfect hot dog color! 

Yum!

We had a great time today.  It was involved, and I was pretty tired by the end of it.  My dirty dishes are still in my sink and I'm super behind on laundry, but I spent quality time with my girls today, and that's what's important. :)  

The thing I loved about this project was that it was great for all three girls.  The dough was simple to make and work with.  Each of the girls were able to come up with their own unique ideas as they made their food. The eye shadow was fun to apply and easy to clean up, and the girls learned a lot about shading and blending as they worked with it.  The project was simple enough that each of the girls ended up with pleasing results, but it was limitless enough for each of them to do things on their own level.  I loved watching their creativity come out in different ways, from Little Gal's bananas and blueberries (not captured in the photos), to Middle Gal's idea to use the darker eye shadow on the bottom of the bread to make it look more authentic (we all stole her idea after that!), to Oldest Gal's pizza dough, complete with plastic wrap, everyone brought something fun and unique to the table as we worked together.

So thanks, My Froggy Stuff, for providing a great day for me and my girls. :)  And if any of you moms out there are looking for a good weekend project to do with your kiddos, I would highly recommend this one. :)