My daughter and princess dolls. My daughter and Frozen. My daughter and anything related to princesses. This is the story in this house. There was a time when Playdoh reigned, but since she turned three-and-a-half, Playdoh is only a tool to make food for princesses, or make princess crowns, or princess hair, etc. This mom is going a bit princess crazy! But when my daughter wanted to use Playdoh to create something for the princess in a slightly more creative way, I was all for it.
It started with these basic lumps. She was flattening and squishing them onto her doll in such a way that seemed almost like the Playdoh was a tool to smother plastic. I watched her, amused. I asked what she was doing and she looked at me as if to say ‘isn’t it obvious’? She was making clothes for the doll, she explained, with a sigh. Duh.
She managed to make some Playdoh stay on the doll’s top half, but the skirt was another struggle. She was trying desperately to attach a thick slab of green Playdoh to no avail.
Eventually, I suggested she cut it into “fabric” and my daughter’s eyes lit up like she had just discovered hidden treasure. She watched me cut the Playdoh into a rectangle as I explained to her that this is how clothing is made, in flat sections that then get sewn together in patterns. We created “pleats” with our fingers after we attached it to her waist and this made her even more excited.
What surprised me was my daughter’s insistence that the dress be two separate colors. She pointed to the orange Playdoh and so we made another square and attached it to the green. When the skirt was finished, she looked at me with a very adult expression that reads: “See? I told you so.”
And she was right. It was possible to make clothing out of Playdoh. Who knew? Elsa finally looks a little cooler out of her pale blue ice queen princess uniform. And this mom was happy to spend some constructive time with her little 4-year-old princess.
Photos: Courtesy of Ember Swift
