Doll Size Salad

 

Watch the video here.

I know I have a green salad tutorial on my channel from a few years ago. However, since the materials that were used to make it are hard to find I have come up with what I think is a much better method. All the materials needed for the project today are easy to get all year round.

First lets talk about the paints I am using. I picked out 5 different colors of green craft paint. Any green will work as long as it doesn’t have a strong blue undertone. Look for ones that lean mostly toward the yellow end of green. Try to have some that are dark and some light and then some in between. We are making something like the “spring mix” bagged salad mixture. So if you need to just take a good look at a bag of salad next time you get a chance. I also have a bottle of a reddish color, mine today is called wine. I like to add some leaves to the salad that look like radicchio or red cabbage, or some other reddish leafy thing. It just makes the bowl of salad look more interesting. (also those are the salads I like to eat in real life so that’s what I make for the dolls too….)

We are using white tissue paper for our leaves, the kind that is sold near the wrapping paper in many stores.

No matter what type of surface you are working on protect it with something that wet paper won’t stick to. I am using waxed paper but parchment paper or even freezer paper (slick side up) would also work. The wet paper is going to be very fragile until it dries and it will want to stick to whatever is under it.

I like to tear the sheet of tissue paper into a piece that just fits on my work tile. Then using a wide paint brush give one side of the paper a coat of one of the colors of paint.

Since I am doing almost an entire sheet of tissue between the various colors I set up a drying area off to the side of my work area. This was simply a large cutting board covered in waxed paper. After I painted each piece of tissue paper I moved it and it’s bottle of paint over to the drying area. This way I was able to paint all the colors and have them drying. Do be sure to keep those bottles of paint with the pieces of paper because it makes it much easier to be sure you are adding the same color to the backside of the piece. And that is the next step. Once the first side dries turn the pieces over and paint the same color on the other side of the paper. Allow this to dry completely.

Once the paint dries I like to tear all the colors of tissue into doll “bite size” pieces. Don’t worry if some end up bigger this is just the first step in the process and you will have a couple more opportunities to make them the size you like. Do tear off any parts of the paper that are not painted and tear off the straight edges. You are aiming for torn leaf shapes.

Now we can add some shape to our leaves. Do this by crumpling up the torn pieces. You don’t want tight balls just kind of make fluffy balls with the pieces. If you come to any really large pieces you can tear them down more as you go.

This is the way that works best for me. I have tried doing both the tearing step and the crumpling step at the same time and I found it took me way longer to get done. If I do one step at a time it goes much quicker. Do it however works best for you.

Now for the fun part we are going to make our salads. First I am showing you how to make a big bowl of salad to set on the table. For this I found these bowls at Dollar Tree. They are over with the party supply dishes and they are pretty much the perfect size to serve salads and such things for the dolls. They come 6 to a package so we can have a lot of fun with these.

 

To make sure the salad doesn’t go all over we are going to be gluing it down into the bowl. This is the step that caused this video to be a week late. So I am going to show you how I am now doing this with the things I learned last week.

For attaching our salad I am using Mat Mod Podge (also available at the Dollar Tree so pick it up on the same trip when you get the bowls) The most important thing is DO NOT TRY TO RUSH THIS PROCESS!!! That was the big mistake I made and some of my Mod Podge was still wet a week later. The bowl I made this week is dry and ready to go.

Start by adding a very thin layer of Mod Podge to just the bottom of the bowl. Then carefully add a layer of the salad pieces. You want to cover the Mod Podge with just a thin layer of the paper. 

 

Then let the Mod Podge dry until it turns clear. I know it is tempting to keep adding more salad. Don’t! Just let it dry. If you keep going this might not ever dry. Trust me.

Once dry we can slowly add more layers of salad until the bowl is as fun as you want. You can also add some other veggies into the salad also if you wish. I know we have tutorials on the channel for things like carrots, celery, radishes, and tomatoes. There are probably more but those are the ones I am thinking of right this moment. Any of those could be tucked in amongst the salad greens so that they peek out and make the salad look even more real. Or you could bake off small pieces of clay in appropriate colors to add to give the idea that there are chopped veggies in the salad.

Next I wanted to be sure that you could have some individual servings of salad for the dolls. For those I start with a piece of scrap white card stock. I cut a rough oval (about 1 ¼” by ¾”) and glue as much of the salad as I feel looks right for the serving using the same Mod Podge as for the bowl.  Do be sure to work on a nonstick surface like wax paper or parchment. Allow to dry completely before adding it to your doll’s dinner plate along with some of the other foods we’ve made for the dolls to enjoy.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.