Baby Bailey Baby Buggy Bumpers

Do you remember your first doll? Your favorite doll? Well, designer Lisa Kettell liked her childhood doll so much that it served as a model for the handmade, foam clay dollhead pieces she sells under the name Baby Bailey. I received one in my first design team kit, and I knew I had to make something with it.

If you know me, you know I like vintage ephemera. You probably also know that I'm somewhat intuitive. That is, one item suggests another, and another item suggests the next, and so on. So when I laid my hands on Baby Bailey, he told a story of a boy's childhood. I imagined a boy coming home from school, ditching his school work, and spending his time playing in his room or outside. Maybe he played cowboys and indians. Maybe rode an imaginary horse around the living room or yard.

I decided to make a wall hanging that such a boy might like. For my surface, I used the back cover of a vintage photo album. I then adhered a piece of Lisa Kittell's scrapbook paper. The paper has a worn leather look to it, and the script alphabet conjures practicing cursive. This led me to add a small square of brown lined paper, a wooden ruler, a piece of old book cover and its inside binding.

I looked through my stash to see what other sorts of doo-dads might suggest a boy's playthings, and I found an old broken metal horse. I adhered the horse with E6000. The horse suggested a western theme, so I looked through my old sheet music collection until I found "Night Herding Song," a cowboy's lull-a-bye. Keeping with the western theme, I added a chipboard star, to which I added a little bit of thread for the sake of authenticity.

While I knew that I wanted to work with Baby Bailey, it took me awhile to figure out how to make him stand out on my surface, which is a little more than a foot long. I painted an oval cardboard frame with Ranger crackle paint in copper. Behind the frame, I laid down a bit of tan scrapbook paper. Finally, I mounted Baby Bailey inside the frame and topped the frame with a watch face.

As finishing touches, I added big black snaps to the bottom of the wall hanging with E6000. Finally, I added the stencil B and the number 5, just to play on the primary school theme.

For more great ideas using Lisa Kettel products, visit her blog HERE and look for other fun projects by the design team.

Look for Baby Bailey Doll and other must-have supplies HERE.