A Christmas Tree Dress for Barbie

The doll in this Internet-captured photograph is the doll that inspired my Christmas Tree Skirt Dress for Barbie Project. 

I saw the above photo during the 2019 holiday season and agreed with the member who posted it that it would be a great project for my doll group to complete in 2020. A few of us completed the project this year. We used our own creative methods to fashion a Christmas tree skirt dress for Barbie or another playscale-size doll. I made two. The dresses I made and how I made them are illustrated in this post.

Doll 1

For doll 1, I wrapped a piece of heavy 8-1/2 x 11-inch cardstock around the doll's waist to create the skirt. The cardstock was taped in place with packaging tape. The bottom of the cardstock was cut to the proper length to make the hem even. 

The cardstock was pressed against the doll's waist to create a tapered fit before the edge of the cardstock was taped in place.

I wrapped a decorative red Christmas ribbon around the doll's chest area to create a strapless bodice.

The bodice and the skirt base have been created. A gold braid cuff creates a neck choker for the doll.

Next, gold garland was glued to the cardstock to embellish the skirt as illustrated next. 

This doll now has a gold garland skirt -- the gold is more vibrant than my camera was able to capture.

The pink lip color was changed to red and a wired poinsettia-print ribbon was fashioned into a stylish headband.

Red glittery bows were attached in the front and back of the garland. Not shown in this photo, she also holds a red glittery giftbag ornament. 

Doll #2

I used a different technique that required more steps (some of which were unnecessary) to create a Christmas tree skirt dress for doll #2. 

I used a large liquid dish soap bottle as the form for this doll's skirt. The bottom was cut off where the red line is drawn on the above image.

The top of the bottle underneath the neck was also cut off using an X-Acto knife. Next, (and this is one of the unnecessary steps), I covered the bottle with wet green tissue paper, which was allowed to dry overnight. I did this because I did not want the bottle to show through the garland.

After the tissue paper dried, I inserted the doll temporarily.

I had already created an opening in the back of the bottle to accommodate the doll's hips. Here, I am squeezing the top portion which would later be taped to fit the doll's waist, but before the taping, I added a layer of Mod Podge to the tissue paper to seal it in place. Next, I created the bodice of the dress.

Similar to doll #1, I used ribbon to create the bodice of the dress. This time I used 1-inch wide gold glitter ribbon.

Several evolutions of the ribbon were wrapped around the doll's torso before the skirt of the dress was taped in place in the back.

A shimmery green pipe cleaner was wrapped around the doll's waist -- this is another step that could have been omitted.

The skirt was covered with Mod Podge again to use as glue for placement of the garland.

Green garland was wrapped around the Mod-Podge-covered skirt.

Alternately, red and green pom-poms were placed in the doll's hair that frames the face. Next, a string of red and gold Christmas bells was wrapped around the skirt of the dress.

Another pipe cleaner was wrapped around the top of the bodice and two green pom-poms were placed in the center of the bodice. Two strings of red battery-operated lights were wrapped around the skirt of the dress.



The battery compartments for the lights were taped to the sides of the skirt.

I repainted this doll's lips red; the light pink had to go!

This is her almost-final look. I thought the skirt still needed a little something-something...

So, like doll #1's skirt, I added bows; this doll's bows are glittery green.

The green bows add extra pizzaz!

One of the dolls has gone to live with another collector. As a result, I purchased a replacement and was surprised to find that Mattel is now using plastic zippered pouches for the Fashionista Barbies. These can be repurposed.

New Barbie Fashionista packaging

There is a zippered opening on the side of the pouch.

The pouches can be used later to store doll clothing and accessories. Because the pouch is see-through, you can see what's stored inside. Nice move, Mattel. I like this idea better than the cellophane boxes which require discarding by those who debox their dolls and that creates waste.

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