If you’ve been following my stories on Instagram you are well aware of my doll clothes obsession. I made my daughter and her baby doll matching outfits last Christmas as well as this summer and I had Way. Too. Much. Fun.

My daughter is really into playing with my hair (which is a very polite way of saying pulling it out) so I thought it was time to graduate to a more grown up dolly with long hair. I found an 18-inch doll (apparently she’s a Journey Girl) st our local second hand shop and decided I would give her a bit of a makeover.

When I bought her, I didn’t realize there was a massive rat’s nest of hair hiding at the nape of her neck or that she had apparently worn glasses at one time and that had been evidently cut out. I had to do some major conditioning, brushing, rinsing in boiling water (it’s a thing) and finally chopping, to make that poor doll’s hair look nice. The layers are still pretty choppy, but they look better than they did.

I didn’t have time to make matching clothes for my daughter this time, but I wanted to make a few things to replace the plaid mini skirt and fuscia bomber jacket it came with. The awesome thing about 18-inch dolls is that the internet is full of free patterns for their clothes. You can check out my Pinterest board if you’re interested in falling down this very fun rabbit hole.

Here’s what I made:

• Two t-shirts (grey and striped) using this Peek-a-boo patterns freebie
• Two pairs of leggings (pink and grey) with this pattern
• Blackwood lookalike cardigan in burgundy (I just added a bottom band to this pattern)
• Ugg-like slippers (burgundy) – I added a really tall cuff to the ballet slippers pattern

I used scraps from my clothes to make all of this, so of course she ended up looking like me. I am not joking when I say my daughter literally named her “mommy.”