Pearls on a Pig: Lovey Dolls

A few weeks ago, the Monkey attended a Girl Scout event for World Thinking Day. One of the troop leaders organized a station to make Lovey Dolls. I was blown away by this station -- it was such a simple thing to do, and it is a wonderful way to give back to the community.

The purpose of a Lovey Doll is to provide a mother's scent to a baby that is in the NICU. The baby can't be with his/her mom right way, so this allows them to have a piece of her. Each package includes two dolls. The mother wears one doll for two days, and then places it with the baby. The mother then wears the second doll, and after two more days, the dolls are exchanged. The original is cleaned, and the process starts all over again.

I liked this idea so much, and I thought it would be something that the entire troop would like to do. It's fairly inexpensive, and I found cute fabric on clearance at the craft store ($3 and $4 for a yard). You don't have to be part of a troop to do this. This could be something you do with your family one evening.

Here's what you need to do:

Supplies:

1 yard of fabric – the softer, the better
Yarn or string
Fiber stuffing
Ziploc bag (quart size)
Lovey Doll instructions

Cute fabric -- and it doesn't have to be nursery themed

Step 1: Cut the fabric into 15” x 15” squares. I was able to get 10 squares from one yard of fabric.

Step 2: Cut the string or yarn into 12" pieces. I found that little hands work well with longer pieces of string. You can adjust the length to your liking.

Step 3: Take a handful of stuffing, and “ball” it in your fist. This ball will act at the doll’s head, so you want to try to make it round.

Step 4: With the stuffing still in your fist, please one fabric square on top of your fist, and push the stuffing up to form the head.

Step 5: Take the string, and tie it as tightly as you can towards the bottom of the head. You should end up with something that looks like a ghost.

Sorry for the side ways picture, but I think you can get the point.

Step 6: Place two of the dolls into a Ziploc bag. Include a set of the instructions in with the dolls, and close the bag. These are now ready to donate to your local hospital.

I found that the girls in my troop just love to help people, and they liked doing this activity because they knew they were helping babies. The Monkey enjoyed putting these together, and the lesson really hit home when I explained to her that this would have helped someone that she knew. This is my nephew Evan (he's really my cousin, but my family tree has a lot of crazy roots). He was born two months early, and spent a month in the hospital before he could go home with his parents. Once she could associate a face to the project, she was all over it.