My daughter reads the American Girl book series and enjoys learning about girls from different time periods. I’m glad the American Girl doll company emphasizes reading along with their line of dolls. You can see our other posts about American Girl books
here and
here. (Keep reading for the free printable reading incentive.)
The past few years they have branched out to include a craft line for girls. American Girl Crafts, by
EKSuccess brands, can be found at
Michael’s Crafts stores and
online.
My daughter has several boxes full of these crafts including stickers, scrapbook supplies, felt and wooden crafts that she can do all by herself. When I heard
House Party was looking for families to host an American Girl Crafts party I immediately signed up. (
Click here to see what parties they need hosts for next.) They sent a huge free party pack of crafts, including 12 scrapbooks and all the supplies, for my daughter and her friends to try out.
My Life Scrapbook, memento envelopes, 3-D stickers, puffy stickers, decorative tape strips, doll stickers, stamps and more.
GREAT GIFTS:
Below are some fun American Girl Crafts kits offered at Amazon. My daughter made the owl case and garland last year. She often gets these kits from Santa and the Easter Bunny and for birthdays. She loves to give them to her friends as gifts too. So many items are under $20. Take a look. I am an Amazon affiliate and receive a small portion of sales made through these links.
AMERICAN GIRL CRAFTS PARTY
The Scrap and Stuff book comes with a glue stick attached and was easy for the girls to glue their photos and embellishments onto.
The bubble puffy stickers were the most popular as the girls used them on the page to describe themselves.
There were so many crafts we had to use a ping pong table to spread out. It was perfect for our 13 girls. My daughter made American Girl Crafts flower mobiles in advance to hang from the canopy as decorations.
The girls were so focused on creating their books they they didn’t talk much while crafting so I put some music on to make it more festive and fill the void. They talked more as we snacked and had lunch. We had jelly beans and a gumball machine out while they crafted.
We ate lunch in our family diner and the girls all signed our graffiti wall. The girls were very chatty during that time.
Most of the girls brought a doll with them and they had a party on our front porch.
My daughter had the idea to make doll headbands as party favors for the dolls. She did the simple straight stitch sewing and flipped them right-side-out then I helped attach the elastic at the back. I used this easy pattern I found at
Pintrest Challenge.
She made 12 headbands. We found the red with silver-stars fabric on sale at Joann’s Fabric store. We had several star decorations, balloons and cookies and used the star from the American Girl brand as our décor theme.
My daughter has finished reading several American Girl books that she wanted to give away at the party. I love to recycle and pass on books so we stuck them in a wooden crate on our porch and told the girls to pick 2 books each to take home. They were so excited to look through the box.
We also found beautiful gift bags at Michael’s Crafts store in their dollar section. They fit the scrapbooks perfectly and their book favors and we split up the left-over scrapbook supplies for everyone to take home.
FREE PRINTABLE READING INCENTIVE DOLLars
My daughter loves getting American Girl books, crafts and doll items. The expense adds up so we have her earn these American Girl DOLLars I created. She can earn 1 “DOLLar” for every two chapter books she reads. You could also use these for chores or other incentives but I like having her earn them for reading. Then she can save them to buy American Girl items.
Just copy and paste into a document program and print as many as you need. I printed them on red paper. FREE for personal use only.
AMERICAN GIRL BOOKS
Here are a few American Girl Books to try out. I am an Amazon Affiliate and receive a small portion of the sale of books from this link. Check them out at the library first if you can. My daughter loves to have them lined up together on her shelf and re-reads them all the time. She also loves the DVD movies. Kit is her favorite, but she just saved up and bought Saige Paints the Sky last week.
She loves the classic American Girl Book Collection sets below. If you don’t want to spend a lot on a large doll, try the cute mini doll with book sets. The dolls are detailed and adorable.
And lately she’s been reading the newer line of American Girl books by Innerstar University that are “choose your own ending” style for middle grade girls.
Do you have a daughter who loves reading or American Girl brand? What books or items does she like most? How do you encourage your daughter to read more? Leave a comment below.
