The Toy Soldier Challenge

Every since he fell in love with the Nutcracker, Jay has been obsessed with toy soldiers. Not the cheap-o green army men—the classic red-coated, rosy-cheeked kind. I’ve been on the lookout for a set of such soldiers for weeks, with no success. They are either sold individually and expensively on Ebay, or as Christmas ornaments, or in collector’s sets for hundreds of dollars. SO I got out of the box and re-thought the situation. Ding ding ding! Make them myself! Why didn’t that thought come along sooner? Now, we usually only buy our kids new toys for birthday or Christmas gifts (or for 28-hour car drives). But I make them toys all the time! It’s a creative outlet for me, and they usually love my… rustic hand-crafted things.

Of course you’re familiar with my first round of homemade prescription bottle toy soldiers. Jay has had a hankering for a nice solid ARMY. He’s good at making do with rows of square blocks, but I thought we could figure something else out.

This next batch of soldiers required a trip to Hobby Lobby. We picked up two bags of wooden “male doll” pieces and we were good to go. It was the fastest Hobby Lobby trip ever! We did stroll slowly down certain isles on our way to and from the wood-goods section, but still, it all took less than 15 minutes. It was tough.

When we got home, I unearthed my craft paint and turned the wooden shapes into soldiers.

For the faces, I used permanent markers.

It took a little more time than I anticipated, but 2 hours later, Jay was the proud owner of 16 wooden soldiers. I let Jay paint one of the guys, and he chose to do him in all blue. When he was done, I added the details. I think these guys look like those old Fisher-Price Little People.

I made them as cute as possible, because I don’t love all the shooting and fighting that goes along with toy soldiers. Somehow it makes me feel better if they are cute?

Success!