Last month, No.2 Son was invited to his girlfriend’s birthday party (they’re both ten) so I had to come up with an appropriate gift idea – no mean feat when you’re used to buying for boys.

I don’t know about you, but the amount of parties The Boys get invited to means that you can end up spending a small fortune throughout the year in presents, even though I try to spend no more than £10 maximum per child.

£10 doesn’t buy much nowadays, unless you opt for the useful book token which, despite being a great gift which kids love to spend, is hard to get excited about when you open it. You never hear “WOW! It’s just what I’ve always wanted – thank you!”

So I had a little think and remembered that this little girl had recently been to America on holiday and had come back with a “Truly Me” American Girl doll.

Apparently, these dolls are a bit of a cult item in the USA with girls and women alike, and you can choose the skin, hair and eye colour to match your own.

With the doll itself costing $115 and each item of clothing costing upwards of $10, she, understandably, had a very limited wardrobe thus far.

So I decided to put aside a whole day and make some clothes for her.

With a bit of searching on the internet, I found several patterns suitable for an 18″ doll, and these are what I came up with.

Remember THAT hoodie I made earlier in the Summer? Well, I used some of the leftover fabric to make a sweatshirt for the doll with popper closures at the back.

I matched the sweatshirt with some purple elasticated jogging bottoms and that was one outfit completed.

Using the same T-shirt pattern as for the sweatshirt, I made a plain white Tee to which I added a ruffle to jazz it up a bit.

A velcro back was used this time.

The little lace-trimmed  A-line skirt took hardly any fabric at all and was whipped up in minutes, again with a velcro back fastening.

Next up was a simple dress which could be worn on its own or with the white ruffle tee as before.

I knew a ‘proper’ dress would be appreciated, so this next one took a little more effort, adding full lining and ric rac trim at the waist and hem.

I even inserted a back zip to make it more special.

Finally, one more top, this time in blue, and a coordinating elasticated straight skirt with side splits.

I can’t tell you quite how much fun I had making them all and, not only that, I worked out that, had similar outfits been purchased, the cost would have been upwards of £/$100!

And guess what? She said: –

“WOW! It’s just what I always wanted – thank you!”