A Throwdown + a Giveaway: "The Double Daring Book for Girls"

Pre-reader Puppy picks up a hardback book with shiny pink title glittering across a black cover. "D-A-R-I-N-G-I-R-L-S," he spells out. "Big Book of Fun. It says The Big Book of Fun, Mama!"

I can't think of a better description of The Double-Daring Book for Girls, Andrea Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz's follow-up to the very cool The Daring Book for Girls. It is just one big book of fun. Puppy and I have been having a great time paging through the zillion activities, bios of cool women, trivia and quirky lessons (tips on how to pee in the forest, anyone?).

The unstoppable Mel is throwing a book shower in the authors' honor and I jumped at the chance to join in. Since the Daring Books for Girls are all about playing, learning and doing, we've been asked to throw down a challenge to our readers based on a chapter from the book. Something a little more exciting than a typical book review.

Although tempted by How to Dye Your Hair Using Kool-Aid (p. 48), I decided on Worry Dolls (p. 167-8). The wee dolls are a Guatemalan tradition; you tell them your troubles before you go to bed and they do the worrying for you while you sleep. I've had a lot on my mind lately (haven't we all?) and Puppy was charmed by the thought of tiny dolls. So we sat down tonight after dinner to make some of our own.

To prove to you that even the un-crafty can make them, I photographed one of our dolls in progress. Pay attention, because you'll be making your own later. (Sorry about the quality of the photos--I apparently don't know how to use my camera. Maybe there should have been a chapter in the book about that?)

	Gather your supplies. I used: plastic twist ties (the kind that come with garbage bags), embroidery floss left over from other projects, pony beads, scissors, glue and a Sharpie.
	Make a body out of two twist ties--one vertical and one horizontal.
	Wrap embroidery floss around the twist tie body to make clothes.
	Add a bead head. Aw, look, your doll suddenly became adorable.
	Add hair through the loop at the top and you're done! Now to start downloading your worries to your new little friend...

Now it's your turn! I lucked out and won a copy of The Double-Daring Book for Girls right as the review copy was on its way. So I'm passing one along to you as a prize for this throwdown. Anyone can enter to win by leaving a comment on this post telling me something you would tell your worry doll--that's good for one entry. But everyone who plays along by making their own worry doll and posting a picture on their blog gets TEN entries (don't worry about leaving ten comments--leave one linking to your post and I'll throw your names in a spreadsheet or a hat or something). If you don't have a blog, describe your doll-making fest in a comment.

Here are the actual instructions from the book, in case my stellar how-to above wasn't enough (click to make bigger):

To sum up: Leaving a comment = one entry. Being a daring girl and joining in the fun = ten entries plus the satisfaction of making your very own worry doll. (Comments open until midnight PST on 6/1; winner will be chosen at random; open to U.S./Canadian residents, but if you're in Canada I may politely ask you to kick in a few bucks for postage as this sucker is heavy.) Can't wait to see what you come up with!

Congratulations to winner Brimful Curiosities!