This week, I was looking through my bookshelves and came across a book which I loved to play with as a child, Annabel's House by Norman Messenger. I showed it to Roy and discovered that, although he had never seen anything like it, he loved it and was fascinated by the little dolls made of paper which went with it. I remembered that I had picked up a sheet of French paper dolls a while ago and showed it to Roy who immediately wanted to share it with you! He even made a version you can colour in as you would like.
Paper dolls have been around for pretty much as long as there has been paper and creative people to use it! For centuries people have made paper dolls themselves, cutting them out and playing with them until either they grew bored, or the doll fell apart - whichever came first! A 'real' doll was very expensive so often a paper version was a good option. There were even specially made paper dolls which were created to amuse wealthy adults. Although there is an advertisement for a paper doll with underwear, corsets and six complete outfits in a 1791 catalogue, the first mass produced paper dolls appeared in the 1800's, with the first being sold in London (England) in 1810 and then another sold in Boston (America) in 1812. By the 1820's sets of paper dolls were being made in Europe and sold throughout the western world. If you would like to learn more about paper dolls click here.
Paper Dolls
You Will Need:
- 1 Pattern Sheet - you could use the coloured one if you like, or colour your own with the white pieces
- Scissors
- Glue
- Thick cardboard or a paddlepop stick
- Pencils, textas, crayons etc
- Other decorations like glitter, sequins etc
Method:
- If you are colouring your own paper doll, use the pencils, textas or crayons to colour the pieces in as you like.
- Carefully cut around each piece of clothing, making sure to cut the little white tags out - these are used to attach your clothes to the girl.
- Cut out both pieces of the girl.
- Fold the panels at the bottom of the girl so these can be used to stand her up.
- Glue the body pieces of the girl together, so she is double sided. If you have used regular paper you might want to use a strip of cardboard or a paddlepop stick, placed in between the pieces, to make her stand upright.
- Fold the tags on the clothing, so they can be used to keep the clothing on the girl.
- For some of the dresses, use the tags to join the two pieces together. Make sure you don't glue the dress shut!
- Dress your paper doll in whichever clothing you like and play with her.
- You might like to try designing some of your own clothes for her!
You might like to try making some other paper dolls too! There are some free, printable patterns available on the internet. To find them click on one of the links below:
- For a jointed, Victorian paper doll click here
- For a whole range of paper doll clothes, and a few dolls too, visit Liana's Paper Doll Blog by clicking here. You will find everything from Hogwarts Robes to era costume! To find the three dolls to go with the dresses click here.
- For an 1880s advertising doll, click here
- For free paper dolls, many based on famous people, click here.
- For a whole family of paper dolls, click here
- For a 1919 set of two paper dolls (a boy with War uniforms and a girl with era costumes) click here
Roy and I would love to see what you create!