Shadow and Light 12: Paper Doll to Print

So, I’ve been a little lazy lately with getting things posted. Rather than going home to Alaska, I went to Arizona over the holidays. It’s a very dry place, Arizona. Full of cactus and other desert plants, but the landscape has a desolate arid sort of beauty to it and I’ve been enjoying watching rabbits (also known as mobile coyote food) hop around the backyard. Still, a part of me missed the cold wet forest of my homeland. But I am back in Illinois, land of the corn now, and since I don’t go back to work for a few days, I have devoted myself to working on the blog and paper dolls.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

I’m always looking for paper dollsPrintables 4 Kids is a pretty ad heavy site. I’m not a huge fan of most of these sloppily made ad heady websties aimed at children. I think they usually teach bad lessons about internet veracity (and there are plenty of good kids sites out there). But I’m a sucker for an interesting paper doll and this site has two I’ve found. First there is Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2 Printable Paper Doll Activity which allows you to print and dress up a Chihuahua, which always seemed a little mean to the Chihuahua to me. Princess Kate Printable Paper Doll is also available, though I think you have to go to the Disney site to find it.

What and where are other people’s well loved paper dolls?

Shadow & Light 11: Black and White Paper Doll

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

Today’s paper doll reminds me of Marlyn Monroe… a dark gothic Marlyin Monroe, I suppose. For those of you who want a far less gothic paper doll- something a little lighter, Lily & Thistle has this darling little girl printable paper doll with two dresses. There’s versions you can pay for as well, but the free version is enough for me. 🙂

I hope everyone is having a great holiday for this lovely time of the year. I’m visiting family, so things might be a little erratic around here. I’ve been thinking a lot about goals for next year for the blog- what I would like to improve and do better at and have more of. The list is long and expensive, but I have high hopes for things going well here in paper doll blog land.

New Free Printable Magnetic Paper Dolls for Hanukkah

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Four of the six free printable Flock paper dolls are shown above, posing on my refrigerator
So, this was supposed to go up yesterday, but life got busy with travel.

Still, better late than never we have a new set of printable magnetic paper dolls in time for last minute gift giving (four of them are pictured above- my printer decided it really really didn’t want to keep printing magnetic sheets after I got through these ones, so the other two are waiting). As you can see, they have taken over my freezer door. In response to suggestions from some readers, I made the new Flock magnetic paper dolls larger for smaller hands to easily handle. There’s nothing specifically Hanukkah about the design, but I thought mermaids were a fun and fairly universal.

Anyway, I just bought a tin for my Flock paper dolls at the dollar store during a round of last minute shopping, though due to their larger size I recommend either printing one out on regular printer paper to take with you for sizing purposes or bringing the printed magnetic doll with you. Yes, you might get some funny looks (I did), but its good to know the paper doll will fit. When I was out tin shopping, I found these framesless magnetic whiteboards from Micheals for less then five dollars a piece. They will free up my fridge for important family photos and reminders.

Now, if you want to do something a little more festive (and who doesn’t?), Make it and Love it has this wonderful tutorial making magnetic paper dolls and then using on a cookie sheet for a play surface. She even show how to make a cover for the cookie sheet with fabric. The idea of covering the cookie sheet with fabric is ingenious. For kids, a magnetic cookie sheet might be the best option- it’s got a ridge around the edge to hold the pieces in place and they could play with it on the floor.

Just remember, that not all cookies sheets, tins or white boards are magnetic and the stronger the magnetism, the easier and better the paper dolls work. One of the reasons I like printable magnetic sheets over stick on magnetic sheets is that they seem to be stronger magnets.

The Flock Magnetic Mermaid Paper Doll Set

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Our first Flock set consists of six dolls, six pairs of shoes, There is also a set of tails and a set of dresses for when the mermaids are on land and not in the ocean.

 

The Mermaid Set PDF Downloads

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Dove PDF Download Oriole PDF DownloadPhoebe PDF Download
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Robin PDF DownloadStarling PDF DownloadWren PDF Download
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Dresses PDF DownloadTails PDF Download

 

 

New Full Color Paper Doll Named Mara

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{Click Here for a PDF of the Paper Doll set to Print}{Click Here for a PNG of the Paper Doll set}

If this were a dating game show, I would describe Mara as a charming young woman with a love of flowers and long walks through the woods. Since this isn’t a dating game show, as far as I know, I think I’ll just stick with saying that Mara is a one page paper doll with a wardrobe of nine pieces that can be mix and matched to make up 18 different combinations.

In case you’re wondering how I got to that number, the calculation looks like this:

((Number of Tops * Number of Bottoms)+ Number of Dresses)*Number of Shoes= Outfit Combinations

It gets a little more complicated if you add in jackets and other layering pieces, but usually it works out well and, of course, it doesn’t consider things like how well the pieces match with each other. Yes, I might be a little OCD to have come up with a formula for calculating paper doll wardrobe options. (Only sort of math I can really imagine doing…)

Later or tomorrow, there will be something fun and new for the first day of Hanukkah (a holiday no one likes to try to spell) which starts tonight at Sunset.

Candy Coated Couture: Printable Paper Doll

I wanted to play around with bright colors and when I play with bright colors, I like to use a darker skintone on the paper doll. I think it looks lovely with the bright greens, blues, pinks, oranges and purples which make up this set. Colors inspired, I confess by those runt candies. Remember those? I loved Runts when I was a kid.

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

Candy Coated Couture’s skin tone is the same as Book Loving Princess, so they can share shoes- should you feel the need to give the princess some rocking multi-colored platforms. (Who doesn’t need rocking multi-colored platforms, I ask you?)

There probably won’t be a Dictionary Girls update this week, because I don’t have one ready and I’m traveling on Wednesday to visit family for the holidays, there will, however, be Shadow and Light up on Friday and a one-shot paper doll to make up for the lack of Dictionary Girls.

Edit (10/7/2013): I just posted this paper doll set in black and white, so if you want to color her- now you can!

Shadow & Light 10: Black and White Printable Paper Doll

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

Today, I had my last finals and my paper due. Classes for the last semester are officially over and I am extremely happy. If you haven’t spent time on Teri’s Paper Doll Scans, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a wonderful collection of paper dolls.

African Inspired Elf: Paper Doll Coloring Page

So, this is a pretty darn old paper doll. Originally inspired when I did my Marisole Inspired by Africa paper doll, I just recently got around to finishing up cleaning her up and getting her posted.

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{Click Here for a PDF of the three page paper doll set to Print}

I’ve been having some requests for more black and white paper dolls lately. This paper doll was inspired by African Fashion Week along with the idea of doing a set of elves based on something other than the traditional Western Europe approach.

Of course, I never got around to drawing any of the other ones, so we’ve got one elf here. She might be a trifle lonely, but if you print out several of her and color each of them a little different she can have friends… or clones. Clones are like friends.

One of my goals in posting this paper was to respond to those people who’ve requested more black and white paper dolls to color. So here is one- print her, color her and have fun.

Pencil Skirts and Other P Things: Paper Doll Clothes

First things first- These are not historically accurate.

Now, I must say I do love skirts. I’m beginning to learn how much I love them in the last few months. I’ve started wearing them a lot more and I am really enjoying it. Pencil skirts are wonderful, because they are simple and easy and go with everything. Of course, I don’t own a crazy purple one (though I did really want a green tweed one until it was pointed out that it went with nothing else I own).

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series} {Click Here for the Dolls to Dress}

As with all of the Dictionary Girls paper dolls, the color of the stand should match up with the paper doll whose skin tone will match the shows and the color of the tabs match the hair to the doll they are intended for. The hair styles are more interchangeable than the shoes, due to that pesky skin tone problem.

These shoes and wigs are intended for Alyssa and Chiharu . I still feel like they need a larger wardrobe before I begin to make more dolls- though I would like to make a brunette with blue eyes soon, but that will have to wait until finals are over- so sometime next week.

Folkloric Fairytale: Fantasy Printable Paper Doll

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a PNG to Print} {Click Here for the rest of this series}

Today’s Marisole is brought to you by the illustrations of Ivan Bilibin and Russian fairy tales and this random blog post I found of some fairy tale fashions from 2009. Also, the letter F.

I’ve also posted three new pages of clothing for the magnetic Marisole paper dolls. One is a page of fantasy clothing and the other two are historical sets of clothing. I will be posting a new magnetic paper doll set later this week which should be exciting. 🙂 If anyone wants to print out the magnetic paper dolls, this is a great time of the year to find cheap tins all over the place. I’ve seen them at Walgreens and the Dollar Store.

Constance: Paper Doll to Print

I would like everyone to meet Constance. Isn’t she cute? She’s the best friend of Prudence, I decided after I finished coloring her, though she has a less vintage inspired style. Her trousers came out a less perfect color of camel then I thought they would, but her shoes are totally cute and I love her freckles. (I blame my love of both freckles and red hair to reading Anne of Green Gables at a young and impressionable age.)

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{Click Here for a PDF to Print} {Click Here for a 150 dpi PNG to Print} {Click Here for The Rest of this Series}

A woman I used to work with was named Constance, though everyone called her Connie. I have an odd soft spot for virtue names like Constance or Prudence or Faith or Grace, though I am less a fan of a few of the odder ones which were common back when the Puritans were naming their children. Naming your child Temperance is one thing, but calling them Condolence just seems odd (and that’s not even getting into some of the odder names which hung around when the Puritans were naming things). Still, I suppose that’s easy for me to say since I’m not naming a child in 1615 or something.

On a totally unrelated note (because segues are for other people), I have just recoded the entire gallery page and have folded it into the indexes and now there is a Printable Paper Doll Index page which links to all the printable series and individual dolls. If you click on the image on the page it will take to to either the blog post devoted to the paper doll or to a separate page with the PDF’s and PNG’s to print on it. I’d love to hear what people think of the change.