Marisole Monday & Friends Archives • Page 7 of 33 • Paper Thin Personas

Meaghan’s Fantasy Gowns: Her Final Gown

May 28, 2020August 26, 2016

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First of all, Happy Friday to all!

This it the last of the fantasy dresses for paper dolls this week and it is actually one of my favorites. I’ll confess it wasn’t one of my favorites when I first designed it, but it has grown on me and now I’m sorta loving it. (That might be the teal talking. I have a deep affection for teal.)

Sometimes my fantasy sets come with a well formed world in my head and other times they are just a chance to play with a specific silhouette that interests me. This week’s series of garments certainly falls more into the “silhouette” that intrigues me category. It would be inaccurate to suggest that I started with a clear idea of the “world” and then created the dresses.

Never the less, seeing them all together as I get to do on Friday, some idea of the universe from which these dresses come can be formed.

Given the paper dolls delicate shoes, I think it is safe to say that she either rarely goes outdoors, it is the middle of summer or she is living in a place where foot protection isn’t needed. So, I think we are dealing with an urban enviorment. Hiking through the woods in those sandals? I do not think so.

All her dresses are long and most are quite flowy. While this is beautiful, it sure isn’t practical. I think therefore we can assume that she is wealthy enough to not be concerned with practicality.

So, in the end, I think we’re dealing with a princess or a noble woman in a society where she doesn’t have to worry about hurting her feet and can spend time practicing her flute. Not a bad life I don’t think for my paper doll.

A Fantasy Paper Doll & Her Gowns

So, my challenge to you is, what do you think of her life? What stories do you think this paper doll collection tells? Let me know in a comment and have a fantastic weekend!

Meaghan’s Fantasy Gowns: Her Third Paper Doll Gown

May 28, 2020August 25, 2016

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Clearly, this is not Accessory Thursday. This, “Hey it’s a dress” Thursday which, I will confess, does not roll so smoothly off the tongue.

I put the accessories, which were shoes, on Monday with the doll, because they were NOT very interchangeable among the various Marisole Monday & Friends. I am soliciting opinions about this decision in a poll below.

One way in which this week’s dresses have diverged from my other dress is that I didn’t have a specific color scheme in mind. I tried to stick to colors that all sorta went together, but I didn’t start out with a clear plan. Since I am spreading things out over a week, I don’t feel as beholden to a color scheme as I once did.

This paper doll gown is actually the design that inspired the whole set. In my head, the vest she wears has the long skirt attached to it and is made from a thick black velvet trimmed in gold braid. The berry pink fabric is a heavy cloth, but the cream fabric is softer.

Her circlet is made from soft leather with decorative beads. I intentionally made it longer on the sides, so that you can adjust it to the dolls head as needed to get a good fit. If you missed her, here’s the doll from Monday.

By the way, just out of curiosity, I have a poll about Accessory Thursday.

[poll id=”19″]

Tomorrow, there’s an elegant teal gown and, as usual, the round-up of the whole set of printable paper dolls for your ease of printing.

As always, I love to hear what people think in a comment.

Meaghan’s Fantasy Gowns: Her Second Paper Doll Dress

May 28, 2020August 24, 2016

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As I promised yesterday, today there’s some music to do with yesterday’s flute.

The process of designing fantasy paper doll dresses usually begins with a silhouette. For example, I wanted all these dresses to be high-waisted and very full at the hem making a distinct a-line shape. Each gown also has an “over-robe” and an “under-robe” creating a consistent look. This is part of what I think about each set. I’m really not designing “four dresses”, rather I’m designing a week of themed dresses, so I try to think about a connecting thread either with a time period (like I did for the Poppets of the 1860s) or a stylistic choice- like making all these similar in their silhouette.

I’m not suggesting for a micro-second that this is always easy, but I find I think better in themes, though once in a while, I am tempted to just do a random week of whatever occurs to me; however, I don’t know if that style would be sustainable for me for a long period. I like being organized, what can I say?

I blame it on the librarian in me.

The librarian in me is also why I like drawing books for my paper dolls so much. I tried something kinda new here in that I drew an open book, rather than my usual closed book. I know basically nothing about music, except how it was printed and that’s hardly much to use when one is trying to play it. I faked my “music notes” here just to give it something that clearly wasn’t text. I think this might be my first music book, so maybe the other paper dolls with instruments just play by ear?

If you missed Monday, here’s the paper doll to go with this dress, though it will fit all the Marisole Monday & Friend’s paper dolls, so there’s no reason not to share.

By the way, I am currently collecting people’s thoughts on the new format after six weeks. If you haven’t tossed in your two cents, please do in a comment. If you have already tossed in your two cents, feel free to toss them in again. I won’t mind.

Meaghan’s Fantasy Gowns: Her First Gown & Flute

May 28, 2020August 23, 2016

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I used to feel a little guilty about princess paper dolls. I love fairy tales, especially classics like The Twelve Dancing Princesses and East of Sun, West of the Moon. Yes, the whole commercial empire that is the Disney Princess phenomena made me uncomfortable. I wondered, and still do wonder, about the messaging little girls receive about femininity, relationships, and power.

On the other hand, I like drawing fantasy dresses. I enjoy them and I have been asked by little girls if I have any “princess” paper dolls. When they ask this, they aren’t really asking for the sociopolitical role that a princess play. Rather, they want a girly doll with pretty dresses. So, I’ve learned that sometimes it is important to categorize things as “princesses” for the ease of people looking for “fantasy gowns.”

That brings us to this week’s theme of fantasy gowns for Monday’s paper doll, one of the many versions of Maeghan. I have no idea if she is a princess or not, I leave that up to all of you too decide.

What I do know about her is that she is a musician, because with today’s printable fantasy gown we have a flute. I played the flute briefly in Middle School. I was not a very skilled flue player, but that’s neither here nor there. As it happens, I have no musical talents to speak of.

If you missed the paper doll, here she is, but I also think any of Marisole Monday & Friend’s girls- Marisole, Monica, Mia, Maeghan and Margot would look good in this paper doll dress. I particularly think this Mia paper doll with her red hair would look great in that dark periwinkle color.

Tomorrow, there will be another fantasy gown and a book of music, so that’s fun.

As always, I’d love to hear what you think in a comment. Currently, I’m soliciting opinions on the new format six weeks in.

Meaghan’s Fantasy Gowns: A Paper Doll & Her Shoes

May 28, 2020August 22, 2016

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This is the second Meaghan printable paper doll of 2016, which seems surprising to me, but I checked the archives and its true. When my real friend Meaghan allowed me to name a paper doll after her, she demanded fantasy dresses, so I do my best to provide them as often as I can for her paper surrogate.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the best ways to break up a paper doll across five days really are. Shoes are often an issue in paper doll creations, because skin is exposed. While any paper doll in the same pose can share dresses, only paper dolls with the same skintone can share shoes, especially shoes like these where even and exacto-knife couldn’t make some of these sandals work on my Edwardian Mia from the week before last, for example.

So, rather than start out with a paper doll and a dress this time, I am starting out with a paper doll and some fantasy sandals. There won’t be an accessory Thursday this week, instead each day there will be an accessory to go with the dress on display.

Also, I have a question for all my lovely readers, now that we’re five or six weeks into this new format, what do you all think? Please let me know in a comment.

Edwardian Mia: A Paper Doll Evening Gown

May 28, 2020August 12, 2016

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Somehow, it just seems fitting to wrap the week with a ballgown. I mean, everyone needs at least one ballgown. I struggled with finding an Edwardian era ballgown that I liked. Most of the ones I saw were just too lacy for my taste. Eventually, I came across one from the book Victorian and Edwardian Fashions from “La Mode Illustrée” published by Dover. As much as I love the internet, I do really like having a few good costume plate books around for reference, because they often give contextual information which is helpful. This particular ballgown was recommended for young matrons, which I assume means ladies who were just married.

I’ll confess right now that I don’t always get Victorian categorizations of age and/or class.

What I do know is that ballgowns were, short of court dress, the most formal gowns a woman would ever own. In fact, many women would wear their wedding gown after their wedding as a ballgown for the coming year. Can I just say that it makes WAY more sense to me to buy a gown you’re then going to wear to balls than to pay like 5,000 dollars for a dress you wear once?

That just seems insane.

And yes, these comments might come out of my odd fascination with “Say Yes to the Dress.”

Anyhow, back to paper dolls… Here’s the whole of this week’s set if you missed any of the pieces.

An Edwardian Paper Doll Wardrobe For Mia

So, in this new format, we have so far had five weeks of paper dolls ranging from Monica’s Neo-Victorian week to last week’s mermaids. I’ve been wondering what people might most like to see next. I have several sets “in progress” and I’m out of backlog (eep!), so this weekend I’ll be working on one of these sets. No promises I’ll get it done in time for Monday, but I am super curious what people might like to see next. 🙂

[poll id=”18″]

Note: I was a little surprised that “Mini-Maiden Little Red Riding Hood option” won by such a landslide, so I checked the voting logs. Seventeen votes came from the same IP address within the same time frame for that choice. Clearly, someone too the “vote early, vote often” mandate to heart, but since I noticed it, I have removed those votes from the system.

Edwardian Mia: Accessory Thursday

May 28, 2020August 11, 2016

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Accessories are tough. I always struggle to decide how many pieces is “enough” pieces. Part of learning to work in this new daily format has been about deciding, “How much makes up a post?”

Anyway, that’s all by way of saying, I might have gotten a little carried away on this one.

I have a lot of sources to site for this eclectic collection of pieces. The shoes in this accessory set come from two different sources. The white pair of shoes comes from Philadelphia Art Museum. The boots are from this advertisement from The NYPL Digital Library. Both pairs are from 1908, sticking them right at the end of the era I’m interested in. The purses come from this particular page from the 1902-1903 catalog of the Chas. A. Stevens & Bros out of Chicago. Her parasol was based on this one, sort of. I think the resemblance is a little spotty.

The hats come from a range of sources. The lavender and blue roses trimmed hat comes from this image from the NYPL Digital Gallery. Her furs and another hat come from this page from National Cloak & Suit Co‘s 1907 catalog. The truth is that hats of this era were very flamboyant. That makes them fun and challenging to draw.

If you like the blog, than consider supporting it on Patreon. None of this happens for free and every little bit helps keep things rolling along here.

Lastly, just because I’m super curious, what are your favorite paper doll accessories? Hats? Shoes? Books? Swords? What makes your experience more fun?

Also, I swear I did nothing but scan last night, so I am trying to decide what to work on this weekend. There’s a poll!

[poll id=”18″]

Edwardian Mia: A Printable Paper Doll’s Promenade Dress

May 28, 2020August 10, 2016

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Today’s printable paper doll dress is a promenade dress from 1908.

The gown is based on this illustration from an 1908 Macy’s Catalog. Macy’s was founded in about 1858 and had a thriving mail order business. Their catalogs are just a great source of information. I chose to not try to illustrate the stripes on the original dress fabric. I confess I am not too pleased with how the pleating on the skirt turned out. It should look much stiffer than it does, as taffeta is a very stiff fabric.

Oh well, no dress drawing is perfect.

In fact, a big reason I picked the Edwardian period was because I don’t have a lot of experience drawing these styles of dresses. One of the great challenges of this era is to capture the “pigeon breasted” look of the era. Bodices had a great deal of fullness in the front and then came into a narrow waist. This is actually a pretty challenging thing for me to illustrate in paper doll form.

Still, you get better at nothing unless you practice. So, this is me practicing.

While I chose lavender for today’s dress, the black and white version could be any color. The catalog describes this dress as a two-piece jumper model available in blue, red, green, brown or lavender. I think it would be stunning in red, too.

As always, I recommend printing from the PDF versions at the top of the post.

If you love the blog, than please consider supporting it on Patreon.

Hope everyone has a lovely Wednesday and remember: Accessory Thursday tomorrow!

One last little thing, I am trying to decide what to work on this weekend. I’m out of backlog and have a ton of stuff in process, so to help me focus I am asking my readers what they think.

[poll id=”18″]

Edwardian Mia: A Paper Doll’s 1908 Walking Suit

May 28, 2020August 9, 2016

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Today’s installment for Mia’s Edwardian Wardrobe is a walking suit. I figure every paper doll needs a good suit, just like every person needs one good suit.

Suits were very much in fashion for ladies at the turn of the 20th century. This one is a navy blue wool and trimmed in gold braid and grey velveteen.

Here’s the 1908 suit that today’s paper doll outfit is based on a page from this 1908 Macy’s catalog. Suits could be ordered in a variety of styles and in a variety of fabrics. The fabric selection dictated the cost of the suit- a more expensive tweed made for a more expensive suit than simple wool.

I’ll confess this is not a literal re-drawing of the source material. I ended up simplifying the suit a fair bit and I sorta designed my own hat based on some others from the era. Hats in this period got to be a bit much sometimes. In case, you’ve never made a hat like this, here are some instructions I wrote up a while ago.

If you missed the doll to go along with this paper wardrobe, here she is from Monday.

Also, as a friendly reminder, I have printing instructions here and you can find the black and white versions of the paper doll for coloring at the top of the post.

There, I think that’s all the housekeeping for the day.

Enjoy the paper doll! As always, I love to hear what you think. 🙂

Edwardian Mia: The Paper Doll and Her Underwear

May 28, 2020August 8, 2016

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I was trying to decide which of the Marisole Monday & Friend’s paper dolls would model this series of Edwardian dresses and I settled on Mia.

I was inspired to use her as the model when I found this wonderful photograph of an Asian woman, just called Alice, wearing a suit from probably the 1890s or early 1900s.

Today, Mia gets just a set of Edwardian underwear and, I confess, not even a complete set. Women in this era wore, in order, a chemise and drawers, or a combination, under a corset. Over the corset, she would have worn a corset cover and over that a petticoat. I decided to just show her corset cover and petticoat, thereby skipping a few layers. Seriously, ladies in this era wore a lot of underwear!

I based her underwear on this page from a catalog from 1902-1903. Her hair is the best I could do trying to draw a Gibson girl kinda bun like these. Drawing Gibson girl buns is clearly not my strength.

Though out the week I’ll be posting outfits for Mia and accessories on Thursday (as usual). I hope you all enjoy this little foray into the first decade of the 1900s.

By the way, if you love the blog, consider becoming a patron. It’s really appreciated.

So, my question for all of you is, what to you think of this week’s theme?

A Fantasy Paper Doll & Her Gowns

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An Edwardian Paper Doll Wardrobe For Mia

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