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A New Modern Asian Poppet Paper Doll

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:The Lack of Asian Poppet Paper Dolls
A free printable paper doll with a dress and shoes from paperthinpersonas.com.

A free printable paper doll with a dress and shoes from paperthinpersonas.com.

There are 14 Poppets dolls that I have created over the course of the Poppets 4 year existence and only one of them is Asian. That seemed rather sad to me, so I decided to create a second Asian poppet paper doll. Sometimes, it is by noticing what I haven’t done lately that makes me realize, “Oh, I should do a ________________ I haven’t done a _________ in a while.”

(Like the pajamas last week were totally that.)

It also felt a little odd to only have on Asian Poppet paper doll when you consider that they are all based on Ball Jointed Dolls from Asia, which also rarely look Asian, now that I mention it. I’ve always wondered why… but I digress.

Today’s paper doll has the same skin-tone as Posey from 2014, so they can share shoes. Poor Posey hasn’t had any sandals for the last 3 years. You have to feel a little for her, you know?

I went back and forth a bit about clothing options before I settled on a simple knit dress. The dress went through about six different color combinations, I confess. For what is a pretty simple paper doll, this doll gave me some trouble.

Love her? Hate her? Wish they made that dress in your size? Let me know in a comment.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

Marisole Monday’s 1920s Party Dress In Teal

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: 1920s party dresses- Classic French Fashions of the Twenties, a book from Dover
A 1920s party dress based on a French design from 1929 for the Marisole Monday and friends paper doll series. One of hundreds of paper doll designs from paperthinpersonas.com.

A 1920s party dress based on a French design from 1929 for the Marisole Monday and friends paper doll series. One of hundreds of paper doll designs from paperthinpersonas.com.

So, sometimes I drew things and upload them and then I kinda forget they exist. This 1920s party dress was one of those things, I’m afraid. I finished it around the same time that I finished the 1920s golf outfit and then I completely forgot about it. I didn’t want to post it right after the gold outfit, I recall, because I wanted some variety.

I try to space out my paper doll posts. While I might get on a kick and draw several similar things, I know some readers come here for the historical stuff, some for the fantasy stuff, and some for the contemporary stuff. So, I try to make sure there’s something for everyone.

This week alone we’ve had Monday and Tuesday post apocalyptic paper dolls, Wednesday an Archivist paper doll and Thursday was a Lolita dress for a paper doll. And now, here we are on Friday (Happy Friday!) and there’s a 1920s party dress for a paper doll.

After looking through every 1920s fashion book I own, I retraced that the model I based this dress on came from this book, Classic French Fashions of the Twenties. The original dress was patterned, but I sort of decided that it was a lot of work to draw a pattern. There was no way that was going to happen.

Classic French Fashions of the Twenties is one of my favorite Dover fashion books. It is a reprint of all the plates from a French fashion catalog from 1929. Like most fashion catalogs of that era, it starts with casual day wear goes through evening wear and then ends with coats.

I have, at this point, built up a pretty solid backlog of content. So, my goal is to try to get the next few weeks scheduled quickly, so I can take a few days off to rest and recoup.

Plus, play with my cat whose frustration at my laptop consuming prime lap space is tangible.

Need a Marisole Monday & Friends Lady Paper Doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick One Out Here. 

A Princess or Hime Lolita Dress for the B&B Printable Paper Dolls

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Princess Lolita Or Hime Lolita Dresses

A printable paper doll Princess Lolita or Hime Lolita dress with thigh high socks from paperthinpersonas.com. Available in color or black and white for coloring.

A paper doll Princess Lolita outfit with thigh high socks from paperthinpersonas.com. Available in color or black and white for coloring.

Today’s paper doll dress is my first attempt at Hime Lolita or Princess Lolita, because a Patron asked for it and I believe in doing what my Patrons ask for. Princess or Hime Lolita dress is even more over the top than regular Lolita and is often accessorized with crowns, gloves, and that sort of thing.

I decided for my foray into Hime Lolita to keep it a bit sedate. A lot of the dresses designed for this style feel a bit 18th century to me, so I designed this dress to have the look with flounced sleeves and a false stomacher. I chose yellow for the roses, because I liked how it looked with the teal dress. I’ve always had an affection for yellow roses. I based today’s dress on this dress and this dress.

Like most street styles, Lolita is rife with nuance and narrow variation.

Nearly everything in the world is more complex than it seems on the surface. Years ago, I was good friends with a guy who worked in a record store, back when such things still existed.

He was a huge fan of metal music, so one day I confess that I knew very little about metal music and asked him to explain the genre to me. I discovered, to my surprise, dozens of sub-genres that I had never known existed. It was actually totally fascinating.

I feel the same way about Lolita fashion. I’ll probably never “get it” as much as an insider would, but I’m always up to the challenge of learning something new.

My question for all of you is, what do you love that has nuances in it that might surprise people?

For me, I can wax for hours about historical books. I love the tiny details. I realize most people don’t get super excited by goffered edges or booksellers stamps, but it makes me happy.

Need to get a Bodacious & Buxom paper doll to wear these fabulous clothes? Pick one out here.

Occupations: An Archivist Complete with Her Own Hollinger Box

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: An Archivist, Because it is One Half of my Job Title
An Archivist paper doll outfit coloring page from paperthinpersonas.com.
So, this months theme was super hard for me. We all agreed to the themes back when we started this collab paper doll project, but I’ll confess that I really really struggled with this one. I just don’t draw a lot of occupations paper dolls.

So, my first idea was to do like a Fire Fighter, but that would have taken a lot of research. So, would have that the other ideas that I had. Finally, in the interest of not doing research, I decided to draw what I know.

Therefore, I am pleased to present a paper doll Archivist.

Why an Archivist? Because I am one. See, super simple?

But wait, you maybe thinking, I thought you were a librarian! Actually, I am both.

(I do tend to have stronger Librarian tendencies than Archivist tendencies, but that’s neither here nor there.)

After drawing an outfit, I decided that she needed a classic Archivist accessory and what could be more fitting than the ubiquitous to archives Hollinger Metal edge document case?

One thing I was NOT going to do was give her a bun, so I went with a casual long layered style. I though I always keep my hair in a ponytail at work to both keep it out of my face and out of my collections.

So, check out Popculture and Paper Dolls, Miss. Missy and Paper Doll School for three other occupation inspired paper doll outfits.

Need a doll to wear this stylish outfit? Grab the Doll here. 

Shirou At the End of the World

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:  Post Apocalyptic Fashions and Such 

A post-apocalyptic printable paper doll guy with boots, pants and a shirt, plus tattoos and a canteen. One of hundreds of paper doll designs from paperthinperosnas.com.

A post-apocalyptic printable paper doll guy with boots, pants and a shirt, plus tattoos and a canteen. One of hundreds of paper doll coloring pages from paperthinperosnas.com.

One of the things I knew I wanted to do after adding Shirou and Teresa to the Sprites series was make sure that there were a few different versions of them for people to chose from, so this is the second Shirou paper doll.

It’s a much more rough and tumble option than his rather properly dressed counterpart from April, but that was part of the point. Variety is, after all, the spice of life. I did try out some wilder hair colors, but in the end I really liked the black hair with the black facial tattoo.

After all, it is critical to match your hair to your facial tattoo, don’t you know?

Meanwhile, his outfits are actually in some of the same shades as Willow’s outfits from yesterday. I wanted them to coordinate without being too matchy-matchy.

My favorite of today’s paper doll tattoos is the lace design around his ankle. To really see it, you’ll probably want to look at the larger version.

What do you think of today’s Sprite paper doll? Let me know in a comment. I always love to hear from you all.

Looking for something else for today’s Sprite paper doll to wear? Pick out some clothing here.

Willow in a Post Apocalyptic Wasteland

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:  Mad Max, The End of the World, Ext. 

A post-apocalyptic fashion printable paper doll with a green and teal dress, boots and tattoos. Free to print and play with from paperthinpersonas.com.

A post-apocalyptic fashion printable paper doll with a dress, boots and tattoos. Free to print, color, and play with from paperthinpersonas.com.

First of all, I’d like to wish a Happy (as Happy as a holiday about fallen servicemen and women can be) Memorial Day to all my Readers who are celebrating today.

I always think I’m going to do thematic posts for Holidays. I even go as far as to make a list and tell myself I totally got this.

And then inevitably, I forget or get distracted and it doesn’t happen. So, today’s printable paper doll has nothing to do with Memorial Day.

Instead, I recently re-watched Mad Max: Fury Road and that inspired a round of sketching for post-apocalyptic paper doll attire. So, today we have Willow in her world end get up.

I wanted her boots to be mismatched, but not so mismatched that they didn’t coordinate. Her dress was super hard and took about three different versions. I really wanted to contrast the soft folds of fabric with a heavy leather harness going over the top.

Her other accessories are some fingerless gloves, a machete and a canteen.

The doll herself is Willow, one of the first Sprites paper dolls. Her tattoos are, of course, original to this version. You’ll need to clip across her hair to make the tabs work, but there’s a dotted line to guide you.

I hope people are spending time today with their family and friends whether you get the holiday off or not.

Looking for something else for today’s Sprite paper doll to wear? Pick out some clothing here.

The Poppets As Little Red Riding Hood

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Little Red Riding Hood

A Little Red Riding Hood paper doll costume to print and play with. One of dozens of fairy tale paper doll designs from paperthinpersonas.com.

A Little Red Riding Hood paper doll costume to print, color, and play with. One of dozens of fairy tale paper doll designs from paperthinpersonas.com.

Today’s paper doll dress is part of the Poppet’s Fairy Tale and Nursery Rhyme Collection where I draw designs for different fairy tales. Today’s tale is Little Red Riding Hood. I knew from fairly early on that I would want to create a Little Red Riding Hood outfit. I don’t really feel like I need to recap Little Red Riding Hood, as it is a pretty well-known tale- girl goes into woods, girl meets wolf, girl gets eaten.

Depending on the version you read, that’s how it ends. Little girl and grandma devoured by wolf. In most modern tales, there is a friendly Woodcutter who saves the day, but in the early versions of the tale there was no Wood cutter.

The woods, in Little Red Riding Hood, are generally treated as a metaphor for growing up or recognizing a space where the rules of civilized society fail to function. The play Into the Woods takes this metaphor and really runs with it.

This is actually one of my favorite designs I’ve done so far for the Poppet’s Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes Poppet paper doll series. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to create a reference to the Woods in the story of Little Red Riding Hood.

So, I created this trim on the bottom of the hood to reflect the deep dark woods. Because of the shape of the hood, I designed floating tabs to be attached to the back of the hood to hold it onto the doll.

Her boots are a reddish brown leather and her dress is cream and inspired a little by the children’s illustrator Kate Greenaway.

Of course, you can see the other tales I’ve illustrated in the Fairy Tales and Nursery Rhymes Poppet paper doll series tag. If there’s one I haven’t done that you would like to see, let me know in a comment.

I hope everyone has a great Memorial Day weekend here in the United States.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Poppet Paper Doll Here.

A Rockabilly Inspired Paper Doll Coloring Page

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Delaney, a Paper Doll From 2014
A rockabilly inspired paper doll dress covered in skulls, flowers, hearts and stars, plus matching boots. One of hundreds of paper doll designs from paperthinpersonas.com.
After you’ve created as many paper dolls as I have, I find I sometimes “forget” that certain paper dolls exist until I am going through my own archives for some reason. Part of the fun of the Facebook page is picking out older paper dolls to post each month, because I get to go back and see things that I barely remember or that I remember and think happened a lot sooner than I recall.

So, one I stumbled across was my Pixie printable paper doll named Delaney. She was a sort of sweet and punky paper doll with a little but of a vintage edge.

Using those same themes, I created today’s outfit for the mini-maiden printable paper doll series.

I am not totally pleased with how the pattern came out on the dress, I think the spacing is pretty poorly done, but I liked the concept at least.

And I think her boots are super cute.

The whole thing feels very rockabilly to me, but perhaps not to everyone. I confess that’s a style that I sometimes don’t feel like I totally understand.

If you want to color this to match Delaney, then I would go with pale blues and pinks, but I also think a black and red scheme could be really pretty. It is totally up to you, which is, I suppose, the point of having black and white paper dolls.

And, as I announced yesterday, there’s a new paper doll coloring sheet for purchase in my Etsy store. Check it out, if you haven’t (and there’s a color version, too.)

Need a Mini-Maiden paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick a Mini-Maiden Paper Doll Here.

Ms. Mannequinn’s Paper Doll Dresses for Spring or Summer

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Summer Dresses
Two summer dresses for paper dolls, free to print and play with from paperthinpersonas.com.

A paper doll prom dress with a cropped top and full floral skirt. Free to print from paperthinpersonas.com.

A pair of super cute summer dresses for the Ms. Mannequin series paper dolls. I really wish I could sit here and wax philosophical about this set. I could talk about inspiration and such…

However, the truth is that I just decided that I wanted to draw a pair of spring/summer dresses. The blue dress is sorta meant to be chambray which is a fabric that looks like denim, but is really light weight. (It’s great for sewing doll jeans, FYI.)

Along with the dresses, this set has two purses. I sorta thought the blue purse could go with the yellow dress and the pink purse with the blue dress, but I encourage you to pick your own favorite.

Being that I live in the Deep South, the weather has been already very hot and very humid, even though it is just May. So, I think I maybe breaking out my maxi dresses early this year. I’m not much of a short dress person, but part of the fun of paper dolls is that they get to have wardrobes that maybe I wouldn’t want to have.

I mean, I’m not exactly in the business of wearing dresses like this work every day. Unless, of course, my work was being an evil sorceress in which case… I would totally wear that dress.

I digress.

What do you think of these two dresses? Your style? I personally love the yellow one best, but what do you think?

Also, there’s a new set of paper doll clothing in the Etsy store. Super cute summery outfits in color or in black and white for coloring. Check them out here.

Need a paper doll to wear today’s outfit? Pick out a Ms. Mannequin Paper Doll Here

The Bodacious and Buxom Girls Get Pajamas

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Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Sleepwear!
A pair of paper doll pajama's with sheep on them, plus a teddy bear and a cup of joe. Free to print in color or black and white.

A pair of paper doll pajama's with sheep on them, plus a teddy bear and a cup of joe. Free to print in color or black and white.

At the end of 2016, I asked all my Patrons for requests for 2017. A patron who chose to remain anonymous asked for pajamas and a teddy bear. Well, who was I to argue?

Plus, I’ve noticed that I have done very few sets of pajama’s over the years. I do have a nightgown tag where you can see the few nightgowns I have done. I probably should change that tag to something like sleepwear, since this isn’t a nightgown, but there you go.

In fact, now that I mention it, I think this might be the first pair of pajama’s I’ve ever drawn. Hmmm… I could go through the archives and try to prove that, but I’m not sure I feel like it.

I will confess that I think the sheep on these pajama’s look a little deformed, but then I’m not really a sheep expert.

Personally, I think her mug is full of coffee, but it could be hot chocolate or whatever other brown liquid you might like. I am super proud of the teddy bear. I think he’s darling. I don’t draw toys enough, because I struggle with them. There were three deformed teddy bear versions, before I ended up with one I thought was cute.

I went back and forth on the color scheme. I wanted something girly and kinda cute. So, I settled on lavender and aqua blue trimming.

What do you think of today’s pajamas? Cute? Strange? Would you wear them?

Need to get a Bodacious & Buxom paper doll to wear these fabulous clothes? Pick one out here.