Valentine’s Day in on Sunday and while I won’t be drawing a “new” paper doll for it this year, I wanted to share the Vantine’s Day paper dolls I’ve drawn for it in the past. Instead on Friday, we’re going Post-Apocolytpic and I think we can agree that after the end of Civilization, there will be no time for Valentine’s Day.
(This was not my cosmic plan, but life just worked out that way this year… I’ll try to make it up with other successful holiday paper dolls.)
So, I love drawing Valentine’s Day paper dolls, because I think it’s a wonderful excuse to draw hearts and make things cute and pink and over the top. I really really enjoy getting to play with my more girly-side when I draw these sorts of paper dolls.
Valentine’s Day Paper Dolls
Click on the image it will take you to the paper doll post where you can download and print a PNG or a PDF file
My favorite of all these paper dolls is Victoria, my nod to old 1900s Valentines, but don’t tell the others. I wouldn’t want to induce paper doll jealousy.
Obviously, the Poppets paper doll outfit for ‘Celebrate Valentine’s Day’ needs a paper doll to wear it, so here’s where you can find all the Poppets dolls.
Anyone have big plans for Valentine’s Day? (Mine involve a nice dinner at home and maybe some TV.)
Oh, Alice… How I adore you and have for many years. Today is Lewis Carroll’s Birthday and I thought I would honor it with a showcase of the Alice in Wonderland Paper Dolls which have appeared on the blog. (The actual title of the book is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, but it has been shorted so often that everyone seems to call it Alice in Wonderland.)
I still remember my Mother reading me and my sister Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland when we were children. I have an Alice paper doll set reprint from Ladies’ Home Journal that I keep framed on my wall. So, you might say, Alice and I have a long history together.
Alice paper dolls… well, I have drawn a few.
And chances are that I will draw more. There is something about Alice that I find myself returning to over again. It’s odd, actually, because are large amount of the humor in Alice is about Victorian educational practices that we are long removed from. Still, I think there is always a place for nonsense in childhood and adulthood.
Alice in Wonderland Paper Dolls
Click on the image it will take you to the paper doll post where you can download and print a PNG or a PDF file.Â
As a kid, my favorite paper dolls were historical paper dolls. I had everything from paper doll flappers to knights. I still tend towards historical paper dolls in my own collecting, especially those depicting an era that I don’t see very often.
So, for last post of 2015, I thought it would be fun to post a round-up of all the historical paper dolls on Paper Thin Personas from 2010 when I did my first historical paper doll (a teddy bear with regency fashions) until 2015.
As some of you may recall, one of my goals in 2015 was to create at least ten historical paper doll posts in 2015. I surpassed my goal.
I wanted to make paper doll sets representing periods of fashion history that I either didn’t know much about or that challenged me to draw things that I would normally shy away from, because they were intimidating- like the patterns of the Tudor era or the ruffles and pleats of the 18th century.
Mostly though, I wanted to a chance to dig back into my passion for historical dress research which I had let slip a little as I went through grad school. So, today I am going to share every historical paper doll on the blog organized by era of history.
Updated to add: If you want to see all of my historical paper dolls as of 2021, check out my Historical Paper Doll Gallery. There’s dozens more of these in there. 🙂
First things first: L’Shanah Tovah everyone. It’s going to be a great 5775, I’m sure. I made challah from scratch last night and I can’t wait to share it with my co-workers today. Rosh Hashanah competes with Purim as my favorite Jewish holiday.
Anyway…One of the big struggles I have is finding blogs that I really want to read and I want to come back to. Sure, I can find blogs at a moment, but rarely do I return over and over again. It’s too easy to get bored by either the content or the lack of good images. I have yet to find a really good compelling library blog, though I keep looking for one.
Clearly, I love paper dolls. (And you’re all thinking… Duh!) However, some of my favorite blogs are not actually paper doll blogs. Rather, I like these blogs because they are well written, have great photos and update fairly regularly.
My sister introduced me to this blog (Thanks, sis) and I love the recipes. Last night, I made this challah for Rosh Hashanah and my whole apartment smelled like fresh bread. Wonderful. Also, I desperately want to try out this pretzel recipe. Plus, even when I don’t want to make the recipe, I find the writing is completely charming.
I’ve been reading While She Naps for a lot longer than I have even owned a sewing machine. All the posts are well written and I particularly love how transparent Abby is about her business and her patterns are totally cute. I can’t wait to make one of these guys for a coworkers grandchild.
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned AICL before, but if I haven’t, I totally should. It’s a great blog about issues of depictions of Native American’s in children’s books from pictures books all the way up to chapter books. I don’t always agree with Debbie’s assessments, but I really value her thoughts on the subject. Though, if you have a favorite book with Native characters, than you can expect that it might get slammed here. (I will NEVER look at the Education of Little Tree the same way again.) 4. Wren*Feathers
I love dolls of all kinds and I really like the idea of sewing, even if I don’t always get to sewing. This fantastic blog offers dozens of free patterns for dolls of all different shapes and sizes. The photos are beautiful and the patterns are wonderful. I’ve made several of them myself and I can’t wait to make more.
Another doll blog (not shocking) comes from Emily at Toy Box Philosopher. I have never read such detailed and thoughtful reviews of toys in my life. Her critical assessments of new products, wonderful photography and open writing style means that I enjoy reading about things I could and would never buy (like this weird surprise birth cat toy that freaks me out a little).
So, those are a few of my regular blog reads. What do you guys read? Any suggestions for great blogs that I might have missed? What attracts you to a blog?
Man, looking for paper dolls in foreign languages is a total blast, plus I keep finding new and neat things. So another reader, let me know that lalki papierowe is the Polish term for paper dolls. Here’s a few of the paper dolls I found…
On the other hand, if you want your child to grow up to be a cleaning lady… here’s the paper doll for you. I can’t decide how I feel about this paper doll. She’s interesting, but I think about how hard the cleaning women who do the library work and I feel its a little disrespectful…
Of course, I haven’t read the entire Polish blog post, so there’s that.
One of my readers, Erin, reminded me that klippdocka is the word for paper doll in Swedish (since I did that post on PÃ¥klædningsdukker) and so that sent me scurrying off to image searches (I actually like Bing more than Google for this sort of thing) and I found a lot and got reminded about a blog I’d rather forgotten about, despite having it on my links page.
Anna’s Blog hasn’t been active in a few years, but since the archives are available, its worth checking out. Her paper dolls are beautifully rendered in pencils and markers, always full color and vibrant. Her main paper doll has incredible historical costumes (this is my favorite) and she has other beautiful paper doll sets as well. I can’t say enough nice things about her work, and I wish she was still blogging with us.
I have noticed a lot of vintage styling in these Swedish paper dolls. I think people associate paper dolls with the past more than the present, which is a pity I suppose. Online dress up games are very popular these days, but for me, as a child, the best thing about a paper doll was getting to draw my own costumes for them. I wonder if that are of the equation is missing, both with magnetic paper dolls and with the online kind.
Who knew looking for klippdocka would make my nostalgic? As always, enjoy the paper dolls.
I recently received a very kind email from a reader letting me know that pÃ¥klædningsdukker is Danish for paper doll. This, of course, caused a flurry of Google searching to track down paper dolls I might have missed around the web since many non-English sites never get indexed if you don’t know the right language keywords. (I’d insert a rant here about imperialism, the roman alphabet, the English language, and the internet, but really… I don’t think anyone cares…)
While I was searching Karen’s Blog came up often. I’ve linked to her blog on my Links page for a while, but for those of you who haven’t visited, I recommend her site very highly. Karen’s paper dolls are beautifully drawn in black and white or color and her stuffed animals and horses are some of my favorites.
Princess Razibor and her son I am also thinking from the fifties. The mild nudity (and I do mean mild) is interesting for me when I think about how nervous we are in the United States about any nudity at all.
A collection of mother and baby (or Nanny and baby) paper dolls, the different styles through time are quite illustrative of artistic movements. There’s more of the collection if you click on the left side bar links.
A cute paper doll named Liv (I think?), I couldn’t find the source site.
I hope everyone enjoys the paper dolls in Danish. I certainly had fun tracking them down and learning a word in a new language.
I tend to gather up links to paper dolls, so that once in a while I can post them like this. It’s both to show off the art of people I’ve never heard of before, but it’s also to embrace the intense diversity of these paper novelties. Some of these are printable and some are just photos, but all in all, I think it’s a fun listing.
So, I was pawing around Deviant Art again and came across some really neat paper dolls from a variety of artists. I try to only link one paper doll from each artist (usually my favorite), but you should check out their galleries. There are some really cool paper dolls on Deviant Art. I’ve done this twice before and the same disclaimer applies: Not everything here is totally safe for the kiddies. You’ve been warned.
Since February is African American History Month (Or Black History Month, depending where you are), I spent some time searching around the web for paper dolls free to print that showed the browner side of the human spectrum.
Here are 14 that I found in my hour of searching, though I suspect there are more out there. Frankly, I was a little saddened at the lack of ethnic diversity in the paper dolls I could find on the web.
If you’d like to read about the history of black paper dolls, Arabella Grayson has a massive collection and some wonderful articles on her website about them.
1. Patty Reed Designs has two beautiful African American paper dolls as PDF’s to print.
5. And more Dover, Halle Berry dressed up as Storm and Cat Woman from Bruce Patrick Jone’s paper doll book Action Stars Paper Dolls. I own this one, and I can’t say enough nice things about it. The art is fantastic and the text is hilarious.
7. Brenda from the Paper Doll Garden is an adult African American woman paper doll with 10 pages of beautiful clothing.
Also from the Paper Doll Garden, Brittany, Sandra, Kim and Addy are all from the Little Girls series along with a few other cute friends (my favorite is Mandy with her glasses).
8. Andy Swist has drawn a set of True Blood paper dolls which includes the wonderful Tara and Layfette, complete with his glittery speedo underwear.
10. Jackie Ormes is considered the first African American woman cartoonist. Along with the cartoon, she drew beautiful paper dolls illustrating a stylish well dressed African American woman named Torchy Brown. You can find Torchy paper dolls scattered around the web from sites like Marge8’s Paper doll blog and Token Black Girls. More information on Jackie Ormes can be found in the 2008 Paper Doll Convention blog.
12. Another newspaper paper doll, Siberia appeared in the comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter in 1942 as maid for the heiress Daphne Dimples, Brenda’s rival. Siberia had a boyfriend, Dusty Rose and both were shown in stylish clothing and accessories. I haven’t found a lot of Siberia paper dolls on the web, partly because I don’t think a lot were made. And newspaper paper dolls were rarely kept. Both of these Siberia paper dolls are from Paper Collector.
13. 19th Century Paper Dolls features the beautiful work of Boots whose complicated story line for the family from before, during and after the Civil War I can’t even begin to follow. However, her art is beautiful. She has one fully finished African American paper doll named Olivia whose available as a PDF to print and Sandy who isn’t yet a printable PDF.
14. Shannanigan on Deviant Art has Eloise a beautiful sexy witch paper doll. I love her art. Someday I hope to color my paper dolls with the same skill that she does hers (and hers are amazing). You can purchase her work on Paper Betties, her personal website.
