Creations by Readers

Masquerade Gowns! A Paper Doll Collaboration

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Happy Halloween All!

So, today I am pleased to share what Julie, Boots and I have been working on for the last few months together. Back in 2010, I organized our first Halloween paper doll collab. This year we thought it would be fun to do it again!

We did something different this time though. We asked our readers to participate. Now, I confess that I was wary of this idea.

What, I thought, if no one sends anything in?

Well, I should have had more faith in y’all, because we got some wonderful submissions both from other paper doll bloggers out there and from regular readers. A total number of gowns our lady ended with with was twenty-two. A wonderful wardrobe for any paper doll.

I should say thanks to everyone who sent in gowns. So, a huge thank you to A. Rockafellow, Lina of Lina’s Historical Paper Dolls, Isabel, Aged 9, Elizabeth of PrintablePaperDollClothes.com, Savannah A. and Missy A. Their gowns are in this download.

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Thank you as well too Ella, age 5, Anna, age 8, Laurel Stein, Alpharella Shagdal, Gena, Irma of Pabernukublogi, Melinda, and Melissa Smith of Miss Missy Paper Dolls who contributed paper doll as well.

After a little editing on my end to make sure everything was in the right scale for the doll, I am pleased to post my part of the Masquerade paper doll. The only changes I made to people’s submissions were to add tabs to those gowns that were sent in without them. We divided the submissions by name of contributor, but tried to keep sets that came in together as one set. That seemed the most “fair” way to cut up the dolls extensive wardrobe.

And of course, my set includes my gown above.

Download The Paper Doll Gowns Here

Now, if you want the doll herself, you’ll need to hop over to Paper Doll School for the doll and the first set of outfits. And then you can visit Boot’s wonderful new site Pop Culture Paper Dolls to round out your collection.

A huge thank you again to everyone who sent in dolls and to Julie and Boots. We should do this again sometime.

(But not for a while. I need to recover. 🙂 )

Until Monday, I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween!

Paper Doll Dresses Become Real Doll Clothes

Over the years, I’ve seen my paper dolls transformed into a lot of things, but rarely have I been so pleased as I was when I was emailed by Stephanie Tremel. A skilled seamtress, Stephanie has, with guidance from her daughter Kayley, transformed my Fairytale Maiden paper doll set and my Yellow Princess paper doll set into some beautiful doll clothes for 11 inch fashion dolls, like Barbie.

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As a child, I love playing with dolls and I still do love dolls- real dolls as well as my paper dolls. I remember my own mother and grandmother sewing dresses for my American Girl dolls and my Ginny dolls. While I am not by nature a keeper of momentos, I can not imagine ever getting rid of the handmade doll clothes I have from the women in my family. It is exciting for me to think that my designs could inspire a mother to sew such wonderful garments for her daughter’s dolls.

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Of all the things I have ever drawn, I couldn’t imagine trying to turn the Yellow Princess’ ruffled confection of a dress into a real piece of doll clothing. This pink and red version, colors selected by Stephanie’s daughter Kayley, is a beautiful interpretation of the dress.

Thank you Stephanie and Kayley Tremel for sharing your creativity with me and letting me share it with my readers.

By the way, if you want to color your own versions of Yellow Princess and Fairytale Maiden are both avaialbe in black and white or you can get my versions with Yellow Princess in mostly yellows and Fairytale Maiden in reds, blues and greens.

Showcase Update!

Wow, it has been forever since I have updated the Showcase. Sorry about that, but it just keeps getting pushed to the bottom of the ever growing To Do list. I feel bad about that, because I know people taking the time to send me their creations are being so kind and I love seeing them.

Anyway, let me show a few things which were sent to me recently. There’s a few more on the Showcase page from my more prolific readers.

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Florence, aged 9, from Bristol sent me this wonderful photo of her paper doll wearing a dress she colored.

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Jill C’s husband is a band director, so she colored the majorette set in the colors of his school for her daughter. What an inspiring idea, I think.

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Melinda has sent me so many wonderful versions of the paper dolls, I couldn’t put them all up here, but I wanted to share two of my favorites. These are Marisole paper dolls with outfits Melinda designed herself based on people she knew and activities she enjoys like Zumba.

This is really wonderful for me to see.

Why?

Because when I was kid, this is what I would do with my favorite store bought paper dolls. I would design them dresses and add them to the set. This is one of the magic things about paper dolls.

They can literally be anything you want, because all you need is a pencil and paper.

I am sure there are Showcase pieces that I missed in my first search through my email. I’ll do another one soon to try to catch anything I missed. Plus there will be another post this week about a really cool project one reader has been doing with the paper doll designs.

Edit: The Showcase no longer updates. Now, you can see creations by readers on my PTP Paper Doll Sightings Pinterest board devoted to just that. 🙂 Check it out!

Melissa Smith Colors Vivid Victoriana

Melissa Smith of Miss Missy Paper Dolls colored my Vivid Victoriana paper doll and did a lovely job. I’m always so flattered when people send me their colored in paper dolls. I have a few more paper dolls colored by other people to get up which I am going to try to do in the next few weeks.

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I love Melissa’s coloring style. It feels very painterly to me, which is something I very much admire in other people’s coloring styles.

You can see the original black and white version of Vivid Victorian and the full color version are on this site of course.

Meanwhile, there’s a drawing/constest open for a custome paper doll. Check it out and enter, if you like.

Pixies Stylishly Designed by Tamara Simon

So, one of my readers named Tamara Simon recently sent me photos of some fantastically stylish Pixie outfits that she designed. As a child, I liked to draw extra outfits for store bought paper doll sets, so seeing other people doing that with my own work makes me smile.

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I’ve chosen to highlight four sets that I particularly found charming. I love the colors and the patterns used, but check out the full set in the Showcase. There are more wonderful paper doll outfits there.

Melinda’s Leprechaun

I do have a plan for a St. Patrick’s Day paper doll, but it’s not a leprechaun. As many of you know, it can take me a long time to go from paper doll idea to actual paper doll (sometimes as long as a year), so I usually try to plan holiday paper dolls several months in advance.

However, I had some requests for a Margot leprechaun and one of my readers, named Melinda, decided to take things into her own hands and create one.

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I’d like everyone to meet the leprechaun by Melinda. Melinda is a sophmore at Seattle University and she decided we needed a leprechaun paper doll, so she took outfits from several different sets and created one of her own. I’ve added the leprechaun, along with another paper doll set colored by Melinda to the Showcase.

How cool is that?

So, I have a challenge for everyone else. Can anyone name all the sets these pieces come from? I’m embarrassed to admit that I got a few of them right off and then I had to search for one of them to make sure I was right.