February Paper Dolls: Celebrate the Violet with the Cuties

Download the Paper Doll PDF | Download the Paper Doll Clothing PDF | More Cuties Paper Dolls & Clothing

Last year, I took on a slightly wild project: drawing 100 days of paper dolls. And part of that was drawing a dress and suit for each of the 12 months, focusing on flowers of the month. This is February’s version celebrating the violet.

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the violet is one of February’s birth flowers (along with the primrose, but the violet won my heart). In the Victorian language of flowers (floriography, as it is known) violets symbolized modesty, faithfulness, and devotion. They’re small, low-growing flowers, the kind you have to bend down to notice. I like that for February. It’s a month that often feels hushed.

My grandmother grew African violets competitively, but these are wild violets.

This post continues the Cutie Series, my ongoing paper doll project designed to be easy to color (especially for kids), with simple lines and open spaces. This year (2026!), I’m sharing the flower-inspired designs here on the blog one month at a time.

As I said, this project began as a 100-day challenge on Patreon in 2025, and Patreon is still a place where I tested ideas. In fact, I am currently doing a different 100-day challenge involving sewing patterns! It’s been super fun and I’ll be sharing it over on Patreon.

Happy Valentine’s Day 2026

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

Happy Valentine’s Day! Valentine’s Day paper dolls and I have a long history together. So, if this printable Valentine paper doll one doesn’t bring you joy well.. I have quite a few others. I’m sure there’s something there you’ll enjoy.

When I was little, my grandmother would mail my sister and me Valentine’s cards which were often paper dolls. You can’t really find greeting card paper dolls anymore (a fact that makes me very sad, but, oh well…) When I was a kid, each one felt like a small treasure. So now, most years, I draw a Valentine’s Day paper doll in her honor. I try to remember to pop something in the mail for my niece and nephew each year, because of how much I enjoyed getting those cards.

A few notes: I decided on a pink and teal color scheme for this year’s printable Valentine paper doll, which is pretty common for me. I really like teal and pink (two of my favorite colors) and so I wanted to see them together. I went more teal than pink with this time. Not for any real reason, it just sort of happened. The puff sleeved bodice can go over the gown with open shoulders and a heart shape on the bodice. Also, in my head, that gown is the evening dress and the other gown is a day dress. Or maybe one is a summer dress and the other a winter dress, since the longer sleeves are warmer.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Valentine’s Day today. And if not wonderful, may it at least pass without incident and deliver you into tomorrow’s promised land of half-price chocolate and discounted roses. Truly, February 15th is the unsung hero of the season. (If you’re a rose enthusiast, this is your moment.) I’ll confess, though: my heart belongs to peonies. But love is personal, so choose your own floral adventure.

And in the spirit of Valentine’s Day honesty: while these paper dolls are free to enjoy, they’re lovingly supported by my Patreon community. people who choose to contribute a little each month. Want a bit more Valentine magic? A second version of this doll (in purple and pink) and behind-the-scenes sketches are waiting for my supporting patrons.

Wishing you a day that’s as sweet as these little dolls!

Briars and Blooms: An 18th-century Inspired Paper Doll in the Garden

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

For this fantasy 18th-century inspired paper doll download, I’ve been dipping my toes into 18th-century fashion, drawing inspiration from structured stays, flowing overskirts, folkloric motifs, and romance of gardening. I really wanted to include a watering can. Little details like that help ground the fantasy and give the paper doll a sense of theme with her seed packets and her gardening journal. As a child, I had a Madame Alexander 2002 catalog and I remember falling in love with the Cissy Pompadour doll and well, my love of roccoco 18th century gardening was born.

When I first sketched this idea, it was the height of summer. Now it’s –30 outside and any real-world gardening is firmly on hold, but this little historical fantasy exists in its own warm season, blissfully unaware of the cold.

After finishing all the inking, I dove into the coloring phase, which turned out to be both a challenge and a delight. I spent some time wrestling with the palette, At first, some of the base tones felt out of sync, making the overall look a bit clashy rather than cohesive.

What finally unlocked it was a simple but reliable trick: laying down a very nearly transparent wash, just a hint of grey, brown, or blue, over the whole piece. That helps pull disparate colors into the same tonal family, softening harsh contrasts and giving everything a shared atmosphere. It’s an old trick and it works well.

One of my favorite details to work on was the paper doll’s absurd 18th-century inspired hair, which became especially satisfying to refine once the colors were working together instead of fighting each other. Her hair color changed about six times, but in the end I though a soft honey blond was a contrast to the very bright color scheme.

If you enjoy printable paper dolls inspired by historical fashion and garden fantasy, you may also like exploring my other 18th-century inspired paper doll download options, including designs that focus on period underpinnings, layered dresses, and seasonal themes. I love revisiting historical silhouettes through fantasy designs inspired by the era, but I’ve also done some historical 18th century sets as well. Please don’t ask me to pick a favorite, I know I couldn’t.

I shared some of the messy middle stages of this printable paper doll over on Patreon for my Patrons, including sketches, color experiments, and behind-the-scenes process images. If you enjoy seeing how these historical fantasy paper dolls come together, you can check that out here. One of my goals for 2026 is to share more of my WIP for my Patrons.

Introducing the Cutie Series: January’s Flower the Carnation

Download the Paper Dolls PDF | Download the Clothing PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Cuties Series

Last year, I took on a slightly wild project: drawing 100 days of paper dolls. Once I started drawing 100 outfits for paper dolls, I needed ideas. So, I drew outfits inspired by birth month flowers, since it seemed like a fun thing to do.

This post kicks off the Cutie Series, an ongoing paper doll project with several different sets planned over time. The Cuties are designed to be easy to color (especially for kids). I’ll say more about that approach in a future post.

This year (2026!), I’ll be sharing the flower-inspired designs here on the blog one month at a time, starting in January with the carnation. So, if you need January coloring activities for kids, these two pages hopefully will be some fun.

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, the Carnation is the birth flower of the month for January. In the Victorian language of flowers (floriography, if we’re being formal), carnations symbolized fascination, though color mattered: yellow meant disdain, red meant passionate love, and so on. Carnations are also the state flower of Ohio, a random fact I stumbled across in my carnation research.

January’s bird of the month is the owl, which is why it appears in the second outfit. I originally planned to use birds of the month throughout this subseries, but birds, it turns out, refuse to be neatly categorized. There are so many different lists of them. I quickly gave up. Still, an owl, long associated with Athena and therefore wisdom, feels like a good way to start the year.

This project began as a 100-day challenge on Patreon in 2025, and Patreon is still where I test ideas, share early drafts, and quietly see what works for me. If that part of the creative process appeals to you, you’re very welcome to join me there. It’s a nice little community.

Enchanted Realm: Fantasy Ensemble Eclectica Paper Doll

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

Meet a diminutive paper doll with fantasy dresses, poised for adventure, literary excursions, and the occasional (but undeniably dramatic) sword duel. In truth, any visit to the library carries a nontrivial risk of armed theatrics with sword, or at least it should. You may take my word for it. I am, after all, a librarian.

This particular paper doll with fantasy dresses was inspired by two outfits I sketched many years ago for an entirely different doll. When my imagination feels sluggish, I like to rummage through my old work and borrow from my past self. It’s a bit like time travel, only with (hopefully) better line work. Anyway, this is one of the dresses and this is the other dress.

Her overall mood carries a whisper of The Lord of the Rings, mixed with a dash of Victorian-era medieval romance. You know, the sort of world where everyone looks fancy and has surprisingly straight teeth and no one leaves the castle without a sword or a book. Whenever I get stuck designing fantasy accessories, I default to “books and swords,” which feels deeply on-brand. Someday I may diversify my repertoire to include goblets or apothecary vessels of dubious origin, but today is not that day.

May her paper skirts swish gracefully across your imagination.

If you enjoy these little paper worlds and want to support the drawings behind them, you’re always welcome on my Patreon, where I share behind-the-scenes sketches, extra paper doll downloads, and the occasional overly enthusiastic ramble about various creative things.

Bianca Boo’s Frightful Frocks: Moth Queen

Printable paper doll outfit titled “Bianca Boo’s Frightful Frocks: Moth Queen.” The sheet features a blonde wig, a blue and purple dress decorated with gold stars and a crescent moon, and a moth-shaped crown with dangling stars and moons. Spiderweb borders frame the design, along with the poem: “Bianco Boo in a frock so bright / Dancing and twirling through the night / With wings unfurled in golden gloss, / She crowned herself the queen of moths.” The text “Happy Halloween 2025” appears on the right.

Download Page 3: Bianca Boo Moth Queen | The Bianca Boo Collection

Today’s Fright Frock for Bianca Boo, my Halloween printable paper doll project with Julie Matthews, is a “Moth Queen” themed gown. So, of course, I needed a dress and a crown and a wig, because Bianca’s hair has to match the rest of her style. When Julie and I first brainstormed this Halloween paper doll project, we started with a list of thirteen ideas and narrowed it down to our favorites. Today’s design, The Moth Queen, isn’t a costume exactly, it is more of an “inspired by” outfit. I admit that I first thought of a more “fairy” feeling sort of dress, but that felt cliche, so I turned to other ideas.

Lolita fashion has always fascinated me. Originating from Japanese street fashion, Lolita draws inspiration from Victorian and Rococo clothing, creating that signature modest, doll-like silhouette full of lace, bows, and ruffles. What I find endlessly inspiring about the style is that outfits are organized into coordinates around themes, so everything matches from the purse to the dress. I think that’s very rich fodder for paper dolls, myself. For today’s Moth Queen themed paper doll outfit, I was inspired by Qi Lolita fashion, a substyle that mixes the frilly sweetness of Lolita with traditional Chinese clothing details.

Moths seem to be having a real moment right now. I’m not sure why, but then again, I rarely understand fashion trends, and that’s never stopped me from drawing them anyway. Personally, I like to think of moths as butterflies for autumn. They are a little moodier and perfect for spooky season (which is apparently what the internet is calling ‘fall’ these days).

As with the rest of Bianca Boo’s Frightful Frocks, I’ve been pairing each outfit with a short, whimsical poem. I don’t usually write formal verse, but I’ve been having so much fun experimenting with these little rhymes. Here’s the poem for today’s dress:

Bianco Boo in a frock so bright,
Dancing and twirling through the night,
With wings unfurled in golden gloss,
She crowned herself the queen of moths.

If you’d like to add The Moth Queen to your collection, you can download the printable paper doll outfit above. And if you missed the earlier designs in this Halloween series, be sure to check out the rest of Bianca Boo’s Frightful Frocks. Each one comes with its own little verse to celebrate the spooky season. Also, be sure to check out Julie Matthew’s Paper Doll School where she’s also creating outfits for these themes.

Bianca Boo’s Frightful Frocks: Vampire Aristocrat

Download Page 3: Bianca Boo Vampire Aristocrat | The Bianca Boo Collection

Today’s Halloween paper doll dress theme is “Vampire Aristocrat.”

You might wonder, what exactly makes a vampire an aristocrat?

If we’re being literary about it, Dracula can be read as an exploration of how the powerful exploit the powerless: noble men with titles preying on young women without them, a subtle class critique of late Victorian England.

Or, more likely, I just thought it sounded cool.

Speaking of cool, did you see Julie Matthews’ “Poison Bottle” dress? It’s stunning. And really creative.

Every so often, I find myself feeling lucky to have a friend like Julie. She’s someone I can text and say, “Look at the reflection I did on the gems! I’m so proud,” and she completely understands. She also understands digital art far better than I do, which is another blessing. It’s invaluable to have creative friends who are more skilled in areas you want to grow in. Very handy.

Julie mentioned she’s challenging herself to use as little black as possible in the Frightful Frock Halloween project we’re both doing. I really admire that kind of artistic restraint. I didn’t set out with the same rule, but now that I think about it, there isn’t much black in my own designs either. Not intentionally; it just didn’t happen. Art is like that.

Here’s the poem that goes with my Vampire Aristocrat dress:

Bianca Boo, her fangs so bright
Glides through shadows, pale as light.
With velvet grace and eyes that gleam,
Her fancy frock a monster’s dream.

I tried to work the word vampire into the poem, but it’s not the easiest term to rhyme elegantly. It’s also three syllables which makes meter a little rough with it. I could go on… I admit formal verse isn’t really my thing, but I love nonsense verse and light verse.

I wasn’t sure this dress really said “vampire” after I finished it. For testing purposes, I turned to my ever-patient husband. I showed him the design and asked, “Okay, what’s the theme?”
He looked at it for a moment and said, “Vampire?”
Success! The message came through.

That’s exactly what I was hoping for: something elegant and just a little eerie, leaning fully into the creepy-cute aesthetic that makes Halloween design so much fun.

Meet Bianca Boo my Halloween Printable Paper Doll for 2025

Download Page 1: Bianca Boo Doll | Download Page 2: Poison Bottle | The Bianca Boo Collection

Like I’ve done many Octobers before, I’m teaming up with Julie Matthews over at Paper Doll School for a fun little joint art project between our two sites: Paper Thin Personas (mine) and Paper Doll School (hers). We’re each making different paper dolls that play around with the same spooky themes: Poison Bottles, Vampire Aristocrat, Moth Queen, Bats, Fortune Teller, Pumpkins, and Ghosts. It’s our shared paper doll adventure for the season! That said, this October has been kind of a whirlwind (lots of panicked emails back and forth), so we’ll see if we actually manage to pull it off this year. Fingers crossed! I know we’re both excited, but also life gets rough.

So with that context, Happy Halloween everyone! Meet Bianca Boo!

Not only do I have a Halloween printable paper doll, I have a poem for my Halloween printable paper doll.

“Bianca Boo, the paper doll of night,
Wears frightful frocks that cause delight.
With ghostly grace she’ll charm your view
Beware her style… it may haunt you too!

As candle’s flicker and cauldron’s brew,
Bianca Boo stirs something new.
A dash of venom, a drop of spite—
She brews her poison dark as night.”

I don’t usually write rhyming verse, so I am quite proud of those two efforts. There may be more. I have a few more already written, but I don’t have one written for every gown yet.

This whole halloween project was a stretch for me, creatively. I don’t often work as a digital painter, and patterns aren’t usually my thing, but I really wanted to push myself for this one. Bianca Boo was inspired by Betty Boop, so I aimed for something that felt vintage, a little Art Deco, and delightfully quirky. Her outfits are all meant to be costumes with a mix of vintage silhouettes and a dash of Lolita flair.

Her first dress around the theme “Poison Bottle” and I decided to use that as a silhouette on the skirt and then made a plague doctor style mask. One of the things I’ve been working on is coloring both the glass in the mask and the brass accents with some colors. I decided to work with patterns as well, something that I have never been very comfortable with, mostly because I get frustrated with the challenge of making patterns directional when working with digital brushes, but that’s another issue all together.

And that’s Bianca Boo! I hope she brings a little extra fun to your Halloween. Whether you’re dressing up, passing out candy, or just curling up with something pumpkin-flavored, I hope your night is full of treats and creativity. Check back in soon, as there are more Bianca Boo frocks to enjoy.

Pantheon Gowns: A Fun Ancient Greek Inspired Paper Doll

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

This is the second of two digital paper doll downloads I designed with an ancient geek inspired theme. The first one went up last week, so you can go download that paper doll too, if you feel so inspired. I don’t think two paper doll is enough to make a series right? We’d need at least four, I think?

It’s not really the “second” one, because my brain doesn’t work like that. It’s more like, I drew three dresses, remembered that three dresses is one two many for my usual paper doll layout and then was like… well I guess I better draw a fourth dress and make that work.

Lately I’ve been very into wig designers for interesting hairstyle ideas. I think wigs are fun, because they don’t have to be realistic, much like paper dolls don’t have to be realistic. Over a decade ago, I interviewed Liana of Liana’s Paper Doll Blog (anyone else on the planet remember that one?) and she told me that drawing paper dolls made her “feel like I’m getting away with warping reality for fun.” I 100% agree.

Also, I cannot believe that interview was over a decade ago. It feels like yesterday. Wow.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the “end of the internet,” and when I think about how old this site is (17 years now!), I realize it really is kind of old-school. It’s from the days when one person could just make a website about something they loved and share it. The internet is so different now, which makes sense. 17 years is a long time. Were this website a person, it would be able to vote next year.

Increasingly, keeping a site up like this is hard. There’s a lot of costs associated with running a site like this (especially one this big) and it is occasionally janky and slow (I know, I know.) Still, when I go back to old interviews like that one, I’m reminded why I did this in the first place.

That makes me want to keep going.

If you’ve been enjoying my paper dolls and want to help keep the site running (and ad-free), I’d love if you considered becoming a patron. Your support really does make a difference and helps me keep creating.

I don’t think I’ll ever have the budget to hire someone to totally “clean up” the site, but Patreon makes it possible to cover the basics (like server space) and to pay for help when something breaks that I just can’t fix myself. That’s been happening more often lately; turns out websites have gotten a lot more complicated in the last 17 years. Shocking, I know.

Ancient Elegance: A Foray into Fantasy Greek Inspired Gowns

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

Step into the world of myth and elegance with today’s paper doll set, Ancient Elegance, part of my Ensemble Eclectica series. This Greek mythology fashion doll is well within the realm of fantasy and one of two dolls with this theme I drew. I’ll share the second soon, I’m sure. 

I’ve loved Greek myths since I was a child, devouring them in every form I could find from illustrated books for kids to my mother’s old college encyclopedia of mythology. Of course, if you’ve been around here for any lenght of time, you know I also loved the old Xena television shows.

One of the rare things I did with this paper doll (that I don’t do with many of my creations) is I gave her a head piece. It’s easy enough to trim off with a pair of scissors, should you wish to do so. I just thought it added a fun element to the paper doll. She’s got two gowns, of course. To complete the set, you’ll find strappy sandals, jewelry, a scroll, and a collection of decorative Greek-style vases and pitchers and these the kinds of treasures you might imagine in a temple or mythic hero’s home.

Color scheme-wise I went with blues and pale green. I don’t know that I’ve ever done a color scheme quite like this and it was largely inspired by a color card from the Color Cube, something I treated myself too as a source for color schemes last year, I think. This was card 007 from volume 1 of the cube, which I am not sharing out of respect for the creator of the Color Cubes. It’s very blue color scheme! As you can see, I suspect.

As fall tips into winter up here in Alaska, I always notice my cat deciding that yes, my lap is officially the warmest place in the house (a sure sign that winter has arrived, even if snow has not). It does make cozy evenings, but it also make drawing occasionally challenging when there’s a needy cat.

Celestial Fashionista: A Fantasy Astronomer Paper Doll

Download Black and White PDF | Download Color PDF | More Paper Dolls from the Ensemble Eclectica Series

Today’s paper doll is a fantasy scientist I think. Some sort of astrologer or astronomer paper doll perhaps? I’ll leave that up to others to decide.

Netflix did a version of Cinderella back in 2021 and honestly, it was not a film I enjoyed very much. The attempt to modernize the story fell a bit flat. The costumes were cool and I love a musical, but I didn’t actually think it was a very good movie. The film’s excessive close-ups and awkward staging make it feel less like a true musical and more like a disjointed movie where people randomly burst into song. It was a jukebox musical, but not one that worked very well. I thought Pierce Brosnan was quite funny as the king and Camila Cabello was charming enough as the lead.

Even though nothing will ever replace the 1997 Brandy version of Cinderella in my heart, I did find some of the costume designs in the Netflix version interesting. I created this printable paper doll inspired by those looks—specifically the main outfit Cinderella wears for most of the movie which is a heavily boned set of stays over a skit with a wrap belt of some sort.

After designing the two dresses, I started thinking about the character behind them. There was something practical about the costumes that made me imagine this astronomer paper doll. That’s when the idea to draw the armillary sphere came in, and the concept evolved from there. The color palette was inspired by what I think of as “galactic” colors. Not colors I tend to use that much, I don’t think.

This photo from Pinterest inspired her hair. I added some dramatic earrings.

This month has absolutely flown by. It’s been one of those stretches where I keep thinking “I’ll do that when I have a moment” but those moments are in short supply lately. I’ve been teaching, attending a historical conference, catching up after August travel, and taking a class.

I have been scheming on a October project, so that might be happening. We shall see!

Garden Gowns: A Coloring Page from my Patron with the Cut & Color Paper Dolls

To view this content, you must be a paying member of my patreon!  Join us here and help support Paper Thin Personas. Already a qualifying Patreon member? See below on how to access the content.
To view this content, you must be a member of Rachel's Patreon
Already a qualifying Patreon member? Refresh to access this content.