January! Time for My Usual Poll…

Every January for the last few years, I have posted the same poll. I’ve asked readers to tell me what they want to see on Paper Thin Personas. I usually make a list of a few different things I think I’d like to do and I let people tell me what they want.

This time things are going to be a little different.

This time I’m asking for a tiny bit more involvement. If you want to vote in the usual annual poll, it’s over on the sidebar and will be there for the next two weeks and I encourage everyone to do it. I really do pay attention to the results. Heck, that’s how the Poppets and the Pucks and my poorly drawn male companion to Marisole happened (he’s getting a reboot… someday).

BUT… if you want to possibly win a custom paper doll AND get some input on what you’d like to see… than post a comment as well (or email me if you’re concerned about privacy) and answer two of the following three questions:

    A. What would you like to see on PTP in the next year? (This can be anything. More contests, a paper doll of a librarian, or tutorials or something that’s on my poll)
    B. What brings you to PTP? (I get most of us come for the paper dolls. Some of us come because they know me (Hi Mom & Dad), but what draws you in and what makes you return or not return?)
    C. What do you dislike most about PTP? (Please be honest. You don’t hurt my feelings. I promise. Do my spelling errors bother you? (Hi Dad) Do the sometimes broken links really get on your nerves? Do you wish you could just find every black and white Marisole Monday paper doll easily?)

If you answer one of my questions (either here or through email) then you will be entered in the drawing. If you won a contest last year, it’s a new year, so you can still win this one. The drawing/contest is going to be open until Wednesday the 15th of January.

Otherwise, my usual contest rules apply (see the FAQ) and the prize is a custom drawn paper doll from any of my series. I will contact the winner via the email entered in the comment form, so make sure that email actually works. If I don’t hear from my winners in a week after the email is sent, I’ll draw another name.

By the way, this is my 499th post. Next one is going to be 500. Maybe I’ll do something special.

Edit: Congratulations to Gwendolyn and Jo winners of my drawing. The contest is officially closed, however, feel free to continue telling me what you think you want. 🙂

Get a Free Printable Paper Doll Every Monday Sent to your Web Enabled HP Printer…

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I have cool news.

Last year, I was contacted by some people from HP about using my content in a downloadable application for their web enabled printers. After many months of conversation and discussion, I’m excited to announce the Paper Thin Personas App for HP Web Enabled Printers featuring Marisole Monday.

Once the app is installed, a Marisole Monday paper doll will be printed automatically from your web enabled HP printer every Monday in black and white or in full color (you choose when you set up the app).

I’d probably get them in black and white if I had kids, because than the paper dolls become a fun coloring activity. And who doesn’t like fun coloring activities?

(Plus, in an entirely unscientific study done by my friend with her cousins, small children + crayons + black and white paper doll sheets = almost 20 minutes of occupied time. And this time of year, who doesn’t want that?)
PaperThinPersonas_output_1A few things you should know… You need a web enabled HP printer to print out the Marisole Monday paper dolls. All of the paper dolls in the App have appeared on the blog in full color before, but not all of them have appeared in black and white.

I think the Paper Thin Personas App is great for parents or grandparents who want something for their kids or grandkids to play with every Monday or if you just want a Monday morning pick me up. It’s really very fun to walk into the room on a blurry-eyed Monday morning and see a paper doll waiting.

Lastly, I have to give a shout out to the wonderful team I worked with. They were all fabulous and made the process quite painless. 🙂

Download the Paper Thin Personas App for HP Wed Enabled Printers Here and have a great holiday season.

Emergency Hiatus

Um… While I was traveling, there was a slight problem with the apartment above my apartment and the resulting water damage has rendered me homeless for the moment. I’m safe, most of my things are safe, and no one was hurt. However, while I search for a new home, I just won’t be able to keep up with the blog.

Hopefully, everything will be settled in a few weeks and things can move back to normal here.

Keep me in your thoughts as I apartment hunt.

Best,

– Rachel

Hey! I’m on Youtube…

So, Light Messages Publishing recently used a few of my sets to create a really neat video trailer for their book Can’t Buy Me Love by Summer Kinard who blogs at Write Like a Mother.

I confess that I haven’t read the book (its not out yet), but I’m flattered and excited to see my work used in such a fun and creative fashion. It’s hard to say no to a book about love and lucha libre.

Plus the video is really cute. Bonus points to anyone who can name the different sets used.

P.S. I am embarrassed that I had to look up both “freegan” and “yarn bombing”, clearly I am out of the loop on such things.

I’m Back! Also… News about Changes to PTP

Thank you all for being patient with me while I got settled in here in Alabama. I won’t say that I’m completely settled (there are still a few boxes to go through), but I am pretty settled all things considered.

At least the important things like books and art supplies are unpacked.

So, there are a few announcements.

I’m throwing out the schedule.

This is something I’ve been contemplating for a few months and I was going to make a poll of it, but then I decided I was going to do it anyway… so I might as well just announce it.

There will continue to be a Marisole update each Monday with the first one being a black and white version with the full color version following. I was able to spend a fair bit of my time off working on getting some post backlog set up, so I can confidently say there will be Marisole’s for the next few weeks at least.

I will try to get another paper doll posted each week, along with the Marisole. So, you can expect two paper dolls per week.

While this does mean fewer paper dolls over all, it will open up the styles and allow me some flexibility which I want, allowing me to devote more time to The Flock and also, hopefully, let me draw some more detailed and difficult things.

I’ve also begun work on a joint project between myself, Boots of 19th Century Paper Dolls and Toria over at A Paper Closet. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited I am for this project. It will debut at the end of October, if everything goes as planned.

I will also be posting some older work, both from my days in college and from when I was in high school and middle school. I can’t wait to share some of these really early paper dolls, but I have to say, I had very odd ideas about proportions as a young person.

Though looking at my paper dolls now, you could say I still have some odd ideas about proportion… but I digress…

By the way, I noticed embarrassingly late that there was a slight problem with some of the feet/shoes on the latest set of Flock Magnetic Paper Dolls- Modern Girl. It’s been fixed, so now all the shoes should work properly. It took me cutting them out and playing with them to notice my error… Actually, I didn’t notice, but my friend did. Opps… So glad that’s fixed.

Also, I had some complaints about my RSS feed. I think I also got that fixed. Let me know if I haven’t.

Anyway, I am really excited to be back. There will be a paper doll up tomorrow and on Monday, so everyone can get their fix. If you have any questions, thoughts or ideas for what I should do in the future, please feel free to comment. I love hearing from readers.

Haitus… for a bit I think…

downloadAs those of you who read this blog regularly might have figured out, I am going home to Alaska for two weeks, then moving to Alabama and starting a new job about which I am totally excited, but… the combination is a little… crazy.

As a result, and after considerable thought, I have decided that the blog will be on hiatus for the month of July and, perhaps, the month of August. My life is just too insane right now to support this wonderful addiction to little paper people that I have and I don’t want to just drop off the face of the Earth without notice.

So… I am leaving for a bit, but will return.

There will be when I return, I think, some changes to things here in on PTP… I haven’t decide what exactly yet, but I think things will be changing… so while I’m gone you might notice links are shifting around, pages are disappearing or other changes to the site. Fear not… it just means I’m futzing with things.

I shall try to reply to comments and emails when I can and I will certainly be drawing while I am away.

See you all in a few weeks.

– Rachel

Update: Looks like things should be back, though slightly changed, on September 1st. Got safely to Alabama and am settling in here. 🙂 – Rachel

Wanna Get a Custom Paper Doll?

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Lately, I’ve been feeling like all my posts are sort of sounding the same.

Blah blah blah paper doll blah blah blad dresses are pretty blah blah blah weather is nice blah… which is kinda bothering me.

I mean, yeah, this is a blog about paper dolls, but it should be a little more interesting I think… so I’ve decided to ask all of you for help.

Ask me a question in the comments of this post. Pretty much any question. If you ask a question, you’ll be entered in my drawing.

The prize is a paper doll drawn to your specifications. Previous winning paper dolls have been a Steampunk Marisole, a Chinese Street fashion Marisole (which has a mis-used apostrophe that bugs me…. I should fix it sometime) and a pair of Pucks in suits (normally, the prize is one paper doll, but since it took me so long to get the Pucks done, I was feeling guilty and did two). Drawing will be open for two weeks.

I’ll use the questions to spark ideas for blog posts. So, even if you don’t win a paper doll, you might get your question answered. And that could be cool, right?

Quick Note

Hello all,

I just wanted to say that I’m traveling for the rest of this week and might be out of town for a bit of the week after, so things are going to be sort of on pause here until I get back and possibly longer. I will update before the end of the month, so keep checking back and I’ll be replying to comments as I can.

I hope everyone who is celebrating Thanksgiving has a wonderful one. 🙂

– Rachel

Things are Looking Different Around Here…

So, as some of you know, I have a tradition of breaking my site at least once a year. This is largely because I know just enough to get myself into trouble and not quite enough to get myself out of it.

Obviously, things are looking a wee-bit odd around here. As some of you know, the blog was down for a week while my good friend saved me from my own stupidity creative mistakes. No content was lost, but most of the site formatting was.

Right now, things are looking a little off and a little messy and they’ll continue to look this way until I get things fixed. The important news items are as follows:

1. The Site will update regularly as normal, though Monday’s post will probably not be up until Monday afternoon.
2. I will be working on fixing the formatting, or at least making it look like I want to look, over the next few weeks. Expect things to change a bit. Should be fun.
3. Be patient with me. I have a lot on my plate right now and dealing with the blog is the lowest priority in my life. That means it might not get done as quickly as I would like, but it will get done.

I’m trying to see this as a plus- After all, I’d been meaning to reformat everything anyway, so really this is a positive thing. Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself.

Announcement-

Hello all-

So, sometimes one does things and then is left with the impression that- Wow, that was not such a hot idea…

Back in July, I tried to update the blog from WordPress 2.7.1 to 2.8. The result was the loss of massive files, deletion of part of the site and a full crash. Fortunately, that time I was able to successfully resurrect the blog from the ashes.

I really should have learned my lesson.

There is, as usual, good news and bad news. The good news is that all of the image files remain safely on my external hard drive. The bad news is that all of the other site content has gone wherever good sites go when they die. Maybe someday I’ll be able to return it from the dead, but until then, it’s going to stay dead.

What does this mean for the future? Well, the blog isn’t over. I have had a lot of fun with it over the past year and I’m not about to give it up. I am trying to see this event in a bad light, but rather as an opportunity to try something new.

For the moment, there’s not much here. But hopefully by the end of January, the blog will be back up and running smoothly. Feel free to leave any comments or thoughts you might have. Things will be rough around here until I get everything back sorted, but I have faith it’ll work out.

Also, I’ll just never update my WordPress version ever ever again.

Smiles,

Rachel