Warmest Wishes: A Cozy Winter Paper Doll

A cute winter paper doll coloring page with short brown hair, glasses and an eight piece mix and match wardrobe.
A cute winter paper doll with short brown hair, glasses and an eight piece mix and match wardrobe.

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

When I was designing this winter paper doll, I wanted her to have glasses (because I hadn’t done any Ensemble Eclectica dolls with glasses yet) and I wanted her to feel distinctly different from my other winter paper doll in pastels. I also wanted to make sure things could layer well, because on thing about winter clothing is that layering is critical.

I basically live in layers in the winter- lots of long underwear, lots of socks. So, everyone I know has at least two parkas, sometimes more. I have my “wet weather” set up- which is a fleece under a raincoat. I have my light weight parka, which I wear until it gets below -10 and then I have my heavy parka, which I bust out for colder weather. If I end up needing it, I also have a variety of layering pieces I can add- wool and silk long underwear and heavy socks.

But up here in my part of Alaska, this winter has been weirdly mild, until this week when it’s finally dropped down to -30 where it should be this time of year. Since it’s been above 10 degrees several days this January, which is not normal, everyone is sort of relieved to get some actual winter. I actually busted out my big parka, finally. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised- climate change- but I don’t love the increase of snow. Usually, it’s too cold to snow here and the roads stay pretty dry and easy to drive on. I’m not a snow lover, even if I don’t mind the cold.

Anyway, I do try to match my paper dolls to the seasons, but this is hard, because it can take me a long time to finish things. Working digitally has sped me up a bit, but I’m still someone who tends to ink a bunch and then color and bunch and then do layout and then… etc.

Do you have a favorite season? Let me know in a comment. Despite the cold, I really don’t mind winter. However, I think autumn is my favorite.

Developing Some Goals for 2024

This is not usually a hard post for me to write. I am a very goal oriented person. I like making goals. I like setting goals and working towards them. It brings me a lot of satisfaction. However, this year I’ve struggled a little with my goal setting.

Primary Goal

Develop a workflow for my paper doll creations that both maintains my momentum and is sustainable within the confines of my other hobbies and obligations.

However, this isn’t a goal that’s easy to measure or on that I really know how to start with, so here’s a few concrete goals I’m working towards-

1. Post to the Blog Weekly- Except when I take vacations

I really like having a simply goal regarding consistency and I think planning for a minimum of a one post a week works well for me. I particularly want to balance pre-scheduling posts and not losing the motivation that a regular schedule gives me.

2. Restart Monthly Newsletters

After a lot of debate, I’ve decided to keep the Newsletter (I almost killed it) and focus on it being a slightly longer monthly format. I want to bring back a newsletter paper doll and I think it will go out either the first or the last Friday of the month. If you haven’t signed up yet, you can do that here.

3. Exclusive Monthly Paper Dolls for my Patrons

My plan is to continue a having exclusive paper doll series for my patrons. In February, I’ll have a poll for my patrons to vote on what you’d like to see for this year. Also, there will be occasional exclusive WIP posts and polls and things. If you want to join, it will officially reopen on the 1st of February.

4. Create More Prints

One big development in my artistic life is that I ended up with an art printer, specifically an Epson 3800, which was destined for donation to a recycling center before my husband adopted it. We didn’t know if it would work and it took a bit of work on his part to make it work, but now it does work. We’ve named it Brunhilda. The prints Brunhilda creates are so beautiful. Really really beautiful- like professional art print beautiful.

I never in a million years would have paid to get one of these (because wowzer, these are not cheap), but now that I own one, it seems a pity not to use it. In fact, you have to use it at least once a month, or you can have issues with the nozzles clogging.

Stretch Goals

These are goals that I really don’t think I’ll successfully do, but I think dreaming big is important.

Complete a 100 Day Project

I keep telling myself that one day I will complete a 100 day project. I never have, but maybe someday I could? Or would? I think rather than focusing on doing something for 100 days, I think I want to focus on doing 100 of something over the course of the year. No idea what yet, mind you, but something.

I think I just love the idea of a paper doll with 100 outfits. So, that probably has something (everything) to do with it.

Sell Prints on Etsy

To be totally honest, I don’t know if I want to do this, but again- I have the printer to do it- I just don’t know if I’d like the extra work of trying to mail things to people or if that logistical challenge is one that I would end up absolutely hating. I’ve never done it, so it’s tough to say for sure.

Anyway, those are my goals for 2024. I don’t know where I’ll do with all of them, but I am going to see. I have to keep reminding myself that changing a goal isn’t failure.

Little Break in January

While I haven’t got formal goals yet for 2024, one of my informal ones was not to disappear from the blog without some announcement (if only because my mom then texts me to make sure I am okay), so here’s my little announcement that I’m slipping away for a few weeks.

By the way, if you’re a patron, Patreon did a strange thing with the bank holiday for New Years and time zones and rather than stopping charges, it looks like it might be refunding them for January? I’m not sure exactly what’s happening. Just incase you get an odd message, that’s what that’s about. If you have any questions, reach out to me and I’ll try to help!

Here’s 2023 in Review!

This December has been a little tough. I got walking pneumonia, but am on the mend. I spent a lot of the month resting and recovering. However, as 2024 begins, I have had sometime to reflect and gather some stats. It dawned on me that I used to regularly share year-end posts, a practice I somehow drifted away from. But I missed crafting these reflections on the passing year, so here we are and I hope you find it interesting.

This is not my goals for 2024 post, because I haven’t got those sorted quite yet. Until then, I hope you find some facts, figures and reflections interesting.

Paper Thin Personas in 2023 in Numbers

The 2023 blog stats in colorful circles. 60K unique visitors. 87 blog posts. 28 newsletters.

Let’s start with some numbers… Paper Thin Personas (PTP) had about 60K unique visitors in 2023. I created 87 blog posts of which 62 were paper doll post. I published 28 newsletters. As you may recall, I had planned on transforming PTP into a newsletter in 2023 and that did not work.

The most popular post of 2023.

So, I do plan to continue the newsletter, but I think I’ll migrate it to a monthly little paper doll update for everyone’s email inbox.

  • The most popular new post of 2023 (because this post remains the post popular post of all time, by a wide margin), was my Citrus Summer Paper Doll. (No idea why, but there you go.)
  • Other than Google, I get most of my visitors from Pinterest.
  • The majority of my visitors are from the United States with Canada, the Philippines, and the United Kingdom as other common spots.
  • My busiest month was November 2023 (no idea why) and my least busy month was April 2023 (again, no idea why)
  • On average, visitors to the site stick around about 2.3 minutes and look at 3 different pages. Of course, this is a little messy of a stat, because of how Google counts people.

All in all, I am really very happy with how the blog is doing in the numbers game. Paper dolls are a niche hobby (to say the least) and I don’t expect they are suddenly going to become as popular as K-pop or something.

Achievements of 2023

The cover of the paper doll book- Styles of the 1920s by Rachel Cohen.

My book came out! Paper Doll Review agreed to publish a project I’d been drawing for a while and they did just a really fantastic job. Julie Matthews colored the line-work I created so beautifully. Jenny Taliadoros held my hand through the whole thing.

Also, I went to a paper doll party! I’ve been talking about going for so long. I thought about going last year, but decided to get married instead. I met so many amazing people and it was the push I needed to really commit to moving to digital art.

Anyway, I don’t know how I could have topped either of those two events, but I did also want to share my favorite paper dolls that I posted onto PTP in 2023, each one for a different reason.

The three posts I am super proud of are the first night of Hanukkah set, Stardust Styles, and my 1894 suit.

My Favorite Paper Dolls of 2023

My 1894 suit is a favorite, because it was the first set that I drew where I feel like I really embraced the possibilities of digital art. I learned so much during its creation process and I used so many tools. It felt like a moment where my art shifted in some real way.

Stardust Styles is a favorite, because it surprised me. Sometimes I come up with ideas and then I don’t really like how they end up. Stardust Styles was the opposite. I came up with the idea and I wasn’t sure about it. However, once I drew it and colored it, it came together so much better than I hoped it would.

The first night of Hanukkah set was a favorite, because it came out exactly as I imagined it. Sometimes art is easy (not often for me!) and this was one of those times. It feels timeless. I can imagine my nephew or niece giving this set to their kids. That makes me happy.

Do you have a favorite from 2023? Let me know in a comment and have an amazing start to 2024. I’m taking a little blog break until the 22nd (one of my goals for 2024 is to try not to just disappear for weeks at a time… we’ll see how that goes) while I deal with some behind the scenes stuff and I plan to return on the 22nd.

Vivian’s December Opera & Dinner Dress

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Interstellar Seas: A Cute Alien Fashionista

One of my space creature paper dolls with a mix and match wardrobe. She has an ocean theme
One of my space creature paper doll printables with an ocean theme and a mix and match wardrobe of different clothing pieces.

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

Today’s paper doll is a super cute alien with a sort of underwater theme. I mean, if I am going to draw space creature paper dolls, I think I should at least give them a fancy wardrove of mix and match clothing, right? Right. I mean, space creatures want to look cute, too.

I’m assuming that a desire to “look cute” comes with a sentience, which might be a pretty big assumption on my part. (Unrelated, but am I the only person who learned the term sentience from watching Star Trek as a kid?)

Other thoughts about today’s paper doll: One of her outfits was inspired by this outfit for Marisole Monday, also my sci-fi Pinterest fashion board always inspires these dolls. The color scheme was supposed to be “galaxy” meets “ocean”, but like… not convinced it works. When I was a teen, I really liked the character Oasis from Sluggy Freelance and that’s probably where my thing for multiple ponytails (pigtails?) came from.

I caught some sort of post-Thanksgiving bug which turned into bacteria pneumonia. So, then I ended up on a cocktail of antibiotics and all the side effects of those were super fun. Anyway, long story short- I am at like 80% capacity at the moment. However, I am looking at a week off work for the holidays (the Uni I work at closes) and therefore I am super psyched for this week to be over.

Going to draw lots, pet my cat, and maybe sew something. Super psyched to have a whole week off!

Anyway, I hope everyone has a lovely holiday and enjoys this second little space alien paper doll. There will be two more I think… yeah, two more.

Hanukkah Paper Dolls: The Eighth Night

Hanukkah Paper Doll Templates with menorahs for the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah.

Download Black and White PDF | Download All Eight Pages as One PDF | The Other Days of the Hanukkah Series

Happy eighth night of Hanukkah and our paper dolls have many menorahs to show off, all shining brightly.

I wanted to make it super easy to download these Hanukkah paper dolls, so I added a link to a full 8 page PDF of the whole set that you can grab.

Today, let’s talk about menorahs. A Hanukkah menorah, also known as a hanukkiah, is a special nine-branched candle holder. Out of the nine lights, eight represent the nights of the holiday. Every night, an additional light is lit compared to the previous one. By the last night, all eight branches are shining brightly.

The ninth light is called the shamash (“helper”), which is used in some traditions to light the other eight. The purpose of the shamash is to adhere to the prohibition, specified in the Talmud, against using the Hanukkah lights for anything other than showing and thinking about the Hanukkah miracle. So, the shamash is available to do the work of lighting the other lights and give light if needed.

Except in times when antisemitism is so high that it would be dangerous to do so, menorahs are typically placed in windows, visible from the street. I like to position mine where I can keep an eye on it and ensure my cat doesn’t get too close. She tends to get closer than I would like to candles.

If you have more questions about Hanukkah, Chabad has a handy Hanukkah FAQ.

I wanted to draw three different styles of menorah, because they can look like all sorts of different things. I like this dinosaur one, myself.

This is the end of this series for Hanukkah 2023! I’ve been wanting to do a Hanukkah series for years, so I am happy I finally buckled down and got it done.

Hanukkah Paper Dolls: Seventh Night

A printable Hanukkah paper doll coloring page with a menorah, jelly donuts, and two outfits. Holiday-themed Jewish paper doll coloring pages for kids.

Download Black and White PDF | The Other Days of the Hanukkah Series

Happy Hanukkah Night 7!

Continuing the theme of food for Hannukah, I had originally planned to feature challah here. Hanukkah was the only time of year other than Rosh Hashanah that I recall my mom making challah. Challah is more of a Sabbath than a Hanukkah thing, of course. I’m not trying to draw universal Holiday-themed Jewish paper doll coloring pages. I’m trying to draw ones that reflect, to some degree, my childhood memories of this Jewish holiday- Hanukkah.

But I heard from other people that jelly donuts are a Hannukah thing for a lot of families. So, I did my best to draw a plate of Sufganiyot, a type of jelly donut. I confess I have never had them and I have no idea if they are recognizable, but I hope so!

I added some mugs, because well, everyone likes hot chocolate or coffee or tea or something hot.

By the way, my favorite challah recipe this is one from Smitten Kitchen. I do not have a favorite jelly donut recipe, because I’ve never made them. Frying things scares me! But cooking stuff in oil is 100% a Hanukkah tradition.

Tomorrow the Hanukkah paper dolls will wrap up. Plus I’ll also share a single download of all 8 pages, which will be easier to print.

BTW: I’ve stuck with the spelling Hanukkah for the holiday, but you can also spell it Chanukah, or several other ways. Hebrew doesn’t transliterate into English very well. The first letter of the word Hanukkah is the eighth letter of the Hebrew alphabet- chet/het – which is pronounced sort of like the “ch” in loch. It’s a guttural sound. Anyway, this is why there’s a lot of different spellings of Hanukkah. None of them are wrong. I just had to chose one, so I chose the one I was seeing the most of.

Hanukkah Paper Dolls: The Sixth Night

A Hanukkah printable paper doll coloring page with nightgowns and a menorah on it.

Download Black and White PDF | The Other Days of the Hanukkah Series

Happy Night six of Hanukkah!

I feel like all dolls need nightgowns, don’t you? I think they’re such a critical part of a paper doll’s wardrobe. Other than that, there’s nothing really Hanukkah related in today’s post, except the menorah. I think I’ll save talking about those until the end of the holiday. I have a plan for that.

Anyway, there’s not a lot to say about this set, so here are some nightgowns for the Hanukkah paper dolls and I hope everyone is still having a warm and wonderful December.

Hannukah Paper Dolls: The Fifth Night

A ballgown coloring page for Hannukah with gelt and a menorah. A very cute hand-drawn Hanukkah paper doll craft for kids.

Download Black and White PDF | The Other Days of the Hanukkah Series

And on the fifth night of Hanukkah, we have gelt and party dresses which seem like they should be part of any Hanukkah themed paper doll.

So, you might recall that last night, I talked about gifts. Well, gifts are very much a USA thing. In a lot of world and for a long time, money was traditionally given to the children during Hanukkah- usually in the form of coins. I still remember getting a silver dollar on Hanukkah more than one year. Those coins are called gelt, a Yiddish word for money.

Today, that money is usually chocolate coins, but still fun. Maybe more fun, because who really wants a handful of quarters? I try to buy gelt when I see it in stores.

Both of these party dresses were inspired by dresses from the 1830s. This dress to be specific. I love the fashion from the 1830s. It’s such a very not restrained period in women’s clothing.