Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations: Prom Season
It is prom season and while I am not in an age group that is going to prom, I have noticed a strong trend towards crop tops and full skirts.
While I did enjoy the proms I went to, I will openly confess that there is no force in the universe that could make me want to go back to high school. That was just a dreadful part of my youth.
While I was helping a close friend shop for a wedding dress, I noticed a lot of prom dress styles were showing off the midriff. This isn’t a new thing, by the way, midriff revealing evening wear dates back to the 1940s- here’s one example from the movie Lady Eve. It’s a hard dress to find a decent picture of, I confess. There’s also one in Casablanca, but I can’t seem to find a picture of that dress. Sigh.
Anyway, the point is the showing of your midriff in evening wear is not a new thing, but certainly hasn’t been in style for a few decades. It certainly wasn’t “in” when I was in high school heading off to Prom. That was the era of dressed based on the movie Titanic’s Jump Dress and also styles like this from Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Seriously, I knew at least three people who wore short satiny dresses under sheer layers to formals in high school.
I digress.
I had way to much fun drawing the huge oversized floral on the skirt of this outfit. I really wanted something that the full skirt to accommodate, so giant floral seemed like it would be fun.
Other then that, I’m just glad I got to share this dress before Prom season was completely over, though I strongly suspect it has mostly wrapped up by now.
So, tell me fearless readers, did you go to Prom? I did, but not my Senior year. We had a joint Junior and Senior prom at my school. I also went as a Sophomore, because I was invited by a Senior. That was actually the most fun one since many of my friends in High School were older then me.
Not bad memories, but, as I said above, no force on this planet could make me want to go back to high school.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Â Tudor Era Clothing, Kinda
I go through phases. This probably isn’t any different from anyone else who does something creative. There are no double periods when someone really feels like playing jazz on the piano or when someone really seems to be into crocheting hedgehogs.
I, on the other hand, seem to fall into patterns where a specific paper doll theme seems super fascinating to me. During this stretches, I often add images based on the theme to my pinterest boards with abandon. About half the time, these spasms of interest don’t actually lead to paper doll outfits, because I have the attention span of an ADHD raven sometimes. However, on occasion, they do.
So, after a few weeks of being really into Tudor influenced fantasy clothing, I actually drew some for the Sprites paper dolls. See? There was a point to that weird ramble that I started today’s post with.
The lady Sprite outfit is really only fantasy, because I couldn’t be bothered to do any real research and I refuse to call something historical unless I actually have sources I can cite. The guy Sprites on the other hand… well, that outfit has a lot more fantasy going on. I just think a lot of men’s clothing from the Tudor period looks pretty absurd. What can I say?
Still, once it was done and saved and ready to go, I didn’t want to just abandon it, because it was based off an awful movie costume. The costume is okay I guess, but the film is just so bad. Anyway, I decided I should just get over it and treat it like any other paper doll creation.
There are, of course, a lot of differences between my version of the caftan, the biggest being that it closes all the way up to the neck. This was not how women really wore them back in the 19th century, but that’s what fantasy clothing is for, isn’t it?
I couldn’t see the bottom of the picture, so I decided mine was a gown and the wide leather belt and layers of armor were likely decorative. The paper doll’s boots were my attempt to draw upturned toes on shoes such as these ones and were another nod to Turkey.
What do you all think? Good paper doll outfit? Bad Movie? Thoughts? Let me know in a comment. I love to hear from you all.
Meanwhile, if you want to support the blog, then think about becoming a Patron or picking something up from the Etsy store.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:1920s Children’s Clothing & Frannie Fisher on PBS
So, with all the 1920s paper doll clothing I have been drawing lately, it seemed dumb not to have a 1920s Poppet paper doll to wear it. This is the first of what I hope will end up being two or three 1920s Poppet dolls, but for now I am calling one a victory.
I am also a huge Miss Fisher Murder Mysteries on PBS fan and it seemed to me that the best 1920s doll would be one with Phryne Fisher’s coloring which means dark hair and pale skin. This was very fashionable look for women of the 1920s thanks to the movie star Louise Brooks. The paper dolls hair is based on Louise Brooks.
I gave our 1920s paper doll a period slip with attached drawers and lace accents. I also wanted to give her two pairs of shoes to wear with any of the 1920s collection dresses or any of the other Poppet clothing. She has the same skintone as Poppy, Paradisea and my Vintage 1950s one.
Her side-glancing eyes are a nod to Lenci dolls, one of my favorite doll companies of this era.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Â Treasure Island, One of my Favorite Novels As some of you may recall, in January, Boots, Julie and Myself started a collaborative paper doll project, all drawing clothing for a shared base doll. Missy joined us shortly there after and we have continued to create, each month, an outfit for our shared paper doll lady.
For month four, our theme was Favorite Novels. For me, I knew immediately that Treasure Island was the novel I was going to work with. I fell in love with Treasure Island when I was a child. It has everything- a coming of age story, pirates, buried treasure and lots of adventure and betrayal.
The lack of ladies in Treasure Island never bothered me, but since our paper doll is a lady, I created some fantastic pirate attire for her to wear. And there were plenty of lady pirates in the real world, though I doubt many of them wore things like this.
Back when this whole year long collaboration project was proposed, I thought there was basically no chance it would survive four whole months. Call me a cynic, I suppose, but here we are in March of 2017 and there’s another batch of paper doll outfits on the horizon for my wonderful fellow paper doll creators- Boots, Julie and Missy.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:1920s Children’s Clothing- One of my True Loves
Today’s Poppet 1920s Children’s Wardrobe Collection contribution is a spring time dress. I sort of thought of it as an Easter dress when I designed it, but Easter was a few weeks ago. I chose a pale color scheme with soft blue and pink for the dress. With the dress is a matching cloche, because lord knows the 1920s loved a good looking cloche.
I know I’ve spoken before about how much I adore 1920s children’s clothing. There’s just something about clothing of that era that I adore. I have equal love for children’s clothing of the 1930s, but I haven’t had as many opportunities to draw that.
The realization that fashion history books are a justifiable business expense has made it a lot harder to talk myself out of buying them.
I do realize that recently most of what I have posted for the Poppet’s paper dolls to print have been either from the Fairy Tale project or the 1920s project. Never fear, there are also normal clothing on the horizon. I mean, even paper dolls need jeans.
So, what do you think of today’s 1920s paper doll dress? Love it? Hate it? Wish it was purple? Let me know in a comment.
Meanwhile, if you want to support the blog, then think about becoming a Patron or liking it on facebook and tune in tomorrow for a paper doll outfit inspired by one of my favorite novels.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Â Â Suits! All the Suits!
While my second doll ever in the Sprites printable paper doll collection was Yumiko, I haven’t done an Asian guy yet for the Sprites and I wanted to do that today. I am pleased to introduce to everyone Shirou. Shirou is a Japanese name which means Fourth Son. It’s traditionally given to the, wait for it, fourth son. I though it was super fitting, because Shirou is my fourth male Sprites paper doll. The others are (in order of “birth”) Zachary, Xavier and  VÃctor.
I also ended up making his suit grey which is the same color as yesterday’s suit for Teresa. Anyone want to guess my favorite suit color? (Hint: It is not Navy. 🙂 )
Back when PTP began, I was petrified of trying to draw Asian features. Mostly, it was the epicanthic fold that worried me. I was also self conscious that, as a non-Asian, I didn’t want to draw a caricature. While it has taken me a long time, I’ve gotten pretty comfortable with the whole epicanthic fold thing and come to realize there is huge variation in this feature.
See, more then you wanted to know about the epicanthic fold.
So, what do you think of today’s Sprite paper doll? Let me know in a comment. I love hearing from you all.
Want to help keep the blog on the internet? Donate on Patreon.
Oh, and tomorrow, there will be another installment of the Poppets 1920s series and on Friday, come around for the next piece in the 2017 Collab paper doll project.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Â Â Suits!Â
It seemed past time to me that I should share a new Sprites face. Today I am pleased to introduce Teresa, the newest member of the Sprites printable paper doll family. In my head, she’s a Latina paper doll, but her skin-tone and coloring could be from a variety of places.
The name “Teresa” is Spanish and is one of those names where the meaning is a little unclear. It has been the name of several Catholic saints though and I’ve always had a fondness for it.
I’ve been wanting to create a printable paper doll set with suits, so today Teresa has a beautiful grey suit. I chose grey for the suit, because I love grey suits. I think it would be beautiful in a color as well. Maybe a strong purple or soft blue would look really nice.
Her shoes either match her purse or are meant to be nice basics. They do have pretty high heels… but then I love a good pair of high heels.
Yesterday, I posted this blog income report for the first quarter of 2017. I get erratic questions from folks who want to start a blog, so it might be interesting if you haven’t looked at it and care. If you don’t care, then feel free to ignore it. 🙂
Want to help keep the blog on the internet? Donate on Patreon.
Oh, and tomorrow, there will be a new guy paper doll to be added to the Sprites paper doll family. I’m super excited to introduce him and his dashing suit.
I am interrupting the regular paper doll content to share some numbers in the first ever Paper Thin Personas Blog Income Report. Paper dolls will resume tomorrow.
I went back and forth and back and forth about today’s post. I was raised in a family where you do not talk about money, so talking about money and business openly is pretty counter intuitive for me. However, when I first started blogging I saw some really distorted income reports and I wanted to share one that wasn’t from someone who was trying to quit their day job. (Seriously, I adore my day job, why would I want to quit it?)
Let’s start with expenses.
Expenses for Paper Thin Personas
The PTP’s expenses I keep in three categories- fees, advertising and blog expenses.
Fees are the costs Etsy and Patreon both charge for processing payment. Fees cost me about 72 dollars this month.
I chose to try out Pinterest advertising for the first time this quarter. It was most a bust with a click-through rate (how many people who saw it and then clicked) of less then 1%. I also promote the Etsy Store and that costs a little too.
Total expenses for advertising were 43 dollars.
Blog expenses include the server hosting costs, paying for social media management tools, security and backups. My hosting is super cheap and very bare bones, but I really should switch companies and/or upgrade. Once I do that, my hosting costs will jump from about 12.00 per month up to the 30 to 40 dollar range.
I also pay about 21Â dollars a month for a security company to monitor the blog (it was hacked last year), provide a firewall, cacheing and daily backups. All things I really need.
Blog expenses cost me about 144 dollars this last quarter and this will increase if I change hosts.
You will note I don’t have supplies in this pie-chart. I am horrible at tracking my supplies, but my resolution for next quarter is to get better at it.
Income For Paper Thin Personas
My income was a little odd this quarter. I got my last payout from a licensing deal with HP Printers, which was for 497 dollars. I also got a deposit for a commission which I’ll be finishing up this April. That was 100 dollars.
The Etsy store debuted and actually did better than I expected. I made 12 sales and a total of about 88 dollars.
The most important income piece is Patreon. Patrons donated 290.00 dollars this quarter. They paid for the blog to stay on the internet and there was a little left over to do some ads. In short, I am very grateful to all of them. You guys rock!
To sum up all the numbers, it cost me 258Â to run the site. I made about 948. The net income is 690.
However, this includes 497 dollars from HP which will not happen again, plus commission funds, if you take out the one-time payments, the net income becomes 93 dollars.
The most popular dolls have been the redhead with the orange base and the blond with the orange base. None of the black and white dolls have sold more than one copy. I think it is interesting that the clothing sells in black and white, but the dolls don’t seem to move much.
As you can see from the chart above, clothing sales far out pace doll sales.
Paper Thin Personas Site Stats
I am averaged 36,000 views per month, 5368 users per month and 9,000 sessions per month. These numbers aren’t bad, per say, but they haven’t changed a great deal in the last few years. Last year, for example, I averaged 5,018 users per month and in 2015, I averaged 4750 users per month.
Not bad numbers, per say, just not great numbers. If I want to grow PTP, I need to get more eyes on the blog.
I have 3462 Pinterest followers which is steadily growing and remains my highest social media referral site. The Facebook page had 46 likes at the start of April. The twitter feed is… well, it remains pretty unpopular, but I am trying to not totally give up on it.
Where to Go from Here?
I’ll admit the math has made me do some thinking. I swore long ago that I wouldn’t put advertising on the site and I still don’t want to do that. I stand by my belief that keeping the site ad free is important, but it massively reduces sources of income.
Affiliate programs are another option for income streams, but I need to discuss that with a lawyer. The blog is in a strange position as far as the Child’s Online Privacy Protection Act is concerned. I need to make sure I am not running afoul of that law.
It is my belief that the only way to really increase my income is to get more eyes on the blog and that means gritting my teeth and paying something for advertising, even though I hate doing it. I just need to decide what the best form that would take.
Pinterest remains my top referrer with Facebook coming in close behind. The possibility of a Facebook ad has occurred to me, but I’m not sure if I want to spend the money. I have heard mixed things about Facebook ads.
So, I think that’s everything. Regular paper dolls with resume tomorrow. 🙂
Thoughts? Questions? Let me know in a comment. This is my first ever year to track all this stuff. I don’t know if I’ll do a report like this every quarter, but it was a really healthy exercise I think.
Let me be frank, I don’t really love the fashions of the 1970s, but they are starting to grow on me a little. There’s something about the bold colors and the big collars that I kinda have a fondness for.
So, I might never been a die hard “1970s YAY” kinda girl, I am at least learning to enjoy some of the looks of the era.
Last year I drew my first 1970s stuff and this year I wanted to continue dabbling in the era. While I think the Ms. Mannequin dolls look kinda odd as Vikings (their pose just doesn’t work), they make much better swinging cats of the 1970s.
Both of these dresses are based on pattern cover designs. I love using vintage pattern covers to design paper doll dresses. They are usually pretty easy to draw from too, which I am grateful for.
The dress on the left is from Simplicity 6605 and McCall’s 3936 and McCall’s 3936 which was apparently a “carefree pattern” which I think meant it was supposed to be easy to make. The dress on the right is from Simplicity 6605 which was a “how to sew” pattern. It would teach you, apparently, how to make set in gathered sleeves.
These days, I use online videos when I don’t know how to sew something, but I suppose that wasn’t exactly an option in 1974.
Also, I don’t sew people clothing. I am strictly a doll clothing sewing kinda girl.
Well, what do you all think of today’s 1970s dresses? Is this a decade of fashion you really love? Do the Ms. Mannequin dolls need maybe a jumpsuit or something to do with their dresses?
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Â This Fashion Plate from 1880Â and Things the Scare Me
Yesterday I posted fantasy garments based on some traditional Asian attire. Today I am hopping back to Europe to post a riff on 15th and 16th century dress.
Today’s Marisole Monday & Friend’s paper doll dress crosses Italian clothing in the late 1400s with English costume in the mid-1500s. There’s a definite Spanish Farthingale thing going on in that skirt shape. Spanish Farthngales were hoop skirts of their era and gave dresses a distinct cone shape. It was all the rage in England towards the end of the 1500s. Here’s an example of what I talking about.
The sleeves of today’s paper doll gown are pretty Italian. The style in Italy at the very end of the 1400s and the beginning of the 1500s. It was considered fashionable to have the shift sticking out through the spaces the sleeves- my paper dolls are nothing if not fashionable. Here is an example of the sleeves I mean and here is another one.
When it came time to color today’s paper doll, I fell back on the colors I tend to like when it comes to Tudor feeling things. I settled on copper and black for the color scheme. While I experimented with brighter options, I loved the sophistication these colors created.
As with many of my fantasy paper dolls, I added shoes and stockings to round out the outfit. After all, I do love to draw shoes. These shoes are neither English nor Italian, but more a pair of modern ones. So, that continues the cross-cultural experience here.
So, what do people think of my English-Italian Renaissance love child of a paper doll dress? Leave me a comment and let me know.
Today’s Printable Paper Doll Inspirations:Kimono, Qiapo and Stuff
It has been a while since I dabbled in Asian dress inspired fantasy attire for the paper dolls. Sometimes, I feel a little strange borrowing from Asian traditional attire, because I don’t feel like I have the right. I pointed this out of a friend and they asked if I didn’t have the right to borrow from Japan, why did I have the right to borrow from Europe?
I really didn’t have a good answer to that one. I am certainly not now, nor have ever been, European. I was born in Alaska, after all.
Cultural appropriation is one of those areas that I never quite know how I feel. Still, being aware is important and trying to be culturally aware matters. Respecting other cultures and trying to depict them respectfully is important.
So, today’s fantasy foray crosses qiapo and kimonos in a way that doesn’t make much logical sense, but does look neat. And looking neat is an important critera for my fantasy paper doll creations. (Hence why I once drew this and got to call it armor.)
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the colors in today’s pair of Sprite paper doll pieces came from this kimono. I love kimonos and their color combinations are often surprising to me. Probably, because I lack the cultural context to understand the color choices, but I always seem to enjoy the surprise.
According to this chart I saw on the internet, and we all know how trustworthy that is, orange and purple are common colors for May kimonos. In the world of kimonos, colors signify season, status, gender, age, and all sorts of other things. It is actually a fascinating area of study, if you know, you happen to be into dress.
Want to help keep the blog around? Become a Patron ad support the blog while also getting fun perks like behind the scenes looks and early previews of paper dolls.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
