Ombre Stripes in Purples with Lapis

A printable paper doll in pwith a 9 piece mix and match wardrobe.
A blond printable paper doll in purples and teals with a 9 piece mix and match wardrobe.

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So, according to the internet, source of all wisdom, lilac is a big color for Winter 2022. I wanted to really focus on two colors- purple and teal- for the this paper doll. The set was supposed to be a look at monochrome colors which isn’t something I do a lot in my paper doll coloring.

Recently, I got a question from a reader asking if I did anything with my finished paper dolls. At first, I didn’t understand the question. What did “do anything with” mean? I wondered. I told her about my messy files, my boxes of sketchbooks in my office closet, but that answer didn’t feel right. It’s been percolating in my brain for the last week.

What do I “do with” my finished work?

And then the answer occurred to me as I was working on scheduling this months paper doll posts and it was utterly obvious…. What I do with my finished paper dolls is this. PTP is what I do with my finished work. Completing things is deeply satisfying for me and how I complete my paper dolls is sharing them with all of you.

Once I thought about for a while, the answer was obvious. So, thank you for being a part of my process and a part of my little corner of the inter-webs. If you’d like to support my little corner of the internet further, I have a Patreon page, Etsy store, and a newsletter.

Lapis the Swashbuckler and Adventurer Paper Doll

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Okay, so here’s a wild thing I learned when looking up where the term Swashbuckler came from. The term originates back in the 1550s and meant something like “blustering, swaggering fighting man.” I find that so fascinating, because I’ve always associated the term with Errol Flynn and other sort of pirate films of the 1950s. So, I assumed it was a more modern term. Who knew?

Anyway, Wikipedia describes it as adventure literature that focuses on a heroic protagonist stock character who is skilled in swordplay, acrobatics, guile and possesses chivalrous ideals. Sounds about right. I do love me a good fun adventure movie with sword fights.

Yes, I watched too much Highlander in the 1990s.

Anyway, I really wanted to diverge from my usual fantasy gown looks into something a little more adventurer, though let’s be clear- it isn’t any more practical. Practical fantasy clothing sort of seems to defeat the whole point, I think.

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Happy Halloween! Printable Paper Doll Fun!

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Every year, I try to do something Halloween themed. Valentine’s Day and Halloween are, I think, my most consistent paper doll pieces. I like the colors and I like corsets and Halloween seems like a corset heavy holiday.

Her hair is supposed to have a widows peak and I wanted a sort of elegant feeling with these. Some of it is recycled, but I am 100% okay with that. It gave me a place to start. With this set, I had a lot of fun designing patterns. There’s a cute little ghost dresses, pumpkins, and skulls.

I think some fun could be had coloring these as a Halloween party activity. My grandmother used to send us Halloween greeting cards that were often paper dolls and I like to imagine someone sending this to kids or printing it out for them.

My niece is still too young for me to really be sending her paper dolls, but soon… soon.

Meanwhile, stay safe this Halloween and then enjoy!

Ruby, A Steampunk Fashion Paper Doll in Stripes

A printable steampunk fashion paper doll coloring page and a 13 piece mix and match wardrobe with over 30 outfit combinations
A printable steampunk fashion paper doll with dark hair and a 13 piece mix and match wardrobe with over 30 outfit combinations

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Back in March I did a steampunk fashion paper doll set. This feels like a lifetime ago when I thought the pandemic would be over by now and I would be once again frolicking through life mask-free. This clearly hasn’t happened, but you know, back in March I was living the dream. I digress.

So, this set is made up from some things I did a few years ago, few new items and some Patreon things. I did a second color scheme just for my patrons, but you don’t need to pay for Patreon to see it. Just set up an account and you can view them.

Like all my steampunk fashion paper dolls, I try to design sets where there is some mix and match options making it a little micro-wardrobe and I think that really worked in this set in ways I am quite proud of. This isn’t my most Halloween paper doll ever, but stay tuned. I do have one ready for later this month.

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A Fantasy Paper Doll: Lady of the Tower

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In my head, this paper doll belongs in the same fantasy world as Diamond as an elven archer. I think all of these dresses share a lot of design elements and feel coherent- there’s high collars and flared sleeves on all of them. A big influence on this set of paper doll fantasy gowns are my desire to experiment with pattern which is not something I do on my fantasy gowns as much as I would like. I tend to do a lot more trims (like on this Pearl fantasy set or this Norse influenced set with Topaz). Not to say I have never done all over pattern, just that it is rarer.

Color scheme wise, I wanted to use colors I think I don’t tend to gravitate too as much as I tend to gravitate to warm pinks and colors. So, I used teal (which I do love) and paired it with purple and yellow. It’s a pretty close to the classic split complimentary color scheme, though not quite perfectly spaced I don’t think. Not that I am too worried about perfectly splitting my color schemes along the color wheel, but I do think about color schemes carefully.

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DDJ: Sweet Summer Scallops with Dusk

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While all of my paper dolls have themes, I think my contemporary fashion paper dolls have themes that are sometimes more subtle or more defined by color than anything else. After all, there’s only so many ways a person can draw a pair of blue jeans. This set was inspired by summer florals and a pair of polka-dot jeans my sister used to own. In my head, I was thinking feminine silhouettes (hence the flutter, tulip and puffed sleeves) and scallops. I included the long denim skirt, because I feel like 1990s fashions are having a revival and long denim skirts feel so 1990s to me.

I wanted to keep the colors soft and pastel without feeling too… childish. I think pastels can go nursery room really fast. For those keeping count at home, this is my 7th Dolls Du Jour paper doll and my second one with Dusk. The last one was this very fancy evening gown set.

There’s also a new paper doll set up on Etsy if you’d like to go check that one out. It’s a three doll set with five pages of fantasy clothing. I imagine it would be super fun to color.

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Lapis in the mid-1940s

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Ruby In Retro-Space Adventures!

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Ruby in Winter In the Country

Ruby, a printable paper doll coloring page, and her eight piece mix and match wardrobe. Her clothing is based on country estate/riding habits.
Ruby, a printable paper doll, and her eight piece mix and match wardrobe in color. Colors inspired by Maine and other parts of the East Coast of the USA.

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Today’s printable paper doll was a chance to explore a trend I was seeing in the winter fashion runways in 2020- a sort of riding habit inspired country estate look. Because so many of these pieces are solid, I opted to not stick to my usual very limited color palette. I gave Ruby glasses. I think she’s the first doll in this series to get glasses, so that’s something to be happy about.

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A Pair of Halloween Paper Dolls! One Bee & One Fairy

I’m not super into scary Halloween stuff. I like the occasional well written ghost story and will watch horror movies if my best friend watches them first, provides me a summary, and warns me if I can handle it. Then I watch them at noon with the lights on and quickly watch something like the Great British Baking Show afterwards to keep myself from feeling to scared.

Yes, I am pathetic in this regard.

A pair of Halloween paper dolls on this fun coloring page! Super cute bumble bee costume and a fairy for these fun printable paper dolls.

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So, to do with the Ghost and Frankenstein’s monster of last week I wanted to end October with another set of Halloween inspired paper dolls. Sometimes, when I draw Halloween paper dolls they are clearly a person with costumes and other times they are meant to be the actual creatures.

This set I think falls somewhere in the middle. Ruby could be fairy or she could be a person in a wig with an ear prosthetic. Sapphire is probably not a bee (clearly), but she could be somehow. I’ll need to think more on that one. I paid the bee with the fair, because I knew I could draw one set of wings for them to share.

A pair of Halloween paper dolls! A bumble bee costume and a fairy costume for these fun printable paper dolls.

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For this set, I stuck with a pretty narrow color scheme, as I wanted the wings and other pieces to be somewhat interchangeable between the two dolls. I’ve always felt like paper dolls are best when they have more options.

I hope everyone has an amazing Halloween, but, most of all a safe one.

If you want even more paper dolls with costumes, I just finished doing a bunch of Masquerade dresses for my 5 dollar patrons. Join us over on Patreon to see those and get more paper dolls each week.

Pretty Party Dresses for Ruby

Today’s paper doll set would be a great rainy day activity for kids. These formal gown sets are particularly popular for children, because my readers have told me they are. I don’t have children and my niece and nephew are a little young for paper dolls.

The dress to the far right used to be green for example and of course, this version of Ruby was the first version I ever posted. You can see that one, too. SO very long ago, that feels. (It wasn’t that long ago.) The two short dresses were a Patron only piece from last year. I don’t plan reuse all my patron pieces, but some of them will show up in some of these sets I construct from Jewels and Gemstones 1.0.

A beautiful black and white paper doll with four evening gowns and three shoes. She's curvy and lovely and super fun to print if you want a fun rainy day activity for kids.

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I love drawing formal gowns for paper dolls. Probably for the simplicity of drawing from reference photos and the fun of locating those reference photos.

However, I do listen to what my readers tell me.

Fun curvy printable paper doll with four evening gowns. Super fun rainy day activity for kids.

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I went with a soft of soft smoky color scheme for this set. Briefly, I considered not making Ruby a redhead again, but I love red hair so much. I always wanted red hair. My hair is sometimes called “dishwater blond” and while I think other terms like “honey blond” sound a lot nicer, I’ve never forgotten having my hair called “dishwater” as a child. Not really the best way for people to make a child like their hair color!

Anyway, I love my hair today. For a long period, I wished for red hair. So, I share it a lot. My grandmother was a redhead before her hair went white and I often wish I had gotten those genes. Anyway, every time I make a redhead paper doll, I think of it as a nod to her.

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As Winter Comes, Here’s a Viking Fantasy Paper Doll

Occasionally, I create a paper doll outfit and I know I want to continue for another outfit in another style. For this paper doll set, I wanted to take this Viking Woman Warrior inspired outfit from last January and create a whole Viking fantasy paper doll collection around it. The original design was inspired by this drawing, but I didn’t look at it until I was finished with these new designs.

Today’s paper doll outfits were based on Viking clothing, such as apron-dresses, but I also just had fun with the motifs on the first tunic inspiring motifs on the other pieces.

A printable black and white paper doll coloring page of a Viking fantasy woman with outfits, weapons and accessories.

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The paper doll’s hair was pretty much inspired by stereotypes of Viking hair. I wanted it to feel fantasy, but not be overly elaborate. Actual Vikings were very into personal grooming and took care of their appearance. We know this from the number of combs, tweezers and other tools found in the graves of Vikings. This is Viking fantasy, but I object to the whole idea that they were scruffy.

Printable Viking fantasy paper doll page with a mix and match wardrobe and some fun accessories.

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I did a lot of research on Vikings a few years ago back in 2015 and wrote up a quick over view if you want to read about actual Viking dress. I really enjoyed learning when I did that research. Though I openly confess that I don’t really go with historical Vikings very often. I know enough to know I don’t know enough.

But since I love playing around with different historical periods and creating fantasy paper dolls based on them, I don’t feel too worried about the historical accuracy here.

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