In grammar school, I would sometimes walk with my sister over to my grandmother’s house after school. Grama worked, so we would be at her house alone, or with one of our aunts. Still, it wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs. Soon, as children are wont to do, we found a girl on the next block and became fast friends. Her family had emigrated from Korea a short time before and her parents and older siblings were never at home either.
We discovered a shared love of arts and crafts. Paper dolls offered a cheap way of expressing our creativity. She could draw people in a style I now recognize as manga. Our friend was perfectly willing to draw dolls and dresses and other clothes and we would play for hours. I remember a discussion of her being a fashion designer where she told me in no uncertain terms that she was going to be a doctor.
I don’t remember why we lost touch, but we did, as children often do. I still have the paper dolls, however, and, as a result, I think about her on occasion.
Amy, of The Creative Mom Podcast, as she often does, brought paper dolls to my mind again with her episode #67, the Shape of Paper. She sent me on a trip around the web looking at various paper doll websites. I found a cool site, Kiddley, with some good basic paper doll outlines that offer a lot of scope for imagination. Wouldn’t it be cool to make fabric clothes with your quilt fabric? A great use of scraps!
I’d be interested to hear your stories of paper dolls in your life and see pictures of anything you make in the paper doll realm.
It’s funny that you are posting about this. I loved paper dolls as a little girl. And one of my quilt magazines had a pattern where you use a preprinted fabric to make fabric “paper dolls” and their clothes. There were a few times with my current mermaid quilt where I thought I’d put snaps on her shoulders, and make different outfits for her besides just a mermaid. I may still do a quilt like that at some point just for my own amusement!
I love your sketch, and enjoyed your post!
What great memories! My sister and I weren’t quite as creative with our paper doll making – we used the Sears catalog. One of our more serious fights (kicking and punching) came about when I egged her on by saying the clothes on one of her “dolls” was ugly. Ah, the good old days… 🙂
I think that is pretty creative Lynn! I would have never thought of that.
This looks like so much fun.
http://barbiecollectorsite.info/
This looks like so much fun.
This is so cool!
Sometimes, it’s interesting how small simple things bring back a lot of good memories we once shared with our friends and loved once. For sure, these paper dolls are more than simple toys. 🙂