Chapter 3. Paper Dolls

Did you know that long ago there used to be very elaborate paper dolls which were manufactured exclusively for grown-ups?

Those paper dolls were made in France and were quite expensive. Both men and women played with countless numbers of them. They were printed on sheets, sometimes colored and sometimes only in black and white so that the purchaser could color them himself. As you can see in the drawing, which was copied from one of those old sheets, the arms and legs were printed separately to be cut out and attached to the body with strings. When the strings were pulled, the arms and legs moved. This made the figure look as if it really was dancing. They were called "pan-tins" and were printed by the thousands in many different styles of costumes.

Another kind of paper doll made just for grown-ups was called a "mannequin". These were designed to show the new fashions in women's clothes and were also very popular. One of these mannequins and her wardrobe is shown below. She was printed and sold in England in 1800.

An English paper mannequin with the latest fashions of 1800.

Joined string of paper dolls cut from folded paper.

There are two things about her that are very interesting: she is shown in profile (most paper dolls then, as now, were shown front view) and she was eventually given to a child as a toy. Children were not allowed to play with the mannequins and pantins because they were too delicate and too expensive.

However, little girls loved the paper mannequins so much that by 1840 special paper dolls were being manufactured just for them. These new-style paper dolls were portraits of famous women of the time; a singer, actress, ballet dancer, or beauty. Their costumes were copied from the real clothes worn by the people they were supposed to be. They were printed in lovely colors and made to look as real as possible.

The wonderful thing about these paper dolls was that almost anyone could make equally attractive ones for herself. Any kind of paper could be used for the purpose; fancy wrapping paper, magazine pages, writing paper, old letters and envelopes, scraps of wallpaper. Paper is such fascinating stuff to work with that once again the grownups started playing with paper dolls, only this time they excused themselves by saying they were making them for their children!

Men, too, liked to work with paper. For the most part, however, they confined their playing to making cutouts. Hans Christian Andersen, famous writer of fairy tales, not only made a paper doll the heroine of one of his stories (The Little Tin Soldier) but sometimes cut out paper dolls for his young friends. One of these paper dolls is now displayed in the museum in Odense, Denmark. This paper doll is funny looking to modern eyes, but no doubt Andersen and his young friends were delighted with it.

Remember, when you were very little, how someone cut out a string of paper dancing dolls for you to play with or to hang on the Christmas tree? The operation was quite mysterious to you then. He folded the paper so quickly, gave a few rapid cuts and snips with the scissors, then dramatically unfolded the cutout and displayed a whole string of little dolls, although he'd only cut out one! That was magic that delighted you both.

Once when I was working on such a string my grandmother asked me why I didn't make little paper dresses to put on each doll! She showed me how to do it and they were so pretty and so much fun that perhaps you, too, will enjoy making ones like them.

How to Make a Paper Doll String

If you are good at drawing, you can make your own pattern doll. But it might be a good idea, this first time, to trace the pattern doll shown in the picture below.

Transfer the tracing to heavy brown wrapping paper, then cut it out.

The pattern doll measures 3 in. wide and 4 3/4 in. tall. Dolls smaller than this pattern are much too difficult to dress successfully.

Select a nice piece of heavy white or cream-colored paper. Good quality shelf or wrapping paper will do very well. If the paper has creases in it, iron them out just as you would from a handkerchief.

We know that each fold must be 3 in. wide and 5 3/4 in. tall. The number of folds you make in the paper will determine the number of dolls you get. It is quite difficult to cut through more than six folds.

To make a string of six, measure off a piece of paper 18 in. long and 6 in. wide. Along both sides of the long edges, mark off 3-in. points to guide the folding. Make accordion (back and forth) folds. Do not fold the paper over and over.

Lay the pattern doll on the folded paper so that the edge of each hand just touches the outside edges of the folds. Carefully trace around the pattern doll. Cut out along the traced line except around the outside edges of the hands. If these edges are cut, you will have six separate dolls instead of a single string of dolls holding hands.

Finishing the Dolls

Unfold the dolls. Now they are ready to have faces, hair, socks, and shoes put on them. Each one can be different. Use colored pencils or sharply pointed crayons for this work.

For the eyes, just make tiny blue, brown, or gray circles and fill them in. A tiny half circle drawn in red makes the mouth. A thin, light brown line makes the eyebrows. Hair colors may vary as you like.

Modern pattern for a string of "dressed-up" paper dolts.

A light pencil line across each leg, slightly above the ankles, will indicate socks. Color the slippers brown, black, red, or green.

Now make the backs of the dolls match the fronts by filling in the hair, socks, and shoes.

Dressing the Dolls

One dress pattern will do for all the dolls. Trace and transfer it to heavy paper. Cut it out and use it to guide the drawing of each dress. These dresses have a back as well as a front, so lay the pattern on a piece of folded paper. Use a striped or printed paper. Trace around the pattern. With the paper still folded, cut out the dress. You will have two identical pieces for the first doll.

Cut out double dresses for each of the other dolls, using different colored papers for each. They could be polka-dotted, plaid, plain, or you could draw little designs on them with pen and ink or colored pencils. When each doll has a dress (front and back), the pasting begins.

Place the string of dolls face down on a clean piece of paper. Spread a thin layer of library paste or vegetable glue across the shoulders and waist of the first doll. Smooth the paste so there will be no lumps. Fit one dress piece (lay its matching front aside so it won't get mixed up with the others) to this doll, placing the shoulders of the dress even with the shoulders of the doll. When the dress is in the right position, make it stick to the doll by rubbing your forefinger across the pasted areas. If any paste oozes out at the sides, wipe it off immediately with a piece of cleansing tissue.

Each of the other dolls has the back of her dress put on in the same way. Turn the string of dolls over and put the fronts on to match the backs. Carefully wipe away any paste smudges before they dry.

Trimming

When the dresses are all pasted on and dry, you'll want to add those bits of trimming that give individuality to each. Look at the illustrations shown with the pattern. The Peter Pan collar and cuffs may be cut from white writing paper. Belts are very narrow strips cut from dark-colored papers. Wider belts may be made from silver or gold or colored scotch tape. A lace collar may be cut from a piece of paper-lace doily. Tiny bows and flowers are sometimes found in magazine illustrations. Cut them out for use here. Make-believe rickrack braid can be made by cutting very narrow strips of colored paper with a pinking shears. Remember to cut double amounts of everything so that the backs of the dresses will be as attractive as the fronts.

Applying paste to these tiny trimming pieces is something of a job. Wrap a very small piece of cotton around the end of a toothpick to use as a paste applicator. Turn the trimming piece face down and rub paste on the back of it with the applicator. If the piece should slip as you're pasting it down, thus leaving a smear of paste on the dress, gently rub the smear off with cleansing tissue. If allowed to dry on the dress, it will show up as a white stain, which is not attractive looking.

Stringing

When the dolls are all dressed, they may be hung from the branches of the Christmas tree or the edge of the mantelpiece for the whole family to enjoy. With a needle, put a small loop of black sewing thread close to the top of the head of each doll. The tips of the loops may be tied to the tree branches or scotch-taped to the edge of the mantel-piece. The loops are periodically invisible and the dolls will look as if they are dancing on air.

Standing Doll String

If you want these dancing dolls to stand up by themselves, they will have to be made much stiffer. Make two identical strings of dolls and paste them together before dressing them. This will make them firm enough to stand when the string has been joined to make a circle.

Another way to make them stand is to put "bones" in the dolls. Pipe-stem cleaners are pasted on the backs of one set of dolls. Pipe-stem cleaners are pasted on the backs of one set of dolls. A 41/4 in. length of cleaner is pasted down the middle of the doll from forehead to heels. Two 11/2 in. lengths are pasted along the arms. The second set of dolls is then pasted on to cover the bones. The exciting thing about this method is that the arms and legs can be bent into dancing poses. You can make May Pole groups or square dancing sets that look very natural.

The paper dolls made to play with are really the most fun. They can look just exactly as you want them to. You can copy your own favorite party dress or the prettiest clothes of your friends. You can dream up wonderful designs that no manufacturer would ever think of. With no expense at all, your paper doll can have as fabulous and extensive a wardrobe as the ones that used to go with the real fashion dolls of olden times.

The marvelous thing about the dresses you can make for your own paper dolls is that they can actually look like real gowns, with folds and pleats and draping just as your own clothes have. Dressing a doll this way is fascinating. It takes time and requires a lot of planning and patience, but each finished costume is so attractive that you'll want to start making another one right away.

How to Make Real Sculpted Paper Dolls

The first step is to make the doll itself. Design your own, or use the pattern doll below.

Trace this design to make your own paper doll. By making her bald it is possible to change her hair-dos as frequently as her dresses. Be sure to put hitching tabs on each hair-do.

Draw the pattern doll on heavy white writing paper. Before cutting it out, paste on paper to lightweight cardboard like the pieces the laundry puts in Father's shirts. The paste must be very smooth. When the paste is dry, cut out the doll and draw in the features.

Do not draw in any hair. Let her stay bald so that all sorts of different hairdos may be designed later to go with individual costumes.

Use the pattern doll for all dress and costume designing. Trace its outline on another paper piece of white paper. Design the dress right over this figure. Start with an easy costume like the jumper and blouse you wear to school. After you have drawn the perky puffed sleeves, snug bodice, and pleated skirt, draw on tabs at the shoulders and at each side of the waist as shown in the small sketch below.

Dressing the Doll

Now the really exciting part begins. Make a fresh tracing of just the costume on another piece of paper. Leave out the head, arms, and legs, but be sure to include the tabs. Cut it out. This is the very important foundation pattern.

The first sketch may now be cut up to give you patterns for the separate parts of the costume. The second sketch, the foundation pattern, is the part upon which the various final parts are pasted.

The idea now is to make the doll's costume look like a real dress actually having pleats, folds, and fullness. The way to get that effect is to cut the individual parts larger than the foundation sleeve, bodice, or skirt. Then the edges of the larger pieces are pasted to the edges of the foundation. Because they are larger, the paper bows out in curves and folds and looks most realistic.

Since only the sleeves of the blouse show, that is all of the blouse that has to be made. Cut two pieces from a single sheet of cleansing tissue (it looks just like sheer muslin on the doll). Cut each piece 1/4 in. larger than the foundation sleeve. Put a narrow line of paste along the bottom of the sleeve on the foundation pattern and another line of paste along the armhole. Gather the top and bottom edges of the tissue between the fingers so it will look as if it had been shirred. Place one shirred edge along the armhole line of paste. Press these edges down firmly. Place the other gathered edge along the paste line at the bottom of the sleeve. Press down. Because the tissue was longer than the foundation, it bows out and looks like real puffed sleeves. A very narrow strip of white paper may be pasted along the bottom of the sleeves to cover the raw edges of the tissue. Or use a colored strip to match the jumper.

The next step is to make the skirt. Cut 1/4in. longer than the skirt length of the pattern, and 7 in. wide. Make a little box pleat in the center and a number of narrow pleats on either side of it. Rub a line of paste right across the waistline of the foundation and down each side edge of its skirt, but not across the bottom. Lay the pleated skirt on the foundation. Press down the top edge to the waistline of the foundation. Press down each side of the skirt so that it sticks to the sides of the foundation. Only the backs of the pleats will stick to the waistline, so put tiny dabs of paste between each fold that has popped up at the waist and press the folds down. Clean off any bits of paste that may have oozed out.

Cut the bodice 1/8 in. wider at sides and bottom than the pattern. Use the same kind of paper you used for the skirt. Cover the back of the bodice with a thin coat of paste. Set the bodice very carefully on the foundation so that its armholes will cover the upper edges of the sleeves and the bottom will cover the top edge of the skirt. Gently rub it so the paste will take hold. A narrow strip of black paper pasted across the waistline will look like a belt, as well as cover the seam line if it did not turn out smoothly. Trim off the sides of the skirt if they extend too far.

Loosen the skirt pleats by slipping your finger under the bottom of them to make them swing out as your own skirt does. Gently pull out the sleeve tissue if it has become flattened. Be sure that the dress has hitching tabs at shoulder and waistline to hold the costume on the doll.

It is great fun to try your hand at making various hair styles and hats. Magazine illustrations can be copied exactly, or you can just use them to guide your own designing. Actual pieces of ribbon, fabric, feathers, and tiny artificial flowers can be pasted on the hats to decorate them.

When you are designing your own costumes, always follow the same procedure; trace the doll, then make your design on this tracing, not forgetting to put on the necessary tabs which will hold the dress on the doll. Make a fresh tracing from the completed design and cut it out to be used as the foundation. Study the design before cutting out the various parts. Plan colors and trimming. Paste the skirt and sleeves on, then the bodice, which should cover the edges of the sleeves and skirt. Last of all comes the trimming. By working in this order, your costumes will always turn out successfully.

A doll house bride and groom made of paper.

A good deal of skill and time has gone into the making of these elaborate dolls. It is a good idea to have a special box in which to keep them, so they'll stay fresh and undamaged. A candy box will do. Cover it with a pretty gift wrapping or wallpaper to show that it holds something very special and valuable. Keep your collection of papers and trimmings in a separate box. Use an elastic band around each box to keep it smooth and neat.

You can be very proud of these paper dolls. Who can tell but that perhaps some day, years and years from now, these dolls will appear in a museum to delight both children and grown-ups with their beauty and fine workmanship? Just in case that might happen, write the doll's name, your name, and the date you made it on the back of each piece.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...