Color and Cut Out These Victorian Paper Dolls

Here is a little set of Victorian paper dolls; it includes both a mother, daughter and several changes of cloths.

Doll Quotes

“Little girls love dolls. They just don’t love doll clothes. We’ve got four thousand dolls and ain’t one of them got a stitch of clothes on.” Jeff Foxworthy

“Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake.” – Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A.A. Milne

“Some parents say it is toy guns that make boys warlike. But give a boy a rubber duck and he will seize its neck like the butt of a pistol and shout “Bang!” George Will

“We say that a girl with her doll anticipates the mother. It is more true, perhaps, that most mothers are still but children with playthings.” F. H. Bradley

“You can buy about four hundred tiny fashion separates that mix and match to create three tasteful outfits. In that way, the doll is incredibly lifelike. Chilling, even.” Chuck Palahniuk

“For two weeks I gambled in green pastures. The dice were my cousins and the dolls were agreeable with nice teeth and no last names” Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls

“Only when human sorrows are turned into a toy with glaring colors will baby people become interested – for a while at least. The peoople are a very fickle baby that must have new toys every day.” Emma Goldman

“Stouter dolls than I might have quailed at being pressed into service by a Hindoo snake-charmer. I cannot say it is a stage of my career that I enjoy remembering, but at least I comfort myself with the thought that I did not behave in any way which would bring disgrace upon my kind.” Hitty, the doll from Dorothy P. Lathrop’s tales

“Blessed be Providence which has given to each his toy: the doll to the child, the child to the woman, the woman to the man, the man to the devil!” Victor Hugo

“It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot ‘do’; they can only be done by.” ― Rumer Godden, The Dolls’ House 

“Somebody’s poisoned the waterhole!” pullstring quotes from Woody in Toy Story

“I have been thinking; our mistress gave us the nice dinner out under the trees to teach us a lesson. She wished us to know that we could have had all the goodies we wished, whenever we wished, if we had behaved ourselves. And our lesson was that we must never take without asking what we could always have for the asking! So let us all remember and try never again to do anything which might cause those who love us any unhappiness!” Raggedy Anne

“Figuring weight for age, all dolls are the same.”  Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls

FALSTAFF: You make fat rascals, Mistress Doll.
DOLL TEARSHEET: I make them! gluttony and diseases make them; I
make them not.
2 Henry IV 2.4.37 (Shakespeare)


“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.”– Pooh’s Little Instruction Book, inspired by A. A. Milne
“Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child’s loss of a doll and a king’s loss of a crown are events of the same size” Mark Twain

“I just want you to know that even though you tried to terminate me, revenge is not an idea we promote on my planet.” Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story

“A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head, and Motherhood dragging a doll by the foot” Allen Beck

“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are “Real,” most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are “Real” you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” The Skin Horse speaks with the Velveteen Rabbit

“You know you’ve made it when you’ve been moulded in miniature plastic. But you know what children do with Barbie dolls – it’s a bit scary, actually.” Cate Blanchett

“Some people care too much, I think it’s called love.”– Winnie the Pooh

Mermaid Paper Doll Parts

Mix and match my paper doll parts for creating your next mermaids, merbabies and mermen: Read the Terms of Use before downloading folks!

Aqua mermaid tail, shells, and sand dollar by Kathy Grimm.

Blue mermaid tail, shell and sand dollar by Kathy Grimm

Sepia mermaid tail, shells, and sand dollar by Kathy Grimm

More Mermaid Paper Dolls:

• Mermaid by Renmeleon
• Mermaid from edupics
• Mermaid by Loretta Willis
• Sunken Treasures (example)
• Jada Mermaid Paper Doll
• Marisole Monday: Beneath the Waves
• Mermaid paper doll by Serendipity Sisters

Illustrated Objects for Designing 1880 Something Doll Houses

      A picture book published in the 1880′s by F. Warne & Co. – United Kingdom and The United States depicts objects in the house, city and country. I have included here the few of it’s pages illustrating the following interior rooms: kitchen, master bedroom, hall, drawing room, parlor, nursery, library and dining room, for those of you who are recreating period doll houses.

Items from the entire house

Items from the kitchen

Items from the bedroom

 

Some nursery furniture for the paper doll house

      The two pieces of paper doll's furniture published today are a crib for the paper doll infant and a rocking chair for a somewhat older paper child. Cut out both pieces and paste them on cardstock to make them stiff enough to stand up. Fold on the lines indicated by the arrows and thrust the small tabs through the little slits. These small slits are more easily cut with the point of a knife than with scissors.
      If you have not made the paper doll's flat, which was described when the furniture series was begun, you may now make a paper doll's nursery from a box, which should be about eight inches long, seven inches wide and four inches high. Take away one side of the box so that you can arrange the furniture easily. The floor of the box should be stained with water color paints or colored with crayons. The walls may also be stained a pale color, pale blue, pink or yellow being the nicest for a nursery. If you prefer, you may paper the walls.
      Make a rug for the floor by pasting a square or oval piece of felt paper in the center of the room. A blue and white nursery is very pretty and you may have dark blue paper  for a rug. Cut a window out of one side of the box and curtain it with white tissue paper.
      The crib will need a mattress, which you can make of white tissue paper. It will take many thicknesses for a good soft mattress which will be comfortable for the paper doll infant. Tissue paper sheets are very nice, and then you should have a little coverlet of white lace paper over pale blue or pale pink. Make a little flat pillow of tissue paper.
      You can cut tiny pictures of animals from magazines and papers and frame them in white letter paper and paste them on the nursery walls.

Paper Doll Craft

      Paper dolls have been around as long as there has been paper. Faces or other objects were applied to the paper and they were used during religious rituals and ceremonies in the Asian cultures many centuries ago. The Japanese used paper for Origami, artful paper folding, and dating back to 800 AD they folded paper figurines in the shape of Kimono. Balinese people made paper and leather into puppets since before the Christian Era. Other cultures around the world have had paper formations or paper art, including in Poland, where they were called Wy'cinanki. These early types of paper figures differ from typical paper dolls today, as no clothes were made to be used with the dolls.
      In Europe, particularly France, the first paper dolls were made during the mid-18th century. The paper was jointed and they were called pantins meaning dancing or jumping jack puppet. They were intended to entertain adults and spread throughout high society. They were drawn or painted like people with fashions for each doll. These were more similar to contemporary Western paper dolls. Rare hand-painted sets of paper figures dating to the late 1780s can be found in some museums today.
      The biggest American producer of paper dolls, McLoughlin Brothers, was founded in early 1800 and was sold to Milton Bradley in 1920s. Around this time paper dolls became popular in the USA and then grew in popularity in the following decades.

      Book publishing companies that followed in the production of paper dolls or cut-outs were Lowe, Whitman, Saalfield and Merrill among others. Movie stars and celebrities became the focus in the early days of paper dolls in the USA. Paper dolls are still produced today and Whitman and Golden Co. still publish paper dolls.

      Vintage paper dolls with hand-painted artwork are becoming increasingly rare due to paper aging issues. They have become collectible, and the prices for mint uncut sets can be between $100 and up to over $500 for a sought after title.

Find Paper Dolls Online:  Mermaid Paper Doll List * paper dolls from Morgan Wills * The Ginghams Paper Doll Book * Free Printable Vintage Paper Dolls * Ning of Babalisme * Sally Weekly * Beachy Paper Dolls * Paper Dolls on Parade * Spring Paper Dolls * Mexican Paper Dolls * Snow White Paper Doll * Free Paper Dolls from AchivolArt * Mini Moppets *********
Paper Doll Artists: Keering * Wanda Stivison * Michal Negrin * Kimberly Crick * Ceremony * Rhondas Originals * Lindsey Carr * Atelier Cheri * Mat Rat Rubber * Laura Haviland *
Sunday Republic Paper Dolls: Myrtle * Irene * Thomas * Clara **
Orbina: Maciej Blaszak * kirakirahoshi * Ume Origami * Ningyogami dolls *
Video: Paper Doll Coloring Book by Hannah Stevenson * Paper Doll Dress Up Tin Purse Project * Make a Marie Antoinette Paper Doll * 3D Paper Dolls-How to Fold a Kusudama Unit * Shichi Go San Boy * Japanese Paper Doll Crafts **

Miniature Paper Kitchen Furnishings for Your Paper Dolls

      Three pieces of kitchen furniture for paper dolls from 1911 are being published this week. You may color them before cutting them out, according to your own taste, but naturally the stove should be dark gray or black. The other two pieces are a table and a chair, which will look well if colored yellow or white and blue. The table may have a white top with blue supports.

      Paste the entire sheet of furniture on letter paper so that the different pieces will be stiff enough to stand up. Then cut out each piece neatly by the arrows. Cut the straight slits, which you see, into which are to be thrust the tabs. The slits are most easily cut with a knife. When this has been done thrust the tabs through these slits and paste them down.

      If you did not make the box apartment as described in this series of publications, you may wish to display the pieces in a separate cardboard display measuring at least eight inches long, seven inches wide-and four inches high. the floor may be stained a dark brown or painted yellow, which is a good color for a kitchen floor of during the time for which the furniture designs were common in an American home. The walls may be colored in any tint that you prefer. The floor may have a square or oval of colored paper pasted in the middle of the floor representing a rug. Cut a window in one wall and a door in another and take one of the long walls away and the top off, as then the furniture will be more easily placed and the scene conveniently played with.

Designing Doll House Interiors:

• Illustrated Objects for Designing 1880 Something Doll Houses
• Paper furnishings from Hattons Gallery
• 1894 The Kitchen Lithographed
• Doll House Paper Craft Pinned from Petra Harris

The Strangely Changing Face

By cutting out the various features scattered around the face in this picture and placing them on it in various combinations, you can make a vast variety of amusing and startling faces. Do not paste the features. Simply lay them on as fancy dictates. There is hardly an end to the funny faces you can produce.

Rainy Day Paper Dolls

      It seems like only yesterday when my now eighteen year old was cutting her own 'rainy day' paper family from old J. C. Penny catalogs. I was rummaging through a set of children's books in our bookcase and what do you think a found? An entire catalog family fluttering about from the pages. I picked them up and felt tears form in my eyes. How I miss my children's childhood innocence. I hope that many of my readers here will make just as many happy memories with their little ones on rainy days, printing, coloring and cutting away.

Winnie the Wonder Cuts, The H. C. of L.

      "I'm lonely," said Winnie, one wet autumn day. "This staying indoors is not much fun. I've dressed all my dollies a thousand times o'er. To do it again would be such a bore!" Just then she heard voices, though no one was seen. They seemed to proceed from a new magazine. A newspaper loudly its many leaves fluttered; a catalog also, she thought, gently muttered. "Here's 'Papa' and 'Mamma' and Johnny and Ned, and Agnes and Alice and Baby and Fred! Imprisoned we are, and will be for years, unless you'll release us, with skill and with shears." "I'll do it!" cried Winnie--and then, not in vain, she fell to her cutting with might and with main. "Papa" was an ad of some ready-made clothes, and "Mamma" was wearing some beautiful hose. While Baby and Agnes and Alice and Fred, young Johnny and Edward (the last with a sled) were easy to find if you knew where, in a catalog given to "best" children's wear. "Oh, lovely!" cried Winnie in accents of glee. "I've got, all at once, such a fine family! They'll want many things so I mustn't be stopping. The rest of the morning I'll spend on their shopping." So she got them some suits, all ready to wear, and raincoats and hats and wavy false hair, and chairs made of willow and brass beds and tables, and lampshades and candlesticks, toy dogs and sables. She found them a bathroom with fixtures complete, and elegant shoes for each pair of feet, pianos which sounded the mellowest tones, and beautiful, diamond disked new graphophones. She bought Chinese lilies, in nice shallow bowls, and stockings all filmy, without any holes. She got for them drinking cups, autos and collars--but she spent not a dime, nor even her dollars! Thought all she procured in a manner so rash, she managed to lose not a bit of her cash. The rain it kept on and just wouldn't stop, but Winnie was dampened by never a drop. "This shopping by scissors is certainly wise, and I'm glad that the merchants 'most all advertise. Their talk of 'cut prices' is perfectly true. I cut both the price and the article, too. My paper dolls now have all that they need, and the morning has passed with the pleasantest speed. And the best of it all is no rent need they pay. In the leaves of a book I'll just tuck them away!" from an old New York Tribune

More Related Content: Just a few charming paper characters for you to collect:

• A small gentleman owl paper doll
• The catalog dolls here, here and here
• Polly Pratt Paper Dolls and their wardrobes intact
• Queen Holden paper dolls
• Make a 1930s Face paper toy
• frog mommy

Paper Circus Performers For Little Ones

Color the following circus performers for big top fun!

Color and cut-out this paper lion tamer.

Color and cut-out this paper clown and elephant.

Color and cut-out this performing horseback rider.

More Circus Paper Projects:

• Balloon Nose Clown Craft - Circus/Carnival
• Altered Art Circus
• Take me to the circus
• Circus fold-out book

Weave a Paper Dress

      Art teachers are always looking for new ideas for teaching this standard paper weave project. This is because many states require a weave technique be taught to young students several times before they graduate from elementary school. Paper weaving is, of course, very inexpensive for teachers to teach. Above you can see my teacher's sample of the process.

       This year, I viewed these examples of paper weaving in a local elementary art exhibit and thought them to be unique interpretations of an old paper weaving requirement. A child's perspective on life is both charming and refreshing when given just a bit of liberty. I particularly love the teddy bear below!

More Related Content:

• Cricut Paper Doll Clothing
• Love These Ceramic Paper Doll Dresses
• Crepe paper doll dresses from Ohio

Paper Circus Toys for Young Students to Color

Color the following paper seals and their trainer for a child's circus toy collection.

Color this paper chariot rider for a child's circus toy collection.

Color this paper elephant and clown for a child's circus toy collection.

Color this paper giraffe with musical clowns for a child's circus toy collection.

Color this paper rhinoceros for a child's circus toy collection.

A seal balances a ball on his nose.

More Paper Circus Collections:

• Paper Circus from the Little Paper Dog
• Circus Roundabout
• Paper Circus Set 1 from DaWanda
• All About Old Toys

"Clara" paper doll

This paper doll is "Clara." She was published in 1903 by the Sunday Republic newspaper. I have restored her so that little people may color and cut her out just for fun.

"Thomas" paper doll

Here is a boy paper doll named Thomas. He was included in a junior section of the Sunday Republic in 1903. Thomas, like most small boys of his day, wore suspenders and nickers. His mother kept his hair relatively long for a boy. Thomas would not have worn full length pants until he turned twelve or thirteen years of age.

"Irene" paper doll

"Irene" is from an old Sunday Republic paper published in 1903. She has been restored by Kathy Grimm for little people to color and cut out. Click on the picture to download the largest file possible.

"Myrtle" paper doll

"Myrtle" is a paper doll from an old Sunday Republic newspaper edition published in 1903. She has been lovingly restored by Kathy Grimm so that little people can color and cut her out.