I love the simplicity of paper dolls. I love that you can just peel off their clothing and stick them back on again in a wink. I also love the variety of clothing options they provide. I love that they store so easily. In fact, they don’t take up much space at all.

There are a few things that you should know when creating a paper doll.

1. Your doll should have a relatively simple pose. Otherwise it is more difficult to make clothing for your doll.

We found some pictures of American Girl Dolls online that were perfect for our project.

2. Your doll should be made out of cardstock or something of similar sturdiness. This will make your doll last longer. We printed ours out on card stock.

3. Both your doll and her clothes should have a laminate type finish in order to protect them. If you are making the doll and the clothes, the best way to do laminate is with packing tape. Just put tape on both sides and cut out. Be sure to laminate both the doll and her clothing in this way.

4. The best way to stick clothing on your doll now that she is laminated is by using UHU Sticky Tac. Just stick a small piece of the tac to her body and her clothing will pop on and peel off easily.

Okay, now that we had our doll, we needed to make some clothing for her. We started out by simply tracing her body to make clothes, and that was fun because we could make one of a kind clothing in any style that we could imagine.

However, all of that is a lot of work, and if you are anything like me, you prefer instant gratification.

When I was a kid, I would sit for hours and hours drawing and colouring and cutting out billions of little paper doll clothes, and that was awesome. I bet my mother was stoked because I was thoroughly occupied.

I would expect that I should have that kind of patience now. Unfortunately I don’t have the same unlimited time frame that I had as a kid.

So, I did what I always tend to do. I got to thinking.

Then I had a bit of an epiphany while shopping online for our non-paper American girl doll. The trick is on the American Girl website.

If you click on any of the clothing that they have for sale for the real dolls, a window pops up, and it gives you a close up of the doll’s clothing. Just print the image, cut it out and stick it on your paper doll. It is that simple.

We had to adjust our doll a bit to fit the clothes, but most of the clothing works for the pose of our doll. Some of the sleeves were a tiny bit wonky, but that wasn’t a big deal. My girl loved her new paper doll so much that she begged and pleaded with me to print out all the pretty images of the doll accessories too.

Welcome to our American Girl paper doll madness. 🙂

The next thing I decided to do was build a sort of closet for the dolls. I wanted something that I could store the clothing in, but that the dolls could sort of live in as well. I had a couple of card boxes, you know the ones that Christmas cards come in, and I was looking for a use for them so I thought that they would be perfect for this.

Here is what I came up with:

After we had a bunch of the clothing. We decided that we also needed some pets and accessories.

 

Yes I laminated all those little clothes and accessories by hand. Don’t judge me. I am usually the extreme crafting type.

Lastly we needed a bed for the dolls. I just used one of my handy Tassimo boxes.

I love recycling and reusing, don’t you?

 

I just cut the box in half and stapled some fabric to it. Then I added a cardboard headboard and a tiny pillow and voila. Now our paper dolly can sleep tight and it all fits together in her closet. I used some of the Tassimo boxes as dividers for her closet too.

 

Have fun!!

*Disclaimer: Just remember that any time you print images of something off of a website, you may only use it for your own personal use. It can not be re-distributed without the permission of the owner of the website, otherwise it is copyright infringement*