Category Archives: artwork

I remember a time when you could get a card with a cut-out paper doll on it, and pages and pages of doll clothes with the little tabs all over them. On the internet you can find all sorts of old paper-doll doobiddies that somebody copied or scanned. There was a time when, growing up with two sisters old enough to play with and a baby brother who wasn’t good for much but crying at night and pooping on stuff, I have to make a confession, I did girly things. Back then I often resorted to playing with dolls and making dolls by cutting them out, and making them less naked by cutting out clothes with the little tabs, and often pasting them on because we forget the little white tabs were not supposed to be separated from the clothing.

This Annette Funicello paper doll, just like one my sister once had, was made from a scan of the back of a box of 1950s Cheerios. I borrowed the thing from Pinterest, printed it out in color with my printer/copier/scanner, and then pasted it to cardboard before cutting it out.

The clothing, mostly dresses, I left on mere paper and then cut them out to dress and re-dress Annette. For instance, I like this cowgirl get-up because I saw the episode where Annette and Darlene were working jobs for teens at a dude ranch. That was fascinating to me at age thirteen. Yep. And you could take the clothes off the paper doll again, though you couldn’t actually make the doll naked, since she had yellow gym bloomers under her clothes.

I decided that if I was going to make art from paper dolls, that I wasn’t limited to pre-made dolls from other artists. I took some of my own drawings, copied, cut out, and pasted them to cardboard. Here you see young Prinz Flute, Mandy Panda, and little Henry.

This little cutie is Luz from Owl House on Disney+. But don’t sue me, Disney. She is borrowed from fan art on Pinterest, so it’s fair use of copyrighted material that actually gives you free advertising.

Where this anime nudie cutie actually came from, I do not know. But she fits Annette’s striped skirt.

As much as I would like to make a paper doll of this Shirley Temple doll, I cannot in good conscience do it since I traced this image to a site where the paper dolls are advertised for sale.

Still, it might be worth the money. My sisters had one of these too.

I will just have to be satisfied with whatever I can make from this little guy/girl? public-domain character from the 30’s. You can make wonderful things out of something like that.