Altered Paper Doll

 In the, In My Vintage Room and Beyond Art Group I am hosting a swap called Altered Paper Dolls where you design your own doll and dress her.  The idea is that you start with a base doll  from a picture or a template found on the Internet a magazine, or stamped image or one you drew yourself.  Next you dressed her, there were no rules here.  Basically the only rule was she had to be between 6" and 12" and on a sturdy card stock or chipboard and have fun with it.

Here is my Altered Paper Doll

To make her I started with stamps that I purchased from Character Construct

http://www.characterconstructions.com/

(Love these stamps by the way for creating dolls.) I stamped the upper half of the doll twice, once on heavy card stock and once on chipboard.  I then cut one of the image apart to make a pattern so I could cut her blouse out, slightly larger than needed to put some padding under her sleeves to give them dimension. Once the blouse was done it was just a matter of what I was going to use to make her skirt. What I did was rip some pattered papers inked the torn edges wrapped them around a pencil to curl them and started gluing in place adding some cotton lace for more texture where I thought it was need, and filled in with the empty places with patterned paper. Her hair is made from mohair (left over from a felting project) that I braided and glued on. Then I just added a few pearls and ribbons, and trinkets and made her a purse and she was done.

I did add one last trinket, and that was the pin on her skirt, because I could hear my grandmothers voice in the back of my head saying Doe Doe a lady always has a safety pin pinned in the folds of her skirt for emergency's.

Stamp sets from Character Construct used:
Mannequin Cafe Collection #14 - Head and Torso
French Laundry #6 -  Skirt
Mad Tea Party Collection # 8 - feet

Ribbon on blouse and purse:  BoBunny Wraps (Holly Berry)
Crocheted Lace is from My Mind's Eye.
The round disk and the pin are from Tim Holtz's

Thanks Gram and Aunt Ann for teaching me to sew when I was a little girl.  Love and miss you both.