ok…ok…I’m a bit single minded…but not really! I don’t always lust after dolls or dream about miniature furniture. Sometimes I also get fascinated by paper (dolls, models, craft) and I have a soft spot for fashion, even just looking at clothes lift my spirit and if I can buy even better. I love for example the new blog I stumbled upon:paper fashion! I’m tempted to write to the owner and ask to post a nice paper-doll as freebie, it would be stunning!

Another blog of fashion illustrations I like very much is Flushbunny, look at the fashion sketch inspired to Jem dolls, don’t you love it? And let’s not forget the fantastic Irina Ivanova’s flickr stream.

But here are my faves

I would really like to post tons of links, I think fashion illustrations are just art on their own and they remind me very often of beautifully crafted paper dolls (ok, so perhaps after all I AM SINGLE MINDED).

And this reminds  me also of what is most probably next on my wish list (the one for things I can actually get ): it looks like a nice set

It comes with patterns, a paper doll and much more.

And a new Barbie calendar for the year to come:

I will let you know if I ever come around buying them

While writing the previous post some Rexona advertisements that were on TV a couple of years ago came to my mind.

Here is the first one I found on youtube:

and here the second one:

Here You can find some additional information and all the 4 advertisement clips aired at the time.

It looks like the idea of using dolls, specifically paper dolls, to advertise products is not so new. Here is the leaflet promoting a tobacco brand, the customers were promised a free paper doll posted to them when sending 6 coupons from the product packages. I think it is from the  19th century:

I found it on the digital gallery site of the New York Public Library.

It looks like the company anyway was fond of paper dolls since they published also some farm-yard animals pd on the Blackwell’s Durham telegraph, here you can see them.

Here you can actually see the list of items available for customers according to how many coupons they sent in. Basically a “loyalty program” ante litteram, fascinating!

I really like traditional japanese dolls but for the moment I keep myself happy by buying, by time to time, a fashion doll dressed in a kimono or a kimono for a doll I already have. Said so I still love to look on the net at beautiful collections of traditional japanese dolls and related crafts.

If my sewing and crafts skills were up to the task I would try to make this beautiful Kimono cloth doll, the pattern is from the nunodolls site and the finished doll looks great, but as I said, not enough skills here

I also find very nice this kimono pattern for superdolfie dolls from the trimline site, the fabric are so charming and they fit the dolls beautifully, but again not my piece of cake.

What actually looks like something I could give a try at are “simple” Kimono paper dolls. I had a look at many tutorials but this is the one I like more, it is really clear! In the other ones I checked there was always at least a step I didn’t understand. This I think I can handle…well sort of. For the clothes of the doll I plan to print these stunning oriental patterns from the ming-ling site, have a look, it is really an interesting page and the owner generously shares with all his readers many patterns, not just oriental ones.

Who knows…perhaps in many years I will be good at it

Last but not least a paper-craft! As you all know I love paper-craft and today I finally bought the right tools for this crafts (scissors, cutters, rulers etc etc). Have a look and download this delightful Hina Matsuri paper diorama. Did you ever see something so cute?

That’s all for now. Hopefully in the future I will share with you all my kimono paper dolls and tons of other nice links I found. Have a nice evening, or a  nice morning, wherever you are

So, we are almost half through the week, starting to get a bit tired but the weekend is still far away…

Yesterday we went together around museums, but today I just wanted to sit comfy and enjoy something funny, if you love paper dolls and intelligent humourism, you will adore this one:

This is the best video I watched in quite a while!

So, as I already said, I really would like to make a quick Halloween Diorama this year. I’m still not sure about the doll but I think  I will use my cute  Bratz  witch from the Bratz Costume Party line. Absolutely not scaring at all

On the other side the first rush of bills for this month stormed trough our bank like a tsunami and I already splurged on 2 chinese pieces of furniture in 1/6 scale  (pictures to come)so the sad truth is : no dollies funds left till next pay day

The only logical and wise decision at this point was a browsing trip, looking around for some additional free goodies to be used in my diorama.

As usually tons on stuff on the net, mostly in 1/12 scale but lot of them will work fine also with the 1/6 scale dolls. I found for example some nice Trick-and.Treat bags from the Hitty Print Mini, delightful site. The printies are intended for Hitty dolls but in my opninion will work fine in other scales as well.

What I really loved though was this skeleton paper doll !!! I bet it is a nightmare to cut it out but still looks very good. I found it on My Small Obsessions Site, a truthful name.

On the same site by the way you can also find the link to an absolutely lovely page full of mini printies for an italian restaurant. I know, I know…not Halloween-related but too good not to mention it:-)

So, that’s all for today and for my german readers: have a nice long weekend I will be working tomorrow

Growing up in Italy I don’t remember to have ever seen Sindy in the shops, on the other side I was a Barbie Barbie girl  when I was a child At the time I started to collect dolls though I was living in UK and there she’s a queen. Sindy has been produced by many companies (I think 4 up till now) and has undergone many transformations but what I really love are the big headed Pedigree Sindy. They have such a sweet face and even if they look all similar I find each single doll is slightly different from the other ones. Here are some of my Sindy (mainly Pedigree and a couple of early Hasbro) to give you an idea in case you never saw the doll:

I will not go into the history of the doll since there are plenty of good sites about her but two nights ago I was surfing the web (surprise, surprise) and googled Sindy up after a long time I didn’t do it. I found few wonderful sites I never saw before and I want to share them with the Sindy’s fans out there.

Here you can download some beautiful Sindy paperdolls and comics, the drawing are really vintage-looking and even if you don’t care for the doll itself you should love them if you are collecting paperdolls . I think even printed and framed they would be a delightful decoration for a dolls or children room.

If you are looking for some repro vintage outfits for example, much more affordable than the original ones, sindyclothes looks the perfect site to check out. The really cool sections though is the DIY one, the owner very generously shares with her readers and customers not only tons of patterns to do Sindy hats and shoes boxes and other printables,  but she even uploaded copies of instructions sheets for all the main furniture sets in case you lost yours or never had them. Really a site to bookmark!

And then if all these talking about Sindy made you hitch to dug your childhood doll out or buy a vintage one, here you can find plenty of chance to ID her. Club-Sindy site offers on the other side beautiful pages dedicated to the Hasbro dolls. Here one of the most beautiful Sindy dolls produced by Hasbro (and no so easy to get hold of): Soiree Magnifique. The picture is not so clear because the doll is NRFB:

So, what can I say more? Have a go, happy Sindy collecting!

I’ve been sick for the past couple of days, a terrible flu, I can hardly breath, so no much energy than anything else than laying in bed and occasionally surfing

After I got the cute link about the paper dollhouses from the japanese site the other day (see this post) I decided today, between a sneeze and another one, to see what is around on the web about paper dolls, my….I found tons of stuff but most amazing I realized how paper dolls evolved. Not only are they now often created with software applications like Photoshop, Corel Draw and similar but they also have sort of “evolved” into Dollz, basically “pixel dolls”.

I still prefer traditional paper dolls, that can be printed and played with, but even here you can chose your way of creating, either in the old-fashion way, drawing, or with one of the many fancy graphic applications available on the market. You can also use Open Source (most of them are for FREE) software as GiMP or Inskcape.

Here a couple of nice tutorials I found around:How to Draw Paper Dolls by Judy M. Johnson, or How to Create Paper Doll in Adobe Illustrator by Jacquelin Vanderwood.

Always related to creation of paper dolls using software you need to check this out, it is a tutorial on how to use Photoshp layers Rhiannon created: The Paper Doll Creation by Rhiannon, I think the girl is an artist and the site is worth a look just for the amazing graphics. The layers are not for free, they are on sale, but I think they look really good for the price asked for. Layers in GIMP works similar to Photoshop so you should be able to use the Open Source application, here is a guide to working with Layers in GIMP.

I still didn’t find any nice tutorial about creating Dollz, so if you have any suggestion please raise your hand

As usual, when you visit the above mentioned sites please be always careful with terms of use and conditions, these are all generous people who share their wonderful work with us and just because something in published on the internet it doesn’t mean it is free for us to take and do whatever we want to do with it. Most part of these tutorials are free for personal usage but not to resell and when mentioning them please always give credit to the original Site/creator.