Decorating Tiny Dolls
Want a quick addition to a page? Try a tiny little paper doll! Lately, little paper dolls approximately 2 inches tall have hit the scrapbooking scene. The excitement is over their wonderful size! I recently saw them for the first time and was swept away by them! You can either punch them, or cut your own. Either way they are so adorable AND they fit on the page so well! They are also perfect for 5x7 or other small albums for kids. Sometimes you have no room on the page for a big paper doll but still want the playful look. Try a tiny doll instead!
Once you decide to use small dolls, you will be looking for time saving ways to make their clothing, hair, and accessories. Embellishing tiny dolls doesn't have to mean hand-snipping accessories that are difficult to cut out! Many stickers are just the right scale for accessorizing tiny dolls. And those are great! But there is also another option...use your punches!
My personal shortcut is to punch the shapes. I dug out my small and mini punches to create the tiny dolls shown here. You will never expect that punches can create the designs shown here! What fun it is to create outfits from baseball and basketball players, to cowgirls, pajama gals, fairy tale heroines and more! Join me as I show you my easy time-saving tips on how to dress your tiny dolls!
For the samples in this article, I used the Nakong 2 inch tall doll punch. However you can also cut your own simple shaped doll. It looks a lot like the Jill paper doll, only smaller. You could even combine it with a larger Jill die cut and make a family or use it as a baby with the larger dolls. But for our purposes today, we will focus on just using them on their own.
Punch your body shapes in your choice of flesh tones. At only 2 inches tall, these dolls can be cut or punched from your other paper scraps. This means a cost savings for you! An 8.5x11 piece of cardstock will yield about 16 to 18 tiny dolls for a total cost of about 25 cents for all 18 of them. That means they are about a penny each--depending on the price of your cardstock! And their clothing can also be punched from just a few inches of scrap paper as well! Talk about economical!
Creating Clothing
Once you have the doll cut or punched, use the outer part of the punched skin tone paper shape as a template. This will to help you draw or cut clothing for your dolls. In figure 1, you can see how to judge if the print will look good as clothing. Mini prints, smaller stripes, or solids papers are best. Next turn the clothing paper over so that you can draw on the back. Lightly draw with pencil the shape of the doll. Take away the template and cut out the clothing a little bigger than the pencil marks that you have drawn.
Not all clothing styles are snug --as can be seen in the pajama girl and the wedding dress in figure 2 and the fairy in figure 3 and 4. Allow a little extra on the skirt fullness, baggy pant styles, and arm sleeves for these styles. Believe it or not, with more practice, you can even cut clothing without drawing!
Keep in mind that you can also simply punch the clothing if it is a tighter-fitting type. Some styles of clothing can be punched quickly or cut following the exact shape of the original doll. Long sleeved shirts, t-shirts, tank tops, jeans, shorts, and swimming suits are speedy outfits. Simply punch or cut an exact doll duplicate in the color you want the clothing item to be. Figure 6 and figure 7 indicate how to cut apart a punched doll shape to create clothing items. Snip, snip, you are done! Just adhesive them on and your dolly is now dressed! You can add pencil or pen marking for detail if you prefer.
Note how some punches are the perfect shape for clothing additions or clothing parts. The small bow (upside down) can be a halter top. The small twist candy can be a summer blouse. Small sun and mini sun layered make a magical wand! Make a bowl of flowers with the tiny tulip, small oak leaf, and a medium apple cut in half.
Ribbon border punches are just right for detailing on jeans or the lace on a skirt. And don't forget the vellum! Vellum underskirts look like lace or bridal veils and vellum bows make lightweight angel or fairy wings! Small musical notes make 1940's style head kerchiefs. And a combination of small moon and small star (cut apart) equal a tiny cowboy hat!
Now Add the Hair!
You may have been dreading tiny dolls because you were afraid of cutting tiny hair for them! Don't do it freehand unless you want to! I use these punch combinations for wonderful EASY, EASY hairstyles!
Candy + Candy + Moon = sweet girl hair!
Small Sun = a creative modern look!
one Small Moon = my favorite boy hair!
A Sun and a Half = spiky boy hair!
Small Note + Small Note = Hairdo with “Wings" or 1940's Patterned Kerchief !
Small Apple + Small Apple + a Snipped Small Maple = a Bobbed Haircut!
Four Small Oak Leaves + mini Sun cut in Half = Full Long Hair
Border Punch Curls + small moon = Long Curly Hair
Inspired to try some tiny dolls? It can be as simple as punching four or five shapes. Each one only takes a few minutes and they fit anywhere in your albums! If you only have a couple of inches of room on the layout to fill, these sweet little ones fit the bill! Want to save money on embellishments? These cost about a penny each! Looking for something that will use up that scrap pile of paper? Create them to mimic what your family is wearing in your photos or just do your own thing. Make a few teeny friends! With these time-saving tips, you are gonna LOVE making and decorating these tiny dolls!
