Simple Groovy Paper Dolls

Groovy Paper Dolls

Today was Activity day.  My co-leader and I decided we should do a lesson on modesty with our 8-11 year old girls in our ward. When I was a little girl, I loved playing with paper dolls.  I recall having the paper dolls with clothes that had a tiny folded pieces that kept the clothes on the doll's body.  I decided that crafting paper dolls during our modesty lesson would be a fun activity for the girls.  For the last three days, I have been creating paper doll supplies. Material scraps, old ripped jeans, scissors, yarn, glue gun, buttons, ribbons, have been scattered all over my bedroom floor.   While visiting my in-laws this past weekend, I had the privilege of using my mother in-laws vintage scrap material to make the doll clothes.   The material is from the seventies and early eighties!  I can imagine many blankets, doll clothes, and kid's clothes were sewn using these material scraps.  They are so groovy and the girls absolutely loved them!  They were commenting on how they would wear most of the fashion designs I came up with.

Here are some of the outfits that I made using the vintage material scraps.

I made denim shorts, skirts, and  jeans out of my girl's old ripped jeans.

Paper Doll Supplies:

paper doll body found at Wendy's Activities

card-stock paper 

material, denim jeans scraps, and felt 

scissors, glue/ Velcro,

glue gun and glue sticks

yarn (yellow, red, brown, and black)

buttons and ribbons

Wiggly Eyes

crayons, pens, markers, or pencils

Instructions: Make a pattern for the dress, shirt, pants, shorts, skirt, swimsuit, etc by tracing around the paper doll's body. Pin the pattern on material and cut it out.  Add embellishments like ribbon, felt, and buttons for a belt or shirt designs.  I used the hot glue gun to apply the ribbon, buttons, extra fabric pieces, etc. I created many different hair styles, short, long, medium length, bangs or no bangs, pigtails, braids, and straight hair down. Draw lips with a red marker and color the body with crayons.  Cut out the "model" (use card stock paper).  Next, glue the wiggly eyes and hair on the face.  During my activity, I had my girls glue the clothes on the body.  At home, I applied Velcro pieces to the doll and clothes so that they could change the doll's clothes.

  

We each did two paper dolls.  Little Sister's dolls are on the left, mine are in the middle, and big Sister's dolls are on the right.  They were so much fun to make!  I think they are darling if I say so myself, LOL!

Here are some of our favorite paper doll fashions.

While the girls worked on their paper dolls, I read some information on modesty and my co-leader did an object lesson.  My co-leader got a Glamour magazine and read an article about Blessings from the Friend.  The girls were so confused looking at the cover of the magazine of a model dressed in a sleeveless sun dress and wondered how some church related material would be in the middle of Glamour magazine.  One girl said, "Did that article really come out of that magazine?"  At the end, she pulled the Friend page out of the book and explained to the girls that we need to be careful with how we choose to dress because we send the wrong message to others when we don't dress modestly.  Next, my co-leader showed the girls her vintage paper doll books from the 1940s-1950s.  We were surprised to notice that during World War II the women's fashion were very modest but after the war the skirts got shorter and the tops became too low or sleeveless.   After some of the girls were done making their paper dolls, my co-leader had them look through the Glamour magazine to try to find some modest fashion as well as pick out the indecent clothing.  They shared the results with the rest of the group by indicating the well dressed models as circled verses the not modest clothing with a large X!  I sent the girls home the modesty material that I read to them as well as a bookmark titled: Modest is Hottest that included some modesty quotes like the following: "What you wear tells others who you are."  "Dressing modestly invites the Holy Ghost. When you are well groomed and modestly dressed, you can influence others for good."  "What you wear shows your respect or disrespect for places you go and people you're with. My favorite quote is : What you put on your body 'talks' And everyone who sees you 'hears' what you're saying."  Tonight after doing homework and reading, little Sis wanted to play with the paper dolls at the dining table.  Good times are ahead for this little girl by playing with simple paper dolls!  What a wonderful activity planned and finished! Yay,  I was so happy that six girls showed up today and had a blast!  Now I can rest after all that hard work!  Whew!