Paper Dolls

When I saw this idea on Toddler Approved, I knew I wanted to do this for my daughter.  I love American Girl dolls, and I love the idea of playing with paper dolls.  I can see where, over time, this can be a great basis for encouraging storytelling, pretend play, talking about what we see, etc.

I had fun making them.  I went through my American Girl catalogs (two of them) as well as my Vision Forum catalog and a Timberdoodle catalog.  I cut out the images I wanted to use.  I did a rough cut fairly close around each one.  This step took the longest.  Then I used repositional mounting spray to glue them to cardstock that I already have.  I let them dry overnight (which they never did really completely dry), and then cut around the images again.  I took them to a local teacher store (The Knowledge Tree) and had them laminated, and then cut them out for the last time.

I set them out to dry in our hallway.

I wound up with about 63 paper dolls (22 sheets of cardstock).  I know, that's a lot, but there were so many that I liked and that I thought Gracie would like.  I bought a photo storage box from Hobby Lobby which turned out to be on sale!  I wanted to get a cute one with pretty designs on it, but I didn't like any that I saw, so I got a plain white one.  I figure one day in the future, we can decorate it ourselves, or I may use a future American Girl catalog to decorate the box, cutting out images and gluing them with Modge Podge.

I gave the paper dolls to Gracie for Valentine's Day along with a cute heart sweater and I also set out a cute Valentine bucket that she got last year.  No, she didn't get any candy.  She's too little to know the difference, and she eats too much junk, anyway.  At first, she showed absolutely no interest in these paper dolls at all.  I was mildly disappointed but not really surprised.  I waited a couple of days before dumping them out on the floor (which is a good attention-getter for toddlers!).  Since then, she has shown a little bit more interest in them.

I'm glad I laminated them because they should last several years.  This project cost just over $8 for laminating and the white box.

Original Source:

Source: toddlerapproved.com via Ava on Pinterest