Whimsy Musings: Madison life size paper dolls....

This past weekend we had the pleasure of attending our Great niece, Madison's First Birthday party. It was awesome of course! I so miss shopping for those little girl outfits and it was so much fun picking a few out. Generally, you would get a cute little bag and some nice tissue paper. But not when you are awake at three in the morning for no reason at all and thinking. And thinking...and into your head pops, "ooh, wouldn't it be cute if the outfits are already on Madison?" Next comes, "well, how big can I print out her head after I have scanned it?" "Hmm, paper is 11.5 by 8.5, surely this will work!" First you need a picture. Whitney and Dennis handed that to me with the handy-dandy invitation with not one but 12 pictures of her on it. (Very cute by the way!) Then you will need some arms and legs with hands and feet attached. I tried scanning some various appendages in my collection. For some reason though, they just were not working. I almost gave up. Until, while cleaning up my craft room I opened up a drawer and "Voila" a pair of baby doll arms and legs. Hey you never know when you will need this stuff. AND...it's not creepy! Just sayin!

As you can see I already scanned her head, the doll arms and legs and enlarged them. (later though I realized the hands should have been a bit bigger!) This is what happens when you start the project THE NIGHT BEFORE YOU LEAVE!

Next use your Modge Podge to adhere all the parts to those Xmas boxes you bought at the Dollar Store this year. (Guess we will be needing more of them next Xmas!) For the trunk of her body, I put the clothing down on the cardboard and basically traced the shape of the two different tops. Then I cut out all of the pieces. With the trunk shapes I cut them out as if they had short sleeves and short little legs thinking that the baby arms and legs I copied would be long enough to connect. NOPE...no such luck. Hey, I am "winging it" here! SO, I had to add a linking piece of cardboard to connect the arms and legs to the trunk piece. This doesn't need to be pretty because the clothing will cover it anyway. Although, if I were to do it again, I would have attempted to make the base look more like a paper doll too. Anyways, I just used a good old fashioned stapler to connect the trunk to the linking pieces, to the arms and the legs. I had to make sure that the staples were completely flat and not sticking up so they wouldn't ruin the clothing. Then I basically dressed the doll. I left the head for last because I really wasn't sure how I was going to connect that. In the neckline area, when I was making the body trunk piece I didn't cut out the scoop part of the neckline because I figured that is where I would attach her head. I brought out the old glue gun and carefully attached her head making sure not to get the glue on the clothing. That would not have been good! And here she is....

Twin Madison's in their cute little outfits! Yeah, I know I could have sized the baby arms a bit bigger. But now, how do I wrap them up? I dunno, a box seemed kind of creepy. (As if this isn't already...I hear you people!) I was thinking of a paper doll like book but I didn't have big enough cardboard, or a huge envelope sort of thing. Before I started my project THE NIGHT BEFORE I had to leave to go out of town for the party, I was at the Dollar store looking for possibilities. I purchased two cute bags that were sort of metallic like and much stronger than the others thinking I could create the envelope. Nah, I was running out of time and still had to pack as it was an overnight trip so the bags had to do in their own right. I felt kind of bad folding Madison up, but I tried to do it in such a way that when she was pulled out of the bag by her head (ouch!) that her arms and legs would just unfold into a natural position. Well that sort of worked!

Madison and her twins at her party. I cracked up because I hadn't realized I made her head so darn big! I was a bit nervous not knowing what my nephew and niece would think...cause it is kind of strange. But the awesome thing was, everyone clapped and that made me feel so much better even as Whitney's eyes were like "WTH"?!


Will the real Madison please stand up!

I know the outfits look big too right? They are 18-14 months which mommy said to get. I had a lot of fun making them and watching my crazy 3 o'clock in the morning vision come to life. Most of all it was so nice to be able to be at Madison's First Birthday party!