Paper Doll Tags with Julie Nutting Stamps

So what to do with these fabulous paper dolls once they are created?  Most of the paper artists I see online are making tags with the dolls. No surprise . . . Prima Marketing sells Tag Pads . . . 48 tags in a pad cut to just the right size (8.75" x 3.5") for the Julie Nutting doll stamps. There are several different backgrounds available now, but mine was purchased when the pad available had a script background, which I do like.

These were my first attempts (sorry . . .  pretty awful picture) . . .

Making the dolls with the doll stamps takes as little or as much time as one chooses to spend, depending on the particular stamp and the detail of the outfit. 

The process goes something like this: Stamp the doll onto the card stock chosen for the body -  white, off-white, text, script or whatever tickles your fancy and cut it out. Decide what papers to use for the clothes, ink the stamp for each part of the outfit and stamp onto the chosen papers. Cut out the clothing pieces and ink the edges if desired (white paper edges look unfinished to me now). Then it's time to put it all together. Ink the edges of the body or color the skin if desired; color the hair with pens, markers, or colored pencils.  Then glue the clothing pieces onto the base and voila! You have a paper doll to add to a tag, a package or a greeting card.

The green ballgown worn by the princess (above on the right) is a good example of a simple pieced dress.  Stamped once onto two shades of green paper, the bodice and hem were cut from the darker color paper and glued onto the light green dress.  Over time, I have become a better "partial inker" and I waste a less paper.

For a quicker paper doll, you can color the base doll with markers and not have to cut out any clothes. Copic markers are all the rage right now in the paper crafting world, but at $7.00 each, I'm not going there. FYI  I have made just two dolls that I colored with markers I had on hand, and decided I prefer the look of dresses cut from printed papers.

The doll pictured on the tag below was stamped onto a page from a telephone book.  I cut outside the stamped lines because the paper was so thin. The outfit was pieced using both sides of a sheet of double sided scrapbook paper and accented with Stickles glitz. I decorated the tag background using a doily that was inked, a strip of washi tape and some blooms punched from paper on a hand-drawn stem. 

A few more  . . . all of the dolls below were stamped on script paper and dressed with paper dresses. The headbands were stamped and cut out and some were embellished with punched shapes. Julie Nutting apparently likes headbands because most of her doll stamps have them. Some shoes are colored with Prismacolor pencils or black markers, others were cut from paper to match a dress.

  

  

You can see I was into the green and white checked paper.  :-)  The dress on the stamp used for the two younger gals (on the right) actually has only two tiers - I added the third tier because I liked the look.

The full collection of Julie Nutting stamps can be seen online on the Prima Marketing site.

If you are interested in seeing paper dolls made by other paper artists, I have collected my favorites on my Pinterest board HERE.

Or venture forth and search on "Julie Nutting" or "mixed media doll stamps" using any search engine such as Google or Bing.  There are literally thousands of  examples made by some very creative people out there.

And, if you are interested in giving paper doll making a try, we can do that, too.

Next time - making a jointed paper doll.

Cheers!

S.