16-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Tuesday, October 3, 1911: Nothing really of any importance. Therefore, nothing worth writing about.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
Since Grandma didn’t write much today, I’m going to tell you how to make a paper doll school girl using a hundred-year-old pattern that I found in the February 1911 issue of Good Housekeeping.*
You (or a child you know) could make several dolls and pretend that the dolls were Grandma and her friends at school.
Supplies Needed to Make this Craft
Heavy stiff white paper
Colored paper
Pencil
Scissors
Paste or glue
Water colors, colored pencils or crayons
Directions
1. Click here for doll pattern, and then print. Cut the patterns out.
2. On the heavy paper draw a line around the edge of the pattern for the front and back of the doll. Color or paint the doll’s face and other features.
3. Cut the two parts of the doll out. (Be sure to make her feet as large as the feet in the pattern. It’s okay if her feet end up being even a little larger than the ones in the pattern. She will not stand if her feet are too small.) Glue the two parts together above the knees. (Do not paste the feet together.)
4. After the glue is dry, gently bend the doll’s feet apart and she will stand.
6. Fold colored paper in half. Put neckline of dress on fold. Trace around the dress, and cut out using care not the cut the front and back apart at the neckline. Cut a slit up the back of the dress, so that it is easy to dress the doll.
7. Make several dresses, so that the doll can wear different outfits to school on different days.
If you enjoyed this craft, you may also want to make other hundred-year-old paper crafts described in previous postings.
Paper doll girl and her swimming ducks
* I’ve abridged and adapted the directions and the dress pattern.
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