A few weeks ago I was looking for a fun project Bridget and I could do together, and I found myself on this website that has really cool paper dolls that you can download and color. I particularly like them because the dolls looked like young kids (or babies) rather than grown-up looking teens.

The website is MakingFriends.com. They have all sorts of other craft projects you can do too. Maybe we’ll try some of those at some point. But this time it was all about the paper dolls.

Anyway, I got this crazy idea to make them magnetic!!

So, I got myself some of this “magnetic material” with an adhesive side. I got it here. But you can also get it here, in varying sizes.

I printed out the dolls and all manner of hair and clothing to go with them. We colored and cut for a few hours (over the period of several days). We adhered our artwork to the magnet and covered it with clear contact paper, then cut it out again. We stuck each one to the fridge as we finished.

As far as teamwork goes…
We both colored. Bridget cut out roughly around the pieces (yes, we had a few causalities). I refined the cutting, stuck it to the magnet/contact paper, and cut again. And she carried it to the fridge. We made a pretty good team.

We ended up with several (gender neutral) ‘dolls’

Some hair

All manner of clothing… career, various seasons, princess, etc…

Add a little creativity….

And you can create some pretty awesome characters!

Seriously. I’m not entirely sure what she was thinking when she made some of these. (Not unlike her own choice of a mis-matched wardrobe some days, I suppose). Anyway, some of these gave me a pretty good laugh. I did the best I could to title them 🙂

Ahem…

“Hello China moves to Jamaica” and “Little Boy Blue”

“Mary Poppins meets poodle groomer”

“The gender confused nerd”

“Sacajawea gardening”

“Rainbow Brite plays soccer”

“Bejeweled Sumo meets Wilma Flintstone”

“Cancer survivor beauty pageant winner – Swim suit contest”

AND FINALLY here’s the same contestant in the evening gown/talent portion. Not sure I want to know what her talent was (especially if it involves that axe)…

Can you tell which ones Bridget colored?? She was pretty excited to see the stuff she colored on a magnet.

Well…
At any rate, we had lots of fun making these. And quite a bit of fun playing with them since. We’ve printed several more outfits since I took these pictures, and even recently make some ‘Easter bunny’ versions from the templates at MakingFriends.com. There really are tons of fun options!

If you are looking for something creative and fun to do, I recommend these paper dolls. (Magnets or not they are pretty fun).

P.S. I think I need to clean the door to my fridge. Leave it to a handful of photographs to point that out! Ha.