Your first doll, start to finish

Tick each cut off as you make it

Printed paper figures of pets and a person, cut out and standing on a green cutting mat beside a knife and tweezers — Cut-out figures standing on a mat

What you can finish in your first month

One doll with a five-outfit wardrobe

The standard first project, and enough cutting to make your curves smooth.

A whole book, cut and filed

Most books hold two dolls and about 16 to 30 costumes, which is four or five relaxed evenings.

A black-and-white printable colored your way

Print a free line-art doll and color it with whatever pencils or markers you own before cutting.

One original outfit for a doll you own

Traced over the doll's outline, so the fit is right on the first try.

A shop window of antique toys with a paper doll in a pink dress and a book titled Paper Dolls

Four ways into the hobby

Cut, print, draw or keep whole

Cut-and-play booksBuy a published book, cut it and dress the dolls. This is the default path and needs nothing beyond the base kit.

Start here

Pick one book on a subject you already care about (a decade of fashion, a film era, a royal court) and cut the first doll and three outfits this week.

Printing At HomeFree and low-cost printable dolls from independent artists, printed on your own cardstock. The widest choice of styles, and a spoiled cut costs one sheet to reprint.

Start here

Print one doll and one outfit page from the free index on a single sheet of cardstock each, checking in your printer's settings that scaling is set to 100 percent so the clothes fit.

Paper Thin Personas printable index

Drawing Your OwnDesign a doll and a wardrobe from scratch, or add outfits to a doll you already have. It needs smooth heavy paper, fine pens and something to color with.

Start here

Trace the outline of a doll you already own onto smooth heavy paper, then draw one dress over that outline so it is guaranteed to fit. Read the guild's free drawing lesson before you ink it.

Paper doll drawing basics

Collecting Uncut SetsBuying books and vintage sets to keep whole. Uncut sets hold the most value, so the gear here is about storage, not cutting.

Start here

Choose one narrow subject and buy two copies of a current book on it: one to keep uncut and one to cut. Then read the guild's advice page before paying for anything old.

Advice for beginning collectors

Open a direction to see its first step. Cut-and-play books need only the base kit. Printing At Home adds cardstock, Drawing Your Own adds paper, pens and pencils, and Collecting Uncut Sets adds archival sleeves.

Two free guild pages to read first

Cutting cleanly and choosing scissors

Choosing scissors

Look for blades 2 to 4 inches long with fine points that meet exactly at the tip. Close them on a scrap of printer paper: the cut should run clean all the way to the point, with no folding or tearing in the last quarter inch.

Keep them for paper

Tape, fabric and glue dull or gum up fine blades. Wipe the blades with a dry cloth after each session and store them with the tip guard on.

Curves

Move the paper, not your wrist. Long strokes with the middle of the blade give a smooth edge, and short snips with the tip leave a row of flat spots.

Inside corners

Cut into a corner from both sides so the two cuts meet. Turning the blades inside a corner tears the paper.

Enclosed spaces

The gap between an arm and a waist is the one place scissors fail. Leave it filled in at first. Later, cut it out with a craft knife before you cut the outline, while the page is still large enough to hold flat.

Tabs

A tab no wider than the arm or shoulder it wraps around holds best. If one tears, tape a paper strip to the back of the outfit as a replacement.

A pair of old steel scissors lying open on a black background — Steel scissors, blades open

What trips beginners up

Expect your first doll to have a slightly wobbly outline. Edges smooth out noticeably by the third or fourth figure, so start with a book you are happy to practice on.
Thin necks, wrists and ankles crease in handling. Glue a floppy doll to thin cardboard, such as a cereal box, before cutting it, never after.
Clothes from one book rarely fit dolls from another. Poses and proportions differ, so keep each doll filed with its own wardrobe.
Printing with "fit to page" switched on shrinks the doll and its clothes by different amounts if they are on different page sizes. Print every sheet of a set at the same scale.
Drop the habit of cutting tabs off because they show. Without them the outfit slides, and a cut set with missing tabs is worth less to the next owner.
Do not cut a vintage or out-of-print set to see how it looks. Photocopy or scan it and cut the copy for your own use.
Old paper is fragile and often acidic. Tape, rubber bands, paper clips and sunlight all leave marks that cannot be undone.

Two hands cutting an intricate red paper shape with a knife on a gridded cutting mat — Fine cuts with a knife on a mat

Two hands holding up a chain of four white paper figures joined at the hands

Where to learn more and meet other collectors

A small hobby that trades in person

The hobby is small and friendly, and most of what is written about it is free. The artists' guild publishes articles on history, collecting and preserving old paper, and its events page lists the national convention and regional luncheons where people trade duplicates and artists sell new work. For vintage sets, the usual sources are online auctions, estate sales and specialist dealers, and many classic sets are sold as inexpensive modern reprints you can cut without guilt.

The guild, the magazine, the events list and free tutorials

Why the kit is this small

A book and a pair of fine scissors are the whole hobby, which is why they are the only essentials. A pocketed file is the one addition worth making early, since a single book turns into fifty loose pieces. The three add-on groups each match one direction above: cardstock if you print your own, drawing supplies if you design your own, and archival sleeves if you keep sets uncut. The two optional tools solve problems you will only meet after a few dolls, so leave them out of a first order.

Painted fashion sketches of figures in coats and dresses taped in rows to a white wall — Fashion sketches taped to a wall

Lay out the cutting table

Compare the options on each line, then set your tiers and check out from the cutting table. Clicking a card selects it there. The book, the scissors and the file folder start in the kit. The Printing At Home, Drawing Your Own and Collecting Uncut Sets lines join once you switch on that direction, and the craft knife and putty stay out until you add them.

Paper doll book

essential · Core equipment

This is the doll and the wardrobe. One book gives you several evenings of cutting and a finished set to keep.

budget

Great Characters from Shakespeare Paper Dolls (Dover Paper Dolls)

4.3(54)

$8.95

Paper Dolls

Your first doll, start to finish

Four ways into the hobby

Cutting cleanly and choosing scissors

What trips beginners up

Where to learn more and meet other collectors

Why the kit is this small

Lay out the cutting table

Paper doll book

Fine-point detail scissors

Expanding file folder

White cardstock

Smooth bristol paper pad

Fineliner pen set

Colored pencil set

Clear archival sleeves for uncut books

Precision craft knife

Removable adhesive putty