Sunday Wonders - P

P is for Paper Dolls.

Before there was Barbie for little fashionistas to dress, there were paper dolls. This box has been languishing in a forgotten corner of a cupboard for a few years now.

 I found the dolls in a magazine one day and decided that I had to color them.  I had some nifty felt pens and I went right to work.  Took me hours and hours.  I'm not sure what I thought I would be doing with them.  I just knew that I had to pay homage to my childhood love of paper dolls.

I colored and cut out the large ones but seem to have stalled on the smaller ones.  They did all get colored, though.  I have them saved for my grand-daughter now.  I'm not sure that they are as interesting to her as they were to me. 

The first paper dolls I ever had (I was about 6) were of Lucille Ball (long before she was I Love Lucy) modelling some of the most fabulous clothes.  I don't have them any more and the photo above is courtesy of Google.  I remember that hey were very much like this.  I think - no, I know - that my mother was fascinated by Lucille Ball.  She bought me the paper dolls as well as at least one LB coloring book - another thing I loved to do.  So did my mother.  That was an awful lot to buy in the way of movie star stuff for those times.  I'm sure it reflected my mother's youth and, perhaps, her loneliness at being so far from family and friends.  And she was at home with two small children every day in a house well outside the town center. 

The best thing about paper dolls is how easy it was to create new fashions for your dolls.  My mother indulged her love of fashion and color  and put her considerable design and drawing skills to work making my dolls new dresses and costumes.  It was heaven to me...I believe it was to her as well.