Clara’s 2014 School Clothes

Clara’s clothes are some pretty simple outfits for school. A couple of t-shirts, with shorts, and jeans. Clara’s fashion page for this week is a departure from some of the more historical clothing seen previously. However, the colors and decorations used on the T-shirts create the individual style of the wearer. Flower patterns, extra buttons, lace, solid colors, tie-die, stripes... there are so many ways to decorate a T-shirt. Two styles of pants are also represented by the jeans and the rolled-cuff shorts that were popular in 2014.

To print Clara's School Clothes, use this PDF file:

Clara's Dress 82 (619k)

Clara is a free, printable paper doll. Clara will be available on this blog as long as I continue to post new fashion pages for her. You can read the introduction for the Clara paper doll here.

To print the Clara paper doll, use this PDF file:

 The Clara Paper Doll (718k)

Clara's 1878 Winslow Homer Dress

Winslow Homer's 1878 watercolor Fresh Air
(source: Wikimedia Commons. Image in the public domain)

Clara’s dress for today is based on a Winslow Homer watercolor named Fresh Air. The painting features a romanticized shepherdess standing with a few sheep in a field. I thought this was a fun painting that would make a great paper doll dress for Clara.

The girl is wearing is a simple drapy blouse over a ruffled skirt. The shoes have low heels, and some decorated buckles and pointed toes. The final part of the outfit is a straw hat with some long ribbons.

To print Clara's dress, use this PDF file:

Clara's Dress 81 (619k)

Clara is a free, printable paper doll. Clara will be available on this blog as long as I continue to post new fashion pages for her. You can read the introduction for the Clara paper doll here.

To print the Clara paper doll, use this PDF file:

 The Clara Paper Doll (718k)

Clara's 1869 Winter Overdress

I hear reports of snow across the country, although we certainly haven't seen any (and are very unlikely to see any here in the Arizona desert). But we did turn on our heat for the first time today, and are glad that our heater works.

So I decided to draw a nice, warm dress for Clara today -- an 1869 silk or taffeta party dress, with a matching overdress.

Have you ever seen a 1950s or 60s movie, where the movie star arrives at a party with a gorgeous cloak that matches her evening gown? Such high fashion was not a new idea... in the 1860s, it was quite the thing to have a cloak that matched your party frock. Even then, the idea of having a cloak to match your dress was not a new idea, having been a practice of the wealthy for hundreds of years.

It seems very impractical to me to have a coat you could only wear a few times. However, it sure is cute!

Clara has a little feathered bonnet to go with her dress, and some tall button-up boots to finish off her outfit.

The original dress was cranberry red. The overdress was cream colored with red trim. The bonnet was a matching red with white ostrich feathers. The boots were black.

To print Clara's dress, use this PDF file:

Clara's Dress 57 (783k)

Clara is a free, printable paper doll. Clara will be available on this blog as long as I continue to post new fashion pages for her. You can read the introduction for the Clara paper doll here.

To print the Clara paper doll, use this PDF file:

 The Clara Paper Doll (718k)

Coloring in white

This week's fashion page featured a white dress. Although I hope you color the dresses in whatever colors you like, sometimes it interesting to try to match the original. So how do you color a white dress? Well, you use several shades of gray to define the shadows on curves and folds.

If you are interested, Liana's Paper Dolls has a great tutorial on coloring an outfit to look white. Liana also posts some fun paper dolls, and is one of the nicer paper doll blogs on the web.

Printing the dolls and other questions

I have been asked some questions about my free paper doll and fashion pages. I hope this blog post will answer some of your questions.

Q. What paper should I use when I print the paper doll?
A. Although you can certainly use plain paper, I suggest you use cardstock to print the actual paper doll, which is currently Clara. She will be more durable as you put on and remove the various outfits. If you really want Clara to last for a long time, print the paper doll on cardstock, and then use a good coat of spray adhesive to glue another sheet of cardstock to the back of the printed sheet. Color and cut out as usual. Clara will be more durable.

Q. What paper should I use for the fashion pages?
A. I recommend you print the fashion pages on normal paper. Cardstock will work, but the tabs will be more difficult to fold around the paper doll. If you are particular about your paper, a nicer quality of paper or cotton bond will take colored pencil nicely.

Q. How do I color the paper dolls?
A. Any way you want. I do suggest using colored pencils, but markers and crayons work just fine. In each blog post, if I know the actual, original color of the outfit used for inspiration, I will provide that information. Some of the fashion pages are drawn from vintage photographs, which are usually black and white, so the original color may not be known. With each post, I also try to provide some of the colors that were popular in the era represented by the fashion design.

Q. Can I make my own dresses for Clara?
A. Although Clara and the fashion pages are copyrighted, you can certainly make your own dresses for her. Making my own dresses for paper dolls was a favorite childhood pastime for me. Just don't try to sell Clara as your own work. I am certainly interested to see how creative my readers are, so if you want to send me a scan or photo of any new dresses, I would love to see what you are doing.

Q. Can I send copies of Clara and the fashion pages to my cousin/sister/daughter?
A. Actually, please just send them a link to my blog. Thanks!

Q. Why are all your paper dolls and dresses in Adobe Acrobat (or PDF) format?
A. So you can have high quality prints, and all the dolls and fashion pages will print at the same exact scale. Please let me know if you ever have an issue printing one of my fashion pages.

Let me know if you have any other questions.