Paper Dolls & Fashion Design from Old Magazines
Using Old Glossies to Create Crafts that Develop Designing Skills
Oct 30, 2009
Magazines collect in piles, in boxes and corners, and owners are often reluctant to throw them out. Within these used materials are colored paper, alphabet letters, drawings, cartoons and design ideas all originally created by artists.
Using Old Magazines to Create Crafts to Develop Designing SkillsThis alluring project appealing particularly to young girls, makes use of old glossies and suggests interesting and easily affordable craft opportunities. Dolls and fashion are always appealing to young ladies.
Making Paper Dolls
The participants choose and cut out characters from magazines. Suggest that the dolls should best be one size, or as close as possible to the size of the others, and that they all be at least four inches in height; the bigger the better for ease of cutting.
Paste the cutouts on cardboard, and then cut the cardboard exactly around the outline of the character to form a clean-cut doll. The doll is now ready to have clothes designed for it.
Cutting out Clothes for the Dolls from the Magazines
The children look for clothing items from other pages that can be cut out and used as doll clothes. A sample can be given to show how to cut out clothes, including in the outline “blips” that enable the clothes to attach to the cardboard doll. Most kids have seen this idea before and know there is an appendage which forms a wrap-around to hold the clothes to the doll.
An Alternative Method of Sticking Paper Clothes on Paper Dolls
Instead of using the “blip” method, products such as removable glue or reusable two sided stickers (found in scrapbooking aisles) can be used to hold the clothes in place on the dolls.
Designing Original Clothes for Paper Dolls
Creative or more adept students can design their own outfits, using the magazine paper for the “material”. Below, the illustrations show clothing items cut out from a page in a magazine that had some interesting color combinations. Notice the “blips” that have been added for attachment purposes.
Fashion Design Poster Project
For tweens or teens who are not interested in paper dolls, the idea of designing clothes with the magazine illustrations can be followed in the same way, but laid on a poster with written descriptions about the new product. This task encourages descriptive, creative writing.
Fashion Collage Presentation
Young fashion entrepreneurs may want to cut out pictures of clothes from the magazines and design a poster, write an ad, or create a newspaper article that discusses modern fashion and critiques of the clothing styles.
A multitude of projects can be based on old magazines. Don’t let this amazing resource go to waste. Just think of all the creative minds that went into creating the magazine and let that thought provoke new ideas which can be used in a creative classroom or home playroom.
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