Many of us enjoyed the fascination of paper dolls when we were young, they’re a wonderful toy that provided us with a cute creative outlet. I loved them so much as a child that I’ve decided to devote a post to them, including some history curtesy of Wikipedia. Not only do they inspire fashion design and creativity but they’re easy as pie to make!

Apparently paper dolls have been around for a long time, too, as long as there’s been paper. Centuries ago, in Asia, faces were applied to paper and used in religious rituals and ceremonies. The dolls at that time, however, did not have clothes. The earliest account of the paper dolls we’re more familiar with is in France during the mid-eighteenth century. They created puppets, called pantins, with hand-drawn and hand-painted fashions.

In America the biggest producer of paper dolls was McLoughlin Brothers, founded in the early 1800s. They sold out to Milton Bradley in the 1920s which is around the time paper dolls became popular.

These days it seems there are more digital dolls released than paper dolls, but they have have a lot in common. Digital dolls can have thousands of fashion and accessories for you to decorate your doll — tons of possibilities. However with paper dolls you can decorate with paper, fabric and other supplies which makes each creation much more unique.

Now let’s enjoy some of the lovely paper dolls our world has been graced with through the years (like these super cute vintage Japanese paper dolls)…

Thanks expo 67 lounge, Teri’s Paper Dolls and peppermint kiss kiss for the vintage paper dolls and Rushita for the Sailor Moon paper dolls!

Download Kisekae Dolls (Digital Paper Dolls)

My favorite Kisekae doll artist was always Kimiki, you can find her dolls here.

• Otaku World
• Scarmy (Artist)
• Kisekae Club
• Myu Pixel (Artist)
• Pseudo (Artist)
• Kisekae Game