Geisha Dolls

March 3 is Girl's Day in Japan. It is celebrated with a display of dolls. In the spirit of cross culture, I have made a tutorial of traditional Japanese paper dolls using western papers.

I apologize for the huge blank spaces. When I try to correct them, they just get bigger so I'm leaving well enough alone.

I picked up a copy of McCall's Needlework and Crafts from 1984. It had an 8 page article on making Japanese paper geisha dolls. I was intimidated but intrigued. Later, I picked up a number of Japanese craft books on the same subject. I couldn't read a word, but vowed to try this craft one day.

Finally I forced myself to sit down and attempt to make a geisha doll. Here is the result. It isn't a hard project; basically just folding paper, but I've included detailed instructions which, unfortunately make it seem more complicated than it is.

Materials:

small ball of cotton

white tissue paper

Kraft paper (or brown paper bag)

5 different patterns of paper

glue

Tools:

scissors

pencil

download the patterns for the face, neck, collar and obi here

download the pattern for the hair here

download the pattern for the inner kimono here

download the pattern for the out kimono here

Cut the 2 pieces of tissue according to the pattern for the face and neck..

Fold one piece into thirds, lengthwise and then in half. This results in a long narrow piece without the edges showing. Pinch off a piece of the cotton ball about the size of a pea and place it in the middle of the other long piece of tissue. Roll up and twist the ends.

Cut out the Kraft paper patterns for the hair.

Roll the two larger pieces around the pencil leaving the tails indicated by the pattern. Scrunch the rolls on the pencil before removing them. Take 3 of the small pieces and form loops. Wrap with 4th small piece and secure with a drop of glue.

Circle the scrunched ends of the large piece of Kraft paper together to form a donut. Glue ends together. Thread one of the tissue paper head tails through the center of the donut covering the joint with the tissue paper covered cotton ball . Tuck the unscrunched part of the bangs between the scrunched donut and the tissue paper. Bangs should curl down over the forehead. Glue bangs onto forehead to secure.
Add the top knot by glueing the ends into the roll at the back of the bangs.
Fold down the tail piece covered with the unscrunched part of the hair. Wrap both tissue paper tails and unscrunched hair pieces with the folded tissue paper. Secure with a drop of glue at the beginning and end of the wrap.
You now have a head, hair and neck.
Cut the collar pattern out of a piece of patterned paper. Fold it in half and place it around the neck. Glue to secure.

Cut out inner kimono from patterned paper. Fold top down twice. Follow pictures below to fold inner kimono over doll.

Cut outer kimono out of patterned paper and fold down edges as indicated.
Cut out kimono liner and glue in place.
Fold as shown in the following pictures.

Cut out the obi, wrap around kimono and secure. Fold up the bottom edges of the kimono to reveal inner and lining of kimonos.
Essentially your doll is finished. You can frame in a shadow box or drill a hole in a piece of wood and glue a chopstick in the hole. Thread the doll onto the chopstick (see picture at beginning of this tutorial). You can also embellish your doll by tucking a fan in her obi and flowers in her hair. I glued beads onto toothpicks and tucked them into the hair as well. Here are some other dolls I made with this technique.

This wedding party was made with wallpaper. The hair is made from crepe paper.

Stop Me Before I Buy Any More Punches

I've been a very bad girl. I can't help myself. I love paper punches and have bought way too many of them. Is there a 12 step program for punch buyers? Okay now missy, you better do something with them.

How about a wreath made from an old book?

Materials

old book

waxed paper

white floral wires

Mod Podge (matte)

white glue

Tools

various punches

paint brush

wooden skewer

These are some of my culprits (they made me buy them). Use whatever punches you may have or if you don't suffer from the same affliction, cut shapes out with scissors (hey, what a novel idea!).

Cut the margins off of about 8 book pages.

Since most old books have paper made from wood pulp, you need to stop the disintegration process so coat both sides with matte Mod Podge. I do this over a sheet of waxed paper.

Punch out your various shapes.

Make a leaf by punching out a circle shape (in this case, a scalloped one). Place the circle back into the punch - half way. Punch again and you'll have a perfect leaf shape. Fold in half.

Roll, fold or curl the punched shapes for dimension and layer them on top of each other. Encircle a few stems of white floral wire. Place the circle on waxed paper and glue the various shapes to your circle.

I made little spit balls which I glued to the center of the flower shapes and curled thin strips around wooden skewers to make tendrils.

I love the delicate look and hang it "as is" on my wall. It would look lovely in a shadow box frame.

Reading material on your wall - how unique!

Love Match

Here is a unique yet practical Valentine's Day gift. Inexpensive, and with a strong graphic, this warms my crafter heart. I hope it lights your fire. (stop me!)

Materials

box of kitchen matches

white cardstock

double stick tape or glue stick

Tools

stapler

Download this PDF file here. Change your "page setup" to borderless letter size otherwise you will lose parts of the labels. Print on white cardstock. You can make 4 boxes.

If you want to wish the happy couple a greeting, cut out a "you are" label. If you want to give this to your love, cut out "we are".

Staple this label to the inside of one end of the inside box. Fold the label to use as a pull tab.

Adhere the "Happy Valentine's Day label to the light cardboard match belt (I have no idea what it's called) inside the box.
Stick the label "A Perfect Match" or "A Match Made in Heaven" to the front of the matchbox.

Did you notice that the flame on the match is an upside down heart? So clever. (I'm double jointed so that I can pat myself on the back)

Transfer Update

I've had a number of technical questions about this post on image transfers so I decided to reexamine the process.

For the original post, I dug into my stash of nifty stuff and found IBM Overhead Transparency Film which I used. The questions I got led me to believe that there may be other transparencies available out there that I might explore. Enter HammerMill Transparencies.

You are instructed to print on one side; the slightly rough side that has been coated. Trouble is, it hardly budged when I tried to rub it on the wrong side. No transfer, or rather a very weak one after lots of rubbing.

I tried spraying the image with hair spray. I got transfers but they were spotty at best. A little too much hairspray and the image smeared. I was unable to transfer anything but black. Was all lost?

One last college try. What would happen if I printed on the slick (wrong) side? Victory! Not only did the letters transfer rather nicely but I got a very interesting look with a color photo.

I guess this is a case for experimenting and breaking the rules. Something I heartily endorse.

Wired Heart

This is a simple, elegant piece of Valentine jewelry. I wonder why I didn't think of this before.

Materials:

heavy copper wire

stick pin blank

feather

glue (Goop or E-6000)

Tools:

needle nose pliers

regular pliers

hammer

bench block

Take a length of thick copper wire. Unfortunately, I don't know the gauge, but I imagine it is 14 or 16. I found this in the electrical department of my local hardware store.

Bend it in half (I squeezed the fold with pliers), then bent it back out partially. This makes for a nice sharp point. Curl the ends to form the top of the heart. Use needle nose pliers if necessary.
Pound the wire with a heavy hammer. You need to put it on a hard surface, steel is best (I used a bench block which is a piece of steel adhered to hardwood). A concrete garage floor works if you have nothing else. The heart will warp when flattened. Turn it over and pound from the other side to straighten it out.
Take a stick pin blank and glue a section cut from a feather to the flat end. Cut the feather piece to look like the end of an arrow.
Place the heart on the piece of clothing and pierce the fabric with the stick pin as shown above.

On your sleeve perhaps?