More Time-wasters for the New Year & Crafty Memories

Anita's Paper Dolls
http://www.ulster.net/~spider/dolls.htm

(These dolls are from British television programs, the original Star Trek, and Sophia Loren; the best doll is probably the Patricia Rutledge, because of all the Hyacinth Bucket clothes, but let it be noted Sophia Loren is totally hot-looking even when she's one-dimensional and made of black lines.)

I got the above link from this list of links:
http://www.freepapertoys.com/paperdolls.html

Along the theme of paper toys, there's a guy who has a toy theater you can make by printing out and assembling some free pieces he has on his site.
http://www.ruislip26.freeserve.co.uk/


I've not actually made any of those things above, but they look fun and they are free. When I was a little girl I made paper dolls by cutting pictures out of a sewing pattern catalogue my grandmother had; my dolls were too flimsy to play with, having no backing, but I had them. I could pull them out of their cigar box and look at them, which was satisfying enough, although it couldn't really compare to the great pleasure of looking through the big book, choosing only the best pictures, and carefully cutting them out. As the Craftster slogan has it, rock is dead, long live paper and scissors.

And I'd like to have a toy theater. It's part of my fascination with dollhouses. I have a vague memory of making a toy theater out of cardboard once, but I was rather hampered by the facts that I'd never actually seen a toy theater (only read about it in Five Dolls and the Duke years before) and that I was a grumpy teenager, not a kid who'd play with the thing for hours after I'd made it; I lacked Chesterton's ability to return to childhood play. There was also the usual obstacle my crafting desires had as a girl: lack of supplies.