Hazel's paper "dolls"

The other day I cut out the little girl and her clothes on the front of a couple of my Oliver + S patterns and Hazel was really taken with the idea of making some paper "dolls" for herself. I gave her a stack of 250gsm paper and let her loose. When she was done she came back and I did the cutting out for her - at just 4 she's very keen on the scissors but not quite accurate enough to satisfy herself when it comes to delicate operations like this! I eyeballed where the centre of balance would be and from that where the 'ground' was for each of them. I cut that straight with an extra flange off to each side with a vertical cut from the bottom to half way through it to slot the stand into. It was all pretty much by the seat of my pants but with a bit of thought about where the base would go I got them all balanced quite nicely, even the big guy in the back.



The stand was simply a length of paper trimmed off one side of the sheet so there was at least one straight edge on it (my cutting skills are sometimes lacking in this direction!). I folded them in half and made corresponding vertical cuts, starting from the top this time.



She was delighted with the whole exercise and I must admit they're pretty charming as a group! There's something about seeing your art in '3-D' that is very appealing. I have visions of a chess set made this way, or a really big one made out of cardboard - say a tracing around a child stood upright with a big triangular wedge like they do for those ones of film stars in video shops.



The one in the foreground here is a self-portrait of her as a mermaid - I'm loving those lips! The rest are dinosaurs I think, I know the one on the far right in the top photo is a Parasaurolophus, and the other two in the back look pretty dinosaurish, though the chap centre front up there looks vaguely octopusish so who knows. I need to get her to tell me again!