Paper Doll design swap

Embroidered paper dolls and clothes, based on the artwork from the dolls and clothes at the "Making Friends" website. 

Permission has been granted from Terri at www.makingfriends.com to use her artwork of paper dolls and clothes for our design swap, so long as credit is given to her, and all designs must be freely available for anyone to download, not just swap participants, and they can not be sold or traded.  Embroidered paper dolls and clothes may not be sold, but may be used as gifts.  Full terms of use are at http://www.makingfriends.com/useragree.htm

Terri has drawn an extensive selection of paper doll clothes, in a variety of categories, including athletic, Biblical, ethnic, occupational, and more.  A few of these designs were previously digitized for another design swap, but the website they first appeared on is no longer on the internet.  Some of you may remember those dolls, and some of you may have even helped digitize the clothing for that swap.  The dolls in this swap will be the same size, so if you have the clothes from the first swap, they will fit these dolls. 

Here's the rules & other info for this swap:

I will digitize the dolls and post them for download as soon as I finish each one.  You digitize the clothes, props, and backgrounds.  There will be a different theme each month.  At the end of each month, there will be a drawing for prizes.  

All levels of digitizers are welcome, from newbies to experienced.  Everyone is encouraged to join, no matter what your skill level is.  Participants will digitize their choice of clothing designs from within a selected theme each month.  Each week, I will post pictures of your designs on this site, and will make the designs themselves initially available for swap participants only.  At the end of each month, all the designs will be posted on this site for everyone else to download, and a new theme will begin.  Here is the schedule:

April - Multicultural Friends.  Choose a multicultural design from the Making Friends website, or draw your own.  You can also digitize ethnic items, such as decorated bowls, musical instruments, flags, or other elements that represent different cultures.  

May - Career Friends.  Choose a career friends design from the Making Friends website, or digitize your own.  You can also digitize items to represent the career, such as a vehicle or tool that's used on the job.  

June - Athletic Friends.  Choose an athletic friends design from the Making Friends website, or digitize your own.  No copyrighted team logos, please.  You can also digitize sports related items such as balls, goals, megaphones, vehicles, helmets, and other elements.  This swap can also be used for non-contact sports, such as board games, card games, and video games.

July - Seasonal Friends.  Choose a seasonal friends clothing design from the Making Friends website, or design your own.  You can also digitize items to represent the different seasons and weather changes, such as sun, clouds, leaves, picnic, day at the park, day at the beach, water sports, snow sports, or other seasonal elements.

August - Holiday Friends.  Choose a holiday friends design from the Making Friends website, or design your own clothes.  You can also digitize items that go with the holidays, such as gifts, trick or treat bags, cupid arrows, Halloween costumes, or other elements.  You can also digitize clothes for special events, such as new baby, marriage, or birthdays. 

September - Spiritual Friends.  Choose a spiritual friends design from the Making Friends website, or design your own clothes.  You can also digitize spiritual elements such as a cross, Bible, star of David, or other elements.  Any religion, item, or scene is welcome to be represented, but I will not accept any designs that are controversial, Satanic, atheistic, or against another religion.   

October - Scout Friends and More Friends.  Choose a scout friends or design from the more friends category at the Making Friends website, or design your own "other" clothes.  You can also digitize design elements that relate to scouting, such as camping designs, or you can digitize things that relate to your clothing design.  

November - This month, make up your own designs for scenic elements and background items, such as clouds, trees, gates, grass, buildings, etc...

December - Holiday break

January - Fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and story books.  Make up your own designs for outfits, wands, wings, and more.  No copyrighted characters please.   

February - Amusement parks, circus, jesters, mimes, and masks.  Make up your own designs for outfits and props.

March - Projects.  Send in your photos and instructions for projects you have made with the paper dolls.  Three prizes will be awarded for the best projects submitted.  The swap will officially end after this month, though additional designs will be accepted if anyone chooses to send them in later.   

During each month, you may choose which design you want to digitize, or you may design your own outfits to go with that month's theme.  There's no need to sign up for a particular outfit, just go ahead and digitize the one you like best.  If you choose the same one someone else has done, that's okay, because everyone will have a different digitizing style, and yours won't be exactly like someone else's.  If you want to digitize more dolls, redo the same dolls, or digitize some hair, go right ahead, and I'll post them the next time I update the site.  No copyrighted characters please.

"How to" information:

Go to http://www.makingfriends.com/f_Friends.htm to get the artwork for the clothes. The first month's theme is multicultural friends. To save the pictures, right click on it, and choose "save target as", then you can download it. Each page of their site is one giant gif image, so you don't need to save every single shirt and every single shoe, just the one picture on each page that you want to save. 

After you save it, you'll need to go to whatever graphic program you use, and cut the picture apart by cropping out one item, then paste it onto a new page, rotate, save, and go do that again for each other item on the page. I use either paint or paint shop pro when I need to do that. 

I had to convert it to a jpg or bmp first before I could use it. I don't know how all the other digitizing programs work, but in the PED software, you can import a jpg or bmp as a template, then you just digitize over it. After you're done, you import the doll, and resize the clothes until they fit it.  Remove the doll, and save the clothes. Hopefully, your software will be similar. 

After you digitize your design, please be sure you test sew it, so you can spot any problem areas, such as long satin stitches that might cause needle breaks, or areas that are too dense.  Please make sure your clothes are sized to fit the paper doll.  Take a photo or make a picture on your flatbed scanner, and email your designs and pictures to me.  You don't need to zip up your designs, but if your email is larger than 5 MB, then you'll need to split it up into several emails.  If you want to include a text file, you may, but I probably won't be making text files for you if you don't do it. 

Designs sent in early or late will be put with designs from the same theme.  Late designs will be posted with all the others for that theme, and early designs will be held until that theme comes around.  

How to use the paper dolls:  

The typical way to use the dolls is to embroider them onto felt, cut them out, and paint Aleene's "Tack it over and over again" on the back.  Let it set up for a few hours, and it will dry to a tacky finish, like an adhesive sticker.  "Tack it" can be reapplied if you ever need to do that.  There is also a new product sold by OESD that is an adhesive spray.  I think it's called 505 spray.  You can spray the back of your embroidery, and reapply as often as needed.  I haven't tried it yet, but have heard good things about it.  Buy a notebook and put some clear plastic sheet protectors in it.  Stick the dolls and clothes onto the plastic sheets to store them.  If you can find some backgrounds from coloring books or calendars, put them inside the plastic sheets, and use them as backgrounds for stories that you make up.  

A project page will be made to show off everyone's creations and ideas.  Please send your photos and/or project instructions to inspire everyone!  

Have fun digitizing, and don't be afraid to experiment with appliqués, textures, colors, and shading.  Please don't hesitate to write if you have any questions.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's designs! 

Last, but certainly not least...

Oh, by the way...  There will be some prizes.  Each month, we'll have a drawing from all the people who submit a design.  The more items you submit, the more time your name will be entered.  Prizes may include thread, stabilizer, needles or other embroidery related items.  Each month's drawing will be different.  

Finally, please do not send in designs that you have previously digitized for another website.  It's not fair to let you enter "old" designs that people can already get somewhere else, just so you can get your name in a drawing.  All these designs will be posted for download at the end of each month's theme.  If you want to post your own design on your own site anyway, that's fine, but please wait until after they're posted here.  If you post your design earlier, then you won't be eligible for that month's drawing.  The ONLY exception to accepting "previously posted" designs will be for people who digitized the clothes from the first swap, because those clothes are no longer available on another site.  Original digitizers are the only ones I'll accept those designs from, so please don't try to send them to me if you didn't digitize them yourself.  

Please send all designs to the address on the menu.  Just click on "email", and a letter will open.  Attach your design, and send it to me.  After I get your design, I'll contact you and let you know how to get all the other designs for that month.  Participants will get to download all the designs earlier than everyone else.  

Thanks for joining the paper doll swap.  I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's designs,

September Brown