Digitized embroidery designs based on artwork copyrighted by Ad Impact, Inc, and available from www.makingfriends.com 

Projects, photos, and instructions will be posted here.  Please send your ideas to inspire others!  If you send a photo of your project with instructions, you can win one of the following prizes:

First prize:  one roll of cutaway hydrostick, one roll of tearaway hydrostick, one roll of fusible polymesh, six dozen cotton prewound bobbins (six colors, one dozen of each), and three packages of Organ needles.

Second prize:  one roll of hydrostick tearaway, four dozen prewound cotton bobbins (four colors, one dozen of each), and three packages of Organ needles.  

Third prize:  Three dozen cotton bobbins (three colors, one dozen of each), and three packages of Organ needles.  

Winners:  
1st Prize:  Virginia Hutson
2nd Prize:  Donna
3rd Prize:  Judi Stein

The usual way to use embroidered paper dolls is to stitch them on felt, then cut them out and paint Aleene's "Tack it over and over again" onto the back.  Let it set up for a few hours, then it will dry to an tacky adhesive, like a sticker.  

There's a new adhesive spray made by OESD that you use the same way.  It's called 404 spray.  You spray it on the back, wait 5 minutes, and use.   You can reapply as often as you need.  

Get a notebook, and put some clear plastic sheet protectors inside.  Stick the paper dolls and clothes onto the pages to store them.

(This idea is mine, and doesn't count for the drawing).

Make a story time notebook.  Print background pictures, and place them inside the clear plastic sheets.  Use the pages to make up your own stories.  Here's some sites that have background pictures:

http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/kids/backgrounds.html  
Two countryside landscape backgrounds

http://www.halloween.it/KIDS/activities/1.gif 
Halloween background

http://www.k4t.com/art.htm 
Creation backgrounds for day 1 through day 6
Six Nativity scenes
These are a little small, but maybe you can enlarge them or use two on each half of a page.

www.crayola.com 
Lots of coloring pages.  There are some that would be good for backgrounds.  You have to sign up and get a user ID and password, then you can access all the crafts and coloring pages.  There are currently eight full sized pages for "places" that could make nice backgrounds.   

http://dgl.microsoft.com/ 
This is Microsoft's clipart gallery. 

Here's how to use them:

1. Type in any word, such as landscapes, buildings, streets, gates, grass, houses, beach, or swimming, and download the pictures you want. 
   

2. Open your Word program
   

3. Click file, page set up, and set your page direction to landscape.
   

4. Change your page borders if you want, to 0.25 inches at top and bottom, and 0.5 inches on left and right. Change the header and footer to 0.0. Close the page set up.
   

5. On the toolbar, click the icon to put your cursor in the middle of the page.
   

6. On the toolbar, click insert, then picture, then clip art.  The clip art gallery will open. Type in a search word, choose a picture, right-click on it, and you'll see 4 icons. Choose the first one for "insert".
   

7. Go back to your Word page, and your picture will be wherever your cursor was.
   

8. Right click on the picture, choose format picture, then choose size. Enlarge the picture to fit the page.
   

9. Print.
   

10. Save if you want.  If you don't want to save, just delete the picture, insert the next picture, and print your next background. 
    

11. Make backgrounds for all sorts of themes to go with your Making Friends dolls.
    

12. Be sure to reset your page to portrait direction while you're in Word, or after you close Word, you may find all your pages printing in landscape and not be able to figure out why it won't reset and stay that way.

Project #1 - Submitted by Judy Stein

Paper Doll magnets for cookie sheet or refrigerator

1: Stitch doll bodies out.

2:  Cut them out.

3:  Apply glue and a piece of strip magnet to back of bodies.

4:  Stitch out clothes.

5:  Apply glue and a smaller piece of magnet to back of clothes. 

6: Use an old cookie sheet to play with the paper dolls, or cut a piece of metal and frame it with wood. Magnets keep paper dolls on cookie sheet or metal. This way the dolls/clothes stay on.  Also, kids can put them on the kitchen refrigerator to play with.

Judy gets her name entered in our project contest for sending in this great idea.  Thanks, Judy!  

Entry #2 - Submitted by Janet Evans

1) I like the doll being on felt to give it some stability but hated the clothes on felt as I found them too thick.  I tested tulle and tearaway stabilizer, and loved it.  The clothes are thin and more like what they should be as far as I am concerned.  I bought some really cheap tulle at Wal-Mart in the discount bin and then I bought a wood burning tool there as well.  All under $10 here in Canada, so would be cheaper in the US.  Do not use cutaway as it did not burn well.  Hoop your tulle and tear away and sew out cloths.  After finished, remove stabilizer and burn tulle away from the stitches with the wood burning tool.  This melts the tulle and forms a seal around the edge.  You could use some fabric stiffener.  I tried both it both ways, but have not really decided what is best.  Later, I tried organza, and liked that even better.  I used a wood burning tool around the edges, and it burns away cleaner than the tulle.  

2) Another idea is that instead of glue, you could use double sided tape, and replace it as is wears out.

I thought that a good use for the paper dolls would be to stitch the doll body on a sweatshirt and use small pieces of velcro at the shoulders, belly, and feet areas. Stitch out the clothes and use velcro in the same areas to hold the clothes in place. The clothes could be interchangeable which little girls would love. In other words a wearable paper doll.

I've been thinking of doing these on felt. I made a quiet book for my granddaughters with items of felt that could velcro on and off. On the back I ironed a very stiff iron-on pellon that was supposedly for drapery. The little items turned out nice. I could do the same with these, only I understand there's a "stick on and off" glue that I can buy. 
How would it be to sew the doll itself, onto cloth, make a pocket, put in a zipper and then put the clothes inside the pocket. (you know, kind of a book with pockets)? 
Or... how about putting the dolls on a stiff cardboard or something like that?You should have seen the quiet book. It was AWESOME. I told my daughter I should bring it back to put in the county fair. I had actually made one for my youngest daughter (age 23) when she was 3 years old. At the same tiime, I made two more for my older daughter's children (one day) Now one of them has two little girls and I "found" the quiet book (forgotten and put away for 20 years). Then I added machine embroidery stuff to the book that I thought then was so awesome. So now it's old wonderful and new wonderful. But most of all I hope it's wonderful just because grandma made it.

This is pocketbook carrier I finally got around to making for my granddaughters birthday in 2003.  I had not found the "Making Friends" paperdolls at the time I made this so the paperdolls are the brother card dolls and a set of machine made paperdolls.  The carrier was made by McCalls Crafts pattern # 8207 that I had purchased several years ago.

Embroidered board game.  

Dice.zip 

Game Storage Bag.zip 

My idea is to use these as flannel graph pictures to teach the lessons. I can change the outfit to fit the character or the story line as needed.  Its a great way to expand and find the pictures you want.  Also these are kid friendly so it's O.K. to let the kids touch and play with them so they can 'experiment' too.  My experience is they are so fascinated with my lessons they want to touch for themselves. What a great way to teach and play. 
They can be given as gifts and prizes for contests too.

I am a Montessori teacher and can think of many ways to use the paper dolls in a classroom. I am going to begin making the multicultural ones for my granddaughters class. They will go along with the maps that our classrooms have. The ones dressed for different jobs will go in a career unit. There are so many ways to use these in a Montessori classroom. I am very excited over finding them.
I made another set a few years ago and put them in plastic coupon folders. It keeps each outfit separate.
Thanks so much to everyone who made these.
Dot Kurzawa 

My mom and I came up with this project idea.

Embroidered doll and bear on recycled jean pocket taken off of an old pair of pants. 
Sewed the embroidered item on an oblong piece of screen material (larger than the pocket). Sewed up sides of screen material to form a bag. Finished sewing the top of the bag and added some ribbon for handles. Embroidered clothes. Used Tack-It Over and Over on the backs of the cloths. Let dry for a couple of days. Placed unused clothes on vinyl. Placed them in pocket. The finished item is ready to go with you on your journey.

Thanx for doing these swaps, its been fun. 
Pauline and Terri Harris

I think it would be nice to do a little girl's room with these designs.  You could make a border of dolls, touching hands along the bottom of a valance.  Embroider the clothing on squares and make a quilt for a bedcovering.  Then make pillows using a doll in the right corner and embroidering clothing onto the pillow in rows.

Speaking of pillows, I think it might be great for little hands if you embroider the doll on a pillow, adding a pocket to the side to hold the clothing.  Mom could use it as a nap pillow.   Put it away until nap time every day.  When you bring it out, the children know it's nap time and might not fight as much because they get to play quietly before they doze off to sleep and leave mommy a little time for reading or catching up on chores.

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