My First Request - Paper Doll Centerpiece Ideas

One of my friends asked for help tonight and I thought I'd share her question and my solutions with you.

I need your creative help! :) Can you think of a elegant way to display paper dolls? The League's historical committee is using paper dolls, dressed in their appropriate time periods, as centerpieces at a meeting. The big question is, how to display them? They called me and asked for advice, and I have nothing...

Lucky for Kerry - I've got Paper Dolls and ideas for what to do with them... unlucky for her, my paper dolls are rather ugly and I'm not sure they are doing the ideas justice.  So when picturing these ideas - lets pretend the dolls are actually the lovely historical ones that her group is using and not these slightly scary ones shall we???

Ok 1st up - an idea that keeps the dolls from having to have an adhesive attached to them.

Clothes pins.

Clothes pins actually sand when you put them on end:

2 clothes pins can be attached to the feet of the dolls to help then stand:

Objects can then be placed around their feet - since in looking at these, I don't think paper dolls on stilts are something they are really looking for.

But this, might work - tucking the clothes pins into an arrangement:

Another idea that also preserves the dolls is taking either pre-made or making wire curls like these:

They are really easy to make. And mounting them only involves drilling a hole in a top of a block or other object and then gluing the wires into the hole:

From there - the dolls can be placed in the curls:

And if you'd like, you can use a doll and collection of different clothes for that doll rather than 3 dolls as pictured above.

Next up - straws and sticks... This involves taping something to the back of the dolls, something that you might not want to do if you intend to use the dolls again.

What you'll need is a plastic drinking straw and sticks (I used skewers that we had.)

Cut the straws into 1 inch sections and then tape one end of the straw closed.

Tape the straw with the closed end up to the back of the doll. You could also use hot glue if you prefer though not if the paper on the doll is too delicate.

Next put the stick in the straw:

Then place the sticks into something - I used a vase with sand in it. You could also use craft foam, a vase with rocks, glass beads or just about anything you can find:

A couple of other ideas with these, you can apply another doll to the back so that they are double sided. Or if you want to skip the straw, you can just tape/glue the stick directly to the doll.

I tried playing with a large hurricane vase that I got for $2 at walmart and though about attaching them with clothes pins to the top - but that seemed odd.

Yeah, there is something not right about the clothes pin to the head.

So I taped them around the exterior and liked the way it looked like they were holding hands.

The options for the vase are endless - you could put anything inside, even paint the inside. Or if you want to give people at the table something to do, put some of the outfits in the vase and they can change things up while they eat.

The last 2 ideas might cost a little more - then again, they might not depending on the supplies you have available or what you can find at thrift stores.

1st - Floating Frames - these are nice if you've got double sided clothes like my daughter set did. (The whole doll wouldn't fit, but you could do the whole doll)

2nd side:

Last - simply taking a piece of scrapbook paper, mounting the doll to the paper and placing them in a frame.

You could really have a lot of fun with the frames. Buy them at thrift stores, get them from friends, the dollar store, walmart - where ever you can find them... then spray paint them all the same color to unify them and let the dolls become art.

So there you have it... a bunch of ideas for using paper dolls for centerpieces. You can go with one idea, mix and match the ideas - or maybe looking through these sparked an idea of your own.

Hope that helped! I'd love to see what you all end up doing!