Q&A for How to Make Paper Dolls

You can use a crafting knife and a metal ruler instead of scissors. A metal ruler is important here because the blade is sharp and the plastic ruler could get damaged. For cutting, align the metal ruler along your cutting line and guide the knife to ensure a straight cut. When you’re cutting, make several light passes with the craft knife instead of trying to slice through in one go—this gives you more control and helps prevent the cardboard from tearing or fraying. Take your time, apply steady pressure, and keep your fingers clear of the blade path for safety. If the cardboard is really thick, flipping it over and scoring the other side can also help you get a cleaner cut.

Find a stencil of a doll on Google images that you like, print it out, and then trace and cut it out.

This should be fine for children younger than 5. If they're very young, like 2 or 3, make sure you keep an eye on them so they don't swallow or choke on any small items like rhinestones or googly eyes.

Yes, but then you won't be able to change her clothes anymore. If you don't want to do that, make flaps or use blue tack (or sticky tack).

The tabs are part of the paper the clothes are made of. They should be cut out as part of each item of clothing.

Create the images you want and save them to a memory stick/USB drive. Take that with you to a local office supplies store or digital printer's and ask them to print it out for you. You can also draw the body and clothes onto paper, or stick images from magazines on paper, then cut these out by hand.

The paper doll will not stand on its own because it is made of paper. You may try creating a base out of cardstock to help your doll stand.

Yes! (Or at least, you can make as many dolls as you have the supplies to make.)

Use the same method you would for making clothes--lay the doll on a sheet of paper and trace around the head. Fill in the traced outline with a design of the hat you want, color it in, and cut it out. This way, it should fit the doll perfectly!

You can print the printable dolls in the article or find other doll templates online, or you can get somebody else (like a friend or family member) to draw them for you and you can color them in. You could also try watching drawing tutorials on YouTube.

Use safety scissors and ask an adult for help.

This may require extra time and effort, but it's a really fun idea! Since it may be difficult to see through the paper to color the back of the doll, you may want to color the front, cut the doll out, and then color the back. You could also definitely make 2-sided outfits. Trace the doll on a separate piece of paper twice--once facing up and once facing down. Draw and color in the clothing designs to look like the front and back, then cut the pieces out and put them on either side of the doll for a more 3-dimensional outfit.