Making Japanese paper dolls

After a long absence, I'm back! Been busy making my Japanese paper dolls, teaching, maintaining my daughter's clothing stocks inventory, and trying to create a website (tessnarda.multiply.com) . This latter one is devoted to selling off my excess Japanese papers (washi, yuzen washi, crepe chiyogami - origami papers, etc), which my Japanese son-law said I wouldn't be able to use in my entire lifetime.

Through my paper dolls posted in my flickr site (www. flickr.com/photos/tengds), I have acquired a number of new friends, swapped paper crafts with two of them, found new interesting hobbies and new interesting websites devoted to Japanese paper dolls.

My three favorite girls on the left have flown to Scotland, in exchange for a large, beautiful quilled card created by my friend Janet. I miss them because they are so colorful and cute and they were the favorite of a number of people, including myself.

On the request of Janet again, I made 2 dolls by special request. She wanted a tall doll this time, with a different kind of obi, and another one that is turned to one side, wearing a jacket over an evening wear kimono. Both of them have flown to Scotland and will be used by Janet for her creations, as yet unrevealed to me. Janet is a multi-talented lady, an expert in quilling (been doing it for 20 years), a painter, and a photographer. These are the two dolls I made and sent to her, in exchange for an exquisite quilled polystyrene egg. The 3D appearance of the green obi is evident at the back.

Making the kimono of a paper doll is an enjoyable hobby - just like creating fashion for real people. You start with an idea in your head - a vision of what kind of doll you're going to create and how she would look like. A geisha? A peasant? Somebody from royalty? A shogun or samurai? A girl with her mother on a shrine/temple visit? Next is the choosing of the paper pattern, color, and texture. Which will be the inner robe? The outer robe? The obi? How will the position of the doll be? The last that I do is the hair - the length, the style, the accessories. By positioning the hair, you can create a head that looks forward, is turned sideward, looking up, looking down. One of my favorites is the doll only showing its back (which you glue onto a shikishi board or a greeting card), where you can focus on the hair and the obi. The one below is a greeting card entitled "The First Snowflake".

Going back to my hobbies

Now that I have a lot of time in my hands, I have dusted off the boxes containing my Japanese origami paper dolls, with the intention of continuing where I left off, 9 years ago. I even registered with Flickr's origami group, took photos of the remaining dolls and greeting cards, and uploaded them in my photostream. My origami books are still on the shelves but I have to retrieve all my "washi" papers (my Japanese son-in-law once said I wouldn't be able to use all of them in my entire lifetime) from the storage boxes. And I have to unload the piles of books and training materials sitting on my work table and find a place for them in the other cabinets and shelves.

I have also made acquaintance again with my stamp collection, started when I was still single, way back in the late 60s. Whenever I got new stamps, I just shoved them into this huge box and never had the time to organize them. Now I have the time and even registered in one of the existing stamp exchange networks. I am now being flooded with requests for Thai and Southeast Asian stamps from all over the world!

I have got to prepare for my teaching assignments this month and next, so I have to allocate time for that too. If I'm not careful, I will end up complaining about not having any time, after having celebrated my retirement and saying I have all the time in the world. Oh well! Here I go again!