Magnetic Paper Dolls & My Very First Giveaway!!!

I am very excited to share this little project with you.

For a while now, I have been meddling over ideas of making magnetic paper dolls for KennaKat.

I thought about drawing some...

or taking pictures of her in different dresses and making lifelike ones.

{Which I still may do some day}

I even thought about ordering some off of Etsy.

{But I'm opposed to buying things that I could possibly make myself}

Before I did any of those things, one of the blogs I follow did a whole post about paper dolls for kids and posted a link to this site along with others too.  But this was what caught my eye, the first 10 years of the Betsy McCall paper dolls 1951-1961.  I'm anxious to find out if any of you ever cut them out of the catalog and played with them when you were a little girl.  They actually went into the 90's with this idea, but my favorite were the first 10 years.

As soon as I saw that site, I found what I was looking for: vintage hours of fun that I could create for my little girl.

I printed all 10 years onto high quality photo paper.

If you do your math right, you'll realize that that's 120 pages.  

Yeah, I was a little anxious and not level headed when I started this project.

I thought about printing them right onto magnetic paper, but it's expensive and I wanted to do it right.then. and it was after dinner when I started.  No time to go to the store to hunt down this stuff.  I also thought about cropping and merging all of the outfits that I wanted onto a few printable pages, but like I said, I wanted to do it right.then.and.there and levelheadedness was out of the question.

The past few nights have been devoted to printing and cutting.  Then I bought self adhesive magnetic sheets and applied all of the little people and clothes onto that.  Then I cut some more...and more...and more.  My daughter now has hundreds of magnetic items to play with.  But it was worth it.  The whole process she was right next to me, playing with what I had already cut out.  Hours and hours of play time have been devoted to this and this alone.  I'm absolutely in love and so is she.

Literally hundreds of magnetic items

A picnic in the park with mom and dad

A tea party with your best friend

Fancy dress up with your little sister.

While I was cutting all of these things out, I got excited about the idea of giving a set away to one of you.  First, I thought about purging the huge supply that she has, but then I thought, if I could figure out how to edit the stuff on the computer, I could limit the printing pages and pick out the best of the best of the outfits and accessories and you could have it all, without my having to decide what to keep and what to give away.

I know that the main purpose of giveaways on the Internet is to advertise and get people into your store, but I don't have a store, I just want to give something away because I love doing that and I love all of you.  And randomly picking someone that wants it, sounds like a LOT OF FUN to me :)

Today, the Fantastic Hubster {I'm thinking of making that his call sign... FH for short?} showed me how to easily {most important word to emphasize}cut and merge everything that I wanted onto their own pages.  So now, I've got them all ready for you!

After I started this whole thing, I found on google another blogger who did the same thing that I was in the process of doing.  She purchased little gift card tins and stored the girl and her friend along with a few dresses inside.  It made a perfect traveling toy and storage container. 

So, while I was purchasing my magnetic sheets, I searched for metal tins.  I was looking for bigger ones because we had hundreds of magnets and no way would they fit in this little 5x3 tin.  But I did pick up 2 little ones so that KennaKat can have a touch of fun on the go as well.

The blogger made a cute little label with some of the outfits on it, so I decided to make my own.

Here it is all dressed-up...

So I purchased those little tins, but I was still on the look out for something bigger and cheap.  The bigger tins in the store were $5 and not quite what I had in mind.

I went to 2 different Michaels because I wanted to make use of my 50% off coupons and the magnetic sheets were $10 a pop {making that $5 for me Mwahaha} In the second Michaels, in the back of the store, hidden away in a dark corner of the Universe was a snakes and ladders game on sale for $2.50 and it came in the perfect sized metal tin.  Long, rectangular, thin...perfect.
So, I grabbed one and checked out.
When the cashier checked me out, it came up as 50 cents!  It took a lot of control to contain my squeal as I ran to the back of the store and grabbed the rest of them.  Now I have 8 perfectly sized tins that cost me $4!!!  Yessssssssss!

The only downside is that the tins are decorated with snakes and ladders images, so I'll need to paint them before I can give them away.  But I can't wait!

Your prize will include:
2 Betsys, 1 Blonde girl, 1 little sister, 1 toy doll, 1 mom, 1 dad.
28 dresses, 10 other outfits, 12 accessories, 21 other play items (tea set, puppy, etc), 3 dresses for little sister, and 3 outfits for mom.

To enter the giveaway:

1. Post a comment on this blog.  If you do not have a google account, and don't know how to comment then you can...click on comment, add your comment, then below that, select to enter your name or be anonymous, just be sure to tell me who you are in your comment.  If after all that, you still can't comment, send me an email.
2. In one week {Saturday, July 30} I will draw one of your names at random, and the prize will be yours. WooHoo!

This will be the perfect gift for your own little girl, niece, friend's daughter, granddaughter, or keep it for yourself {It's okay to relive this part of your childhood, really, it is}.  Decorate your fridge or put it away for kids to play with when they come for a visit.  Believe me, if you don't have toys for little kids, your house is boring and they will mess with things that you don't want them to {Or run around like wild Indians hee hee}ok, they'll probably do that anyway, but you need this, trust me :)..Boys like it too.  If you have a son, I'll include a boy and some outfits for him as well.

Happy commenting people!  I can't wait to see who wins!!!

Oh yeah, our thermostat, that sits in the shade read 105 today...