Magnetic Paper Dolls

We often spend the holidays with my in-laws who live

about 4 hours away. The long drive is challenging for the kids

who, when not napping in their car seats, need to be

constantly entertained. Just before the 4th of July weekend,

I became obsessed with the crazy idea of making magnetic paper dolls.

I'd read about making fridge magnets from full-length photos

of family members (which I still plan to do someday)

from a magazine and then some weeks ago I came upon

a charming magnetic paper doll project here.

So the wheels in my head started turning - no, churning,

and two days (I did say it was crazy) before our trip,

I started this project. Pure adrenaline kept me going

because what started off as something simple became

more complicated as I added more and more details just for the fun of it.

So here they are: magnetic paper dolls of the kids themselves!

For those who are interested in doing this project themselves, here's what I did:

I bought:

- One roll (1'x2') adhesive magnetic sheet (from craft store)

- Two 8"x'11" sheets of self-adhesive laminating paper (from office supply store)

- Two magnetic dry-erase boards

I took pictures of the girls in their swimsuits and printed them out on regular printer paper. The images were roughly 7-8" tall.

I laminated the images (top surface) with the laminating paper and stuck these (bottom surface) to the magnetic sheet, then cut along the outlines of the images to make the magnetic dolls.

To make clothes, I placed the magnetic doll face down on the back of colored paper (or fabric) and traced the outline of the arms, shoulders, torso, legs etc. as a guide for each item of clothing, trying it on the doll and making adjustments to get it to fit right. Then I laminated each piece and stuck it to the magnet sheet before cutting it out.

And (further insanity) because the tiny pieces are so easily lost,

especially in a moving vehicle, I made a bag with top zippers for each set.

When the doll sets were complete, I confess that I spent some time

playing with them myself, marveling at how much easier it was

to dress the kids this way than with real clothes on real bodies

that refuse to cooperate!

Edited to add: Here is a much later post about a new set of

magnetic dolls made for the girls' cousins.

Blog Etiquette I Appreciate

I wish I knew enough to write about what's right and wrong with regards to copyright, ethics or legal issues. I only know what I would and wouldn't like for my blog. And at the end of the day, it really all boils down to etiquette. So I thought I'd make a hopefully helpful list or two. Some of these are rather silly and self-explanatory, but they made me laugh when I listed them, so I left them in:

Things that are perfectly OK with me; no permission needed from me:

• Putting ikatbag in your blogroll.
  
• Subscribing to ikatbag in your aggregator e.g. google reader
  
• Linking to ikatbag from your blog in some list, say, in your sidebar e.g. "Bizarre Blogs By The Mentally Unsound"
  
• Linking to a particular ikatbag post in some list, say, in your sidebar e.g. "Bizarre Projects That Question A Person's Sanity"
  
• Linking to a particular ikatbag post in your post e.g. "ikatbag made this bizarre thing today out of chicken wire, corn starch and a plastic pollypocket doll - check it out here"
  
• Using the picture of my banner (the thing that has my blog name at the top of the blog) on your site and linking to it.
  
• Writing about ikatbag or any of my projects or posts in your blog.
  
• Calling the blog ikatbag or Ikatbag or Ikat Bag or ikat bag.
  
• Calling me LiEr or Lier or Li Er or Li er. Or Lorraine. Or just "she". Or "her".
  
• Using one or two of my photos for the purpose of linking back to my blog or post.
• Pinning my images.

Things that are NOT OK with me:

• Posting/publishing multiple photos, even with a link back to the post or blog. The point is if it begins to look like a sizable part of my post or tutorial is being reproduced on another site, that's not nice.
  
• Posting/publishing photos with my children's faces in them - if you really want to use a photo with my kid's face in it, because it's sort of relevant, please email me to ask. I don't mind if you use a photo with my kid's foot or some other non-distinguising body part.
• Posting/publishing any portion of my tutorial instructions (including printables) without informing me. This is in response to people lifting entire tutorials and "pasting" them on their sites, even with links. That's rude. Sometimes people even translate them into a different language. That's still rude.
  
• Posting/publishing any portion of the prose I wrote e.g. the How To Buy Fabric With Small Children one.

Thank you all for understanding!

Updated March 20 2012

And on we go!

When I first started our family blog, I was convinced it would be useless and inhibited, and that I'd be struggling not only to find things to post about but to even figure out the technicalities of posting itself. Oddly, it hasn't been an awful experience at all, and, would you believe it, I'm actually crazy enough to have begun a second blog about all the things I make in feverish secrecy while the kids are sleeping. It would probably be simpler to post all these craft thingamajigs in that original blog but maybe it is a little presumptious to imagine that the people who read my family blog would be interested in the ins and outs of crafts, or that people who might like the things I make would care about what the kids did on which weekend wherever. Hence this experimental split - family stuff in the original blog and craft stuff in the new craft blog. Already I forsee problems - overlaps, for one, like when the kids and I do crafty things together on rainy or wintry days. Still, if I don't start somewhere, I never will. And so, here we go!