Paper Doll Community Crafting at the Ridgewood Public Library in NJ

Paper doll artists and collectors! 

If you live in the tri-state area, and miss gathering with fellow artists and collectors, we have an excellent opportunity to meet in person once a month starting in March 2025. 

The Ridgewood Public Library is making space available to us at no cost. You don’t have to live in the Bergen County, NJ, area to participate in the program, which would offer three hours of paper doll crafting with a dress-a-doll—which means you’d have a chance to bring in a doll and take home new outfits for whatever figure you choose: paper doll, advertising figure or comic strip character.

The library is eager to host our group, thanks to one of their librarians: Mary Sienkiewicz, whose paper doll art you might have in your collection under the name Mary Lacro.  

Mary would host the program and would conduct registration through email. The library has a variety of exhibits and there would be an opportunity to display our paper doll art in the auditorium.

The library is a modern facility with a comfortable conference room that accommodates 12 people or an art studio that can hold more. There’s ample free parking, and for anyone taking mass transit from New York City, the library is easily accessible by New Jersey transit trains (from Penn Station, with a change at Secaucus). The Ridgewood train station is a short walk to the library. 

Ridgewood is an easy walkable town with a ton of cafes and restaurants, although the library allows people to bring goodies into the conference room, and a mini kitchen will allow us to serve tea and coffee.

I hope you will join us to keep our favorite hobby alive and draw in new members to the paper doll community. 

How to register and how to get there

Address: Ridgewood Library, 125 N Maple Ave., Ridgewood, NJ 

Conference Room (3rd floor) 

Parking:  There is a large lot (free) behind the library.  To access, going north on N Maple, go past the N Maple Ave library entrance and follow the sign marked Village of Ridgewood. 

                If going south on N Maple, find the sign marked Village of Ridgewood.  The road will take you around Ridgewood Police Station and Village Hall to the library.  

From Ridgewood NJ Transit Station:  Head East on Franklin Ave 5 blocks, make a left on N Maple and the library is a few feet on the right (just past Ridgewood Water). 

Dates: Saturday, March 22, April 19, and May 10.  

Time: 11am-2pm 

Registration: 

https://ridgewoodlibrary.assabetinteractive.com/calendar/adult-crafting-paper-dolls/

                    

OR

https://ridgewoodlibrary.org/calendar-newsletter/

                     

Go to March 22 and click to open a link to the registration page

Registrants can also email Mary directly at mary.sienkiewicz@ridgewood.bccls.org

Be sure to include your name, email, and phone number.  

Meet Jimmy Carter, 1976 handbill

 

My mother belonged to the garment workers union and brought this home after attending the rally. 

The reverse side of the handbill reminded voters that New York City had received no help from the government as it sought a way out of a fiscal crisis that had been decades in the making by municipal mismanagement.

Fact: In 2008, the government did not hesitate to bail out banks and other financial institutions: JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Bank of America-- who were the architects of the crisis, through risky mortgage lending and other questionable practices which they pursued in the wake of bank deregulation.

Paper Doll Cat Goes to Market, 1940

For reasons too dreary and obvious to state, I'd rather not use the actual title of this paper doll. 

Search engines have a way of mixing things up. 

I'm guessing this ran in a teachers' magazine or workbook; it's dated September 1940. The exercise is geared toward "Early Primary Seatwork" -- coloring by the student and perhaps cutting done by teacher or parent. Artwork by Ruby Wagner.

Dale Arden Does Her Part for the Community Chest, December 1934

San Francisco Examiner, Dec. 16, 1934

 

Cookie and her Christmas Bears by Judith Yates, 1988

 

UPDATE: Thank you Teri Pettit for giving me this much better copy!

This is the other side of Margie, the Pat Stall paper doll I posted yesterday. 

So much of the print and color from the Stall doll appeared on this page, but it was tricky to remedy without washing out the pastel colors of the Cookie page completely.

Margie and her Christmas Frocks and Dolls by Pat Stall, ca. 1988

 

Pat Stall took her inspiration from Aldens Christmas Book, 1963 edition. 

She listed the Aldens page numbers for the dresses and the dolls.

Thanks to Galen Tigert, I now know that this paper doll (and Cookie and her Bears) appeared in the Doll Reader, December 1988/January 1989 issue. 

Torchy Togs, Feb. 16,1952

From the Comic Section of the Pittsburgh Courier, a weekly newspaper.