Fairy silhouette and found paper dolls

Artist: Margaret Menamin Eshbaugh, 2008.

Margaret had an extraordinary eye and was exceptional with scissors. The 2010 Morgantown luncheon featured many items from her enormous collection of paper dolls, including hand-mades, as well as bridge tallies, greeting cards and books.

Margaret also had a knack for fitting pieces together, to create what she called "found" paper dolls: she'd find an illustration of a figure in a pattern book or catalog, then outfit the "found" paper doll with clothes from the same or a similar publication. Margaret sometimes also cut out pieces of furniture that would be just the right scale for the figure. All of her cut pieces, whether "found," newspaper, or hand-made, were tucked into small envelopes and labeled with as much information as she had. 

Below, front and back of a "found" paper doll, cut from a 1931 pattern book. Notice how she slipped a doll into the outfit.