What are little girls made of?

I'm planning a trip to Southern California later this month, and getting excited to discuss a new KatGreenStore product with my daughter, my web designer, (who is my daughter in law), another daughter in law, and a quorum of my granddaughters (five of the eight will be there).

I have been building a display for the Seattle Cup Cake Camp, and sharing photos of the progress, from the first sketch through all the trial paintings through to the finished princess.

 Here's the princess, who will perch on my table to welcome little girls to the KatGreenStore Princess Party. She almost looks three-dimensional, but she is not.  She's just a painting on foam core, cut out and dressed in a real gown.  Her crown is also just two dimensions, but with real (fake!) jewels glued onto the foam core.

During the facebook discussion during the long process of creating this princess, my daughter and daughter in law made a few suggestions about the party.  Maybe little girls would like to color a life-size paper doll.  Maybe they would like to color legal sized pictures of this princess.

I decided to add a paper doll to my store,with free downloadable gowns to color. They're not life-size, but they are 11" X 17".  That's quite a lot of ground to cover with a color crayon. I'll check with my daughter in law to see if it can be easily reproduced and printed.  If not, I'll show a picture of the colored doll, but I'll just sell her as a drawing, so little girls can color the doll and the gown or gowns she chooses.

It's all about figuring out what little girls love to do, and making the right products available.

Here's the princess as a paper doll in her satin slip, waiting for a little girl to color a gown for her.

Yet to be seen:  Will real-live little girls want to color gowns for a princess paper doll?  If so, here's one of them.

To make it easy, there are no tabs!  If you are old enough to remember, you might recall that paper dolls' outfits had tabs that folded down at the shoulders and waist.  It was a nice theory, but those tabs did not anchor the paper outfit onto the paper doll terrifically well. They were a bit discouraging for a little girl to handle. My thought is that the paper doll will be laminated, and the little girl can color the gown, cut it out, and just tape it on with a few pieces of scotch tape or masking tape, rolled and applied on the back of the gown.  It would be easy enough to yank off the gown and try on another one.

Ultimately, my goal is to figure out stuff that is tons of fun for little girls to do, to encourage their joy in creating and their love of color; and to provide projects that are just as much fun for their mothers and grandmothers to help with.

Coloring is not only low-tech, but completely no-tech.  An old-fashioned do-it-yourself paper doll might be a nice break from the Dual Screen, and something that the kids can do while chatting with their parents.  Actual chatting, that is, with human voices and no electronic devices in their miraculous little hands.