Guest Author - Susan Kramer

This short tutu ballet costume fits on this free Dancer Paper Doll. It can be her Halloween costume, or for the Nutcracker Ballet at Christmas time!

The short tutu is on graph paper made up of 1 inch (2.5cm) squares. Actually you may be able to print out this pattern directly in the correct proportions as I made the JPG image 100 pixels wide per inch. Now, wouldn't that be a time savings. Give it a try by clicking on the printer friendly view of the article with the button below this article.

If that doesn't work for you here are instructions to make your 1 inch (2.5cm) square graph paper.

First, take an 8.5x11 inch piece of plain paper and draw 1 inch (2.5cm) squares - I do this by drawing horizontal lines 1 inch apart down the page, and then vertical lines 1 inch apart across the page.

Next, looking at the JPG image you want to enlarge, copy what is in each of my squares into your squares.

After you've cut out your short tutu costume use coloring pens or water color markers to bring it to life. If you print out several costumes you can have a whole ballet performance with paper dolls, all colored and decorated a bit differently.



After cutting out the paper doll costume from the graph paper, I recommend tracing the dress onto very stiff paper and cutting it out, to give it some durability. Writing paper is one choice that would work well, or paper with cotton content. Another choice is the heavy wrapping paper around reams of computer paper.

Have fun and be creative! I must share with you that I had a lot of fun designing this series of paper doll costumes, and I will continue to add more over time. I remember to this day the excitement I felt getting into costumes for stage performances in my youth - that is probably a big reason I so enjoy designing doll costumes now!

Dancer paper doll costume by Susan Kramer. You may make this paper doll costume for personal use but not for commercial purposes.