But, somehow, when the bed was placed on its legs it sank under the weight of the paper dolls, so Jimsi made another bed out of cardboard and pasted the wall paper bed over it. That did splendidly!
She made a pillow of white wall paper and added a coverlet. (There might have been a fancy blanket under the coverlet, of course. This would have been cut from some other paper with a pattern design upon it.)
The Paper Doll Furniture That Was Cut from Cardboard and Upholstered with Wall Paper
Jimsi made a table next. It was cut like the bed, but in finishing it, the footboard parts were entirely cut off. And then, too, the table had longer legs than the bed. It was made to fit the size of the dolls by measuring. It was necessary to cut the legs the length of the paper dolls from feet up to waist. The table was measured to fit the big lady doll and the gentleman.
The chairs were a bit different: to make a chair one had to cut a piece of cardboard the least little bit smaller than a table—and not half so wide. One cut the front legs to fit below the table and cut off the bit of cardboard there as the table end was cut. The rear of the chair oblong was straight then. The next step was to cut legs of the same length as the front legs. These were bent down like the first and the part that remained was the back of the chair! Jimsi upholstered the chairs with fancy designs cut from other colored sheets of wall paper. It was jolly! Jimsi made enough chairs for all the doll family. Indeed, the dolls seemed most sociable as they sat in a row on The Happy Shop’s table!
A sofa could be made on lines like the chair, only making the cutting of the cardboard oblong wide and giving it the depth of the chair also. The sofa was likewise upholstered. Oh, the toy furniture was great! Jimsi longed to start a doll house and looked about The Happy Shop to see if she could find a place to lay it out. At last she did discover a place, on the floor at one end of the shop. She fixed it up beautifully. Bits of wall paper design cut out in ovals and oblongs, fringed by snipping with the scissors, made rugs for the house. If Jimsi had only had a box of some kind—if she could have interrupted Aunt Phoebe to ask for it, she could have made carpets of wall paper and had wall paper curtains too.
When the house was done, Jimsi made believe that Mr. and Mrs. Sweet went to walk in the park. The park was all of the greenery of The Happy Shop. The ferns made a wonderful grove. All the Sweet children wanted to have a picnic there. So Jimsi made a white table cloth from the Magic Book’s paper and cut rounds for plates and funny snips of three cornered wall paper bits for sandwiches. And there was a big round cake too! Oh, yes-and some pies that were colored with crayons.
After Jimsi had played all this, it was lunch time and again the hours had flown by fast.
In the afternoon, when Jimsi went upstairs, right on top of her pillow there was another crow letter!