Oh Snap!

It a First-Ever Theme Week!

This week, all the stencils will be from Betsy McCall.

Betsy McCall was a creation of McCall’s magazine from the 1950’s.

She was a paper doll printed in McCall’s magazine. She was also the idealized alter ego for thousands of young American girls (Maybe your Mother?) growing up during the 50’s.

She was also an ingenious marketing tool.

Every issue Betsy appeared with a variety of pretty outfits- and McCall’s advertisers sold the real-life versions of all these outfits.

The dresses from this theme week are all from the September 1952 issue, wherein “Betsy McCall gets a Doll”.

This installment introduced the plastic Betsy McCall doll. It had Betsy and her outfits, but also included a tiny paper-doll version of the plastic doll, along with tiny copies of all of Betsy’s outfits for the Betsy doll.

Phew.

Two issues later sewing patterns were printed for the plastic doll, so children could make the outfits for their dolls.

Today they would just sell the dolls dresses.