Although dollhouse lovers can find all sorts of miniatures online or in local stores to purchase, part of the enjoyment of creating a dollhouse, fairy garden, or model railroad is crafting your own furniture. All it takes are very simple hand tools and materials found at home or even around the house.
Whether you’re making doll furniture or a school project, miniature furniture can be challenging if you don’t have a plan. To create things like a bedroom set with a miniature lamp, storage tote, and bed, you have to carefully gather your supplies and follow simple patterns before you attempt to move on to more complicated designs.
For instance, a dollhouse’s kitchen of any style can be outfitted with tables, chairs, and other beginner’s furniture projects. Furniture for dollhouse kitchens can also be adapted from some bedroom projects.
A night table for example can be adapted to be taller and fitted with a single metal door can become a pie safe, or a bedside table can be widened and fitted with double doors to become a base kitchen cabinet. The techniques needed to make armoires can be used to make upper kitchen cabinets for a fitted modern kitchen.
You can also creatively make and add fireplaces, bookshelves, tables, and picture frames to the living room in your dollhouse. You can also make your own furniture projects for contemporary or period rooms.
Once again, you can adapt projects from other rooms to fit a doll’s house living room. The simple table can be made into a sideboard or a narrow console table or coffee table, and an armoire can be fitted with shelves for a television.
Note that by adapting sizes and shapes, simple projects for a dollhouse bedroom can be adapted to make a wide range of bed styles, as well as combination armoires and bookcase storage units.
For painted projects, basswood makes a good material. For stained projects, make them from fine-grained hardwood like mahogany or walnut. You can also make miniature and dollhouse furniture from even cardboard and a range of various woods, everything from craft and stir sticks to hardwood strips.
Even though you can easily paint raw wood furniture with regular acrylic paints, you can also use the same finishes, waxes, and polishes designed for regular wood furniture. Often, an easy remake can transform an ordinary purchased piece of miniature furniture.
Different Dollhouse Furniture You Can Make Out of Everyday Items
No dollhouse is complete without dollhouse furniture. You can either choose to buy these individual items from a toy store at an exorbitant price, or you can use your imagination to make your own from everyday items found around the house.
Note that you will be shocked at the things you can make from old container lids, empty boxes, scraps of fabric, and magazine cut-outs.
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Tables
Note that you can use the plastic center from a delivered box of pizza as a round table. Carefully rinse it and place it directly, or cut a round piece of fabric and place it on the table as a tablecloth.
You can then glue the lid from an orange juice box onto a spool to serve as a table, or glue a rectangular piece of cardboard on it. Then to finish, carefully paint an empty toothpaste cap and place it inverted on the top to serve as a vase. Cut tiny pieces of green paper or fabric and place them inside.
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Beds
To make a small bed for your dollhouse, cut a piece of sponge the thickness you want and sew fabric on it. Take time to carefully cover tiny pieces of sponge with other pieces of fabric to serve as pillows. You can invert an empty cheese box if you desire a bigger bed. Make the bedding out of the sponge, or sew a piece out of fabric scraps and stuff with cotton.
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Baby Doll Carriage
First, find a cardboard shoebox, then cover it with decorative paper or paint it. Attach 4 circles with paper fasteners to the bottom for wheels. Make a handle from a cardboard strip (also painted or covered with paper).
Then to make the top of the stroller, take the lid and cut a small portion of it off, and then to fold it in the center of the remaining portion of the lid, you need to cut a slit on either end. Then you can bend it and staple it together. At this point, staple or glue it to the back of the stroller.
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Baby Doll Wagon Toy
Note that you will need 1 shallow box without the lid, 36” of string, 1 nail, 4 milk bottle caps or cardboard cards the same size, four 1” brass paper fasteners, crayons, scissors, and paste. First, punch two holes in one end and let a child put string through and tie for the handle.
Punch two holes in each side of the box and a hole in the center of each bottle cap. You can then help the child attach milk bottle caps with paper fasteners for wheels. Now your baby dolls can ride in the wagon while you pull it.
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Chairs and Sofas
To make chairs and sofas for your dollhouse, take a Styrofoam egg carton and separate the cups. Then use two rounded toothpicks and insert the pointy edges into the two corners of the back, and insert a third in the center.
Glue cotton inside and cover with fabric to make a chair. You can make an ottoman by covering a wine cork with fabric and adding some trim. To make a larger sofa, just cut off a side of a tissue box along with half the bottom.
Carefully fold a rectangular piece of cardboard in half lengthwise. Paint the piece and sew long cushions stuffed with cotton to place on your sofa.
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Wallpaper, Wall Hangings, and Floors
Cut and use wrapping paper and glue it to the walls of your dollhouse, leveraging different colors or patterns for each room. You can also cut out postage stamps or miniature pictures from magazines and frame them with colored matchsticks.
Glue or tape these to your walls. You can even use miniature photos of yourself or your family or print small ones. Get out a piece of cardboard in any shape and cover it with aluminum foil to serve as a mirror for your dolls.
You can also use fabric scraps, knit a tiny rug, or cut out pictures of rugs from magazines and place them on your floor for carpets. For a curtain, glue a piece of fabric or coloured paper to one side of a drinking straw and glue the other side over a window.
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Using Wooden Blocks
Note that to furnish a dollhouse comfortably, all you need are some wooden blocks, cotton, and colourful cloth patches. Consider getting pre-cut wooden blocks from crafts stores or home improvement stores. You can make sofas/couches, chairs, tables, and stools by putting the blocks together. Cover everything but the table with cotton and tack on the pieces of cloth.
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Dollhouse Floor Lamp
The base of this floor lamp can be an empty thread spool, with a round piece of cardboard on top to make it wider. Cut a hole in the cardboard directly over the hole in the spool and put a stick (a lollipop stick will do) through the cardboard and spool.
Also for the shade, cut a piece of paper so it is 3 inches wide on the ends and narrows to 1 inch in the center. Paint or draw designs around it. Then tape the ends together, with the tape coming across the open top. Tack it to the stick and your lamp is finished.
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Baby Cradle
To make this craft, you have to get a small cardboard box (matchbox size), one 4” lightweight cardboard circle, scissors, something to colour with, paste, and 2 pipe cleaners.
Begin with cutting a circle in half to make two rockers. Let the child colour the box and rockers. You can also paste rockers at the ends of the box to make a cradle – boat. Then use two pipe cleaners to make a baby. Bend one pipe cleaner to form a loop.
Then place the second pipe cleaner through the loop and bring the ends down so the legs will be the same length. Twist the second pipe cleaner to form the body, and then bend the arms and legs. Let the child place baby in the cradle.
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Mailbox for Your Dolls
Carefully cut doors in the front of the boxes by cutting 3 sides for each door. Attach a rope to the door and put the rope in the holes and tie knots behind the door to keep the rope attached to the door. Attach both boxes together with glue. The top box should have a cut slit in it. Use the bottom door to collect the mail.
Conclusion
Note that complete furniture kits may be bought at arts and craft stores or online. However, you can also search your home for any materials that you may be able to use. Always avoid inhaling any fumes from paint and glue by working in a well-ventilated area. And be careful when working with sharp knives and scissors as you try to cut tiny pattern