Friday, September 20, 2013

Dolls' Houses

*No, you don't have to be a little baby who likes playing with dolls to find this interesting, so do NOT go away! For one thing, you'll find there's more to this post than just dolls' houses, and for another, there are a lot of adults who collect dolls and enjoy setting them up in their houses and getting nice furniture for them. So please read this post right down to the bottom.*

If your family has been moving around a lot, like we have, then you'll probably have lots of cardboard boxes.

Ask your parents if they have any spare ones. Then, you can start getting creative!

Turn the box over, like this...

Then, with some scissors, cut a square in each side of the box. Then, go and find an old packet of something-or-other, the sort with some clear plastic over the front, this sort of stuff:

 

Cut a square a few centimetres larger than the squares you cut in the cardboard box, and, if you like, draw a cross on it with a marker. Then put it inside your box, against the cutout squares, and selotape it there. You now have windows!

Cut two pieces of cardboard out of another box, one of them with a taller strip going up. You can make a window in one of them, if you like. Then selotape the bottom of each one of these to one side of the cardboard box's top, then selotape them together in the middle. 

You now have a perfect dolls' house! You can now start designing the inside...

Get some sheets of ordinary white paper, and, if you like, draw a simple pattern on them. Then, glue them to the inside walls of the dolls' house, for wallpaper. If you made your house out of white cardboard, then it will already have white walls and you won't need to do this. 

Then, if your family drinks Yorkshire Gold Tea, then get an old packet and cut it up into small rectangles. You see why? The packet has a beautiful scenery design. 


If you don't have a packet of Yorkshire Gold, then find another packet of something else which has pretty pictures on it. We found some pictures of fields of wheat on a weetabix packet. 


Cut these pictures out, and then stick them on the walls of your dolls' house to decorate it. You can even make them frames out of brown paper. You could also cut pictures out of magazines or anything. Why not draw some more tiny pictures, or even make tiny posters? 

Then, you have to think about furniture. Even if you can't buy proper dolls' house furniture (if you can, then try eBay) you can still furnish your dolls' house. Make a partition out of cardboard, and put an old soapdish or even a tiny white box on one side of it, for a bath.  Try cutting up an eggbox and see what you can make. As for beds, the dolls' house doesn't need to have actually bedsteads, and you can make tiny mattresses out of fabric, if you can sew. If you can knit, you can knit them some little blankets!
If you know a little about carpentry, you can even make some tables, beds, and shelves out of wood. My sister did that. 

By now, your dolls' house would be complete! You should also have plenty of ideas of other things you can make out of cardboard boxes, in the same way, like castles, boats, gypsy caravans, and other things. And these don't have to be used for dolls, they can be put on display, or used for some other sort of toy. 

Thank you for reading! ^.^


5 comments:

  1. :O I made one of these once, I think their cool. We recently donated all of our dolls cause I got too old for them and they were sitting in the basement doing nothing.

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  2. I love boxes! They make the perfect place for holding stuff...

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  3. .. and you can make them into a play-house thingy for a younger sister or friend's younger sister...

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  4. .... or make a background for a puppet set! XD

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