Mothers of little girls are well aware of the situation when, when purchasing a doll, a house and its furniture must be a mandatory set for it.
Ready-made doll housing is not a cheap pleasure, but all parents want to please their princess. So why not make furniture for Barbie dolls with your own hands?
This activity has practically the same advantages:
- Uniqueness of design;
- Development of creative thinking;
- The child’s interests in the process of creating parts;
- Time spent together;
- Communication and expression of thoughts by a child.
The only disadvantage is that it is a labor-intensive and painstaking task that requires a lot of time and concentration.
Necessary material and tools for work
To complete the craft, there will be plenty of material in any home, because DIY children’s furniture for dolls does not require special or expensive things.
Material used as base:Of course, after practicing on a simplified version, over time you can tackle more complex designs, but for beginners in this business, and especially for children, this is more than enough.
- Paper and cardboard products (egg trays, match boxes, shoe boxes, other boxes, sheets of cardboard);
- Plastic products (bottles, containers);
- Plywood;
- Wire;
- Any fabric, leather;
- Wooden sticks;
- Threads;
- Details for decoration (beads, buttons, ribbons, paints, clothespins).
Basic working tools:
- Scissors;
- Glue;
- Ruler;
- Pencil;
- Stapler;
- Needle;
- Thread;
- Scotch;
- Other (depending on the material and complexity of the products).
Master class No. 3
How about a simple sofa and chair? Such furniture is suitable for busy parents, because it requires a minimum of time and effort to assemble. Moreover, the implementation of these interior elements is accessible to any child. Look at the photo: have you already understood how to make a sofa and an armchair? If not, here is a mini-instruction:
- Decide on the size of the sofa. The length of the sofa should match the length of the back, and the length of the bed with its side. The height of the sofa is ½ of the height of the back.
- Cut the cardboard into rectangles according to the intended length. Use two rectangles as a backrest, the rest as seating areas.
- double to the sides . The sofa is ready. The chair is made by analogy. After the furniture is assembled and glued, cover it with fabric. Use glue or a staple gun to secure
Process planning
In order for everything to work out perfectly and meet the girl’s expectations, it is advisable to organize each stage of the work in detail:
- Number and design of elements;
- Dimensions;
- Decide how to make drawings of furniture for dolls, with your own hands or take ready-made ones from the Internet;
- Select the material from which the parts will be made;
- Prepare the base for the furniture (draw a template on cardboard or plywood, cut it out);
- Connect the structure;
- Take care of the exterior design (paint, seal, attach decorative elements)
Master class No. 1
Let's start furnishing the doll's home with an armchair . It's easy to make: please note that the dimensions are shown in the photo. All you have to do is transfer them onto cardboard. We specifically do not provide chair templates, since it is made based on the personal considerations of the child or parent who is involved in the process of creating furniture.
Cut out the parts you see in the photo from cardboard and get to work. To create a chair seat, use square blanks. Their number depends on the thickness of the cardboard used. Place a stack of cardboards together and glue them together.
Attach the seat to the back of the chair, glue it to the bottom.
Lubricate the front part of the seat with glue and attach the plug piece. It is a rectangle with rising bed elements. Now between the back and front of the chair there are supports on which cylindrical beds will be placed.
Secure the cylinders of the beds and hide the sides under the cardboard.
The chair is ready! To avoid leaving the furniture in this condition, cover it with a beautiful fabric or secure it with decorative paper.
Please note: if the child is small, the paper will become a short-lived cover for the chair.
The main interior items in the house
Do-it-yourself furniture for dolls, made of cardboard, is one of the most accessible and cheapest options, and it is also the easiest to work with, but its disadvantage is its fragility, in which it is much inferior to plywood.
The main piece of furniture in any doll house is the bed, so you can start with that.
Material for execution:
- Carton boxes;
- Plywood sheets.
- Draw out the details on the sheet according to the size of the doll (standard 160*75 mm);
- Cut and secure with glue or stapler;
- Complete the design with fabric or colored paper;
- Add bed linen, pillows, blanket.
Easy to make furniture for dolls with your own hands, as well as another mandatory element not only for girls, but also for Barbie - a wardrobe.
It can be made from cardboard, or from a box, which will become a finished frame.
To do this, it is enough to cut out the doors; you can use matchboxes as additional shelves; a tube or wire can be used for the crossbar; the hangers themselves can be twisted from it.
Glue foil – a mirror – onto the entire length of the inside of the door. The handles are made of beads or long glass beads (beads), before covering the cabinet with fabric, self-adhesive paper or decorating it with paints. The front side can be decorated with an ornament made of paints, sequins or threads.
Gluing them into a furniture blank is no longer difficult. If desired, it can be covered with colored paper, but the original will produce a very self-sufficient and beautiful product.Of course, the task can be complicated by making a cabinet with paper tubes. Then all sides of the product are made exclusively from newspaper twists, which is the most painstaking process.
Main Dimensions
When making furniture for a dollhouse, you should take into account the size of the dolls and the parameters of the room. Based on these data, a diagram of future interior items is developed. Due to the fact that toys do not have standards and are large or small, the interior for the home cannot be made universal.
In order to determine exactly what dimensions need to be adhered to, you should divide the height of an average person by the height of the doll for which the toy furniture will be made. After this, the dimensions of the actual furniture must be divided by this value. For example, if during the first comparison of a person and a doll the number 11 was obtained, then a table with a height of 55 cm for a toy house should have an indicator of 5 cm. Most dolls have a height of 13-15 cm; the interior for Barbie is created in a ratio of 1:12.
Table and chair
You can use plywood for the table. This is a more labor-intensive process than working with cardboard, but as a result of the effort, the product comes out quite practical.
Instructions for implementation:
- Using a compass and a jigsaw, draw and cut out a circle (two for a coffee table), legs;
- Glue;
- Cover with varnish or paint.
The base for the chair can be wire, which can be twisted into a convenient shape, or you can use other objects such as boxes, cardboard, clothespins, ice cream sticks.
The height of a standard chair is approximately 40 mm, with a backrest - 75 mm.
Dresser or dressing table
It is very convenient to cut from a small box, where the cabinet is about 7 cm, the wall for the mirror is 16 cm, the width is 8 cm. Connect everything by gluing foil as a mirror and handles with beads. Decorate according to your desire and imagination.
Another simplified version of a chest of drawers is glued matchboxes. All children will like it because it has drawers.
It is enough to glue the boxes tightly to each other, or you can additionally attach a cardboard frame. Cover with wallpaper, napkins or other decor.
Other furniture contents
A photo of do-it-yourself furniture for dolls will help you decide on those interior items that your daughter needs for her ideal house.
A sofa made from small kitchen sponges, a kitchen wall made from cardboard blocks, a sink made from the bottom of a plastic cup or miniature plate, a faucet made from a plastic straw, etc. can serve as a complement to the decor.
Household appliances:
- Microwave – sharpener, with a removable lid;
- Refrigerator – tea box;
- TV – a matchbox with a picture pasted on;
- A floor lamp or lamp - a tube and an old wooden spool of thread.
The variety of ideas is huge, the main thing is desire, and the materials will be found on your own. Encourage your little housewife to create furniture, then these items will be filled not only with new creative thoughts, but also with great love.
About ready-made plywood construction sets
Ready-made plywood construction kits are cut out using a jigsaw according to design templates; buyers of such a kit assemble and glue them together themselves. In essence, this is a wooden blank for creativity, which not only needs to be assembled correctly in accordance with the instructions, but also painted and decorated in any convenient way. This product develops constructive thinking, becoming an entertaining puzzle for the whole family. Sometimes a set of collapsible furniture comes complete with the same plywood house or castle.
