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Giving or making a home for your daughter for her dolls is just the beginning. Next, this house will have to be furnished. This is a bunch of toy furniture, appliances, accessories. How to make furniture for dolls with your own hands will be described in this article.
How to determine the size
Dolls, their houses and furnishings are miniature copies of us and our dwellings. And the most reliable way to make doll furniture with your own hands and not make a mistake is to measure real objects, reduce them several times, and then work with the values obtained.
How much to reduce the actual size depends on how small or large the doll is, because they are from 7 cm to 60 cm or even higher. Accordingly, they need furniture of different sizes. To determine the number by which real dimensions should be divided, we divide the average height of a person in centimeters (170 cm) by the height of the doll. Let’s get some number. Here it will be necessary to divide the dimensions of real furniture into it.
For example, the height of the doll is 15 cm. We calculate: 170 cm / 15 cm = 11,3. Here we divide all the parameters of “human” furniture by this number. It should also be said that exactly 14-15 cm is the most popular size among the puppet population. Therefore, most of the finished furniture is made in a ratio of 1:12. We can also use the available dimensions, at least in order to be able to navigate with the scale of the required parts and the amount of materials.
So, the most common sizes of dolls:
- male doll 150 mm;
- female doll – 140 mm;
- baby doll – 75-100 mm;
- toy baby – 65-75 mm.
If you need furniture for dolls of similar sizes, its parameters will be as follows:
- Bed:
- double – 160 * 130 mm;
- single bed – 160 * 75 mm;
The size of the environment depends on the growth of the inhabitants
- Chair – height with backrest 75 mm, seat height – 40 mm;
- Cabinet not lower than 165 mm;
- Sofa, armchair – seat height 40 mm, backrests, armrests can be different;
- Work table, dining table – height 65 mm, shape and width / length can be different.
If the toys you have are slightly larger / smaller, you can not adjust the sizes. With a large difference, you will have to increase or decrease (or you can calculate it yourself).
Doll furniture from matchboxes
The easiest way is to make furniture for dolls with your own hands from ordinary matchboxes. They are glued together with PVA glue, creating certain designs, then pasted over with paper or cloth, self-adhesive film, etc. Wooden beads can be used as legs, drawer handles can be made from small buttons on legs or from long beads.
From matchboxes you can make chairs, a table, a chest of drawers, a bed, a bedside table. Another thing is that furniture is obtained for very small dolls, no more than 10 cm high. Although, you can use more boxes by gluing them into blocks, and from these blocks create furniture for dolls about 15 cm high. Also an option, but work with others materials are not much more difficult, but they are more plastic and allow you to create products of more elegant forms.
This may be your first experience in making doll furniture. Later it will be possible to take on something more serious.
Cardboard Dollhouse Furniture
You can try your hand at making furniture for dolls using cardboard. The material is inexpensive, affordable, it will be possible to try and make mistakes, redo it. Cardboard is usually connected with PVA glue, you can use a glue gun or any universal glue that can glue cardboard, fabric, wood. Just making furniture for dolls with your own hands from cardboard, you will still use these materials. If we talk about convenience, then a glue gun is preferable – it glues quickly, it is convenient to work, the connection is reliable.
To make furniture for dolls, you can use ordinary packing cardboard. It is cheap, but the furniture from it is very delicate. It is unlikely that the child will have enough of it for a long time. But, as a “first experience”, this is a good option. Scrapbooking cardboard products are more reliable. It is more dense, uniform, has a different thickness (from 2 mm or more), can be with a textured surface, extruded monochromatic patterns, a pattern on one or both sides. The disadvantage of such cardboard is that you have to buy it, and some types of such cardboard are not very cheap.
Cardboard bed for a doll
This cardboard doll bed is designed for a large doll – up to 50 cm in height. If necessary, all these dimensions can be reduced.
This option can be done in just 10-20 minutes. There is no need for glue or other fixatives. The pieces are held in place by grooves cut into the cardboard. The width of the groove is equal to the thickness of the cardboard, the length of the slots and the dimensions of the blanks are indicated in the diagram.
The green and yellow dots indicate overlapping cuts. They are inserted one into the other, where the assembly ends. If you like this model, it can also be made from plywood.
Schemes for the manufacture of cardboard doll furniture
Basically, furniture for cardboard dolls is glued. It is unlikely that it will be possible to make something openwork or very complex out of this material, but the manufacture of simple models will not take much time. Having a diagram with dimensions, you can even do without explanation. Everything is so clear.
Furniture schemes for dolls can be used not only for making cardboard. They can be transferred to plywood and cut with a jigsaw.
Wardrobe for dolls from improvised materials
The toy cabinet can be made of plywood, painted or pasted over with wrapping paper or self-adhesive film. Here, probably, there will be no questions – everything is clear, and if there are questions, you can peep their solution in a “natural” closet. But you can make it from very inexpensive materials. Do-it-yourself furniture for dolls is good because its cost is very low.
From a cardboard box
The main task is to find a cardboard box of the right size. Moreover, it will be easier to work if it is packaging – with folding edges. Such a folding part is a ready-made door. All that remains is to finish it – hang a mirror, attach a handle, etc.
What do you need to work
For work, you will need a good adhesive tape, it is better – on a paper basis, since it is then easier to glue the finish to it. If you have a glue gun or a construction stapler (a large clerical one will do) with staples, that’s also good. If you use other materials besides cardboard and paper, it is better to find a universal glue that glues paper, cardboard, fabric, plastic. You will also need scissors and a clerical knife, a ruler.
If the found box is too large, it can be reduced by cutting off the excess. To make the folds even, we take a ruler. we apply it to the place of the future fold, several times we pass well along the ruler with a blunt solid object (the petiole of a spoon or fork). After that, it will be easy to bend the cardboard.
Filling for a toy cabinet
From scraps or from another box, cut out the shelves. They should be slightly – 5-8 mm – longer and wider than the internal space of the cabinet. We bend the excess so that the sides form on all sides. Folds form in the corners, we carefully cut them off. We bend one of the parts by 180 ° and glue it to the shelf itself. This side of the shelf will “look at the world.” We bend the other three parts at an angle of 90 °, coat with glue and glue the shelves into the cabinet. The photo on the right shows how the shelves are glued. But, so that the gluing places are not conspicuous, it is better to wrap the sides down.
In addition to shelves, you can also make a crossbar for hangers. It can be made from bamboo skewers, for example, you can try using a juice straw, wire, etc. Hangers can also be twisted from colored wire or cut from juice bags, plastic bottles, etc.
Finishing is a creative process
Next up is finishing. You can paint the cardboard with watercolors or acrylic (better) paints, glue it with wrapping paper, cloth, felt. You can imitate a mirror surface – paste over with foil (food, for example). If you want to make a “plastic” surface, look for water bottles of the right color, cut off the neck and bottom, and use the “body” as a finishing material.
Handles can be made of wire, beads, long beads. For larger toy cabinets, buttons or buttons can be found. We glue all this “beauty” after we have “sheathed” the cabinet.
Newspaper doll wardrobe
You will need old newspapers, PVA glue with a brush, a glue gun, a couple of pieces of wire or thread, wrapping paper for finishing the cabinet or paint.
We twist dense tubes from newspapers, coat them along the edge of the PVA and leave to dry. Then the tubes can be glued together. A glue gun is best for this operation. There are two ways: first, assemble large blocks, then cut them into fragments of the desired length, or immediately cut the tubes of the desired length and immediately glue the blanks in size. The second way is more painstaking, but there is less waste.
The finished walls of the cabinet must be fastened together. To rigidly fix the angle of 90 °, it is better to use a thin wire. First, coat the joints with glue, then draw the walls one to the other with wire. If the wires are in the way, they can be removed after the glue has dried.
The bottom, top, shelves are glued using the same technology. The doors will need to be done a little differently. In order for them to open, two strips about 1,5 cm wide are cut out of the tape. Tape is glued along the edge of the door so that a little more than half hangs in the air. With this loose adhesive tape we glue the door to the wall, but so that there is a gap of 2-3 mm between the wall and the door (there is just adhesive tape). This will allow the doors to close. We fix the glued door on the other side with a second strip of adhesive tape.
The second way to fix the doors is on the wire. Only this time it should be tough and thick enough. Cut off a piece that is 2 cm longer than the height of the cabinet. Immediately on the wire on one side we make a loop, using 1 cm. We bend the loop at an angle of 90 ° to the wire. We make holes in the bottom and roof, pass the wire through the bottom, the loop remains below. We put a door on the wire, using the outer tube instead of hinges. Slightly bending the wire, we thread it into the hole in the cabinet roof, bend the excess, fixing the door. We repeat the same operation with another door. Please note that it is necessary to fasten the door to the adhesive tape before finishing the cabinet, and it is possible to attach it to the wire after.
There are some other little things that need to be said a few words. Legs and handles for the cabinet can also be made from paper tubes. You just need to twist them from the paper with which you trim the toy. Fold it into a tight roll, glue the edge with glue, then cut it into segments of the desired length and glue it in the right places. Instead of tubes, there can be wooden sticks, beads, etc.
Doll bookcase or ruler shelf
You can make furniture for dolls with your own hands from school wooden rulers. They are good because they are already processed, have the same width and thickness. In the stationery store you can find the right size – larger / smaller, wider / narrower – as desired. For example, to make a doll bookcase, you need 6 rulers 15 cm long.
You will also need a jigsaw to work. If there is an electric one, great, if not, a manual one will do, since there is not too much work. You also need fine-grained sandpaper, glue (PVA or carpentry) and paints (acrylic or gouache).
We cut segments from the rulers: 4 pieces of 6 cm each, one – 8 cm. We sand the edges to an even state, we also remove the markings and barcodes. Between the two rulers we have shelves (which are 6 cm each), on top we leave approximately the same distance – under the lid (a segment of 8 cm). We coat the joints with PVA or carpentry glue, connect and tighten with masking tape, leave for a day. When the glue dries, glue the very last detail – the cover on top. Actually, the shelf itself is ready, it remains to paint it.
To obtain an even and bright color, it is better to cover the structure with white, after drying, already paint with the desired shade. Also, do-it-yourself doll furniture can be decorated using decoupage technique.
Furniture for dolls: photo ideas
You can make furniture for dolls with your own hands from the most unexpected materials. You have already seen how to use newspapers and wooden rulers. But you can make tables, chairs, armchairs, sofas, beds, shelves, cabinets, etc. from ice cream sticks.
What is good about this material, you probably already understood – it has rounded processed edges, is the same in size and well processed. If the sticks seem too rough, sand them down to smoothness with fine grit sandpaper.
Clothespins make good armchairs and chairs. They are disassembled into halves and connected with wood glue. Figured products are obtained in almost a few tens of minutes.
Almost always, wooden clothespins are used to make doll furniture. But no one forbids taking plastic ones. It is also difficult to work with them in the same way, only the difficulty is that wooden ones are easier to modify by changing the thickness of the shape, etc. If the product is simple, does not require refinement, you can take plastic ones. They are more varied in shape and size, already painted, so there is less fuss with them.
With the growth of skill, you can switch to more complex material – plywood or wood. The difficulty is that turning and cutting miniature parts requires filigree precision, perseverance and takes a lot of time. But you can do whatever you want.