Papa's Easy Chair

Dear Doll House Lovers,

You know me.  I cannot throw anything away without wondering:  what could this be used for?

So it was that I found myself holding an empty, clear-plastic clamshell case from which we had taken and used dust masks when we painted the kitchen.  The clamshell enticed me to pull out the scissors and glue gun. 

Enter Papa's easy chair.

I wish I had taken pictures of the process, but it was so spontaneous, I forgot!  Anyway, this is so simple, I think you can easily imagine the process as you see the pictures. 

The first step was to separate the clamshell into two pieces.  I only needed one side from it to make my chair.   I trimmed any edges that felt sharp or that stuck out beyond the simple round, concave piece that I needed.

I cut a rounded piece of quilted fabric from some scraps I had and did a large loop stitch around the outside edge of the fabric, just to help it lay flat and not look so untidy.

The piece of fabric was hot glued into the plastic shell.

Turning the chair over, there was a trough all the way around into which I hot-glued beads.  This gave a pretty trimming to the chair and also gave it sturdiness. 

What to do for legs?  Well, I keep a box of wooden "do-dads" including clothespins, and we have pulled from that many times to make our doll house furniture.  This was easy peasy!  Just attach the clothespins.  And they can be adjusted to let Papa recline or sit up taller!

I hope you enjoyed this most recent creation.  Now that I have a granddaughter here frequently, I am expecting the doll house to get lots of use.  And my daughter, Michaela, the little princess for whom it was all started, she is now 14 and able to pass along her making and playing skills to her little niece.

Don't forget to play!  And remember to keep things age appropriate and supervised.  Hot glue guns need supervision, and so do small pieces like beads, etc.

Lynn

Glad Greetings Cottage

I wanted to share with you the latest little house that's going to market.

Isn't it amazing, and fun, to see what can be made from old boxes and things that would otherwise go in the trash?

The cottage is called Glad-Greetings because of the little girl on the support column and her Glad Greetings.

Made from a cardboard box, this little cottage has wood floors, fabric walls and a beautiful lace "wall paper border." It comes with handmade furniture.

There's a fireplace in the corner, with a hearth and a little pot made from Sculpey and wire.

Cork and wire make for good curtain rods, and lace always makes pretty curtains.

The sleigh style bed boasts storage drawers underneath, of course covered in sparkles and with dainty wire-and-bead drawer pulls.




The little window sill is big enough for sitting things on, perfect for a little fairy who lives in the woods and collects things.


A chinese take-out container was cut in half and then covered in fabric to make two beautiful wingback chairs.





The containers were unused and probably would have ended up in the trash were it not for The Scrap Exchange.



I put in a little Kelly doll to illustrate the size of the furnishings.





A clock and little dishes made from Sculpey have started filling in the cupboard, made from a little gift box.




I hope you enjoyed your tour!

Enjoy this day.

Allowing Children To Create

I love the way working with a doll house that's homemade brings out the creativity in children.

My daughter has made two items lately, totally by herself and not by my urging. First, a crib/playpen. It's made from a box that contained soap. The legs are tall wooden beads. It is trimmed in ribbon and rick-rack.



And a shower. The shower is pieced together from all sorts of things: a clear plastic box that contained who-knows-what, old ribbon, old lightweight wood left over from an airplane kit, and of course a condiment container. She even used a foam sticker as a no-slip pad in the tub.


Just have fun!

Doll House Bookshelf

Bless their little hearts, my dolls are such book lovers! I knew I needed to find a way to make them a bookshelf for their doll house. When my husband tossed this into the trash can...

my mind raced to the doll house. This is the perfect size -- tall and narrow -- for making a bookshelf. I retrieved it and put it on my craft desk.



I cut it down to the size I wanted, making the depth and height the perfect size for our dolls and their doll house books. Some of the left-over pieces of the box were used to make shelves which were hot-glued into place.



I then used Mod-Podge to put into place some heavy pieces of scrap book paper, making a sort of veneer on the doll house bookshelf. One large piece, perfectly cut, slid in perfectly behind the shelves, on top of a layer of Mod-Podge, so that made the inside back of the doll house bookshelf.

To smooth the edges and give the doll house bookshelf more design I Mod-Podged little pieces of tissue paper around the edges.



I then started putting books in. Ooohh the little dolls had goosebumps when they heard about their new bookshelf!



See anything that appeals to you?


I think we would agree, this is the best corner of the doll house.

A Soapbox For A Doll Bed

The doll will literally get on her soapbox with this project. Well, maybe in the soapbox.

I found the most beautiful boxed soap not long ago at Marshall's. The soap smelled divine and I just knew the box would be the perfect size for a doll house bed.

I only used the bottom half of the box for this. My daughter decided to use the lid of the box to make her own project. More on that later.

First I cut a strip of fabric to go about one and a half times around the bed (box). I then basted it with a large stitch so that I could gather it a bit. I then carefully glued it around the lower outside of the box to make a dust ruffle. The pink paisley print at the bottom is what was used for this step.

After that I took a pretty tieback that was cut from a thrifted curtain, pressed it with the iron and cut it to fit perfectly around the box for a trim to cover the glued portion of the dust ruffle. This trim was hot glued into place as well.

Two nice large buttons were glued -- one on each end of the box -- for decoration.

I then cut a mattress out of some red ticking I had in the scrap box. The mattress is deep and shaped like a real mattress. The top and bottom pieces of fabric were cut to fit perfectly into the box with just enough room for a seam. Then a strip as deep as the box was cut to go all the way around the box to make the "side" of the mattress. It was sewed together first by making a seam in the side strip, then sewing (right sides together) the top to the strip, then (again right sides together) the bottom piece to the side strip, leaving a small opening to turn the mattress and stuff the mattress and then sew it up by hand.


The legs on the bed are long wooden beads, hot glued into place.

The last step was to make a sheet and a little downy pillow. Princess of the Universe LOVED it and was inspired to make her own bed. We'll be posting about that later.

Lynn

PS - As always, a reminder to supervise all use of glue guns and craft materials and scissors and sewing machines when working with children.

A New Doll House Chair

Last night I used the book that my friend Alana sent me -- The Most Wonderful Dollhouse Book, to make a new chair for the doll house.

First I started with an empty baking powder can. I used a Sharpie to outline where I would cut with my sharp Xacto.

You can see how the chair will be shaped. The most tedious part comes next, and that is cutting a piece or two of fabric and smoothly hot-gluing it on so it looks upholstered.

But it turns out well! What did I use to fill the inside? I simply measured out enough stuffing to fill up the seat. I then cut a circle of fabric and laid that stuffing in the center of it. I pulled the fabric together all around it like a balloon and tied it together with a piece of string. The tied-with-string end went down into the seat first, leaving a pretty puffy pillow look on top.

Mama Doll loves her chair. I ended up covering my fabric "seam" on the chair with a ribbon I had recycled from some old PJs. It worked perfectly.


Fancy, eh? Princess of the Universe loves her new chair.

Remember to supervise the use of all crafting tools. I always do the sharp work myself and supervise my children very closely when they are working with things like this to avoid injury.

Lynn

Doll House Dresser For A Friend

Just wanted to share pictures of a dresser that was made to give away to an on-line friend.



Yes, the little matchbox drawers may be a bit wobbly, but so is Pooh's spelling.



This dresser has tiny little batchboxes with tiny little drawer pulls.



I think everyone needs miniature, homemade doll house furniture.



Lynn

Doll House Trundle Bed

"You can do anything with children if you only play with them."
Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), German Statesman



Last night my daughter and I had a slumber party together in her room. We took four dishpans of craft materials into her room so that we would have plenty to do. She had the idea to use an Altoids tin to make a trundle bed. She said, "I want the baby to have a trundle bed, so she can be close by her mommy. Like the beds that Laura and Mary had."



It was so sweet to watch her create something from a book we'd read together. (No worries that currently there's a puppy and a chicken in it. It's just part of her imagination at work. Later on there was a tiger in the trundle bed.)

Lynn

A Very Tall Chest of Drawers

I decided to make something for my princess! A very tall chest of drawers. She'll also have some new dolls tomorrow, as I stepped into a local toy store today and could not resist a family of wooden dolls.



Match boxes are great for making furniture. Each drawer has a different little button for the drawer pull.


The doll family admires the beautiful veneer on one side.


And then the other side. It is actually a few pieces of paper cut from some scrapbook material I have, glued into place and then covered with a coat of mod podge.

But what's this?


It's a little letter for my darling!

What does it say?


We're studying Roxaboxen right now and my daughter just loved our first reading of it tonight. This little letter will be a fun "find" for her tomorrow while I am at work. Her dolls can play Roxaboxen.

They'll need the pretty treasure.



Happy doll house playing,
Lynn

Homemade Doll House Dresser

I must say I am so pleased. I just had to share this. Sweet-pea and I sat down this evening and worked on a piece of doll house furniture -- a dresser. With a mirror and everything!



We used match boxes for the drawers. My husband carefully removed a mirror from a compact I had. Last night at work we had some excellent boxes that were going to be thrown out. They were heavy cardboard, but not corrugated. Very smooth and sturdy. Just right.

We cut out a "frame" from one end of a box, into which we could glue the drawers. Then we cut a piece of box to be glued onto the back. Finally, the mirror was glued into place. For the pulls on the drawers, we used a needle to punch holes (carefully now!) into two places on the front of each drawer. We took a little piece of raffia and drew it through and tied in the front.

Isn't it great?? ~:-D

Lynn