Do-it-yourself doll furniture - setting up a doll house

How to decide on sizes

The dolls, their houses and furnishings are smaller copies of us and our homes. 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 obtained values.

Furniture for dolls - copies of our furniture

How much to reduce the actual dimensions depends on how small or large the doll is, because they range from 7 cm to 60 cm or even higher. Accordingly, they need furniture of different sizes. To determine the number by which the actual dimensions should be divided, divide the average human height in centimeters (170 cm) by the height of the doll. Let's get some number. This is how you will need to divide the dimensions of real furniture.

For example, the height of the doll is 15 cm. We calculate: 170 cm / 15 cm = 11.3. It is by this number that we divide all the parameters of “human” furniture. It is also worth saying that 14-15 cm is the most popular size among the doll population. Therefore, most of the finished furniture is made in a ratio of 1:12. We can also use the existing dimensions, at least so that we can navigate the scale of the required parts and the amount of materials.

Approximate dimensions of furniture for doll children

So, the most common doll sizes are:

• male doll 150 mm;
• female doll - 140 mm;
• child 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 - 160*75 mm;

  
  The size of the setting depends on the height of the inhabitants

If the toys you have are slightly larger/smaller, you don’t have to adjust the sizes. If the difference is large, you will have to increase or decrease (or you can calculate it yourself).

Doll furniture made from matchboxes

The easiest way to make furniture for dolls with your own hands is from ordinary matchboxes. They are glued together using PVA glue, creating certain structures, then covered with paper or fabric, self-adhesive film, etc. You can use wooden beads as legs, handles for drawers can be made from small buttons on legs or from long beads.

Simple homemade doll furniture from matchboxes

You can make chairs, a table, a chest of drawers, a bed, and a bedside table from matchboxes. Another thing is that furniture is made for very small dolls, no more than 10 cm high. Although, you can use a larger number of boxes, 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 complicated, but they are more flexible and allow you to create products of more elegant shapes.

Toy dressing table made from matchboxes

DIY doll desk

Dining table and chairs made from matchboxes for a dollhouse

How to glue boxes

Several design techniques for finishing a homemade toy chest of drawers from matchboxes

This may be your first experience in making doll furniture. Later you can take on something more serious.

Tools and consumables

To make furniture for a dollhouse with your own hands, you will need to prepare special tools and consumables. For most toy interior items you will need the following equipment:

• scissors for cutting not very durable materials;
• saw when working with wood or chipboard;
• glue;
• paper;
• scraps of fabric;
• beads, buttons;
• paints (gouache, acrylic), you can also use nail polish;
• threads with needles for sewing fabric elements or creating patterns and designs on them;
• plasticine or polymer clay - for creating small elements on furniture;
• regular or double-sided tape;
• sheets of paper, cardboard, wallpaper;
• wire.

The list may vary, it all depends on the type of construction and design.

A set of standard furniture for a schoolchild’s corner, requirements for it

Furniture for a dollhouse made of cardboard

You can try your hand at making furniture for dolls using cardboard. The material is inexpensive, accessible, you can try and make mistakes, redo it. Cardboard is usually joined using PVA glue; you can use a glue gun or any universal glue that can glue cardboard, fabric, or wood. By simply making furniture for dolls with your own hands from cardboard, you will also use these materials. If we talk about convenience, then a glue gun is preferable - it glues quickly, it’s convenient to work, and the connection is reliable.

Without finishing, doll furniture made of cardboard does not look very good

To make furniture for dolls, you can use regular packaging cardboard. It is cheap, but the furniture it makes is very delicate. It is unlikely that it will be enough for a child for a long time. But, as a “first experience”, this is a good option. Cardboard products for scrapbooking are more reliable. It is more dense, homogeneous, has different thicknesses (from 2 mm and more), and can have a textured surface, embossed monochromatic patterns, or 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 specified dimensions can be reduced.

You can make such a bed out of cardboard in a few minutes

This option can be done in literally 10-20 minutes. There is no need for glue or other fixatives. The parts 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 workpieces are indicated in the diagram.

Bed diagram for dolls

Green and yellow dots indicate compatible 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 making cardboard doll furniture

Basically, furniture for dolls made of cardboard is glued. It is unlikely that it will be possible to make something delicate or very complex from this material, but making simple models will not take much time. Having a diagram with dimensions, you can even do without explanations. Everything is clear.

Chair diagram for dolls

Such models can be made “by eye”. Without the “upholstery” they look unsightly, but after that they look quite decent

It’s not difficult to make a bed, but with kitchen cabinets you’ll have to be a little tricky

A bedside table with doors and an open shelf - one design, different designs

Another bedside table model for making from cardboard or plywood

Making a toy table for dolls with your own hands using this scheme is not a problem

Floor lamp for dolls made of cardboard

Furniture patterns for dolls can be used not only for making from cardboard. They can be transferred to plywood and cut out using a jigsaw.

Wardrobe for dolls made from scrap materials

The toy cabinet can be made of plywood, painted or covered with wrapping paper or self-adhesive film. There probably won’t be any questions here - everything is clear, and if you have questions, you can see their solution in the “natural” closet. But it can be made from very inexpensive materials. The good thing about making do-it-yourself furniture for dolls is that its cost is very low.

From a cardboard box

The main task is to find a thick cardboard box of the appropriate size. Moreover, it will be easier to work if it is packaging - with folded edges. This folding part is a ready-made door. All that remains is to finish it - hang a mirror, attach a handle, etc.

One of the options for homemade furniture for dolls is a wardrobe

What do you need for work?

To work, you will need good tape, preferably paper-based, as it will be easier to glue the trim to it later. If you have a glue gun or a construction stapler (a large stationery one will do) with staples, that’s also good. If you will use other materials in addition to cardboard and paper, it is better to find a universal glue that glues paper, cardboard, fabric, and plastic. You will also need scissors, a stationery knife, and a ruler.

How to make a doll wardrobe from a cardboard box

If the box you find is too large, you can make it smaller by cutting off the excess. To ensure that the folds are even, take a ruler. We apply it to the place of the future fold, we pass along the ruler several times with a blunt hard object (the stem of a spoon or fork). After this, the cardboard will be easy to bend.

Filling for a toy cabinet

We cut out shelves from scraps or another box. They should be slightly - 5-8 mm - longer and wider than the internal space of the cabinet. We bend the excess so that sides are formed on all sides. Folds form in the corners; carefully cut them off. We bend one of the parts 180° and glue it to the shelf itself. This side of the shelf will “look into the world.” We bend the other three parts at an angle of 90°, coat them 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 points are not conspicuous, it is better to turn the sides down.

Making furniture for dolls with your own hands is no less fun than playing with it later.

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 comes the finishing touches. You can paint the cardboard with watercolor or acrylic (preferably) paints, glue it with wrapping paper, fabric, felt. You can imitate a mirror surface by covering it with foil (food foil, for example). If you want to make a “plastic” surface, look for water bottles of the desired color, cut off the neck and bottom, and use the “body” as a finishing material.

Finishing is a creative process, but first, use simpler, softer, thinner materials; they are easier to work with

Handles can be made from wire, beads, or long beads. For larger toy cabinets, you can find buttons or buttons. We glue all this “beauty” after we have “lined” the cabinet.

Doll wardrobe made from newspapers

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 roll up tight tubes from newspapers, coat them with PVA around the edges and leave them to dry. Then the tubes can be glued together. A glue gun is better suited for this operation. There are two ways: first collect large blocks, then cut them into fragments of the required length, or immediately cut the tubes of the required length and immediately glue the blanks to size. The second way is more painstaking, but there is less waste.

Assembling planes from newspaper tubes

The finished cabinet walls must be fastened together. To firmly fix an angle of 90°, it is better to use a thin wire. First coat the joints with glue, then use wire to pull the walls together. If the wires are in the way, they can be removed after the glue has dried.

We glue holders under the shelves

Using the same technology, the bottom, top, and shelves are glued. The doors will need to be made a little differently. To make them open, two strips about 1.5 cm wide are cut out of tape. Tape is glued along the edge of the door so that a little more than half hangs in the air. We glue the door to the wall with this loose tape, but so that there is a gap of 2-3 mm between the wall and the door (it’s just tape there). This will make it possible to close the doors. We fix the glued door on the other side with a second strip of tape.

Fastening the door with wire

The second way to secure the doors is with wire. Only this time it should be tough and thick enough. Cut a piece that is 2 cm longer than the height of the cabinet. Immediately make a loop on the wire on one side using 1 cm. We bend the loop at an angle of 90° to the wire. We make holes in the bottom and roof, pass a wire through the bottom, the loop remains at the bottom. We put the door on the wire, using the outer tube instead of hinges. Slightly bending the wire, we thread it through the hole in the cabinet roof, bend the excess, fixing the door. We repeat the same operation with the other door. Please note that you need to attach the door with tape before finishing the cabinet, but you can attach it with wire after.

Ready-made wardrobe for dolls made from newspapers

There are still some little things that need to be said a few words. Cabinet legs and handles can also be made from paper tubes. You just need to roll them from the paper you use to decorate the toy. Roll it into a tight roll, glue the edge with glue, then cut it into pieces of the required length and glue it in the right places. Instead of tubes there can be wooden sticks, beads, etc.

Step-by-step master class

To understand how to make furniture for a doll house, first of all you should prepare diagrams or take ready-made interior options from master classes. From scrap materials you can build any model of furniture you like.

Don't be afraid to be creative. Even if the furniture is made according to a master class, its size or appearance can be adjusted independently depending on the parameters of the free space in the dollhouse and personal preferences.

Classic style chair

There are many options for creating a chair for a dollhouse in a classic style, but among all of them there are two of the simplest and most practical methods that do not require much money. If you want to make budget furniture from scrap materials, you can take simple matchboxes (4-5 pieces). After this you need to follow this procedure:

1. Paint the matchboxes in the color you like and let them dry completely.
2. One box needs to be placed horizontally, then glue the match packs, installed vertically on the edge, on the right and left sides - this will be the railing of the future chair.
3. As a backrest, you need to glue a vertically mounted box to the bottom of the chair.
4. After the structure has dried, you need to make 4 small holes in the bottom of the first matchbox from each corner.
5. Take 4 matches and carefully cut them in the middle.
6. Part of the match with sulfur will be used as legs for the chair; to do this, they need to be placed in the holes and leaned against the inner wall of the box, having previously been coated with glue.

You can play with dolls with the furniture you made immediately after it has completely dried.

Also, a dollhouse chair can be made from a simple plastic bottle. To do this, you must adhere to the following algorithm of actions:

1. Cut the bottle into two parts so that you can separate the part with the bottom.
2. You need to measure 2-3 centimeters from the bottom point of the bottle (depending on the size of the furniture being made). The entire area that will be on top needs to be cut off, except for the back. It can be cut into any shape you like.
3. The bottom of the bottle should be filled with foam rubber or other soft and elastic material.

How to make children's furniture with your own hands, description of the main stages

As upholstery, you can use any fabric suitable in style and color, which is cut to the shape of the resulting chair and gradually stitched onto its surface. For the classic style, calm tones are used - brown, white, black.

Wardrobe

There are several options for making a wardrobe, but the simplest is to select a box of suitable dimensions from which the base is made. You can use any suitable and durable tube as a crossbar for hangers. If you want to make doors, they can be made from cardboard by making 2 holes in it and the edge of the cabinet at the bottom and top. Small steel rings made of wire should be threaded through them - they will act as hinges on which the doors are held.

There is also an option with a curtain. To do this, you need to thread a fishing line between the two walls of the furniture in the upper part, through which a fabric of suitable size will be pulled. With the help of such a simple mechanism it can be moved and closed. Match boxes or smaller boxes can be used as shelves and drawers for the closet, and twisted wire or paper clips can be used for hangers.

Buffet

To make a buffet for a dollhouse, you need to follow this procedure:

1. The base of the buffet is created from a box, which will be filled as it is constructed.
2. The lower part can be made from boxes of suitable size by gluing with PVA.
3. To make doors, you need to cut small round holes (up to 5 mm). Pre-prepared wire rings of slightly smaller diameter will be threaded through them, acting as loops.
4. You need to cut out a rectangular part in the doors, which will serve as a hole for the glass. In most cases, this space is not filled with anything, but stretched plastic film can be secured.
5. The shelves inside the buffet can be made from any suitable material (cardboard, piece of plywood).

If there is a need to create a detailed and exact copy of the buffet, you can insert a pre-cut piece of glass into the doors. However, it needs to be securely fixed so that the child does not get hurt while playing.

Victorian style sofa

To make a Victorian-style sofa for a dollhouse, you should prepare the following equipment and materials:

• thick sheets of cardboard;
• small buttons;
• fabric for covering a sofa;
• furniture foam rubber for stuffing;
• pieces of plywood for the base of the sofa;
• curly plaits;
• glue that can reliably fix some structural elements;
• scissors;
• pencil;
• ruler;
• screws and a screwdriver.

Advantages of children's modular furniture and criteria for its correct selection

Next you need to adhere to the following algorithm:

1. Cut out a template for the back and bottom of the sofa from paper or cardboard.
2. Fix paper or cardboard templates using glue with a pre-formed foam rubber mold.
3. Cover both parts with fabric, and glue several small buttons, previously wrapped in the same fabric, to the surface of the back.
4. Saw off the bars to the required length and width and fasten them together with self-tapping screws. This part will be the base on which the entire structure is installed; it also needs to be covered with fabric.
5. The armrests need to be cut out of plywood, and then covered with foam rubber (so that they are soft) and fabric.
6. After creating all the individual parts, they need to be combined using glue and self-tapping screws; a shaped tourniquet should be glued at the seams.

Before starting to make a sofa, it is recommended to prepare all the necessary materials, tools and take all measurements first so as not to be distracted during work. To create a Victorian style, you can apply decor on the back and armrests of the sofa. It is sculpted from polymer clay or plasticine. To make a piece of furniture look complete, you should add sofa cushions.

Doll bookcase or shelf made of rulers

You can make furniture for dolls with your own hands from school wooden rulers. They are good because they are already processed and 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.

Making a toy bookshelf from wooden rulers is easy.

You will also need a jigsaw for the job. If you have an electric one, great; if not, a manual one will do, since there’s not too much work. You also need fine-grain sandpaper, glue (PVA or wood glue) and paints (acrylic or gouache).

We cut segments from the rulers: 4 pieces of 6 cm, one - 8 cm. Sand the edges until smooth, and also remove the markings and barcodes. Between the two rulers we place the 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 them and tighten them with masking tape, and leave them for a day. When the glue dries, glue on the very last part - the lid on top. Actually, the shelf itself is ready, all that remains is to paint it.

You can use rulers to make other pieces of furniture for dolls.

To obtain an even and bright color, it is better to cover the structure with white, and after drying, paint it with the desired shade. You can also decorate doll furniture made by yourself using the decoupage technique.

Flower card

To work you will need:

- corrugated cardboard;

- colored paper;

- scissors;

- marker or pen;

- glue.

Choose a suitable color for the background of the card. Cut out a medium sized rectangle. Cut long strips 0.5 cm wide from green and orange cardboard.

Fold a sheet of corrugated cardboard like an accordion, draw on the sheet with a marker and cut it out. For a postcard you need 8 of these leaves.

Glue the leaves to the base of the card in any order. You can change the layout of the sheets as desired.

Related article: Weaving bracelets from floss threads: how to weave with diagrams and videos

Fold a petal from the green stripe and glue it to the corner of the card. The orange stripe is for the core. Twist it in a circle and glue it to the center of the flower. You can also cut out a small yellow strip and write congratulations on it. The corrugated cardboard card is ready!

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.

It’s better to start with something simple: a table and chairs for dolls made from ice cream sticks

You can make armchairs and sofas

Garden bench or sofa - depending on the finish

Almost the same designs with soft upholstery

Making a chest of drawers like this for dolls = this is a more difficult task

You can also assemble a crib

You probably already understand why this material is good - it has rounded, processed edges, is the same in size and is well processed. If the sticks seem too rough, sand them down smooth using fine-grit sandpaper.

Clothespins make good armchairs and stools. They are disassembled into halves and joined using wood glue. Curly products are obtained in almost a few tens of minutes.

This sofa can be assembled from wooden clothespins

A chair, a table - can also be made from clothespins

If you add a few holes, you get an openwork product

It’s not difficult to make a round table for dolls from clothespins

Original legs made from three halves of clothespins

Rocking chair for dolls

Toy stools

Chairs with armrests for dollhouse

Wooden clothespins are almost always used to make doll furniture. But no one forbids taking plastic ones. Working with them is exactly the same, only the difficulty is that wooden ones are easier to modify by changing the thickness, shape, etc. If the product is simple and does not require any modification, you can use plastic ones. They are more varied in shape and size, and are already painted, so there is less fuss with them.

As your skill increases, you can move on to more complex materials - plywood or wood. The difficulty is that turning and cutting out miniature parts requires filigree precision, perseverance and takes a lot of time. But you can do whatever you want.

You can make furniture for dolls with your own hands of any size, style

Several models of plywood doll chairs

Toy bed for baby doll

For those who have a lot of patience

Carved wooden doll bed

Corner desk for a doll….just like the real thing

Styles vary

Kitchen furniture in a dollhouse

Wardrobe for dolls made of plywood - very high reproduction accuracy

Kitchen cabinet with filling

Plywood bed for dolls

DIY toy kitchen tables made of plywood

Chairs for playing with dolls