Crafts for the Dollhouse Family- part 2

This is a continuation of Dollhouse Family Craft ideas, a follow up from

our previous post; Crafts For the Dollhouse Family

This time we offer some needlework for the dollhouse people

to work on.

Embroidered flower

Cotton embroidery thread on muslin.

Cross stitch clover

Cotton embroidery thread on linen.

I made these images on a 1 1/4" circle, then pressed the
form on my 1" Button Maker, model 100 (which I bought
years ago off of ebay).  If you do not have
a button maker, you can also make these by buying an aluminum button cover kit
 at the craft/fabric store, and pressing the fabric by hand.
I then glued the "button" onto a small circle of felt to
display on your dollhouse wall.

Gumball Dome Tiffany Lamp

If you've ever thought you might want to construct a ship out of toothpicks or engage in some other seriously tiny work this is a good starter project for you. It involves very tiny pieces and is a little tough but it is a lot smaller than a toothpick vessel and does not take very long to complete. You take a gumball dome and turn it into a stained-glass lampshade. There seem to be two sizes of gumball domes floating around out there. I got one that is tiny (1 inch diameter) and that seems to be just right for a dollhouse lamp. I would not recommend using one of the jumbo ones that hold giant gumballs as that would be way too big for your tiny house.

I cut tissue paper into very small pieces and glued it to the shade, leaving tiny spaces between pieces. I used regular tacky glue for this. I put the glue on a small section of lampshade and covered it with tissue scraps (a wet finger works well for picking them up.) After each small section I would take a break and do something else before continuing so that section could dry.

 When the shade was covered with tissue and dry, I filled in the spaces with a thick black Sharpie (permanent pen). For the base I glued a nail through a small button and then glued the whole thing onto a washer. There are lots of other bases you could make. You could use other found hardware items,or rig something up with pipe cleaner and bottle cap or whatever you can find laying around the house that looks elegant enough to sport a Tifffany lampshade. I used modeling clay to wedge the shade onto the nail head, dug out one of the adorable staff members from my childhood dollhouse for a formal touch, and the lamp is complete!

Friends With You - Cloudy

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A Proper Bed for a Princess

Making a "proper" bed for a true princess, can only mean one thing.

You will need one pea and lots and lots of mattresses.

We made our Princess and the Pea bed from popsicle sticks and fabric scraps.

(coffee stirrers, toothpicks and tongue depressors too.)

1. Build a simple base for the bed. Cut one popsicle stick in half,

so you have 2 equal pieces. Glue across the sticks.

2.Then add the full size sticks. We used 5 for ours.

3.Next, make your 4 bed posts by simply gluing 2 sticks together

for each post.

4. If you like, you can decorate them. We wanted them a little

"fancier" so we drew on the sticks once they dried, and colored

with marker.

5. Then get ready to attach the base to the posts. This is the trickiest part,

and requires the most patience.

6. We definitely suggest, using any props, or tricks to help hold the pieces

in place while the glue dries.  Tape, clothespins, old cell phones, empty tins.

Be creative, use what works!

7. Now you have a great start but it's a bit wobbly. So add braces in

the weak spots. We used cut up pieces of tongue depressor around the

base. Then coffee stirrers on the sides.

8. Dont' forget the pea! You must have one. (we used a shiny

pea-green bead.)

9. Next, pick through your fabric scraps, and find around 15 or so scraps.

Cut them roughly, 6 x 5", fold them horizontally, wrong sides out. Sew along 2

sides, creating a sort of mini pillowcase. 1/2" seem.

10. Turn them all inside out, and then use a very small amount of fluff

to stuff, you want them more flat than puffy. Little hands are a great help at this!

When finished, turn the inside edges in, and sew across the edge (roughly 1/4" seem) to close up the mattress.

You can handsew the closing for a more finished look.

11. Stack those mattresses up.

The kids noticed we needed a ladder too.

Made from coffee stirrers and toothpicks.

12.Find a potential princess, and test it out!

Goodnight, sleep tight!

***If you enjoyed this post and like tiny things, check our latest post

And you can make a cute and tiny scout sash. like this one.

Walnut Shell Flotilla

These boats may not go in a dollhouse but they are certainly miniature so I could not resist including them in this blog. I got the idea from the 70's Crafting classic Snips and Snails and Walnut Whales by Phylis Fiarota.
You take a walnut shell, make a sail for it, use a toothpick for a mast, and attach it with clay. If you have lots of walnut shells to choose from try to pick one that stands up pretty straight. A few of my boats have a listing problem and look like they are ready to topple at the first
storm they encounter.

I made a square sail for my pirate ship and triangles for my sailing ships. If you care to make historically accurate ships, the World Flag Database has all sorts of great information about flags. You can search by terms like "Navy" or by color or country of origin.

                                        

Using Dollhouses to interest girls in Science

There was good news in the New York Times home section this week about a start up company that is creating something called the Roominate. It is a dollhouse that girls can design and construct using stackable rooms. They can wire it for electricity, doorbell and fans using colored wires.  The creators are all women who met at Stanford. They decided that the toys children play with often determine their future interests and that they should try to make a product for girls that might point them towards math and science.
You can preorder the Roominate at their website.

Crafts for the Dollhouse Family

It is appropriate for crafty dollhouse owners to have projects for their dollhouse families to work on in their spare time.  Here are three cute and easy ones.

Knitting Basket

  

We used a walnut hull as a basket, perfect for lots of yarn balls. You can use any kind of little basket or bowl. Take some embroidery floss or single-ply yarn and roll it into tiny balls. You can use dots of glue to hold it in place while you go.  After you have several balls of yarn, stick in two pins to look like knitting needles. You can leave the yarn balls loose in the bowl or glue them down so they don't get lost.

Weaving



The loom







Take some thin wooden dowel (a kebob stick works well) and cut it into small pieces so that you can make a small frame. Glue the pieces together at the corners.

Wind embroidery floss around the top and bottom edges to make your weft. Secure with glue along the top and bottoms of the loom so that the floss will not slide around when you are weaving.





Making the weft





 Thread some embridery floss onto a tapestry needle and carefully weave it in and out of the weft. I went over two strands and under two strands.  After a few rows I glued the end down in a hidden place and switched colors.










Quilting

This is a great project to use up some of those tiny fabric scraps you have saved from other projects.  This tiny quilt was all hand pieced, but could totally be done on a machine to save time.  We just picked interesting scraps, that went together, and arranged them into a dollsize quilt shape.(roughly 4 x 6", but quilts don't have to be perfect, even in the dollhouse!)  Pick a fabric for the backing, the same size, stitch 3 sides together, wrong sides facing each other, with a matching size bit of batting in the middle.

Turn it inside out and close up the open end.  Then start your quilting! Any design or pattern will do, and it's so small this can be completed easily within a day.

                                     

Now it's ready to add to some lucky doll's bed, or fold up and store for later!