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!





Fourth of July Party

The kids are out of school, the weather is heating up, Fourth of July is coming!

The dollhouse folks are totally prepared and ready to celebrate!

A picnic feast has been prepared.

We have our American flag (made from fimo clay) and paper pinwheels,.

                                                          

The dog is ready too!

We have garland (made from cut paper triangles, glued to thread)

and noise makers (cut pieces of Mylar, rolled into tiny paper cones)

And we have the food!

(All made from fimo clay as well.)

We have all kinds of fruit, along with hot dogs and pizza.

 But the most important summer treat is watermelon!

Sandwiches, cupcakes and cake!

It's all ready!

Happy 4th of July!

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Simple Dollhouse Sofas

It is incredibly easy and fun to make a sofa out of a sponge.
Here's how to do it:
  First, you will need

                    
(and some straight pins)






• Take a small kitchen sponge and cut an inch off the length.




(We tried a "wavy" sponge for this tutorial, which is just a little bit more work, than the straight sponge. You just have to be sure to pull the fabric tightly against the waved edge.)









•   Wrap this piece and the larger piece in the fabric of your choice. Use fabric glue or a hot glue gun to attach the fabric, using straight pins to hold it in place while the glue dries. Wrap it like a present. Trim excess fabric so it isn't bulky and try to tuck in edges so it lies as flat as possible against the sponge.

• Glue the smaller sponge, onto the large sponge, making a back for the couch. (at this point, it was easy for the 4 & 6 year old to really get involved. Glue and hold is a good job for them!) Let it set a few minutes to dry.

• We made feet out of wooden beads, stuck into the bottom of the sofa with straight pins and glue.   Glue the feet onto the big sponge piece.  
• We added "Rick Rack" to this couch, and some fancy trim to one (below) , but you could also leave a trim off completely. The fancy trim turned out to be a bit of a nuisance because it totally frays where it is cut and it is hard to glue down all the little loose pieces without having it show on the front of the sofa. If you use trim, you may want to use something that will cut with a neat edge, not something bulky and inclined to majorly unravel.

• Pillows- for such a tiny sofa we decided the pillows do not need stuffing. Just sewing two squares of felt together makes a cute, easy pillow.

                                 

                                                                       The fancy trimmed couch.

                                                  Looks pretty good, even if it's a little extra trouble.