Doll house Part 3: Dining room and Kitchen

It took me some time to pen down this post. I have discovered a new found love for paper quilling and was experimenting with that for the last few days. Until I realized that it’s been quite a few days since my last post on the doll house.

In this post I will discuss about the kitchen (and dining room).

Similar to the other rooms, my mother used handmade paper for the floor and gift wrapping paper for the walls. Kitchen windows rarely have curtains. So in order to make it look like a window again we used a picture from the desk calendar to make it look like a scene from outside the window. We covered that with a piece of transparent plastic so that it would look like glass.

Now, when I was originally planning this house I had intended that the dining table and chairs were in the living room which is pretty common in most of our houses. However, my niece had other ideas. Even though the living room was more spacious she decided that these belonged in the dining room. And she's the boss so we went with that. The other furniture here is the kitchen counter with sink, fridge and washing machine.

1.       Dining table and chairs:

For the table I used ice cream sticks, a piece of white paper and the top cover of a bottle of sunscreen lotion. Basically I stuck pieces of the ice cream stick together. I made two such rows and stuck them together. Originally I had planned to leave it like that so that it looks like a cool wooden table. But then once I was done with it, I felt it looked a bit messy and hence decided to cover it with a piece of paper. For the stand I just stuck the sunscreen bottle cover to the bottom of the table. Now ideally it would have been nice to have four legs but I just figured this would get me better stability considering a child was going to play with it. After I was done sticking I painted it all a shade of red and was done with the table.

The paint job for the table looks lousy I know. But to be honest I was going for a particular look. To give it a wood kind of finish so it looks more genuine.

For the chairs, I used cardboard for the frame and small squares of scotchbrite sponge wipes for the seat and covered these with red cloth. I should make a mention here that up until this time I only hada red cloth with me and this was why I used these for all the pillow and cushions so far. My mom sent me some swatches of cloth later on which I used for the bedroom furniture. 

So as you can see, the frame was pretty easy. All I had to do was cut and stick cardboard in the shape I desired and then stick the cushion to it. The not so easy part was making the legs of the chair.

Initially I cut and painted some small pieces of wooden sticks and stuck it to the chair. But as you can see that it doesn’t seem very stable. And although I was able to make it stand it wasn’t strong enough to last long. My mom felt it was fine but I wasn’t satisfied. So I went with using a similar structure as the dining table and used some caps of random fevicol bottles and perfume bottles which had similar shape and size which I painted and stuck to the bottom of the seat. And thus came up with the final chair. As you can see from earlier pictures I made four such chairs.

Its not my best piece of furniture but I still am pretty proud of it.

2. Fridge:

I had initially thought that this would be one of the easiest things I made. Because I had realized pretty early on that I could use the box that came with the paints to make the fridge. This way it would be an openable fridge. I had thought all I had to do was paint it.

I was actually working on the sink when I realized I had something with me which would make it look like the vegetable tray of the fridge. That was the spoon that you get with the detergent powder. I cut this spoon so that it was the desired shape and size and stuck it to the bottom of the fridge.

At the time my cousin was getting engaged and we had a lot of visitors who gave me some wonderful feedback about the furniture I had already made. One of my cousins said that you have to make shelves inside the fridge too and a freezer to make it more believable. So then I got around to doing just that. Of course these shelves and the freezer door are not extremely sturdy and are there just for the look. I used some pieces of cardboard for these.

For the outside now I decided to make a handle and a logo. For the handle I used remains of the detergent spoon. I used the part which had a curve and it was strong enough to actually pull and open the fridge door (I don’t know if it is still so two months later now). And for the logo I looked up online to see which was the easiest logo to draw. I drew this on a small thin piece of cardboard and stuck it to the top right corner of the fridge.

3. Kitchen counter and sink:

For this, I again used a box for a perfume as the main frame. 

Once I had decided on my box, I had to measure out the sink. Very early on in a discussion with my mom we had come up with the idea to use the spoon from the detergent we use at home for the sink since it was the perfect shape for us.

So I measured out the size of the spoon and cut out the box accordingly such that the spoon would correctly sit inside the box. Once this was done I wrapped the whole thing with white paper and then put the spoon inside of it.

Once this was done I could just paint the whole box in the desired colours. I painted the top portion of it black to make it look like the black granite that is on most kitchen counters in India.

I painted the bottom part of it a combination of yellow and green to make it look like cupboards.

To finish off the sink I painted it a shade of metallic black mixed with white (grey). However, looking at the picture now it seems to be a very dark grey. If I had to redo this, I would paint it with a more silver looking shade. For the tap I used some aluminium foil wrapped around a piece of coiled paper. I then curved this in the desired shape and stuck it to the sink.

4. Washing machine:

The credit to this goes to my mom (which is also the reason for me not having any pics of the making). She used an empty LED bulb box, cut a round hole in front which we later covered with transparent plastic (similar to the kind we used for the kitchen windows).  She then stuck a piece of cardboard at the back of the box a little higher than the box.  Then the box was covered with white paper and the panel was drawn on the top surface to give an appearance of the washing machine controls including the brand name.

We had great plans to make it look more authentic by fixing the "door" which could be opened, using foil to make the tub, throwing in some "clothes" to make it look like a wash was in progress, but as we did not have much time, we had to make do with what we had.  Perhaps the next attempt (if there is one) should look more interesting. A note here that the washing machine was the last item made on the eve of my niece’s birthday. Our idea was to take everything to their house while she was at school and assemble it in time for her to be back from school. So we really ran out of time, considering she is in school only for a few hours.

That sums up with all the furniture that we made and used but I would like to make note of a few things here. Now ideally, it is possible to find a readymade fridge, and chairs and table in the market but our ones were made from a lot of love. If in the future these break or cannot be used any more, we can always replenish with the readymade stuff.

Another thing I would like to mention here is the glue I used for the sticking of cardboard pieces together. So I used something called as the fevicol all fix (picture below). Now I really swear by this glue since the end product is really super sturdy. So much so that I even bought another tube of this for any future purpose since it is a bit hard to find in all stationary shops (my mum could not find it when we needed another tube in Bangalore). I felt the need to mention the type of glue here because believe me, I tried several types (regular fevicol and craft glues and such) and this was the one that I was the happiest with.

I hope you all enjoyed reading this post. Do comment below if you have any suggestions. I would really like appreciate all the support I can get. I hope I can come out with my next post sooner than the time I took for this one.

Doll house- Part 2- Living room

First of all, I'd really like to thank my friends and family for the wonderful response I got on my previous post. I didn’t expect this response and the interest I got from others on this project of ours.

In this post, I am going to go into details of how my mom and I made the living room.

So for the room design, my mom used some pink handmade paper for the floor. For the walls she used some gift wrapping paper with pink hearts. Don’t miss the little bell in the top left corner which my mom tied with string. The doll house has to after all have a door bell for visitors right? ;P One thing which I must mention here is that the entire doll house has a removable back with screws. The carpenter made it this way at my mom’s request so that it was easy for us to handle and transport to my cousin’s house. Thanks to this she could also tie the bell and then attach the back wall.

Coming to the furniture, I mostly used cardboard and some boxes for the framework of each part. In the living room you can see the following furniture- there are two sofas, a single one and a double seater, a side table, a rug, a fire place and a TV. So let’s look into each part individually.

1. Single seater sofa:

Things you need: Thermocol cup, some foam, a piece of scotchbrite sponge wipe, bits of cloth (I used some maroon cloth), glue, paint and scissors (pictures of raw materials are from the internet just to give an idea)

I don’t remember where I had learnt this little trick. Maybe it was in a school art class or some book I had read. But when it came to making the sofa, I remembered that I could cut the thermocol cup into the shape of a sofa and fill it with sponge for the cushions.

Step one was to cut the cup into the shape you can see in the picture. As you can also see, I stuck the piece which I cut into the back of the cup. I did this so that the sofa has better stability. Following this I painted the whole thing brown (this was before my mom reminded me that I am making this for a little girl and I should not use drab colours- most of the other pieces have bright colours).

Then, I measured and cut the foam into bits which correctly fit into the circular part in the centre. Once I was done cutting, I covered this bit of foam with the maroon colour cloth and made the cushion. For the back cushion I did something similar. However, instead of using foam, I used some new scotchbrite sponge wipes (the kind you would use to wipe the kitchen counter).

Finally, I wanted my sofa to have a throw pillow on top so I again used a small circular piece of foam but this time wrapped it in a slightly different coloured cloth for better contrast.

2. Double seater sofa

Things you need here and steps are pretty similar to those I mentioned above. Only instead of the thermocol cup I used a box which had come with a perfume. First of all, I cut it into the below shape.

Like I said, the rest of the steps are pretty similar. I cut foam for the seat cushion and I cut sponge wipes for the back cushion. I used similar colours so it would look like a set.

One small difference here however, was that try as I might I couldn’t cut the box very evenly. And I noticed that the edges were not very smooth. So to smoothen this, I covered the edges and surface with cellotape. This wasn’t the best option because as I observed later that my end product became a little clumsier than I wanted it to be. Still, at the moment it was the best option I could think of.

Finally, I painted it the similar shade of brown. My mom made the throw pillows for this one. She used square bits of sponge wipes which she stitched together. She said it looked good as it is and it didn’t need a cover of cloth. Here’s the final sofa.

Like I said, once I painted it the cellotape gave it a messy look which couldn’t be helped (I had already put in too much work into it and wasn’t ready to redo it).

Also a note to my readers, that although the sofa looks a bit disproportionate in this picture it was more to do with the angle which I clicked and I can assure you all that the sofa is pretty proportionate in size.

3. Side table:

This was the easiest bit of furniture ever. I had a noise maker lying around at home which we got from a recent trip to Thailand. It had a small cylinder closed at one end which was tied with string. I used the cylindrical portion and just painted it red. As simple as that.

To use on top of the side table like a showpiece I painted a cute shell I had. However, when I was giving it to the child I realized that the paint was coming off so decided against keeping it in the final doll house.

Here it is, my final end table.

4. Rug:

I have two rugs in the doll house and both were made differently. So for the one in the living room the credit goes to mom. She stitched bits of cloth in a concentric circular pattern to look like this.

The second rug I will discuss when I blog about the bedroom furniture.

5. TV:

For the flat screen TV, I stuck two identical pieces of rectangular cardboard and painted it black. For the borders I folded some bits of paper which I had painted black and stuck it to the four borders (If you look at your TV carefully you can see that the borders are a bit higher).

To make it more real and natural I also gave it a brand (I chose SONY because it was a four letter word and easier to write on a miniature TV). I also painted a small bit of string black and stuck it to the back of the TV to make it look like the power cord. Rather than have a blank screen, I cut a small piece of picture from a desk calendar and stuck it to the screen to make it look like there was a show on. I stuck the final TV to the wall of the living room.

6. Fireplace:

This part of furniture is one of my most prized masterpieces in the doll house.

 

My first task was to build the framework. I cut out cardboard in different shapes and painted it black. I cut two big squares for the front and back. But for the front I cut out a dome shaped portion from the square. I connected these two pieces with two rectangular pieces on each side and also attached a rectangular piece of cardboard at the top for the mantelpiece. In the front opening I attached a thin strip of cardboard to make it look like a railing. All this might be confusing so I have drawn a framework to indicate what piece goes where.

Now one would think that this looks like a fireplace already. However, I was not completely satisfied. I wanted to add some more texture to it. At first I thought I collect some pebbles and stick it to the front so I would get the look of a stony fireplace. Whenever I went to pick pebbles I never seemed to find the right sort. So again, I had to improvise. To be honest the solution I came up with was less messy and gave me a lot of satisfaction as to the result.

So what I used was…. Wild guess anyone? A recurring material in all my furniture- scotchbrite sponge wipes. So to each of the sides I stuck a corresponding piece of the sponge wipes and then to give it the stony structure I just used a pointy object to make grooves into the sponge. And the final product…. Voila!

Now I chose to paint the sponge pink. But that is totally up to the discretion of anyone. If someone thinks a grey colour would make it look more natural and give it a stony appearance, then they can go with that. I also wanted to cut small pieces of sticks and place it in the fireplace to look like wood. But I actually forgot by the end since we were really short of time before my niece’s birthday.

I also made two picture frames with cardboard and stuck some tiny pictures in it to make it look like a natural mantelpiece.

So that’s it with part 2 of my doll house. I hope you all enjoyed reading it. Do let me know if you have any suggestions or comments in the section below.

Making a doll house- Part 1- planning and overview

Hello everyone! 

A few months back I was in a dilemma. It was close to my darling niece’s fourth birthday and I wanted to give her a gift. And over the last two years I had developed the reputation of making special gifts by hand. For her second birthday I had accumulated a lot of her photographs and made a collage of the precious moments along with some of her precious utterances. The next year I bought a simple Barbie jewellery box and personalized it with her pictures for her to keep her trinkets and clips. So it was but natural for me to want to go one step higher this time.

In a discussion with my mother I found out that she and her friend have been using a carton (which had come with a new gas stove) and imagining it to be a doll house. So that got me thinking. A couple of years back, for a project in college I had made some miniature furniture and placed it in a carton with some divisions for different rooms. I thought, if I had done it once I could do it once again. And this time for a loved one who can enjoy it for years to come.
When we first planned this, we thought we would recreate the same doll house made with used cartons. But then we thought, why not make something more durable which she could play with for years to come and which will have some use even after she has outgrown it. We looked online for existing doll houses which we could furnish, but found that these were too expensive and out of our budget. Then we decided to check with our local carpenter for options. Now keep in mind that, my mother and I live in different cities so all the planning had to be done over the phone and thanks to whatsapp.
I made an estimate plan on a piece of paper and sent it to my mother who discussed the options with the carpenter. He brought the frame the following day and we were surprised to see that it was much bigger than we originally planned. And we had to deviate from our original plan of adding a roof to it since that would make it much bigger. So then we thought why not make it a modern flat with a terrace.
Over the next few months both of us spent all our free time with this little project of ours. While I was incharge of making the furniture, my mother took care of the outer structure to make it look more homely. And this was our final outcome.

(Note: Unfortunately the pictures were taken after my niece started playing with it so some of the things might seem a bit strewn about)

So, our final doll house had four rooms, the living room, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom. The carpenter had told us that it would take a lot of time to make windows and doors so we had to improvise. My mom used her creativity here. She saw a calender lying around with some pictures drawn by children. So she made some cute curtains to go with these pictures and made it look like windows. She used gift wrapping paper for wallpaper. We tried using a few bright and fun ones keeping in mind that it was for a little girl. She used handmade chart paper for the floors and for the exterior wall we used red handmade paper and then I drew some black lines to give it the effect of bricks.

That’s how we got started. I will discuss how I made each component of the furniture in upcoming posts.
P.S. Once she outgrows playing with the doll house and she’s older she could even remove all the furniture and use this structure as a bookshelf :)