A Quick, Easy, Fun, Cheap Foam-board Dollhouse!

This was such a fun, fast project!  We decided to try our hand at creating a different type of doll house made from foamboard.  It is extremely light weight.  It is actually quite sturdy, but probably would not hold up to someone sitting or stepping on the side or back walls.  The decorating was super simple too... we decorated it before putting it together (with the exception of final trims).  We used items on hand... scrapbooking paper (affixed with glue stick), duct tape, and some left over fabric scraps for flooring.  Here are some pictures with extra directions so you get the idea... The possibilities are endless, so have fun creating!

If you are new to our blog, be sure to check out the free printable wallpaper and floorings.  They would work great with these foam dollshouses too!

YOU NEED:
*2 sheets foamboard (dollar store foam board is what we used)
*razor-blade (exacto) knife to cut the foam board
*glue stick
*hot glue
*decorating supplies (duct tape, scrapbooking paper, print-outs, etc.)

Use this as a guide... You can cut each piece out and glue everything separate if you are more comfortable with that.  We chose to use a "scoring" method for some of the cuts as it makes it a bit easier if you only have 2 hands!  If you are uncertain what this means, please comment and I will create a separate post.  

If you would like to cover edges that will be showing after your house is completed, use the above method...

...and trim out the corner so that you can use hot glue to stick down your finished edges.

Hello Kitty duct tape siding!  This is the fastest, most fun, easiest dollhouse siding I've ever done :) Not realistic looking, but that wasn't the aim here.

The walls being raised... notice everything has been predecorated - just stuck everything on with glue stick.  The wall corners were secured with a line of hot glue.

Once you have the entire house frame glued together, lay the  house on the second piece of foamboard and trace the outline.

Here's the outline.  Cut it out using your exacto knife.

Once it's cut out, make sure it fits and trace the interior rooms...

...decorate the back walls of the dollhouse

Here's the completed project, all hot-glued together!

You can add some think duct tape to the edges if you wish, either for looks or if it feels like the glue isn't sticking on the edges.

Note that using a hot glue gun does leave some "light shining through" but nothing major.

We added this purple flower trim (because it was what we had) to cover up the white part of the foam board.

This room is tiny but we wanted to experiment with gluing an interior wall.

Other ideas:

*Cut doors and windows into your foam-board dollhouse...
*Make a 100% duct-tape covered foam dollhouse :)
*Poke holes through the back wall and stick Christmas lights through to light up your foamboard doll house (see our other blog posts for ideas and pictures) 

Great List of Free Dollhouse plans and tutorials

This site called Home Tips World just came to our attention, and if you're looking for free ideas to make your own doll house, you'll like them too.  There's everything from bookshelf style dollhouses, to room boxes, to sewn doll houses, to magazine doll houses, to a unique fairy dollhouse!
http://www.hometipsworld.com/the-top-16-free-dollhouse-plans-tutorials.html

Dollhouse Wall Boxes

If you love "dollhousing" but don't have a lot of time or space or money, these are very fun!  Hammer together some wooden boxes, affix a picture hanger to the back, and decorate as you have time.  You could eventually have an entire "house" hanging on your wall!  They also work well as gifts for a child, or as a "memory diorama" for someone who is moving and you want to preserve the memory of their home. 

You can decorate them the traditional way with paint/glue/wallpaper, or you can (as we've done below) glue everything to card stock and make the doll house wall box very easy to change... you can have a Palace one day and a Log Cabin the next!

Start with a wooden box:  (The INTERIOR measurements of the box shown are 9.25 inches wide, 7.75 inches tall, 5 inches deep)

Now, you can decorate the dollshouse wall box the traditional way with paint, glue, wallpaper, etc. Or, as we've done in these two samples, use pictures to help you along.  These two wall boxes use edited internet pictures, but you could just as easily take your own, especially with the panorama feature most cameras now have.  

Print the pictures, glue them to card stock, and cut to the correct size.  Do the same thing with your choice of flooring.

 

Now, you can either glue these on for a permanent theme, or affix them with tape for a quick "redecorate" now-and-again!

Tape Method 1:  (I tried this and decided my fit was too close, so opted for Method 2)

 

Tape Method 2:  This is what I like for a changeable dollhouse theme

Here are some completed pictures of the palace dollhouse wall box:

 Notice how in the picture above the perspective makes the 5 inch deep box appear deeper? 

Don't forget, these dollhouse diorama boxes can be either hung on a wall, or set on a shelf.

 And, here are some pictures of a very quick and easy log cabin dollhouse room... It would be very fun (or a great home-school project) to do Laura Ingalls Wilder doll house rooms... her dugout, little cabin in the woods, house, etc. 

These pictures were all from different sources but I edited them in Photoshop to get the color tones to match... As you can see, the corners don't match up, but by the time you decorate, you don't notice (at a first glance anyway!)

Can you see the picture above the mantel?  I put a small piece of tape directly on the "wallpaper", then attached the picture with a piece of looped tape.  Now, when we decide to redecorate, the picture easily comes off and won't tear the wallpaper. 

 

Remember,  one plus of this tiny project is that it can be stored anywhere... even on your bookshelf while waiting for paint to dry!

Have fun!!

How to make a quick dollhouse picture frame using a tissue box pattern...

If you have ever seen this pattern on a box of tissues, it works great for some quick doll house picture frames!  Just trim out a square and cut a picture to fit in the center, glue, and you're done!

Making a mini rose garden tutorial by Cassy V.

Thank you to Cassy V. for the following tutorial!  

Supplies:
* Popsicle sticks
* white paint (optional)
* moss (you can buy it at craft stores)
* ribbon (any color)
* posterboard

1. Cut the rounded end off approximately 30 popsicle sticks.

2. If you're going to paint them, paint them now.

3. Cut 6 of them in half, and put another 12 aside.

4. Cut a square of posterboard so it's the length of one full popsicle stick and the width of one half.

5. Lay 6 full ones in a row, so that their long sides are touching and glue them so they form a little wall.

6. Do the same with another 6 full ones. Then do again with 6 halves. Then do one last time with the last 6 halves.

7. Now you have 4 little walls for your box. Set them up standing around the poster board square and glue them there.


8. Take the remaining popsicle sticks and glue them together the way the lattice work behind the roses in this picture is set up. (You may want to cut the ends of these sticks at a diagonal for a cleaner look)  

9. Glue the diagonal design so it becomes the back "wall" of your garden box.

10. Fill the box with moss and weave some of the moss up your diagonal wall.

11. Use this: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Silk,-Satin-or-Ribbon-Roses tutorial to use your ribbon to make the roses.

12. Glue the roses onto the moss in the box and climbing up the wall.

You're done!  This would make a nice movable outdoor dollhouse decoration, or done on an even smaller scale, a window-box.   

How to make your own dollhouse pie

Making your own doll house pies is a lot easier than you might think.  You need a bottle cap, some craft foam and a small hole punch (or tiny beads or used air soft rifle pellets), glue and water, a scrap of thin brown paper.  
Here are step by step instructions with pictures:


1. Take an old bottle cap (you can also buy them at a craft store for a few cents), fill it with tiny beads or small punches of craft foam to see how much filling you need:

2. Dump the loose pie filling into a small container, add glue and stir.

3.  Dump the pie filling into the bottle cap(s) and wait for it to dry.  Here's a before and after picture of the wet / dry pie filling:

4. Next, make the crust... turn a pie upside down on thin brown paper and trace around it.  Cut out the circle.

5.  Cut the brown paper circle into thin strips.

6. Mix a little water and glue together - make it fairly runny, like the consistency of milk.  Put the strips in the glue mixture and stir them around, being sure they get coated on all sides.

7. Lay the strips across the top of the pies in a criss-cross lattice pattern.  (Note:  I use a toothpick or end of a paint brush to help get the strips in place.  Otherwise they start sticking to both hands and you end up really frustrated.)

8.  Wait for the pies to "bake" (dry!) and you're done!