To make a Barbie house, start with a small bookcase you might have that you no longer use. Use carpet remnants for the floor, or recycle an old rug. You can also use linoleum scraps to cover the floor of your doll house, or use the contact paper with the wood look. Use contact paper or glue on wallpaper scraps for the walls.
You might choose to paint the bookcase before beginning the craft the dollhouse, depending on what color the bookcase is. Use small pictures cut from magazines to glue on the walls for room decor. This dollhouse is good when you don't have much floor space.
By duckie-do from Cortez, CO
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My husband and I did this for our granddaughter a couple of years ago. The only difference in ours was that he made two doors to go on it. The doors were decorated to look like front doors and we painted the outside like a house. We also put a slant roof on it and "tiled" it. When she is finished playing with it, she just closes it up and it looks like a miniature house.
I don't think any submission should be considered as a contender without pictures!
This is 7 years after this post. But sometimes, a doll house, afghan, piece of jewelry can be remembered and shared, but is no longer around. It's been given as gifts, etc. If you need inspiration however, here are enough to keep us all busy.
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This is a really cute idea. Major dollhouse lover here, and what an easy way to make one!
Thumbs up on this one! When I was a kid, we had a big long hutch in the kitchen with shelves up top and a couple of compartments with doors on the bottom that had a shelf each and were maybe a foot high.
My Dad cleared out one of those compartments and it was my two-story Barbie house. Your tip brings back memories :)
We did something similar for our American Girl type dolls. My daughter was desperate for a bed for her doll, which I knew she would be receiving from Grandma for her birthday months later. I used a white bookshelf (like the kind from Target that you assemble yourself) and an old curtain. I did have to buy a tension rod for the curtain. She used one shelf for a doll bed with some doll blankets and a pillow and then we got another tension rod to make a closet for the other shelf. It's really cute with the curtain to close when she's asleep and to conceal her doll closet.
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Take a small bookcase and add a triangle made of plywood to the top for the roof. Make the triangle the dimension's of the bookcase. Add a back made from plywood or old shelves. Now decorate as you would any dollhouse. You can use gift wrap for wallpaper. Small scraps of carpet for the floors. You can add walls to make smaller rooms.
The plastic Velveeta box that they sell for storing Velveeta can make a pretty bed by cutting out sections of the box leaving the corners for legs. Make a pillow and a bedspread and hang a small cup hook above the bed and drape some fabric down. Old fabric napkins work well for this as some of them are pretty damask.
1 and 2 liter bottles can be used to make chairs with big bead legs. Take contact paper and cut into squares and make windows on the sides and backs of your rooms. A permanent black marker can be used to draw on the panes.
Now turn the Condo around and paint it to look like a building. Paint or contact paper the front. Add a front door and windows. You could then mount this whole thing on a industrial lazy susan so that when she is not playing with it all she has to do is turn it around. Add doors with hinges to close off the front if you like. Old wood can be cut into shingles for the roof.
This could also be made into a fort type structure for a little boy and his action figures or a fantasy castle for other dolls. Be creative and think out of the box.
By Debra in Colorado
