Doll's house stuff

[Apocalypto]

Hello all

Hoping this is the right thread.

My 2 daughters have a doll's house of which they have made little use. This is in part I think because it sits on the floor and is thus not at a convenient height. It is also though because they have some odds and ends of furniture but the inside is basically bare wood.

I would like to spend a day with them carpeting and wallpapering the inside, but I'm not sure where to look for stuff. Carpet samples won't work because they'll be too thick and wallpaper samples same thing - pattern too big for the walls.

Can anyone point me to any reasonably priced suppliers of things like adhesive backed doll's house wallpaper, carpets, miniature picture frames and lights and stuff? I don't want to spend huge money on this, but it strikes me as a fun thing we could all do some day, maybe when it's raining.

I'm quite arty and crafty myself but I don't want stuff so hard to use I end up doing it all.

Any suggestions really appreciated.

[HelloKlitty]

I wouold use craft paper for the walls...loads of them are in mini patterns...also you can use that for the floor and make small rugs out of thickish fabric...add fringes with embroiderey cotton or wool.

[kellestar]

If you have access to a prinyer you can usually find some scrap booking papers for free, try googling digital scrapbooking freebies. Shaby Chic have some small pribts suitable for wall paper, they often have different wood effects for flooring. Or you could try good old sticky back plastic for flooring.

To raise it up, have a look on eBay for an old table it could sit on.

[MsPrufrock]

There is loads of expensive dolls' house stuff around... but also tonnes you can make! I knew I had a life skill. I've just remembered. It was spending my childhood and early teens making dolls house stuff.

Carpet: you can use felt. Or velvet. Or any slightly thicker than normal material. For wooden floors, if you can get hold of veneer wood, a decent craft knift / stanley knife, and cut 'planks' then you're away. I did some bathroom tiles once by drawing them with colour pencils on white paper (they looked pretty good. I know it sounds shit.)

Wallpaper: keep an eye out for wrapping paper, or craft paper, or anything else with a small design. You can also just use tester pots of emulsion and paint the walls a plain colour until your dolls can afford to get the place refurbished... .

Frames: you can make frames out of Fimo or similar. If you get hold of that dusting powder in silver or gold, a plain frame cut out like a cookie from very thinly rolled Fimo, and dusted in powder looks great. We used to scour through magazines for very small pictures to cut out. You can make wooden frames out of matchsticks.

You can make curtains by hemming tiny bits of fabric then stitching them with neat looping stitches to a garden cane or something of a similar dimension. Curtains and curtain poles make a HUGE difference to how nice and 'homely' a dolls house room looks. The curtains won't move... but you can save up for lovely little brass curtain poles with tiny brass rings, and in the meantime your stitched on curtains will look fabulous.

Erm... I have already spent far too long on here when I should be going out tonight, but I hope this slightly manic brain dump helps.

[kellestar]

I made tons of stuff out of fimo for my dollshouse when i was younger, furniture wise. I tried air drying fimo type stuff as a recent brownie skills day and when B is older will try to make things out of that for her house. Much lighter.

I knitted tons of rugs for the floor of my dollshouse.

Mum bought B a dollshouse from a carboot sale, needs plenty of work to repair, but mum is loving doing it up at the moment. B is 7 months old and may be a while before she's into dollshouses, but she'll have plenty of fun when she does.

[Apocalypto]

Thanks for the suggestions all, will look into these.

The nice thing about a doll's house is that as their craft skills get better they can improve the interior. I don't want to let them near it with paint but patches of felt stuck down with white for rugs sound great.

The gift wrap idea for wallpaper is a great one. But what is fimo??

[rockinhippy]

free printable Dolls house wallpapers, Tiles & flooring here ..

My DD is just in the process of giving her own Dolls house a make - over & LOVES this site, great choice of free printables - we found printing flooring & tiling onto photo paper works best, & wallpapers onto the sort of weight you'd use for flyers etc (sorry exhausted so can't remember correct term - this works better as the colours don't smudge os they do on standard paper - PVA glue is fine for sticking to floor & walls - glue the paper/card though, not the walls

There are also lots of links to tutorials to make other dolls house things & we've also made rugs, paintings, douvets, cushions etc by dragging off images she liked -

for example a union jack rug for her bathroom - googled union jack rugs - dragged the full frontal veiw ones onto the computer desktop & then onto word or pages & clicked it so as to be able to drag it to resize as needed - then print off onto transfer paper & iron onto a white cotton based cloth, cut to size - & there you have a rug

She has Disney princess bedding for her Nurser printed in the same way & then sewn together over a layer of fleece cloth that acts as wadding & makes a douvet - lots of scope to use your imagination :)

[kellestar]

Fimo is a polymer clay brand, can be found online, eBay and craft shops like hoby craft and the range.