tips needed for how to make cool stuff for a dolls house blue peter stylee...

[treacletart]

DD will be getting a lovely dolls house mostly furnished with Ikea plastic furniture for her birthday next week. She's going to love it, but I'll probably enjoy it even more and I can tell I'm going to get sucked into getting loads of bits for it.

Before I spend a fortune on ebay on bits that she'll probably swallow anyway, can anyone help me with ideas for kitchen equipment, food, books, toys etc that I might be able to russle up from stuff like bottle tops, things we already have, or things we can get very cheaply?

you can make good food with air dry clay or fimo. Bottle caps and pop bottle tops would make good crockery. How old is you dd?

They do some very cheap 3d wooden puzzles in Hobbycraft etc. One of the sets is dolls house furniture that you can make yourself- gorgeous!
Just like those dinosaur slot together figures if you know what I mean?

we made furniture from matchboxes - you can make a nice chest of drawers (use those winged pins for handles), a big chair, table, sideboard...

My mum used to make all kinds of stuff for my doll's house - chest of drawers from 3 matchboxes on top of each other, with paper fastener for knobs & painted, armchair from a baking powder drum - cut across at seat height & cut the back into a wing chair shape, stuff the seat with cotton wool & cover in felt. A table from two cotton reels (or one large one) with a jampot lid on top, with a long tablecloth made from a circle of cloth over it. Short lengths of cocktail sticks, coloured with felt pen make good miniature pencils.

We had this book at home - it was full of great ideas.