We are traveling again this weekend which is just almost putting me over the edge (but not quite because I know we are going to have another amazing trip!) but I wanted to pop in real quick before we get on the road with a part 1 for this adorable doll house I want to show you how to make.
First, THIS is the dollhouse I purchased off of Amazon! (affiliate link) Hooray for super fast shipping and not needing to leave the house and not needing any saws and not having to spend a fortune and not needing anyone else’s help. WIN WIN WIN WIN. It’s technically a shelf, but who the heck cares! I will show you how to make it the perfect play toy for any little ones who love to play pretend.
The quality is better than I had anticipated. It’s got nice straight edges and walls, is very sturdy, and is made from nice wood! I was pumped.
The first thing I did was lightly spray the entire thing with white matte spray paint. The kind I linked for you on amazon is one I use often- I like that it almost gives wood pieces a white washed feel as opposed to other spray paints that give a thick almost plastic-like coating to wooden objects. But it’s up to you what you want the finished product to look like! A thicker white coat of paint could give the house a cool modern feel which would be fun too.
Once your house is painted and dry, the next step is to add shingles! I think the shingles really turn this little wooden shelf into a super cute cottage like dollhouse.
For the shingles you need wide popsicle sticks (these are cool because they have a “natural” varied wood color), sharp scissors, and a hot glue gun. Using the sharp scissors (trust me they need to be sharp), cut 1 inch of the popsicle sticks off at both ends. I counted (I know I’m insane) and I needed 80 popsicle stick ends cut so 160 pieces total. A few were lost to cracking or gluing wrong and needing to pull off and throw out but that’s a good place to start if you are a counter too! Here’s a quick video of me cutting some (first with a straight edge- fail!) then with scissors.
sorry for the terrible quality – video and youtube are still foreign mediums to me, ha
Once you have your rounded ends all cut and ready, start gluing them at the BASE of the roof, one row at a time. You’ll need to cut one shingle in half to fit halt shingles on either side. Always place the next row of shingles offset to the row before it.
It’s also important not to overlap the shingles too much or they won’t sit properly. The photo above hopefully shows a good rough estimate for how much your shingles should overlap! I used enough hot glue for about three shingles at a time- any more than that and the glue might dry faster than you can carefully lay the shingles on, ha!
This is time consuming but I promise it isn’t hard. Once your roof is done you are already ready to start decorating! I’ll cover all that in the next post. But a little peak at the beginnings…
Like I promised- everything will be simple and easy, but most of all so cute! You’ll have a custom, one of a kind handmade dollhouse to gift this season that you can be sure any little one will adore for ages to come.
Have a wonderful weekend!
xo
J
If you loved this project be sure to check out these easy crafts for kids! We all need a few more of these in the idea bank, right?!
Leave a Reply