Over the summer the kids have enjoyed making dozens of fairy houses with flowers and objects around the yard. But yesterday my son and I decided to make a mini treehouse. I used a design in my friend Derek’s book. (He’s a master of DIY mini houses and forts. I’ll post info for the book below.) We cut the walls out with my scroll saw, …
The kids recently made the great discovery of using the Miniature Kitchen Set in the dollhouse. They’ve been making some nice Thanksgiving dinners for various dollhouse guests. Nice! Happy fall everyone!
I’ve wanted to try weaving for a long time, but was never sure how to get started. Then I learned about weaving with yarn on a little piece of cardboard, and also found out more great tips from all of you on the Made by Joel Facebook Page. Thanks! Our twins just turned six this month, and they’ve been weaving all week – even bringing …
I actually got to enjoy an afternoon alone this week. I decided to go look at art books and magazines. One of the shops had some empty cedar cigar boxes for a couple of dollars, so I got one to try out as a small dollhouse. I love the smell of the cedar, and it ended up looking pretty cool too. I also found a couple of vintage art books; one about abstract …
Today it was decided that we needed more people for the dollhouse, so I got out some scrap wood and had the kids draw figures on the pieces. Then I took my woodburner and traced over their drawings and made some “doll blocks”. It was so fast and fun that I had to try making a drawing, too. The dolls really helped spice up the doll house, …
If anyone wants to see how the Martha Stewart show went, here’s a video. It was a blast making dollhouses together! If you’d like, here is a behind the scenes look at the Martha Stewart TV Show. Here are the dollhouses I brought to New York for the show.
The kids have been really excited to see beautiful yellow leaves starting to fall in the yard, and they wanted to collect some for the dollhouse. My son also found a small nut shell and some seeds, and made this really cool miniature bowl that we put on one of the tables. Always great to use nature objects for toys! Another thing that would be fun and …
I came up with some simple modern dollhouse designs for my book, Made to Play. This is one design that didn’t make it in the book, so I thought I’d share it here. It’s very fast and easy to make. All you need is a board, (any length is fine) and two small strips of wood for the feet. Then glue or nail the feet to the main board. It …
Here’s another dollhouse! Duck Duck Green asked me to create a craft for their packaging. The box looked so much like a house already, I couldn’t resist. My daughter has been playing with it a lot, making up hilarious scenes and dialogs. If you’d like, Duck Duck Green has nicely laid out instructions and photos here. You could also …
Here is the last of the 3 videos I made for Cheerios. A portable dollhouse! It was a fun one. Hope you enjoyed the mini-series!
La Petite Magazine released their new online issue today that features some paper dollhouses I made. I had a lot of fun designing different houses and little pieces of furniture. Then I put them all in a mint tin so they can be played with on the go. If you want to try it out, you can look at my template below to get ideas on how to cut and fold …
I finished the dollhouse! At least for now. I’m sure I’ll never stop making furniture for it. It’s too much fun. My son especially loves organizing and arranging the furniture. The guys in the family are playing with dollhouses and the girls are out riding bicycles. Nice.
I’ve started to make some doll house furniture. I’ve been wanting to do this for a few months now. My kids love playing with doll houses. I bent a little chair out of wire, and finally found a use for the awesome hand printed fabric scraps I got from Umbrella Prints. Got out the hot glue gun, cut some wood scraps and found a tree …