When a child has a doll, pretty soon every baby begins to think about building a home for her. With the current development of toy production in the store for your favorite doll, you can buy almost any furniture or just a whole house. However, it will be much more fun to equip everything with hand-made objects. You do not need any special skills or expensive materials, such as plywood, wood, metal or plastic. You can simply arm yourself with glue, scissors and paper. And how to make paper furniture for dolls, we will consider in this article.
How are paper dolls made of paper?
Today, there are many ways to make paper furniture. Each of them has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here are the most famous of them.
- Origami technique.
- Production of furniture according to the drawings.
- Bonding according to color schemes.
- Weaving from paper strips or tubes.
- The use of matchboxes as a “building” material.
- Production of furniture from corrugated cardboard.
- Painted furniture.
- Making paper furniture from combined materials.
- Papier-mâché furniture.
Although all of these techniques are different, they use the same material - paper and cardboard derived from it. Whichever one of them is chosen, one rule is invariably for everyone: the manufacture of doll furniture requires special care and attention, because it is almost jewelry work.
Toy Paper Paper Requirements
Considering the question of how to make furniture out of paper for dolls with your own hands, it is worth remembering that each of the manufacturing methods has certain requirements for paper.
Almost all of the above methods require heavy paper from 90 g / m 2 . It should bend well and not delaminate at the bend. However, for origami paper you need less dense, able to endure multiple folds and maintain a beautiful appearance.
The same requirements apply to cardboard. By the way, for the manufacture of furniture from it, you can use both ordinary stationery cardboard and packaging corrugated cardboard.
If the doll furniture will be made using papier-mâché or weaving, old newspapers or magazines are great as supplies.
How to make paper furniture with your own hands: origami
The simplest method of manufacturing furniture that does not require special skills, materials, and most importantly time is origami (the art of folding paper figures).
All that is needed is a square paper sheet and a diagram of how to fold it correctly. No glue and scissors for origami is needed (unless it is, of course, not a modular subspecies of it).
When making doll furniture in this way, you should first practice on paper from a notebook in mathematics (because of the cells it will be easier to fold). And having mastered this technique, make a table, chair or something else out of special paper.
Schemes how to make a chair, table and sofa using the origami technique
As an example of how to make paper furniture with your own hands (step by step), below are three schemes for origami. The size of the finished product, folded over each of them, depends on the size of the sheet. Having trained several times, it will not be difficult to calculate it relative to the growth of the doll.
The first diagram depicts a technique for making a table from paper.
It would be nice to add a chair to the made paper table. How to do this is depicted in this diagram.
Instead of a paper chair, in addition to the table, it is nice to use a sofa assembled according to the diagram below.
How to make furniture for dolls from paper without glue
In addition to origami, there is another way to make paper furniture without glue. However, in this case, you can not do without scissors. They will be needed to cut doll furniture according to the pattern. Then you need to fold it.
A chair or plate made in this way looks more elegant than products made from origami. But when creating furniture in this way, you need to carefully cut and fold it so as not to spoil it.
To print such schemes, it is best to use paper with a density of about 100 g / m 2 .
The finished product can be painted to your liking.
Making doll furniture from color schemes
In the old days, in almost any bookstore, paper-cut houses could be purchased. Following the instructions, with the help of scissors and glue from them, get a charming dollhouse or a palace with furniture.
Knowing the basics of working with any graphic editors and the principles of constructing such schemes, you can easily make such blanks. If making a whole palace for a doll is not included in the plans, it would be nice to create a wardrobe, chair or bed and, having printed them, make vintage furniture for your favorite. Needless to say, only laser printing is suitable for this method, since inkjet, although more colorful, can come to contact with water or just burn out over time.
As for the choice of glue for this furniture, it is best to use double-sided tape or stationery glue stick. It is also acceptable to use a glue gun, but very carefully.
Weaving from paper tubes, as one of the ways to make doll furniture
Weaving is a fairly ancient and popular type of needlework. Today he is experiencing a new rebirth. However, modern masters are increasingly using webs and ribbons rather than vines for weaving. The finished product is painted, and then varnished and in this form can serve for many years.
Choosing a way for yourself to make paper furniture with your own hands for Barbie, it would be nice to take advantage of this: today the tendency to use wicker paper furniture in your homes is becoming more fashionable.
Among the advantages of this technique are the elegance and durability of the finished furniture, as well as its realism. In addition, the materials will be in vain, because these are unnecessary old newspaper or magazine sheets.
But among the minuses - to make doll furniture in this way, you must first learn the weaving technique, as well as have a certain pattern.
But, having learned to create toy tables, cabinets or armchairs for Barbie, it would be nice to try your hand at making human-sized furniture.
Matchbox furniture
Among the most used materials for the manufacture of doll furniture are matchboxes. In fact, they play the role of bricks to create tables, chests of drawers, beds, etc. Moreover, if some craftsmen simply paste over the finished product with colored paper or fabric, then others decorate furniture from matchboxes using decoupage, giving the product realism.
To make sure that you can make very beautiful doll furniture from a matchbox, the following is a master class on making a toy chest of drawers from two matchboxes. To do this, you will also need stationery cardboard, black and white paint, double-sided tape, sandpaper and two beads.
In this way, dressing rooms, desks and kitchen furniture can also be successfully made. The main thing is to have a lot of matchboxes in stock.
Furniture for cardboard dolls
Quite popular today is a technique that tells how to make furniture for dolls with your own hands from cardboard and paper. In this way, not only furniture is made, but also whole doll houses.
For this method, it is most rational to use a corrugated cardboard, the source of which can be any box from under the parcel or some kind of household appliances.
Most often, furniture from this material is glued with paper or cloth, sometimes painted. However, in recent years, eco-style has become particularly popular. Following him, the furniture from the corrugated cardboard is not painted, but left as it is. At the same time, do not forget: if something was printed or written on the front side of the box, you need to change it so that the picture remains hidden inside the product.
It is worth noting that the manufacture of real modular furniture from corrugated cardboard is becoming a fairly popular trend in the modern world.
True, it is not very durable, but it is affordable in cost and environmentally friendly, unlike plastic, and is easily disposed of or transported when moving.
Painted furniture
Choosing how to make furniture out of paper, do not underestimate the simplest ways. One of them is simply to draw furniture on paper or cardboard and place it in a dollhouse.
Of course, with the voluminous furniture made by any of the above methods, the painted decoration of the house can not be compared, but as an option it is quite suitable for beginner designers of doll houses.
By the way, in addition to paper, you can draw on a corrugated cardboard. It is noteworthy that some modern designers are beginning to use the method of partial hand-drawn furniture for the decor of real houses.
Furniture from combined materials: a master class on creating openwork chairs from paper and a cup for coffee
When imagining how to make furniture out of paper, do not neglect combining it with various improvised means, for example, paper boxes from chips or coffee cups.
For example, an excellent cradle for a baby doll will come out of a small box in the shape of a cylinder.
And from a paper coffee cup in combination with paper strips for quilling, you get a very elegant doll chair.
The seat and legs of the future chair are cut from the bottom of the glass. Two cotton buds stick between the legs to add stability. As a material for the back of the chair, the remaining paper from the cup is suitable.
Quilling strips are suitable for decorating the seat with wicker, as well as for making elegant curls on the legs and back of the product.
Papier mache
Among the many ways to make furniture out of paper, papier-mâché technique (using pulp from paper and glue for modeling) is notable.
Most often, masks or some figures are made in this way, however, it will work for doll furniture as well. Like weaving from paper tubes, the papier-mâché technique is very economical, but at the same time it is simpler.
Furniture made in this way should have a frame and dry well before it is covered with paint or varnish. By the way, if you dare to add some gypsum to the paper, the product will become much stronger.
Each of the above methods of making paper furniture is unique in its own way. Some are complex, others are simpler to execute. But no matter which one is chosen, the main thing is to put your soul into your work. Then the result will surely please, and the beloved children's doll will have the best house in the world.