A Pretty Girly DollHouse - Part 1

When I was a child - about 7 years old, one of our school craft projects was to make a dollhouse using a shoebox. It was a pretty straightforward creation - one room with a little furniture but it is the one school project that has remained with me so many years later. I've always wanted to try that again but this time I took it to a larger scale. I used a large discarded carton and went to town converting it to a dollhouse that any little girl would LOVE.

Dr Sonia of Cards and School Projects did a Shadow Box for this blog a couple of months ago and it was so cute that her daughter converted it into a dollhouse. I used the same principle to create my dollhouse. I started with a fairly large carton which was lying around the house. I cut out the closing flaps to make it an open carton. I turned it on the side and this became the front of the house. I used the flaps to create an upper level and walls such that I had a four room dollhouse. I used some additional carton scraps to create the roof and voila, the shell of the house was done!

Then I had some fun embellishing it. I first covered the roof with some red corrugated sheets from Itsy Bitsy and then proceeded to the inside. I chose a different colour scheme for each room and choose appropriate papers from the DCVW Fresh Floral Stack to cover the walls and flowers. Finally to cover the ugly edges of the carton, I used loads of Itsy Bitsy self-adhesive paper frills and this suddenly made the house look so girly and pretty!

I also had some fun with the windows. I didn't attempt to cut out window holes from the carton as it was really tough cardboard and I was sure I would destroy it. So I just created an illusion of windows by cutting out the shape on some white card stock using my paper cutter. I made an outside view of hillsides and blue sky using some blue and green punch paper and on top of that I created drapes. I found some lace in my stash and used it to make frilly little curtain for each room. I even used a strip of grosgrain ribbon to create a little pelmet. Cute isn't it! 

Now on to the outer facade. For this, I used regular white card stock which I cut to size and glued to the side of the box to create the 2 large doors. This time I made real windows as the card was easy to work with and for the window frame I used Pearl Pink Card Stock. I created the creeper effect using some green fillers all over the 2 corners of the house and added a few pretty roses for added appeal. 

I made the front door again using pink pearl card stock and I embossed some vellum to create some panels in the door. And how do you like my door knobs! They're pearl brads from Itsy Bitsy! A thin strip of ribbon keeps the door locked 

Whew, my dollhouse was ready! I just LOVE how it turned out. I did have my doubts in the beginning, but the final outcome is everything I imagined. The next step will be furnishing the house so look out for 2 more posts in the coming weeks where I will create furniture for each of the rooms of this little house. Such FUN!!!

Hope you also enjoyed my pretty dollhouse. Would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions and if you've tried this, leave a link and I will surely stop by!

Supplies Used