Hello crafty crafters!

I promised a post about the one inch dollhouse and so today I am fulfilling that promise by posting about one of my favourite past times: making dollhouse food and accessories.

The one inch dollhouse is one that we have spent a lot of time working on. It is usually set up in the Barbie dollhouse when the Monster High dolls aren’t taking it over.

I have to admit that we were a tad obsessed so we bought a lot of the pieces for this dollhouse online and that was fun, but then I started thinking about making things, this was back when I first started making things actually, and I decided that a lot of the food I could just make myself.

The medium that I like to work with when making dollhouse food or accessories this size is polymer clay. It is easy to work with and it bakes up nicely. It also paints very well.

Here are some pics of some of the projects that I have made for the one inch dollhouse. Warning: I am not an expert by any means 🙂

 

 

 

 

 

I am not going to tutorial everything that I have made on here. Otherwise we would be here all day. If you do have a specific request, I would be glad to help out. Here are a couple of tutorials to get you started:

Cups/bowls: If you would like to make cups/bowls out of polymer clay all you need is an unsharpened pencil or a dowel rod, and some clay in the colour that you choose.

Start out by making a small ball. Honestly, this is the first rule of working with this type of clay. Almost everything starts out as a ball.

Next, poke the end of your pencil or dowel rod into the top of the ball. Do not poke through the ball and out the other side.

Gently roll the end of the pencil/dowel with the clay on it on a flat surface rounding out the sides of your cup or bowl. The depth of the cup/bowl depends on how much you roll it.

Flatten the bottom of your cup/bowl gently. Then cut the clay with an exacto blade around the pencil/dowel rod. This makes an even lip for the cup/bowl.

Gently work the clay off of the end of the pencil. Voila. A perfect little cup/bowl.

Add a handle to your cup by rolling a small snake. Mark on the cup where the handle should go. Then use a toothpick to gently attach your handle. Shape it as you like.

You can experiment making many different things using the pencil/dowel technique. I like to make vases in different sizes and shapes too.

Bowl full of cherries: Feel free to fill your cute little bowls with tiny bright red balls for cherries. Paint pretty blue dots on the bowl for effect.

Purple vase with white swirl: I created this effect by twisting two colours of clay together and mixing them without mixing fully. Then I used the pencil method above to create the vase.

Teapot: Roll a small ball of clay. This will be the body of the teapot. Flatten the bottom of the ball. Shape into a top-rounded cone so that the bottom is wider than the top. Attach a handle to your teapot in the same way that you did with your cup. Attach a spout in much the same way as the handle. Shape it as you like. Make a mark around the top of the rounded off cone to show where the lid meets the pot. You can just use a toothpick or the end of your exacto blade for this. Next add a tiny ball on top in a coordinating colour as a lid handle.

Have fun with it. I do. I like to just go where my imagination takes me and see what I can come up with. Sometimes I have no idea what the clay is going to do and I can’t imagine what it will look like in the end, but I just go with it.

Bake all projects at 275F for no more than 15minutes. Less time for smaller pieces.

I like to bake mine on a ceramic tile. It prevents the bottoms from burning black. Believe me, there was a ton of trial and error for me in that department. I tried lining a metal baking sheet with parchment paper. Then I tried tin foil.

Nothing works like my ceramic tile. It’s a leftover one from the backsplash in my kitchen, believe it or not, and it works like a charm.

Side note: Did anyone notice that the tray of little perfumes is not made out of polymer clay? Instead it is just beads stacked on top of each other and glued onto a button. You can find out all about how to make it here.

It just goes to show that there are tons of ways to craft for your one inch dollhouse. I hope you feel inspired to get busy and make some of these adorable miniatures for yourself. 🙂