Hello! As an avid American Girl fan, I have always loved seeing the rooms collectors make for their 18 inch dolls. Not being a carpenter and not having room for an IKEA store to relocate into my house, I came up with a solution: making a room in a cardboard box.
I started by choosing a large, square box that was tall enough for the doll's bed.
Incidentally, the bed in this room is made from the tutorial I wrote here. All I really did differently was buy some garden fence to be the side.
Of course, it also had to be tall enough for a doll.
I started by cutting off the top flap and part of the ceiling so that light could come into the room.
On the back wall, I used shipping tape to attach some scrapbook paper.
I painted the rest of the walls white.
As a border, I hot glued some pink ribbon.
When everything was dry, I put the bed back in.
To make the floor, I took some wooden place mats from Goodwill.
Two of them fit without any cutting.
I had to cut the remaining mats in order to get them to fit.
I then glued all of the mats backing so it wouldn't fray.
I painted the mats brown, then placed them into the room. I did not glue them down so that I can switch them out if I ever want to.
To make a window, I cut a blue square of scrapbook paper that was around the same size as the coaster I found at Goodwill that looked like a valence.
I glued the paper to the wall.
Then, with the box on its side, I glued the valence to the top of the blue square.
The whole room, dry and empty:
And with furniture inside:
Another view inside:
I thought the walls looked pretty sparse so I printed a few of the classic Alice illustrations.
I also cut out some posters from another sheet of scrapbook paper that matched the wallpaper.
I placed these on the walls.
Overall, I am very pleased with how my room in a box turned out. I'm hoping to make a few more, and I also am planning on taking the box outside at some point to photograph it under natural light.
It looks great! I hope to make something similar for my minis! :)
ReplyDeleteHave fun!
DeleteSo cool! Love the wall art.
ReplyDelete