How to make a 1:12 scale display shelf from a bookcase for a dollhouse toy shop

I haven’t made any dollhouse scale furniture for years, but I recently saw this bookcase kit by Mini Mundus, and felt that it would be just right in my Edwardian toy shop, if I kitbashed it a bit, to put my tiny doll collection on!

Of course, once I opened the box, I kind of had second thoughts, as this was what was inside:

Hmm. Bit scary! So many little pieces! Still the instructions were good, so I checked that everything was included, and got assembling…

What I knew I needed to do was to leave out alternate shelves on this bookcase, as I wanted it to be used for displaying my ever-growing collection of tiny dolls for dollhouse dolls (most of these little tiny dolls are under two inches high). So, the shelves needed to be just over two inches apart – which would work OK if I left alternate shelves out.

This is what it looked like part-way through the assembly:

The part I had trouble with was putting the doors on the little cupboards in the base of the bookcase. They don’t have ‘real’ hinges – the doors are held in place with pins. Really small pins. The holes for the pins had been pre-drilled, but not quite deep enough, so I needed to use a small drill bit to drill them out a bit more. Not easy, as I has assembled the bookcase by then, so access to the top and bottom of the door frames wasn’t that good.

So, what do you do in times like these? Get a man to do it! Fortunately, my husband likes a challenge, especially a woodworking one. He trimmed the frame so that the doors would fit properly (Mrs Slapdash hadn’t been all that careful about that bit), and drilled out the holes for the pins.

Then he put the pins in place and attached the doors. He’s got a lot more patience than me!

Doesn’t it look fantastic in my dollhouse toy shop though? This takes up most of the back wall, and really dominates the room, which is what I wanted it to do. The dolls on it fit perfectly, and I’m so pleased with it  🙂

This toy shop room isn’t finished yet…but I’m getting there! For one thing, it needs a shop assistant. And the small glass-fronted display cases need some contents. And I want some 144th scale dollhouses in there too…

Making and collecting for a dollhouse never ends!

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FINALLY I’ve got some 1:12 scale dollhouse doll wigs for my porcelain dolls

How long does it take to get wigs for dollhouse dolls made? Well, in my case, I’m ashamed to say, it takes……34 years!! Yes, you did read that right! I bought my dollhouse in 1983, and very soon after, I bought some undressed porcelain dolls for it. But they needed wigs, so I put them away, to do later. That was in 1986. Hmmm…….

So, I recently found them again, and decided it was about time that I got them finished! I tried looking in my dollhouse books, to see how to make my own, but very quickly realised this was not my thing, so I hunted around and came across Josephines Miniatures on Etsy. Josephine makes 1:12 scale wigs to order for dollhouse dolls (as well as beautiful miniature tatting).

My dollhouses are Victorian/Edwardian in style, so I looked online for some images for her to use as inspiration, and came up with these:

I sent off my dolls (so that the wigs could be made to fit properly), with detailed instructions about the hair colour that I’d like for each wig, and Josephine was amazing – a couple of weeks later, I got a little parcel back, with each wig labelled for the relevant doll, and everything packaged securely.

Here’s the dolls that needed wigging:

And here’s what Josephine made, from the images I sent her:

And here’s a view of the back of each wig:

Aren’t they amazing? I just need to get the time to make clothes for the dolls now. Better not leave it another 34 years!!

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I’ve found some more things for my dollhouse toy shop!

I know I’m supposed to be completing the decoration of my Sid Cooke toy shop before I fill it, but I’ve succumbed again, as I found some more things for my dollhouse toy shop – and these ones are really, really good!

A few weeks ago, I showed you the tiny dolls for dollhouse dolls that I bought from Diane Yunnie in South Africa, along with the child doll in the red coat – well, I happened to come across another website based in South Africa that sells miniatures from all over the world, and more of Diane’s lovely dolls were featured on it. The site is called Petit Connoisseurs. It had several dolls by Diane that were adults, besides the child and ‘micro doll’ sized ones. I hadn’t known that Diane did adult ones, so I was really pleased to see these.

I bought this beautiful lady doll, which will be the mother for the child doll I previously bought – they will be the customers in my toy shop.

Isn’t she lovely? She’s fully jointed, so she can be posed really well, and due to the way the skirt fans out onto the ground, she doesn’t need a doll stand to keep her upright.

Diane is such a neat dollmaker – look at the reverse of the doll – everything is so precise!

At the same time that I bought the doll, I bought this miniature toy ark as well. I’ve wanted to get an ark for over twenty years! I wanted one for the nursery of my 1:12 Georgian town house originally, but I’ve never been able to find one that I liked. Often, they are wooden, and quite basic and chunky, or painted too  brightly. This one, though, is painted pewter, and has a lot of detail. The animals are just gorgeous, and so tiny! The human figures are about a centimetre high, to give you an idea of the scale.

There are eight pairs of animals including the doves on the roof, plus the people.

The ladder is removable, and the roof comes off the ark (but you can’t fit all the animals inside – I’ve tried!).

I’m not sure who originally made this, as it was sold as a ‘pre-owned’ item from Petit Connoisseurs. If you haven’t been to their website before, I’d recommend it, as they have a lot of unusual things. But hide your credit card first!

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Are you interested in doll’s houses and stitching? Then why not visit my website, where you can buy doll’s house needlepoint kits to make all kinds of soft furnishings for one-twelfth scale dollhouses. There are over 280 kits to choose from, plus chart packs, fabric project packs, tutorials, and lots of eye candy to inspire you! Kits are available on 18 and 22 count canvas, 28 and 32 count evenweave, and 32 and 40 count silk gauze, so there’s something for everyone – from beginners to experts.

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Look what I’ve bought for my doll’s house toy shop – tiny little dolls!!

If I was really focussed, I would build my doll’s house toy shop, decorate it on the outside and the inside, and only THEN start to collect things to fill it. That would be in an ideal world, of course. But life isn’t like that, is it? In real life, we get tempted by stuff. Well, I do, anyway.

I obviously already had an interest in miniature toys, or I wouldn’t have wanted to make a twelfth scale version of a toy shop at all, would I?!

I’m just trying to justify what I’ve done – I had this plan, you see, that I’d get all the decorating done, and then I’d go online and start buying stuff. But I kind of gave in a few weeks ago, and ordered some rather nice things. They came in a pretty box like this:

Even the inside was pretty, and the packaging carefully folded:

I had taken the tissue paper off before I thought to take the next picture, but this is what was in the box:

Tiny dollies! And a little girl to be the ‘customer’ in my toy shop, who will be able to choose from all the toys!

They have all been made to order by Diane Yunnie, of South Africa, who makes the most gorgeous little dolls. The little girl doll is fully posable, and if you balance her right, she doesn’t need a doll stand.

I have a real soft spot for French-looking porcelain dolls (I collect reproduction full-size ones too – that’s another blog post or two….), and these are just lovely.  If you’re not sure of the size of these, each little doll is just under two inches high.

Cute, aren’t they? Quite an incentive for me to get on with my decorating of the Sid Cooke toy shop kit, so that they’ll have a home……

 

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