Want some Free Stuff Doll Houses And Furniture
Materials used to build and furnish high quality doll houses are
not necessarily expensive. The real expenses is in the apparent
hours of labor and high degree expertise required for their
construction.
However, many "expert" doll house craftsmen have no more
training or background than a normal wood-workers or wood
hobbyists. If you have ever built a model airplane or car, you
can probably produce doll houses that will command a good
prices. All it takes is a little attention to detail, practice
and a few tricks of the trade.
Basically, building doll houses involves selecting and cutting
out (according to plans) 1/8" to 1/4" paneling for walls, a
little stronger plywood for the bottom floor, and thin panelling
with a simulated overlay for the roof.
Cut out the required windows, doors and spaces for stairways.
For efficiency, you will probably cut out several parts from the
same basic plan at a time.
Check these parts often to make sure they fit properly. Most
walls and floors should be decorated before they are permanently
installed or you may not be able to get them to apply the
desired coatings or linings.
Although you will develop your own procedures, it's wise to
follow the plan instructions explicitly for the first few
models. Remember that although you can substitute materials
freely, some substitutions may require different applications
from the plans, so be careful!
If you want to try one without a plan (a commercial plan is
recommended, at least for the first effort), you'll need a sheet
of plywood (or plain 3/8" paneling), some ice cream sticks or
tongue depressors, glue, nails (brads), a few pins and screw
eyes, a coping or jig saw, plus other normal shop tools. Get
wallpaper and linoleum (or contact shelf paper )remnants from
the hardware store and fabric scraps from an upholstery shop or
yard goods store.
Much of the fun building doll houses is the ingenious and often,
unique methods craftsmen come up with to create really amazing
effects for doors, windows, roofs, outside and inside decor.
Your total material cost could be as low as $200 including
furniture. Of course, the cost can be much higher with veneer
walls, silk rugs and fancy furnishings.
Doll house patterns are available from many sources - your
public library probably has several books on the subject;
discount book sellers offer a wide selection of books, plans and
suggestions.
Decorations and furnishings can also be obtained from a variety
of sources (several are listed under BUSINESS SOURCES).
Subscribe to one or more trade magazines to learn and stay
abreast of additional sources for materials, building and
marketing techniques.
The first "trick" is to build your doll houses to the scale of
the furniture that you intend to use! This is much easier (and
smarter) than building one haphazardly or to a standard for
which the furniture is hard to get or even unavailable.
This would mean trying to cut little pieces of furniture down or
enlarge them to fit a non-standard scale doll house.
Unless you are equipped to build doll house furniture from
scratch to the described scale, stay with the standard scales!
To find the scale of the furniture, measure the height of a
table and compare that a similar table in your own home.
If the doll house table is 2-1/2" tall and it equates to yours
that is 30 inches (2-1/2 feet), that's a one inch to one foot
(or twelve to one) scale. An inch or difference ON YOUR TABLE is
not bad. The same procedure works on your house scale. If your
doorway opening is 32 by 80 inches ( 2-2/3 by 6-1/2 feet), then
the same size opening in the doll house would be 2-2/3 by 6-1/2
inches. The one foot equals one inch is a widely accepted scale.
You can use any scale you want, however, even metric.
A good tip for furniture is to buy imported doll house furniture
cheap and refinish it even though it's new (SMC has a nice
selection of inexpensive "imported furniture" see BUSINESS
SOURCES). Buy a $1.30 chair, and sand and give it a coat of good
polyurethane to make it into a $6.95 (retail) chair instead of
the suggested retail of $3.95.
Much imported doll house furniture is mass produced by children
or untrained workers. It is poorly sanded and lightly coated
with varnish or other inexpensive finish (even shoe polish!).
Their materials and tools are often poor quality and the
finishes usually look and feel rough. Their wood, however, is
usually excellent (good wood is cheap overseas.
With some fine sandpaper and steel wool, smooth the finish until
looks and feels hand crafted. If the stain and finish is really
bad, remove it with BIX (at your hardware store), re-stain and
refinish it.
This process needn't take long, especially if you do several at
once. Give your wooden furniture one or more coats of quality
vanish, polyurethane or liquid resin. Spray is fine a dust free
area (some overseas furniture markers spray out in the open with
cars going by).
Check the upholstery for fit and quality. Replace if it doesn't
look nice or go with your "decor" or treat it. Trim loose
threads and glue any loose corners. A few moments with piece of
doll house furniture can triple it's value. It can also make the
difference between a $40 and a $400 doll house!
Market your doll houses wholesale through craft shops (usually
on consignment), toy or department stores, and/or do your own
advertising and sell from your "factory."
If you retail, two things will help immensely: a catalog and a
nice display. Take good (professional quality) color pictures of
each of your creations from several angles. Use professional
backgrounds and lighting to present them in their best possible
light.
If you can't afford to have a catalog printed, make up a
scrapbook of your work to show both the quality and the variety
that you produce. Add comments and prices to make it into your
catalog. List various options and prices for each. For example,
modifying the layout, adding a room or porch, changing the type
of roof.
Next, make arrangements to display your doll houses. This can be
a corner of a room in your house or shop or rented display
window (check with real estate agents for windows in unoccupied
stores). Pictures and advertisements are nice, but you just
can't beat the real thing. The closer your doll house display is
to where little girls can see them, the better!
You can sometimes arrange with local businesses to feature a
display (the bank, bowling alley) for a week at a time. As a
local craftsman of note, these businesses will often co-operate,
especially if you're good. You get exposure; they have an added
attraction for their customers at no cost.
Unless you live in a big city it would probably not pay to
advertise continually in newspaper except around Christmas. Of
course, if you could get the names and addresses of parents with
little girls in the 3 to 10 age brackets, you could mail out
brochures with pictures to their parents.
One way to obtain such a list is to offer a doll house as a
prize. Contestants fill out coupons with their name and address
to enter (which becomes your mailing list). Take part in
community affairs to meet potential buyers. Operate a booth at
the county fair, give out free balloons at the parade and come
up with doll house variations that the local paper will cover
(perhaps a model of a prominent local house).
Be sure to have several completed models on hand or at least
ready to finish in time for Christmas. This should be your best
season. Don't overlook the possibility of building (or
finishing) custom doll houses.
For example, a shape something like the family home, painted and
decorated to match (these would start at $400!). With 4 or 5
different basic patterns, you could make minor adjustments to
come up with quite a few totally different models.
One of your secrets is that you keep all patterns, jigs, molds
and simply change outer materials to get different effects.
For example, all of your roofs will be similar, but some can be
finished in painted sandpaper or cut out thin panel wood for
asphalt shingles and tile. You can probably imprint some wood
paneling with brick design, spray it a light color, then roll it
with reddish brown to look like brick. Similar designs inscribed
on light wood would look like patio and walkway tile.
There is simply no end to interesting effects that can be
realized from your imagination and a little experimenting.
The best advice from this point is to remember that the more
patience and care you take in building each doll house, the more
enjoyment some little girl will receive.
If this is your motivation, you will undoubtedly be a successful
doll house and doll furniture builder. Even so, keep accurate
records and always try to work out procedures to enable you to
produce sections of the doll houses assembly line fashion. This
helps avoid mistakes, speeds construction and increase your
profits.
COLLECTOR COMMUNICATIONS CORP., 170 5th Ave., New York, NY
10010, 212/989-8700. Publishes DOLLS, bi-monthly magazine for
doll collectors, plus MINIATURE COLLECTOR, magazine about
furnishings and decor for doll houses.
JACQUELINE'S, Box 23464, Oakland, CA 94263-0464. Doll house
plans and furnishings. 70 page color catalog - $2.
DOLL HOUSE FACTORY OUTLET, 325 Division St., Boonton, NJ 07005,
201/335-5501. Doll houses, kits and accessories.
INTERNATIONAL DOLL MAKERS ASSOCIATION, 3364 Pine Creek Dr., San
Jose, CA 95132. Association of doll makers and collectors.
HOBBY HOUSE PRESS, INC., 900 Frederick St., Cumberland, MN
21502. Publishes DOLL READER, trade magazine for doll dealers.
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN DOLL ARTISTS, 5630 Clarksville
Highway, Joelton, IN 37080. Association of doll makers and
collectors.
DOVER PUBLICATIONS, 31 East 2nd St., Mineloa, NY 11051. Discount
books, stencils, patterns; excellent source for ideas and decor
accessories. Recommend this one highly!
QUILL CORPORATION, 100 Schelter Rd., Lincolnshire, IL
60917-4700, 312/634-4800. Office supplies.
NEBS, 100 Main St.,Groton, MA 04171, 800/225-6380. Office
supplies.
IVEY PRINTING, Box 761, Meridan, TX 76665. Low-cost printing..
Write for price list.
ZPS, Box 581, Libertyville, IL 60048-2556. Business cards (raise
print - $11.50 per K) and letterhead stationery. Will print your
copy ready logo or design, even whole card.
WALTER DRAKE & SONS, INC., 4119 Drake Bldg., Colorado Springs,
CO 80940. Short run business cards, stationery, etc. Good
quality but little choice of style or color. Can be difficult to
deal with (they are a "short-order" mail order house).
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