Whether you or little one love all things miniature our Craft Works handmade dollhouses are forever popular. Superbly elegant, wonderfully strong and made in Melbourne Australia (flat rate shipping Australia Wide - $9.95).
Dreamy Kidz has been stocking our dollhouses for many years and we are super proud to be a retailer for Craft Works. See our houses here.
Painting and decorating gorgeous doll houses for our kids often remind us of our own childhood - recreating our own dollhouses as kids or even replicating our own grown up houses - decorating seems to spark that childhood whimsy and there is nothing better than seeing the faces of our little ones when they explore their new house. elegant Victorian doll
STEP 1 Choosing your elegant dollhouse and the style of the house
Choose your house by hopping on over to Dreamy Kidz to choose your style - choose from our Le Royale Grange, Eliza, Georgian and Stratford dollhouses.
STEP 2 Preparing your dollhouse for painting
Always check for any dust and wipe over with a soft cloth before painting.
Lay your pieces out and decide if you would like to wallpaper any walls of your dollhouse. Refer below on our tips if you are wallpapering. Note: simply sticking patterned paper to the dollhouse does not wear well - best to source miniature wallpaper specifically for dollhouses (refer to helpful links below).
Do not assemble your house until after you paint it and tape off areas where you're using different colours.
STEP 3 Painting your dollhouse
If you have a period dollhouse (Victorian, Georgian, etc.), you can check on images of real houses from that time period or choose a scheme that matches your own house - the choices are endless. Modern schemes are also fabulous.
You can use an online colour pallet generator such as Coloors or Bunnings Colour Paint Planner.
There are some recommendations on choosing colours that meet the 60-30-10 rule for interior spaces to balance the colour choices but you decide.
- 60% of the room is decorated in a dominant colour
- 30% in a secondary hue
- 10% dedicated to an accent colour.
Here are a few tips to make painting a dollhouse kit go smoothly:
- Choose your fave colours in the water based or aqua enamel paint range.
- Sample pot sizes (available at Bunnings) are great and budget saving
- glossier the paint, the more imperfections will show
- Use a variety of brush sizes to match the need
- Undercoat your dollhouse
- Don't prime or paint any surface you later wish to stain
- Wipe any drips ASAP
- Flat cut artist brushes with white or synthetic brushes tend to work really well.
- You can use a foam brush to paint large areas and use a different brush for each coat of paint to ensure a clean surface
- Thinner coats of paint are best
- If you plan on wallpapering your dollhouse, apply flat white paint to the interior walls. Doing this gives a better surface colour for the dollhouse wallpaper.
- Always work from top to bottom when you paint a dollhouse.
STEP 4 Assembly and choosing furniture and décor items
We added some links below for accessories and décor items to complete your house.
Please share your creation by tagging @dreamykidz - we would love to see them.
Where to find accessories (in Australia) for your dollhouse - we have added some information below on choosing a scale of dollhouse
- Dollhouses
- Craft Works Dollhouses - Dreamy Kidz 1:12 scale
- Le Toy Van Dollhouses - Dreamy Kidz 1:12 scale
- Olli Ella Holdie House - Dreamy Kidz | 1:24 scale
- Olli Ella Holdie Barn - Dreamy Kidz | 1:24 scale
- Furniture
- Le Toy Van - Deluxe Starter Furniture Set - Dreamy Kidz for 1:12 scale houses
- Holdie Furniture Packs - Dreamy Kidz for 1: 24 scale houses
- Whimsy Woods
- Dolls/Farm Animals
- Holdie Folk | Dreamy Kidz | 1:24 scale
- Holdie Farm Animals | Dreamy Kidz | 1:24 scale
- Wallpaper
Understanding the scale of dollhouses for play
The right sized house largely depends on the child's age and fine motor skills.
The Craft Works and Le Toy Van dollhouses are 1:12 scale which is a great play size for little ones of any age. For perspective Barbie Dollhouses are 1:6 dolls scale and sometimes called the Fashion Doll scale. They are suited to Barbie or similar 30cm tall dolls.
Olli Ella Holdie Houses and the Holdie Barn are 1:24 scale which are perfect for our Holdie Folk and Olli Ella Furniture packs.
And in case you love our rattan range our Olli Ella Mushroom Basket. Olli Ella Acorn Bag and Casa Clutches and Bags are perfect portable play size houses.
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