Take Your DIY Cardboard Dollhouse To the Next Level

With Christmas around the corner, there are sure to be ample boxes around to take advantage of. Yes, the toys are the driving force behind all the excitement, but boxes represent such possibility for me. Once we start on a DIY cardboard dollhouse or castle, the project really ends up being a gift that keeps on giving. It takes us weeks if not more to paint, and style, and renovate, and furnish, and repaint, and refurbish whatever creation we make out of a given box. Most recently, a neighbour was nice enough to give us a box he had from a new office chair. Having recently seen a Frozen castle at Costco and considering the box was too small for the kids to use as a box house for themselves, we decided to make an Elsa-inspired one for my daughter’s dolls. In the process, we found and came up with some pretty cool add-ons to make the castle look especially cool.

Ideas to Take Your DIY Cardboard Dollhouse to the Next Level

DIY Cardboard Dollhouse/ Castle

We have made both a cardboard house and our Elsa castle using this how-to from Little Red Window. The directions are REALLY easy. All you need is a glue gun, a box, and a serrated or Exacto knife and a pencil.

Spiral Stair Case

I Google and Pinterest searched the best way to make any cardboard staircase without avail. Somehow, I came upon actual information on how to make a spiral staircase. Believe it or not, it was quite simple to do. It was just time consuming. When my kids were asleep, I grabbed a paper towel roll as the pillar the stairs would wrap around (because of the height of the box, I added a toilet paper roll too).

With this printable, trace forcefully over top of the lines, then remove the printable and cut out the impressions. measure the length of your pillar and divide it by the number of stairs you have. This will determine the spacing between each stair. To make the spaces between the stairs (rectangles, cut out one triangle and trace its length, then use the interval determined for the spacing as the width). Make as many rectangles as you have squares.  Then use hot glue to glue the triangles to the rectangles. Triangles are parallel to the ground, rectangles perpendicular.

Then secure the stairs to the pillar and the pillar to the house/ castle.

DIY Cardboard Dollhouse Furniture

• Make a couch out of some old fabric and an empty Kleenex box; see how to here.
• For our bed, we used a box and glued cardboard cut outs as the head and footboards. But this idea is really cool (and simple) too.
• This link has a how-to on another style of couch and matching armchair.
• Make a super simple table with this tutorial.
• Make a Barbie wardrobe following these steps.
• For other ideas, including a fairly easy cardboard kitchen, click here.

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