Crafts > Crafts for Adults by materials > Tissue box doll house > How to make a miniature dolls
Crafts > Crafts for Kids by materials > Tissue box doll house > How to make a miniature dolls
These dolls are made out of chenille wires (pipe cleaners) and beads for heads.
Head and body
Estimate how tall to make the dolls by holding the wires up to the room where they will be “living.” Fold the leg and body wire in half and poke the bent end into the hole in the bead head. Do not glue the head on yet. Make children with shorter lengths of chenille wire.
Cut the chenille wire in one of 3 ways:
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1.Bend the wire back and forth until it breaks
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2. Cut with nail clippers or toenail clippers
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1.Cut with wire cutters or the cutting section of pliers
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1.Secure the arm wire by laying it under the leg wires where the shoulders should be.
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2.Bend each arm between the legs
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3.Then bend it back behind the leg and to the same side it started on, so each arm is twisted around a leg wire.
How to make long hair
Make long hair by wrapping thread around and around your fingers. Pull the loop of thread off of your fingers. Cut all the thread loop in one place.
Stretch out the cut bunch of thread. Cut off one third to be the bangs and the hair in the back. Tie the long section in the middle with one of the cut threads. This section of hair will be the hair on each side of the head. The tie in the middle will form the part.
Put glue on the top and back of the head and glue the loose section of hair so that the bangs hang down in the front of the face. Next put more glue on the head and hair, and press on the longer section so that it goes from side to side, and the tied “part” is in the middle of the head.
Trim any hair that is ragged in the front, sides and back.
Draw a face on the doll with a fine tip permanent marker. This is the hardest part of the doll, so it might be good to practice on paper, then practice on extra beads.
Hands and feet
The cut end of the hands and feet can be quite sharp, so bend the ends of the arms and legs to make hands and feet. Another option to make hands and feet is to glue beads on the ends of them.
Another option for the feet is to bend them at the ankle, but leave them as they are. Then provide different colors of long plastic beads to put on as shoes to match each outfit.
Because the arms and legs can bend, this doll can stand, sit, and hold a baby or a pan.
Optiona thicker body
If you want the body to be thicker, poke the end of a chenille wire between the legs, and wrap it around and around to form the body.
Bend the loose end up into the body between the legs.
Cut off the excess chenille wire.
Coloring hair
String makes good hair, too. It can easily be dyed different colors. The “blond” hair shown here was dyed in a mixture of water and turmeric (a cooking spice) over night. Then rinse it out and hang to dry. Strong tea and coffee make a light brown color.
For Asian dolls, use black thread to make the hair.
To make darker skinned dolls, use darker chenille wires and beads. The faces are hard to see if you use only black permanent marker to draw the features. Use white paint to make the whites of eyes and teeth show up better.
There are some kinds of string that when pulled, come unravelled. For a craft project, that can be infuriating, but for making kinky hair, it is perfect! Make hair in the same way as shown above, but you don’t need as much because the strands are thicker. If you want shorter hair, wrap it around 2 fingers instead of 4.
view how to make a doll house out of recycled materials
