Seasons > Christmas > Decorations for the home > Girl’s room > Decorating with dolls
If your daughters are fortunate enough to have a doll house, decorate it for Christmas. Put a wreath and Christmas tree in every room. Many dollar stores sell wreaths and trees that are small enough for a doll house. Craft stores also sell them. If you are tempted to wait till after Christmas to get them on sale, estimate how many more years your daughters will be playing with dolls--waiting another year may not be such a good idea. But don’t despair, it’s quite easy to make inexpensive wreaths and trees. Wrapping a green chenille wire around a milk jug ring or Coke ring makes a good wreath--just and adding a tiny bow. Other ways to make wreaths-- twist a small vine into a vine wreath, or a branch cut from an artificial tree or swag and twisted into a ring also forms a wreath. Make a small tree by rolling a piece of green paper into a cone. Glue on sequins, beads, and ribbons to decorate it. Wrap tiny boxes such as ring boxes or match boxes to go near the tree. Chenille wires also make realistic swags along the banister or mantle on the fireplace. Add bows and beads for berries.
If your daughter does not have a doll house, you can make one out of cardboard. Cover a box with contact paper, and as long as she doesn't sit on it, it should last a long time. Make floors by glueing together 2 cardboard squares with the corrugation going in perpendicular directions to make it stronger. Glue cardboard strips along the walls to hold up each floor. Cover with woodgrain contact paper to make it more realistic.
Miniature furniture can be pricey, so if your daughter isn't too picky, you can make simple furniture by gluing small pieces of wood together to form chairs, tables, sofas, and beds. Sometimes you can find furniture in dollar stores, too.
The blue chairs on the roof and in the house on the left, are from a stacking game purchased at a dollar store. The two tables in the Pizza Parlor (first floor) are the plastic braces found in the middle of boxes from pizza delivery. I simply glued a round top to each.
You can make tiny food out of Sculpy. Klutz books have some great ideas for how to make lots of miniature foods. Many major bookstores carry Klutz books in their children’s sections.
To decorate these tiny homes for Christmas, put a tiny Christmas tree and wreath in every room. (see Sunday school crafts for how to make these.)
My girls loved having a Christmas tree to decorate for their dolls. They even had their dolls exchange gifts in tiny stockings each Christmas morning before they opened their own stockings.
The tree in this picture is decorated with dollar store ornaments reminiscent of Swedish straw Christmas ornaments--just right for my daughter’s American Girl doll, Kersten. Going along with the pioneer Christmas theme, I also made popcorn and cranberry strings from a light modeling compound (similar to Hearty.) Bits of styrofoam peanuts strung on thread would probably make good “popcorn”, too. I also made candle holders by glueing wooden candle cups to wooden clothes pins that hold birthday cake candles. We NEVER lit these as it would be too dangerous!! If your children are old enough, they might enjoy making tree ornaments themselves.
Use doll furniture and dolls to complete the scene. Try to figure out if your girls would be more delighted to find this scene atop their dresser, or if they would rather do the decorating themselves. Either way, they will be so excited!
One of my daughters’ favorite things to do with their dolls was to have tea parties with real cookies that they “had” to eat, since the dolls couldn’t really eat them. These blue dishes provided many happy memories--they survived my childhood, and my daughters' childhood, and will probably service another generation as well. I only used these dishes for tea parties that I attended to reduce the chance of breakage. But I needn't have worried, they never broke any of their other glass doll dishes, even when I wasn't around. If you want to give your daughter and her dolls a surprise tea party, see if the dollar store has some dishes before you make a trip to a toy store. They don't have to be expensive dishes to provide special memories--just make sure they have tiny dishes and tiny food, and you will store up many happy memories for them. Be sure to take photos to help reminisce.
Small foods may be harder to find. You can make your own tiny cookies and cakes with tiny cookie cutters. Make pies in muffin tins.
This window is decorated as a winter snow scene. A dollar store Christmas tree has batting “snow”, and batting on the sill looks like snow. If you want to make a winter scene, too, but don’t have any deer, you can still create an outdoor scene by adding a snowman, dolls, or even a teddy bear instead.
The snowflakes that are hung from thread are also from a dollar store. You can make similar snowflakes with wire and beads. Simply take 3 wires of the desired length and twist them together in the middle and then spread them out so the are evenly spaced. Add beads and more branches with shorter wires, if you like, and bend the end of each wire into a loop so the beads don’t fall off.
You can order snowflake bead kits from toy websites such as
Seasons > Christmas > Decorations for the home > Girl’s Bedroom > Decorating with dolls
A wreath is a simple way to decorate a doll “room” for Christmas. Adding a holly branch next to a candle stand also looks very Christmasy. Dollar stores often sell tiny wreaths, candles, candle stands, and tiny nativity sets. Craft stores are also good places to find small items. If you don’t have doll furniture, make some. Tape a piece of cardboard to a tall can to form a pedestal table, and drape a cloth napkin over it, and it will look just as good as this one. Make stools for the dolls to sit on by taping wrapping paper to cans (try out the cans to check the height of the sitting dolls before you do any taping! Unopened cans are probably better, since the weight will make them harder to tip over. A cardboard box covered in contact paper can be a sideboard.
The tiny resin nativity set pictured here was purchased through the Oriental Trading Company. It is no longer available, but they do carry a 6 inch set. Link to Oriental Trading Company
