We all have been there: these dollhouse DIY kits are great and all, but when first starting out as a beginner, or even more advanced, you might want to pull your hair out once in a while and wonder: how the heck do others build their own dollhouse kits?
This is where I try to chip in today and I gathered as many tips as possible. Not with just my own experiences, but also because of wonderful enthusiastic people on Facebook groups, thanks for the miniature community!
Let's just dive straight into the topic with these 20 tips!
Updated 06/01/24
But first: Which Materials Do You Need To build your own Dollhouse DIY Kits?
That's an easy question to answer because I have written about the needed crafting materials for these kits before, but let's sum things up again!
Depending on the brand or type of DIY house kit though, you could need almost all of these or only a few of them. Like I hardly needed anything for this book nook called Sakura Densya.
But I really would advise investing in all of these when you first are starting out, you won't regret it!
- Glue! There are 3D puzzles that don't require any glue at all, but for most of the miniature kits, this will be absolutely necessary!
These days, I mostly use Grab Fast Tacky Glue by Aleene, but here you can see everything you need to know about the variety of glues that are used in the miniature world. - a pair of tweezers is a necessity in the miniature world! I love the ones with a long point
- small scissors, I love to use little sewing scissors which I use for the projects on my Youtube channel
- sandpaper: usually a small piece of sandpaper is included in the kits, but it doesn't do any harm to have some spare available in your house.
Fine-grit sandpaper with a grit size of 220 or higher is a good choice for miniature furniture.
- A crafting knife: a so-called X-Acto knife or as I tend to use: a fingertip knife by Fiskars. Be careful with these, as they can be extremely sharp.
- Acrylic paint and extra wallpaper:
Sometimes the dollhouse DIY kits are already totally painted, like the last one I made called Sakura Densya, but lots of times you need to either partly paint the furniture pieces (or decorate them with paper like "Simons Coffee" or if you want to "hack" them.
The kits from Rolife/Robotime sometimes contain some white paint but don't expect too much from this. Maybe you could use this as a primer, that's it.
Off course, you need a fine paintbrush as well.
About the extra wallpaper, it is always a good thing to keep different sheets of wallpaper around or paper that can serve for flooring, as the original design of these isn't always fantastic, to say the least, haha.
- a metal ruler. Metal because that will last you like a lifetime
- Extra wires for the lights, because you will break some at the start, as they are very fine.
Can't wait to find out about the 7 best dollhouse DIY kits brands on the market, check here!
20 Best Tips On Assembling DIY Houses and Miniature Kits.
Here's a list of tips on dollhouse DIY kits that I wish I knew about when I first started out (so she says in a very superior matter, what do I know haha).
These tips are kind of random, sorry