You don’t need expensive materials to make modern miniature furniture. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to make a miniature dollhouse chair and table using a small plastic bottle, cardboard, a wooden stick, fabric, and a few basic craft supplies.
The curved shape of the plastic bottle is perfect for making a modern rounded chair, and I used the same simple pedestal design for both the chair and matching table.
It’s an easy recycled-material project that you can adapt to different dollhouse interiors simply by changing the paint and fabric.
But first: Materials You’ll Need
You only need a handful of inexpensive craft supplies to make this miniature table and chair:
- Sturdy cardboard
- White cardstock or thick paper
- Thin wooden dowel or bamboo skewer
- Blue patterned fabric, or another fabric of your choice. Preferably stretchy fabric.
- A small amount of soft padding (kitchen paper) for the chair cushion
- White acrylic paint
- Craft glue
- Scissors
- Craft knife
- Pencil
- Ruler
- Paintbrush
- Plastic bottle that has the right round shape for the chair
Most of these are materials you may already have in your craft supplies, and you can easily change the fabric and paint colors to suit your dollhouse.
Step-by-step tutorial
Step 1: Cut the Chair Shape From the Plastic Bottle
Start with a small empty plastic bottle. For this miniature chair, I used the rounded bottom of the bottle because its shape already gives us the curved back and sides of the chair.
Cut the entire bottom section away from the bottle first. Be careful here, as the freshly cut plastic edges can be quite sharp.
Next, trim away part of this plastic section to open up the front. Keep the rounded bottom and enough of the curved sides to form the seat and backrest. You should end up with a small transparent shell that already looks surprisingly similar to a modern bucket chair.
Trim the edges little by little until you are happy with the shape. It’s better to cut off too little at first—you can always remove more plastic afterward.
Step 2: Make the Cardboard Seat
Cut a small circle from thin cardboard, roughly the same size as the bottom of the plastic chair shell.
Place the cardboard circle inside the plastic piece and trim the edges little by little until it fits neatly inside. This gives the chair a solid base for the upholstered seat that I’ll add later.
Step 3: Shape the Chair Base
Cut a circle from white cardstock. Mark the center and draw lines across the circle to help you find 4 quarters.
Cut out a small hole in the center, then make one straight cut from the outer edge to the center hole.