How to make a box apartment for Miss Paper Doll
The San Francisco Call (California) January 28, 1911
Girls who are fond of paper dolls must be sure to start in today to make the apartment for paper dolls which is described and pictured here, because some very attractive furniture for the apartment is to be published in the page for boys and girls on following Sundays. The doll’s apartment should be made during the coming week, so that the first furniture may be put in when next week’s paper arrives.
To make the apartment, all that is necessary is a pasteboard box 24 inches long by 14 inches wide and 4 inches deep. These dimensions are the best for the size furniture which in to be published, but if your box is an inch or two longer or shorter or wider or narrower, it won’t matter very much.
If you can not secure a box that is at all near this size, it is best to get a larger box and cut it down. A box may also be made of cardboard of the proper dimensions.
The box is divided by a straight partition which goes down the center and two crosswise partitions, which divides the box into six rooms of equal size. One long side of the box is taken off, as the apartment is to be entirely open across the front, and this sidepiece is used for the long partition which goes down the middle of the box. Before putting the partition in place, you should make the doors which lead from one room to another, and which are shown in the picture, and paper or color the partition with paints to suit the different rooms.
In order to do this, first decide what color you wish for the walls in the rooms or what paper you are going to use. Divide the long partition into three equal parts by making slits which reach from the bottom half way up the side. Then cut the crosswise partitions long enough to cross the box and four inches deep. These may be cut from the box lid. Each of these crosswise pieces is divided in the middle by a slit which reaches from the top half way to the bottom.
Fasten these cross partitions on the lower partition at the places where it is cut, and then place the partition in the box temporarily to be where each section of wall comes. Then, with a pencil, mark on each side of the wall of each room which room it is so that when you take out the partition, you will know how to color or paper it. Then remove the partition and paper or color each of the two walls made for each room by the partition according to the way you have marked it.
Paper or color the remaining wall of each room made by the side of the box to correspond. Use pale gray, pale green, cream color or tan for the walls, except for the kitchen, which should be white or yellow.
Next, cut the doors in the two partitions. There is a pattern for the small door frames and one for the large door frame printed. Cut these out and lay them on white or cream colored paper and cut out the door frames. Then paste each door frame in its proper place in the partitions, so that when the partition is in place the doorway will come as it should. Cut away the cardboard inside the door frame. There are not really any doors, but the white paper frames will look like a colonial finish. There must be frames for each side of the wall.
The windows are all printed here. Cut them out and paste them in the back wall of the apartment and in the two ends. The diagram will show you where to paste them.
Kitchen furniture for Miss Paper Doll
Three pieces of kitchen furniture for Miss Paper Doll are being published this week. You may color them before cutting them out, according to your own taste, but naturally the stove should be dark gray or black. The other two pieces are a table and a chair, which will look well if colored yellow or white and blue. The table may have a white top with blue supports.
Paste the entire sheet of furniture on letter paper so that the different pieces will be stiff enough to stand up. Then cut out each piece neatly and fold along the lines pointed out by the arrows. Cut the straight slits which you see, into which are to be thrust the tabs. The slits are most easily cut with a knife. When this has been done, thrust the tabs through these slits and paste them down.
If you did not make the box apartment as described in this page several weeks ago, you may now make a kitchen of a separate box, which should be at least eight inches long, seven inches wide and four inches high. The floor may be stained a dark brown or painted yellow, which is a good color for a kitchen floor.
The walls may be colored in any tint that you prefer. The floor may have a square or oval rug of colored paper pasted in the middle of the floor. Cut a window in one wall and a door in another and take one of the long walls away and the top off, as then the furniture will be more easily placed.
Living room furniture for Miss Paper Doll
The furniture for Miss Paper Doll’s living room is being published today. This is the third set of furniture which has been published to furnish Miss Paper Doll’s box apartment. If you made the box apartment which was described in the Junior several weeks ago, you have an apartment of six rooms made from a box 24 inches long by 14 inches wide, divided into rooms of equal size by one long and two crosswise partitions.
There is a window cut in each and doorways opening, from one room to another. If you did not make the apartment when it was first described, you may make one now, as there are still two numbers of the furniture to be published after today’s issue.
In making today’s furniture, first color all the pieces in the tones that you wish before cutting them out. Watercolor paints or crayons are either of them suitable for coloring.
The long decorative strips that you see in the illustration are the frieze for the top of the walls. If you have already made the apartment according to directions, the walls of all the rooms have been colored in neutral tints of gray, tan or ivory, with which any color frieze will go nicely. You may select any color that you prefer for the room, but it is well to use not more than two shades.
A very pretty room can be made by coloring the furniture dark green, the cushions for the chairs a pretty tone of violet and the friese with a green background and violet flowers. The pictures may have black frames. The piano should be in mahogany color.
If you do not like green and violet as a color harmony, a good combination for a living room is brown and red, the furniture in a dark brown stained wood and the rugs and upholstery in a warm tone of red. You may make a red paper cover for the table or a scarf to go over the top of the piano.
The living room and the library, the furniture for which will be published next week, instead of being connected with each other by the ordinary doorways which connect the other rooms, may have a wide double doorway connecting them, as was shown in th
e original plans for the apartment. If you arrange the rooms in this fashion, you may have paper portieres in the color of the room hanging at the double doorway.
After you have finished coloring the furniture, cut out all but the frieze and the pictures and paste the pieces on stiff letter paper. The frieze and the pictures are not to be mounted on stiff paper, because they are to be pasted on the walls.
After each piece of furniture has been mounted on letter paper and is quite dry, finish cutting it out carefully. The small, slits will be more easily cut with a knife.
Cut all dotted lines and fold at arrowheads. Cut openings at points marked X and insert tabs and paste them down. You must be very careful not to use too much mucilage, as it will spread and spoil the looks of the furniture.
After the furniture has been made and placed in the living room and the frieze put up around the top of the room, the pictures may be pasted in wherever they look most attractive.
A rug for the floor may be made of a square or an oval of colored paper pasted down. Dark green wall paper is good for this purpose if the room is to be colored green and violet. The floor should be colored in a dark tone around the edges as a border, and the rug should reach as fur as the border. If you prefer, you may make a rug of two strips of paper braided in a check pattern.
The windows of the room, if you have made the apartment as suggested, are already finished, but if you did not, you may drape the windows in white tissue paper or you may make a straight curtain of the tissue paper, and inside that use long curtains of colored tissue paper to match the room.
One Response
I would love to make this dollhouse and appreciate your instructions for this along with the kitchen and living room furniture that I found. Do you have print outs for furnishings for the other rooms? I appreciate any help that you can give me regarding this project.