Trash to Treasure Dollhouse Chair

Watch the video here.

This week I decided to make a couple of chairs with the box my new tube of toothpaste came in instead of tossing it into the recycling bin. Any box about the same size will do you need the end of the box to measure about 2” by 1 ¾” and you will need a piece about 1 3/8” tall to cut off the box end. If the flaps of the box have been opened you will need to glue them in place too.

The first step after finding the perfect box is to cut the ends off the rest of the box, like I said you will need to cut off 1 3/8” of the box. I got 2 chairs from the one box making for a nice cozy corner to a roombox for Grandma and Grandpa Doll. I find the best way to cut the box is to use a permanent marker and a ruler to mark off my cutting line and then to cut it off with my craft knife. (just be really careful to not cut yourself)

You will also need a small amount of another cardboard box, I used part of a cracker box. You will need a piece 2” by 4” and two small pieces ¼” by about 1” from this box. I do keep a few boxes of this type around for making crafts with, I use a lot of this type of cardboard to make up stuff. The other materials you will need are glue (I used Fast Grab Tacky, super glue and a glue stick), some paper to cover the chairs (or you could use fabric if you wanted to) and 4 plastic pony beads.

Carefully cut the one long (2”) side of the end of the box free along the sides and then glue it to the end of the box on the inside. This makes the chair a lot stronger when you get done.

The 2” by 4” piece of cardboard needs to be scored to make folding it neater and easier. Make your score lines as noted in the following photo:

Cut your paper into a 2” strip and a strip that is a bit wider than 2” (about 2 ¼”) Glue the 2” strip to your 2”by 4” strip of cardboard lining up the long sides but leaving a bit of paper on each end past the cardboard.

Cover the back and sides of the box end as shown in the video. Also be sure to cover the ends of the small pieces of cardboard.

Hopefully you can get the idea of how to form the chair out of the pieces from the video, if you have questions be sure to ask.

The little filler pieces on the upper sides of the chair fit perfectly in the video but in the one I had made earlier I had to trim them to fit.

This chair should be easy to adapt to other doll sizes. For Barbie I would start with a box about 4” by 3 ½” and just double all the other measurements. For an 18” doll start out with a box about 8” by 7” and triple the measurements I used in the video. For the larger sizes you might want to add a layer of fleece or batting to make the chair a bit softer looking to go with the larger scale. I will do a similar chair over on my 18” doll blog sometime this summer so if you are interested in that scale be sure to follow that blog too. I will also be launching an 18” doll Youtube channel soon so watch for that too.

Now back to our project of the day. I used some of the plastic pony beads for the feet of the chair but any plastic or wood bead of the similar size would work also. I don't think I would use a glass bead on this project because of the added weight and they tend to be a bit pricy to use in such a way.

Now I have a question for all of you, would you like to see a series of projects on the Trash to Treasure videos that will build up to making an entire room box all from items that would normally be thrown away? If so let me know either here, on the video comments or via Facebook. I think I have enough ideas to build a cute little living room scene.