Making Soft Sofas & Chairs for Dollhouse 1:12 Scale

In this video, I will show you how I made soft sofas and chairs with packaged styrofoam. Often when you purchase products, they come packed in molded styrofoam to protect your goods during shipping or transport. Well, I saved some of the pieces thinking that they could make good cushions for soft sofas and chairs. For doll furniture, they don't have to be really soft. Just have the look of soft. I mean, you can add padding cushion if you want to, but I didn't. I used a meat cutting knife, which has serrated edges to cut the styrofoam, and it cut it very easily. When the pieces were uneven, I used the same knife to kind of scrape or shave down the side that was too thick to even them out. Sometimes I had to cut the wedges thinner. When you add fabric, the cushions may become thicker, so keep that in mind when deciding your thickness. and static cling. It's all over my hand. Makes a big mess. But hey, it's free material. I think I'm gonna I can do something with these I think I'll bag all this up because that'll be good stuffing for pillows. Cutting up the styrofoam made a huge mess. This process created lots of little balls of styrofoam on my work table, on the floor, and it clings to everything. And wouldn't you know it, my cat decided to get right into the middle of it, and it clung to her fur. Now she looks like a polka dot kitty cat. She did this about three different times during the process of cutting up the styrofoam. Since it was such a messy job, I decided to cut out several sets of chairs and sofas all on the same day because I was making furniture for three different doll houses. Some for my granddaughters and for two other dollous that I'm working on. This way, I only had one day of mess to deal with. I did save some of the foam balls to be used as filler for small pillows cuz I'm thinking they might make good filler for pillows that would give the pillows kind of a natural look in the way that they would move. I then covered each piece with paper towels to prevent the balls from of styrofoam from coming off and to reduce the mess while working with the parts. Each part is wrapped up pretty much like a present. I use tacky glue as an allpurpose glue, which is my favorite glue for all of my craft projects, including card making. The paper towel easily conforms to the blocks. The wet glue prevents the paper from adding too much bulk to the pieces. As long as you, you know, fold it neatly and press it good. You do not want to glue the pieces together just yet. It is better to cover them with fabric before gluing them together. I will get to that process later in this video. We have to be more specific in the process when it comes to covering them with fabric. In selecting your fabrics, it is useful to choose thinner fabrics. The thinner the fabric, the neater you're going to be able to get the folds and your cushions will look a whole lot better. I bagged all the pieces for each chair or sofa in separate plastic bags to keep them sorted and together. With the mess eliminated, I didn't have to finish all the chairs and sofa on the same day. I do have a tendency to work in bolt because I can get more done and save time that way. I did not put legs on the children's chairs and sofa because I want to keep them low a low profile so that the the kids can fit on them. I mean, the little kids, their feet don't touch the floor, but the medium-sized child, his feet touches the floor, and so it works for the kids. For this child size chair, I kept the back end of it low because it's going in the attic space and I've got lower ceilings. But you can style the sofas, chairs any style that you want. Here's some examples. [Music] For the living room sofa, I want it to fit the adults, so it will have wooden legs, and I want the sofa to be more elegant. So, I'm I sort of saved that for last so that way I can get the practice to get good at putting together the cushions and and to learn how to do it in the neatest way possible. When you've do done something many times over, you get better at it. I did not cover the Victorian sofa yet. I have big plans for that. Haven't even built the house yet. I have the box. I can't wait to get started. I think about it a lot. I don't know what color scheme, so I can't pick out the fabric. The Victorian sofa will have wooden legs. It'll have wood accents on the arms, and it might even have a wood back with some scrolling fancy design. It'll be it'll be a really fancy sofa, but you'll just have to wait until I get going on that project before I finish that sofa. So, that's a project you could look forward to in the future. Now to go over the process of covering the pieces with fabric. Once you have selected your fabric of choice, whether it's a print or solid or plaid, whatever you prefer, cut out a piece to cover all sides of each piece with extra length on the two short sides. I have developed a specific way of folding the fabric so that we have nice clean lines on the corners. On the long side, fold over a/4 inch to 38igh of an inch width for a finished edge. Glue that in place. This will be your finished hem. Press that folded end nice and flat. This will run along the bottom edge of the cushion. Next, determine the length of your fabric section. It needs to go all the way around the four sides with about 3/4 in overlap. Trim excess fabric. It helps to have good fabric scissors. Fabric scissors is used only with fabric. I have separate scissors for paper use and I never mix the two. Cutting paper with fabric scissors will dull the scissors. So, keep your scissors sharp. Only use it for fabric and you can use it with string or thread, yarn, that's okay. Position your finished edge on the bottom lower corner. Make sure the top side or the outside of the cushion will not have any glue on it so you have a smooth top. Only the bottom or the inner sides will have glue. I'm checking to be sure that my seam falls right on the bottom edge of the cushion, that corner edge. If it does not, you can reposition the fabric before the glue dries. Do it quickly. On the bottom side, the glued side only. Clip the corners. Then trim off excess fabric. You only need enough to fold over to the inside where the fabric is doubled over. Trim the underside piece up just a bit shorter for less bulk. Do the same for both ends. Now we're going to glue those short flaps into the sides on each end. If you have too much fabric, trim off the excess. Next, we need to create a finished hem on the two ends that are remaining. Fold over a/4 in to 3/4 to 38igh of an inch. It helps to fold it and finger press it to create a line so that you know where to put the glue. You want the folded hemmed edge to come right to the very corner edge, the folded side, the hemmed side. Prepare both ends in the same manner with a hemmed edge. This will help you to have a nice finished edge. The next part is the most critical part to finish off the cushion. Let me show you again what the finished product should look like when it's all done. The seam should end up going straight down the corner when done correctly. It's a little hard to explain just how to do it. The two sides are folded and tucked in. The center is brought to the very bottom edge. You may have to fidget with it a little to get it just perfect. I'm showing you it in slow motion, so hopefully you can see what I'm doing. I'll show you a second time. All the chair or sofa pieces are done the same way. Once they're all covered with fabric, you can then glue them together. Seams are on the bottom and on the inside between the sides and the seat cushion. Make sure all the pieces are pushed down flush with the floor so that when it's glued, it will be sitting level. You may have to hold them tightly together a few minutes pushing holding them together while pressing down while the glue sets because it takes a few minutes for the glue to to really set well. Or you can wrap masking tape around the base to hold them securely while they dry. A childsized chair and a child love seat and put a kid on it. The attic bedroom is nearly complete. I have currently three children in the attic bedroom. We have a toddler bed, a crib, and a love seat. We could imagine that the love seat is a sofa bed that folds out. It doesn't, but you can imagine it. I mean, it is an imaginary play thing, right? So that way you could have three children in the attic bedroom. I just need to make a toy box to complete the space. I want to do something with these. Make little nightstands out of. These are just um cutouts from wood that I thought I could probably make into a little table. We'll have two girls in the girls' room. And of course, we have the master bedroom. working my way down to the living room. That's next. I'm going to do the living room sofa. I hope this video inspires you to create your own dollhouse furniture. Stay tuned for more furniture making coming up. Subscribe to my channel and look for more projects on my playlist, Dollhouse Creations. You might want to check out the video on how I make dollhouse dolls that are poseable and safe for children to play with. To learn how to paint the detailed faces, join my channel as a member to have access to exclusive members only. It's really, really cheap and it's a great way to support the work that I do. Thanks for watching.