Matchbox Monday 3: The Tiny Travelling Doll's House

Over the years, this has been one of my all-time favourites. This version is great for taking on holidays, especially when the car is choc-a-block full. Firstly, it doesn't take up the whole back seat. Secondly, when you are little it's nice to take a bit of your own familiar world with you on holidays. Finally, and this is really important, it's made to wear around your neck, which (hopefully) means that it won't get lost...which means, with a little luck, you probably won't have to spend several hours of your long-awaited holiday looking everywhere for it.





For this project I've used a 5cm x 3.5cm x 1.5cm matchbox. In Australia this is your regular matchbox size. I know the sizes can be different in different countries, so I hope you can get something more or less the same. As you can see from the photos it's all pretty straight forward. The roof is made from a piece of cardboard folded in half and then covered with felt. A piece of coloured cardboard will usually look better than plain white as you can see at least part of the inside of the roof in the finished house. I've scalloped the roof edge because little details like that give a nice effect (especially when you're working on a small scale). I like collecting tiny coloured buttons, as you can see, and have used some for the flowers and door-handle. In classes I let the girls chose a ribbon for the necklace. Here I just used imitation leather.



The little fairy doll is made with coloured wire (I love using coloured wire). I've used 2 wooden beads, one for the head and one for the body, and an artificial flower petal for the dress.



For her bed I've made a little pillow, a small quilt and just cut a piece of knitted material for her blanket.





Hope you enjoy making this. When the kids make it by themselves there's going to be less fine detail than if you help them, but either way it can look great, and it's always a lot of fun.

P.S. I've been having a bit of trouble with my hot glue gun sticks. My old supply has run out, and the new sticks are very stringy. Does anybody know a good brand of hot glue gun sticks?