Make this easy no-sew rag rug for your DIY dollhouse miniatures collection in about ten minutes with a minimum amount of supplies. This is an easy dollhouse decorating project that you can do to make seasonal decorations for your mini house.
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Material you’ll need.
This is a very short list of materials, and you can find it on Amazon here: Dollhouse rug supplies (affiliate link)
You basically need some Gluit double-sided tape (the company sent me some to try out and I’ve bought more since then because it’s so useful), some twine, scissors, and cardstock. It’s a very low-cost DIY project.
Start with the base.
Cut a circle out of cardstock. I would make this larger than the finished size that you want, since that will give you room to trim it. You should also mark the center of the circle at this point, because I forgot to do it and had to do it on the sticky tape later!
Cover the cardstock circle with the double-sided tape. The Gluit tape is good for this because it’s soft and you can really press the twine into it. Make sure that the disc sits flat on the table when you’re done because if it’s warped the finished rug will also be bendy.
Trim the tape around the edge. You can skip this step if you want to, but I think that it helps to visualize the shape when you do the winding.
Remove the backing from the double-sided tape.
This is where I had to mark the center to start winding the twine because I forgot to do it before putting the tape on. It will be easier to do it before applying the tape.
Add the twine to the rug base.
Using the center mark as your guide, stick the end of the twine to it and start winding it around in a circle.
Keep going, making sure that the first part is the correct shape. If it’s not perfectly round in the center it will be oblong when it’s done. Make sure not to pull the twine too tight, but try to cover the backing and keep the edges of the wrapped twine right up against the center that you’re going around.
Keep working around, and don’t pull the twine too tightly (it will make the finished rug warped if it’s too tight.) You can see here that I’m going to run out of room at the top before the bottom, but that’s okay. You’ll trim the edge of the cardstock when you get that far.
When the rug is as big as you want it to be, or when you hit the edge, cut the twine and press the end up against the coil.
Trim around the coiled twine to cut the extra tape and cardstock off.
And you’re done! This is a fast way to make a little miniature rug, and it’s cute to put as a temporary decoration in your dollhouse for seasonal decor.
Ideas for finishing the rug.
If you want to finish off the edge of the rug to hide the tape, you might be able to stick a piece of the twine to the edge since it’s a little sticky. You could hot glue it on if it won’t stay by itself, but I don’t think that you have to do anything to it, it’s pretty narrow. You could also use a 1/8″ wide ribbon to cover it.
If you want to put modpodge all over the rug you can do that to firm up the twine, but I like the texture on it when it’s left untreated.
Use the rug anywhere that you want a little pop of color in your dollhouse. The bedding on this bed was made using the Gluit tape too, you can read about that here: Easy no-sew dollhouse bedding.
This is a 1:12 scale chair, and the rug ended up being about 3.75″ wide, so you can see what it looks like with 1″ scale furniture.
Watch the entire process of me making the rug here:
