If you’re adding mini upholstery to your dollhouse furniture, this is an easy way to do it. I like this method because it’s fast, and I’m impatient.
I also don’t need things to be permanent, and doing it this way makes it easy to change the upholstery if you want to.
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Small-scale dollhouse fabrics.
I’ve been making small-scale fabric designs that can be used for dollhouse crafts, so I got some samples of those from my Spoonflower shop.
The samples are 8″ square, which was more than enough for this project. I used the traditional pattern that was based on antique embroidery, and it’s a true 1:12 scale, so it fit the chairs well.
I also used another pattern to make some additional seat covers while I was at it.
I also have these patterns and more in 1:6 scale, so check them out on Spoonflower.
Reupholstering the seats on the dollhouse furniture.
I measured the fabric and cut around the existing cushion, leaving about 1″ on all sides.
This was fabric that I designed based on some vintage quilting fabrics, and I bought some to use in some dollhouse projects. (You can find my Spoonflower shop with fabrics and wallpaper here.)
I wrapped the fabric around the cardboard that was attached to the original fabric, then use either scotch tape or a regular stapler to staple through the fabric to attach it, depending on how thick the board that you’re attaching the fabric to is.
This is a miniature version of using a staple gun for a real chair cushion, and the staples might bend and not go through the cardboard every time. If the staples bend but go into the cardboard enough to hold it in place that’s fine, but you might have to remove any that don’t go in enough to hold on.
I ended up using scotch tape for these chairs because the cardboard that came with them was so thin.
For an article about dollhouse flooring materials, click here.
To see how to make gilded dollhouse frames, click here.
Cut the fabric to cover the seats.
The first mistake I made was not checking to see if the little cardboard seats that came with the kit fit inside the chair seat frame. (They didn’t.) So I covered them once and it turned out that they were too big and wouldn’t sit flat on the chair seats, so I had to take it apart to trim the cardboard template down to size.
So make sure that you test the pieces before you do anything as far as covering them goes.
Cut the fabric to fit the seats.
I put the seat on the fabric and cut out a little square that would wrap around it and leave about a 3/4″ border.
I used scotch tape to attach the fabric to itself after it was folded over, and it held just fine. Once you put it down on the seat it will stay in place this way, so it doesn’t have to be a permanent attachment.
I know, that’s probably not how a dollhouse purist would do it, but I’m glad I did it that way because like I said, I did have to take them apart and redo them.
I didn’t want to do my other upholstery hack of stapling things, because the seat template were too thin.
I also decided that I would leave out the little piece of padding that came with the kit, so if you don’t want to do that trim it to match the seat before covering it.
Fold the fabric around the seat and attach it.
I folded the fabric around the seat template, starting with the sides. Then I taped the two edges to the back of the seat.
After the sides were attached, I folded the front and back in and taped those to the back.
I did the sides first so that the front and back would cover the edges when they were folded over.
If you do the front first, you’ll see the folded sides at the front of the seat corners. It just looks better when you do the sides first.
Put the seat in the chair.
Once I had the seat covered, I placed it into the chair and pressed it in so that it fit snugly.
It was level with the top edge of the chair seat section because I had left the little piece of foam that came with the seat out of the mix.
If you do want a puffier seat, you can do that by adding some cotton onto the seat cushion before you cover it.
You don’t want to extend the puffiness over the edges of the seat, though. That’s going to make it harder to get the seat into the chair.
The finished chairs.
The finished chairs would work well in a traditional room, and if you do make more seats with different fabric patterns, you can change them out to match different room decor.
I used this striped fabric with roses to make the extra covers, and they would work well with another traditional room design.
For a more modern design, just use different fabric designs, or a solid color to match a lot of room themes.
