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| This version of doll bunk beds is made inside of a shoebox with an attached lid. It may be folded up and stored away neatly inside a closet or under a bed when it is not being played with. Not only would a child love to craft it for play, but also a grandparent or aunt may enjoy making a toy like this to keep for a grandchild or niece's visit during holidays or long weekends. |
What a treasure it would be to pull this from a cabinet or trunk to present to a young visitor for playtime! Invest a few dollars for mini dolls or make these yourself to include with the set. Small, seldom seen toys like these can make special visits with a relative or close family friend 'magical' to a young child.
When I was a very young girl, some of my most precious memories were of visits to an elderly aunt. This aunt married late in life and had no children of her own. However, she lived in a very charming home on Lover's Lane in St. Joseph MO., the very same street written about by poet, Eugene Field.
Inside her home was an enchanting hidden room. In order to get into this room, an adult had to pull a small set of stairs, attached to a rope, down from the ceiling. This hidden staircase led up into a vaulted space under exposed rafters and spider webs. The only light at the end of the narrow, long room came from a tiny window.
There were boxes of Christmas ornaments, a dollhouse with tiny furniture, and a small wooden cradle kept in this attic room. The quite enchantments of this space fed by childhood imagination for hours it seems, although I seldom had the chance to visit it, only a handful of days within my young life - before she passed away.
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| A shoebox provides ''a hidden room'' for a child to play with her own small dolls, while visiting with a godparent, grandparent or some other family relative. Simple delights like these, make happy memories for little ones. They will treasure them even more after growing old and recalling the time they spent in the home of a kind friend. |
Supply List:
- a large shoebox with attached lid
- night themed scrapbook paper with moon and stars
- additional scrapbook papers for other elements
- white school glue
- Winter snow scene (recycled greeting card)
- more scrap cardboard
- fabric for bed covers
- cotton batting stuffing
- dowel rods and skewers for the bunkbed (ladder)
- two cotton balls and grey lint from dryer trap (ladder)
- black thread and two paper clips (ladder)
- Select a shoebox in a size that will accommodate small five to eight inch dolls. In my sample, I chose a shoebox with an attached lid this time.
- I cut two platforms for the bunk beds from scrap cardboard and glue these in place. The lower platform is suspended 1 and 1/2 inches from the bottom of the box so that a small ladder may be stored beneath the lower bunk bed while the shoebox is in storage and then removed to give the doll that sleeps in the top bunk a way to climb into bed.
- Use masking tape to hold the plate forms in place while these dry.
- Apply white school glue and decorative papers to all of the walls and platforms inside and outside of the shoebox. I chose a dark blue Christmas paper for the outside of the box. It depicts lovely silhouettes of snowflakes and leaping deer.
- For the interior, I chose to coordinate snowdrift prints with a blue celestial wallpaper.
- Opposite the bunk beds is a wall with a decoupaged window and shelf just above it. The cardboard window frames a Christmas card of a snowy winter night. In this view there are white pine silhouettes and a starry night sky.
- Both the shelf and the widows are decorated with a ''curtain and garland'' made from laser-cut papers. These look like white lace.
- For both of the bunk beds, you will need to cut and stuff mattresses, bedding and pillows. I chose to sew with a stripped fabric for the mattresses because this material reminded me of my grandmother's feather bed mattresses I slept on as a child. These were covered in stripped ticking; a kind of heavy canvas that prevents goose down feathers from escaping the mattress.
- Measure the interior of each bunk bed, both the length and width, and cut small rectangular shaped mattresses to fit. Just sew the material with right sides together using a straight seam and leave a two inch opening to turn the 'pocket' right sides out and stuff with cotton batting stuffing.
- Whip stitch the opening shut and cut sheets to fit each little mattress. I chose to use a white cotton, somewhat transparent for the covering of our doll mattresses so that the stripes would show through.
- Use the same method to make coordinating pillows and blankets. If you choose to make the blankets using felt or fleece, you won't need to add seams.
- Among the details, I also crafted an oval window with the same night scene to paste above the upper bunk. The lower bunk has a corner shelf for an alarm clock attached with glue and given a faux wood shelf paper covering similar to the windows opposite.
- Once I've dressed two small dolls in their night gowns, these will be gifted inside our shoebox bedroom, tied-together with a bright blue bow for a winter's cozy celebration!
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