Crafting the T.V. dinner for American Girl doll lovers...

Two examples of how the card-
board walls may be shaped into
compartments for dinner trays.
Make similar craft, a school 
lunch tray for cafeterias.

       American's love of television in the 1950's was paired with a quick and easy pre-cooked dinner on a tray. All you needed to do was to pop these meals into the oven for warming and within 30 minutes your dinner would be ready without any dirty dishes to wash afterwards! Mom and Dad could finally relax at the end of a long work day and spend more time with the tube and less time preparing meals for the family. (huh?) Well, that's post-war America for you.

Supply List for The T.V. Dinner Tray:

1. scrap cardboard
2. white school glue
3. aluminum foil and tape (the tape is optional)
4. masking tape
5. ruler

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut out the bottoms of your T.V. trays from heavy cardboard. 
2. Then cut narrow strips of cardboard that will be glued around the outside of the tray to hold food in it and also to the inside the tray to divide different foods apart from others. The way you divide the trays is entirely up to you.
3. Use white school glue and masking tape to hold these shallow compartment walls in place while they dry.
4. Mask the  entire tray when dry and then cover it with aluminum foil and a bit of glue.
5. Now comes to fun part of this craft. Use Sculpey, foam balls, paper mache and cotton to shape the doll dinners according to taste. See six detailed examples of T.V. dinner ideas below.
6. After you have painted the dinners, Mod Podge these to keep the foods in place and protected. Let dry.
7. Add a aluminum foil cover and store the meals away in your doll's freezer.

Left, are the cut cardboard bottoms of the trays. Right, are the narrow cut cardboard walls.

Left, the walls have been glued to the outside of a T.V. dinner tray. 
Right, here you can see that masking tape holds everything in place until it's dry.

1. This TV doll dinner includes: roasted carrots, a brownie for desert, applesauce and veal parmesan for the entree.

2. This TV doll dinner includes: green beans, dinner roles, sweet potato mash with a marshmallow topping, and sliced roast beef for the meat-lovers entree.

3.This TV doll dinner includes: mashed potatoes, farm fresh green peas and sliced turkey with gravy for the entree. See how we sculpted a whole holiday turkey here.

4.This TV doll dinner includes: Southern black-eyed peas, scalloped potatoes, and sausages in sauerkraut for the entree.

5.This TV doll dinner includes: corn cut from the cob, mashed potatoes, baked apple slices, deep-fried onion rings and fried chicken legs for the entree.

6.This TV doll dinner includes: a blue berry cobbler with a biscuit for desert, sauté mushrooms and spaghetti and meat balls served in an Italian tomato sauce for the entree. See how I sculpted a family size serving dish of spaghetti and meatballs here.

More About Dolls and T.V. Dining:

• DIY T.V. Dinners by Totally Rudy
• DIY - How to make doll T.V. tray and dinner by MyFroggyStuff
• T.V. dinners in the American Girl Doll's refrigerator set
• Here's what real nuclear families ate in the postwar era...