How to craft a pigsty for your doll's farm...

This toy pigsty is made with wooden craft sticks and cardboard. I've painted the roof green
 to match a set of out-buildings I'm designing for our hand-crafted doll farm. The 'straw'
used for bedding our doll's pig is natural colored Easter grass.

 

       A sty or pigsty is a small-scale outdoor enclosure for raising domestic pigs as livestock. It is sometimes referred to as a hog pen, hog parlor, pigpen, pig parlor, or pig-cote, although pig pen may refer to pens confining pigs that are kept as pets as well. Pigsties are generally fenced areas of bare dirt and/or mud.  

Our pigsty is a common triangular shaped shelter. Many farmers build similar shelters. 
Although most would neglect to paint them. Usually the pigsty is left to weather 
naturally but we've dressed the shelter up a bit for play.

       The materials you will need to craft a similar structure are: cardboard, acrylic green paint, Easter grass, masking tape, white school glue, hot glue (plus glue gun) and perhaps a brown paper bag for decoupaging the cardboard that has printing on it..

The shelter for a pig keeps the wind, rain and hot sun off of the pigs while they rest or
 sleep apart from a barn in a field most usually. 

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut cardboard 5"x13 long and fold it in half. This will be the roof of the pigsty.
2. Cut a floorboard for the sty 5"x 6" wide.
3. Mask the roof to the floor creating a "A" frame structure.
4. Glue on the inside where the corners meet at the bottom to reinforce the sty.
5. Cut 22 wooden craft sticks (6inches long) to trim off the rounded edges, for the roof tiles.
6. Start from the bottom working up using hot glue to adhere the wooden craft sticks to the outside cardboard roof. Overlapping on the upper edges only, just slightly to give the roof tiles a nice finished look.
7. Paint the wooden sty roof green or any other color you prefer.
8. Cover the exposed cardboard floor with brown paper bag and white glue if it has writing or ink on it. 
9. Stuff the natural, straw looking Easter grass inside the structure so that your doll's pigs will have a comfortable place to nap or nurse piglets.

Building a no smell pig pen!