How to craft a coffee maker, pot and grinder for your doll's kitchen...

        We are designing a Coffee Bar/Station for our 18" doll's kitchen. Every coffee bar needs at least a coffee maker, pot and a grinder so we've included these crafts below to begin with. 
       Our coffee maker is a design that is common for a home use kitchen appliance, not the type you would find in a Diner. However, I will show you how to make one of those later. Gather your supplies and let's get started...

 

Left, Coffee maker is shaped using cardboard, jar lids and masking tape.
Center, coffee maker decoupaged with layer of black paper.
Right, coffee maker painted and silver tape added.

Acorn containers and
 small jars.

Supplies for The Coffee Maker:

• scrap cardboard
• masking tape 
• two identically sized lids  2 3/4 inch wide
• black paper
• Mod Podge
• silver tape 
• buttons or beads
• twine
  
• black acrylic paint

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. First, make the coffee pot below in order to measure it's size to fit properly into the coffee maker.
2. Now cut the back half of the coffee maker's main housing/water tank from sturdy cardboard. 
3. Hot glue both the top and bottom edges directly into two identical lids. The top lid will hold up the control panel and the lower will be where the pretend warming plate resides.
4. Cut a piece of cardboard to glue around the upper lid. Keep it hollow so that the coffee pot fits snugly inside slightly. This would be where the pretend coffee grounds would reside inside of a basket if this were a real coffee maker. This is also where you will use puff paints to make pretend buttons for the control panel on the outside of the coffee maker.
5. Now cover everything thus far in masking tape. Black paper and then paint it black, in order to give the coffee maker a smooth, finished surface.
6. Add a bit of silver tape for sophisticated trim work to make the coffee maker look like a real one.

18" Doll Coffee Pot Diagram

Supplies for The Coffee Pot: See DIY Coffee Pot Craft by Totally Rudy at YouTube - Her craft video is adorable!

• hot glue gun and hot glue
• scrap cardboard
• soda cap
• soap pump
• acorn capsule
• acrylic paints: dark brown, silver, black or red

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Make sure your recycled Acorn novelty container is clean and free of dust before filling it with dark brown paint. Don't make the application too thick or it will tale forever to dry out. It is better to layer the paint in thin coats until the coffee pot looks full.
2. Snap the lid back on and turn the flat side down, this will be the bottom of your coffee pot.
3. Hot glue a recycled lid from a water bottle on top of the inverted Acorn container.
4. Cut a cardboard spout and hot glue this to the top of the water bottle lid.
5. Remove the pump top spout from a empty bottle of hand soap and hot glue this to the side of the water bottle cap.
6. Now paint the coffee pot as you like. I painted all of the parts black, apart from the plastic, faux glass where the coffee resides. Then I cut silver tape to trim the finished example. (see finished photos below) 

Left, see coffee maker, pot and grinder in progress. Center, photo of coffee
 grinder before paint and tape. Right, coffee grinder from bottom.

Left, finished grinder, coffee maker and coffee pot.
Center and right, finished electric coffee grinder up close.

A modern coffee maker for 
home use similar to the one
we made for our dolls.

Supplies for an Electric Coffee Grinder:

• scrap cardboard
• hot glue and hot glue gun
• white school glue
• acrylic paints: black
• silver tape
• coffee grounds
• a short mini glass container (bean hopper)
• masking tape
• puff paints

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Fill the tiny jar container with real coffee grounds. Screw the cap back in place.
2. Turn the jar upside down. Cover the lid with masking tape.
3. Roll cardboard cut to size around the cap with white glue between it's layers. Let dry.
4. Trace around the bottom of the play coffee grinder on top of a piece of cardboard.
5. Cut out the round and glue it to the bottom of the pretend grinder.
6. Cut a long narrow piece of cardboard to glue onto the glass jar and down it's side on top of the cardboard. This is the large button used to grind the beans in the jar.
7. Cover this button in black paper.
8. Cover the bottom of the grinding chamber with silver tape or paper.

How to make a doll's thermos flask...

Finished doll thermos,
made from recycled glue sticks.

        Our doll size versions of the thermos have handles on the lids, but you can design these with handles on the sides if you prefer. Both designs are ordinarily found in the U.S. I've covered our doll versions with checks on one and stripes on the other. In the past it was difficult to find thermoses with designs like these but now our patterns would be considered normal. When I was a child, thermoses came in lunch box sets or picnic baskets and were usually covered in a plaid designs or solid colors.

Supply List:

• recycled glue sticks
• covered coffee bag wires
• decorative paper
• white school glue
• black construction paper
• Mod Podge 

Step-by-Step Instructions: 

1. Use white school glue to apply decorative paper to the recycled glue stick container(s). Let dry.
2. Cut thin long strips of black construction paper 1/4 inch wide. 
3. Glue these around the top and bottom of the glue stick container. Make the top section of the faux thermos slightly thicker as this will be the 'lid' of our doll toy.
4. Cut the coffee bag wire down to a handle size, approximately two inches long. Bend it into shape attach to the lid neatly.
5. Cover the ends of the doll thermos with black paper as well.
6. Mod Podge all sides of the covered tubes for durability.

Shape and Decoupage Coffee Mugs for Your Dolls

10 tiny, doll sized, paper mach mugs are cut from tubes and decoupaged in fun scrap paper prints.

 

Cut tubes to the desired size. Cap off the bottoms of mugs
 with cut, molded bottoms of a recycled egg carton.

        These colorful, printed, doll coffee mugs are made from supplies you can find in almost any crafter's stash.

Supply List:

• decorative papers
• tacky white glue
• Mod Podge
• paper tubes
• paper egg carton
• acrylic paints
• tiny paint brushes
• light weight cardboard

       Cut the lengths you desire from a long paper tube for these mugs. I prefer the paper tubes that come in packaging for wax paper or parchment. You may need to ask an adult to help you cut these mugs because the cardboard tubes that are thicker make the nicest coffee mugs and these thicker tubes must be cut with an X-acto knife or sharp blade. 

       I then cut the bottoms from a paper egg carton for the bottoms of my doll sized mugs. Glue these to one end of each paper tube using tacky white glue. Let the seams dry.

       Decoupage printed scrapbook paper to the outside of each mug and white typing paper to the inside of each mug.
       Cut narrow strips of cardboard and use tacky glue to attach these at the top and bottom side of each coffee mug. After this dries, add a second cardboard layer to the handle to give it strength. Paint the handles to make these a uniform white that match the inside of each coffee cup.
       Mod Podge the little coffee mugs for a clean professional finish.

Left, decorative scrapbooking paper stack. Right, finished coffee mugs for our dolls to fill with their favorite beverages.

Cover the cardboard handle where it attaches at the lip of the coffee mug
with matching paper on either side. (see arrows)

More Miniature Doll Mug Crafts:

• DIY Miniature Doll Mug - Easy Tutorial - paper
• Doll Kitchen Miniature Mugs - plastic
• Make Basic Coffee Cups by MiniWhimsy - clay

Crafting burlap coffee bean bags and purchasing a burr mill...

Pretend burlap bags are stuffed with cotton and used for play
in a children's market stall.

       Our family nursery has so many old-world props for grandchildren to play with while learning about Midwestern history and culture. Below are directions for making very simple burlap bags to contain pretend food stuffs like coffee, flour, potatoes and rice. And I have also purchased a coffee grinder at resale for $3.00 to teach the kids how coffee and flour were processed in small amounts prior to the invention of electric grinders.

       Burlap is processed from jute or hemp. Before the Civil War, my family farmed hemp in Missouri. Hemp is like the industrial version of jute. Hemp was sometimes used to make bags for storing and transferring all kinds of food product to market. It is most often used now to make rope and durable carpets. Jute, which is a similar plant, was used to make fabric for ticking (a utility fabric). Over time, paper bags, tin cans and foil bags replaced burlap in the shipping and storing of coffee to the general public, because these were much cheaper to manufacture.

       Although the early burlap bags were printed in mass manually with the use of a silk screen, our simple process will achieve a similar result with art supplies easily found in every American home.

The coffee grinder in our family nursery is new but it's design
dates back to those burr mills manufactured just after The
Civil War. It is one of many interesting kitchen tools that is
displayed in my old-fashioned, play kitchen.

 Supply List:

• Off-white burlap fabric, 3/8 yard (Use scraps if you have them instead)
• a black permanent Sharpie marker with a wide tip
• dental floss
• embroidery needle
• heavy twine or a red yarn alternative
• a plastic bag or tin foil
• cotton batting
• paper grocery bag with red printing (optional)

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. Cut the burlap to whatever size you would prefer for this easy sewing craft. Mine are approximately 12" x 6".
2. Use a sheet of plastic or tin foil to protect whatever drawing surface you wish to work on top of. This is because the weave of burlap is very loose and the permanent ink marker may transfer to the surface beneath the burlap while you are lettering your design.
3. I drew my letters with a soft number 2 pencil before tracing over these with a black, permanent ink marker.
4. It's important to use a wide tip marker so that this tip will stand up to the rough surface of the burlap while you press into it.
5. It is also important to work on top of a off-white colored burlap in order for your ink based lettering to show up well.
6. I also added a few, small coffee bean graphics to my sample, burlap bag shown above. I also stapled a strip of paper trim to the rice bag version, just to add a bit of color to it.
7. Sew around the circumference of of each bag several times with a machine straight stitch, leaving a big enough opening to turn the bag right sides out.
8. Stuff your bags with cotton batting and then use a whip stitch with dental floss to seal them up. This floss is very durable and will keep the loose burlap threads tightly bound together.
9. Now add a bit of red thread trim using an embroidery needle if you'd prefer.

       Burr mills were commonly used in early American kitchens. A burr mill, or burr grinder, is a mill used to grind hard, small food products between two revolving abrasive surfaces separated by a distance usually set by the user. When the two surfaces are set far apart, the resulting ground material is coarser, and when the two surfaces are set closer together, the resulting ground material is finer and smaller. Often, the device includes a revolving screw that pushes the food through. It may be powered electrically or manually.

       Burr mills do not heat the ground product by friction as much as do blade grinders ("choppers"), and produce particles of a uniform size determined by the separation between the grinding surfaces.

       Food burr mills are usually manufactured for a single purpose: coffee beans, dried peppercorns, coarse salt, spices, or poppy seeds, for example. Coffee mills are usually powered by electric motors; domestic pepper, salt, and spice mills, used to sprinkle a little seasoning on food, are usually operated manually, sometimes by a battery-powered motor.

Left, The first coffee-grinder patent in the United States was issued to Thomas Bruff, Sr. in 1798.
 Right, English and French coffee grinders in the nineteenth century.

The photograph above shows coffee grinders or burr mills kept in a Museum in Wisconsin.
The photo itself was taken in 1873. On the far right you can see a burr mill similar to the one
we have on display in the Grimm nursery.

• If you like, you could add stenciled images to your burlap bags. This process from a crafter at YouTube achieves a similar effect to those older designs  using a silk screen, without the equipment needed to develop  that printing process.