How to make a vintage Coca-Cola machine...

Left the before photo of a simple box to be transformed into something special. Right, the finished,
 old-fashioned soda pop cooler. The drinks are kept cool at any public location where folks may
need a refreshment. 

         Our doll's vintage Coca-Cola machine is an old-fashioned bottle dispenser/refrigerator. When you insert a pretend coin - the side door unlocks and a ''doll'' may pull a drink from the rack. Of course, this is all make-believe, but our dolls don't mind that at all.

       Supplies you will need to make this craft are: a tall narrow box (ours measures 3 1/2'' x 3'' x 10''), masking tape, white school glue, red, black and white paper, silver metallic tape, and finally a few vintage Coca-Cola stickers. The stickers are available all over the web; I had no difficulty in finding these at ebay. 

       Coca-Cola made a multitude of vending machines in many different sizes. So your box may be of an entirely different size/proportion than the one I made for our 18'' doll Diner.

       If you wish to create personal crafts without worrying yourself over copyright theft, purchase the craft materials that are generated by company contracts with merchants. In this way, you will be complying to the law and your crafts will take on the professional appearances of those items you wish to reproduce for your dollhouse or doll playsets. 

       As you can see from my photos, I simply glued layers of cardboard together on my box in order to mimic the general features of an old-fashioned vending machine. Then I covered these areas in masking tape, colored paper, and stickers before Mod Podge was applied for the final coat.

       Older designs for Coke machines tended to have rounded corners and red and white graphics. The mechanical features like a coin slot, a glass door, or the kick-plate at the bottom of the machine where often made from polished stainless steal. All of these features I covered with metallic tape to emphasize their shiny silver properties. 

• How to make bags of sugar for the doll's pantry while decoupaging with original, company manufactured papers.
• Here I've created a Hotel Logo that may be freely used by students only for their doll builds.

Make Deep Fried Doll Food

        Every doll Diner serves the traditional fried foods of the 1950s. These include paper trays of onion rings and french fries. Below you can see that I cut our doll's paper trays from recycled egg cartons.

Left, are the paper food containers cut from egg cartons. Right are the finished deep
fried, single servings of popular, Diner fast foods served in the 1950s.

 

       After cutting out the egg carton parts, I then painted the interiors with white acrylic paints and decoupaged the exteriors with a printed scrapbook paper. The onion rings and French fries are shaped from Sculpey, painted with acrylics and glued inside the paper containers. Then I sealed the fauve fried foods with Mod Podge and sprinkled these with transparent glitter to make them look salty.

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 ice cream parlor deserts...

Numbered ice-cream parlor desserts that correspond to the listing below.

       I ordered these 18" doll sized ice cream dishes online at Ebay. Then I filled them with faux syrup (puffy paint) before shaping and adding the ice cream (air dry clay) and cookies (Sculpey).  The pirouettes (rolled cookies) and stroopwafel (waffle shaped cookies) are made using the oven-bake clay because it shows greater detail when manipulated than the air-dry clay. However, the air-dry clay is perfect for shaping the softer ice cream scoops.

Descriptions of Ice Cream Parlor Deserts Above:

1.  Pineapple ice cream with fresh fruit and stroopwafel
2.  Dark fudge mocha ice cream with chocolate syrup pirouette cookies
3. Raspberry swirl ice cream with chocolate chips and chocolate syrup and pirouettes
4. Rocky road ice cream with chocolate chunks and pirouettes
5. Tangerine ice cream with brownies and chocolate stroopwafel 
6. True blue blueberry topped with strawberry syrup and fresh fruit and stroopwafel 
7. Strawberry ice cream and whipped cream topped with a cherry stroopwafel 
8. Mint Chocolate Chip ice cream with chocolate syrup, chocolate decoration and pirouettes
9. Peanut Butter ice cream with chocolate chunk brownies and caramel syrup with a chocolate pirouette cookie

I made dishes of ice cream using air dry clay and Sculpey too. The doll sized dishes were cut
from paper egg cartons.

More Cool Sweet Treats:

• See also how to make malted milkshakes for dolls here...
• Assemble Italian Spumone Sodas

DIY 8 Malted Milkshakes for Dolls

Students will have fun combining multiple colors of air dry clay with puff paints to create their
own interpretations of these delicious, doll sized, malted milkshakes!

       This adorable craft is fun but a little pricey. The milkshake glasses are a must; and may be ordered online from many craft suppliers. Ours were purchased from ebay, but you can also find them easily at Amazon too. These are about 2 1/2 inches tall. You will also need colorful air dry clay, puff paints, foam mini-balls, cocktail straws, Mod Podge, Sculpey for the finer-detailed toppings and hot glue to apply these.

Left, the plastic milkshake glasses we ordered online. Right, here I have added puff paints inside
of four examples to look like syrup. I left the remaining four without.

       I made a large menu to display our milkshakes above the counter of the Diner. You may wish to print it out and post it inside your dolls diner or ice cream shop too.

8 Different milkshakes look so good; I want one right now!

 Below are the descriptions with corresponding numbers to the chart above.

1. Banana cream milkshake topped with toffee and caramel chunks (butterscotch syrup drizzled on top)
2. Nutella malted milkshake topped with crunchy coffee crumbles and chocolate sprinkles (chocolate syrup drizzled inside)
3. Malted Strawberry Delight topped with fresh berries and cream (strawberry syrup drizzled inside)
4. Cool Creamsicle Shake topped with mandarine orange slices, mint leaves and a maraschino cherry
5. Blueberry Cheesecake Surprise topped with fresh picked blueberries and cream cheese fluff
6. Minty Leapin' Leprechaun Cream topped with chocolate chips and cherries
7. Birthday Bubblegum Shake topped with mixed fruity candies
8. Classic vanilla milkshake topped with butterscotch cream and chocolate fudge chunks (caramel syrup drizzled inside)
   

Watch how other crafters made similar shakes for doll diners:

• How to make American Girl Halloween Milkshakes by Always Dolls
• Milkshakes for dolls from soap and paint by cute kids making mess! ("Guys don't drink this!")

More Links to Sodas:

• "You're Sodalicious Valentine!"
• The History of The Soda Fountain from Naperville Library
• This Is What I Miss Most From The 1950s
• MacAlpines Soda Fountain
• How to make ice-cream parlor deserts...

Sculpt French toast for dolly's breakfast!

Our finished versions of sculpted French toast and puff
cereal. The toast and strawberries are made using Sculpey
oven bake clay. The strawberry syrup is red acrylic
paint. I also used red puff paint to show a heavier, creamer
syrup on top of the toast dripping down the sides. The
white powdered sugar was painted on with a thin tipped brush.

        French toast is a dish made of sliced bread soaked in beaten eggs and typically milk, then pan fried. Alternative names and variants include "eggy bread", "Bombay toast", "gypsy toast", and "poor knights" (of Windsor).

Above, I included strawberries, syrup and powdered sugar here to top
our doll's French toast breakfast.

       When French toast is served as a sweet dish, milk, sugar, vanilla or cinnamon are also commonly added before pan-frying, and then it may be topped with sugar (often powdered sugar), butter, fruit, or syrup. When it is a savory dish, it is generally fried with a pinch of salt or pepper, and it can then be served with a sauce. Our doll's version includes strawberry sauce.
       In New Orleans Louisiana Creole cuisine, French toast is known as pain perdu and is most commonly served as a breakfast dish. The recipe calls for New Orleans-style French bread; the batter is an egg-based custard. Common toppings include cane syrup, strongly flavored honey, or fruit syrups; a dusting of powdered sugar is also traditional.

Left, paper egg carton is recycled to make the bowl shown above. Center and Right,
detailed photos of the puff cereal. Puffs are Styrofoam balls painted
yellow to resemble cereal for a doll's breakfast.

Dollfun version of clay french toast, 

visit her site to see much more!

Poster and Enamel Signs for A Doll Diner

        Children may download and print this clip art for their doll sized diners. The bottled Coca-Cola poster is an original ad from 1922 and both the Ice Cream 'n Cake Roll and the Hires Root Beer signs were originally printed onto enamel. All three very nostalgic and also typical of what you might  have found decorating the walls of both a Diner or a Soda Fountain during the 1950s. Back the prints with cardboard and seal them with Mod Podge.

Text reads, "you'll Enjoy Ice Cream 'n Cake Roll Just slice and serve...Try some Today!
 Jack and Jill Ice Cream Cake Roll."

Text reads, "It's High Time for Hires Root Beer"

Text reads, "Sell Bottled Coca-Cola
 Delicious and Refreshing, Every day and
every hour we are making sales for you!"

Tour Diners Online:

• 50's Grill - 1950's Themed Restaurant!
• Coke Museum inside 50's diner in Michigan
• Order UP! Tour of Vermont Diners 

A Jukebox for Your Doll's Diner

Table sized jukebox from Our Generation Diner for 18" dolls.
It plays pre-recorded tunes.

       A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which, when one of each group entered after each other, are used to select a specific record. Some may use Compact Discs instead.

• Retro Diner Bite to Eat OG Stop Motion - from Our Generation
• American Girl Diner vs. Our Generation Diner by Totally Rudy - from 2015
• American Girl Doll Maryellen's Jukebox Review by Bigmoon

This transistor radio is built to look like a jukebox. It lights up when it's turned on and plays
whatever is being radio broadcasted in your area. I purchased this instead of American
Girl's version because I thought my little ones could learn more through the use of it. 

       Styling progressed from the plain wooden boxes in the early thirties to beautiful light shows with marbleized plastic and color animation in the Wurlitzer 850 Peacock of 1941. But after the United States entered the war, metal and plastic were needed for the war effort. Jukeboxes were considered "nonessential", and none were produced until 1946. The 1942 Wurlitzer 950 featured wooden coin chutes to save on metal. At the end of the war, in 1946, jukebox production resumed and several "new" companies joined the fray. Jukeboxes started to offer visual attractions: bubbles, waves, and circles of changing color which came on when a sound was played. 

See the music selections up-close. These are a mix of tunes
from the 70's and 80s.

       Song-popularity counters told the owner of the machine the number of times each record was played (A and B side were generally not distinguished), with the result that popular records remained, while lesser-played songs could be replaced.

• 1950's Jukebox Mix
• 1960s Jukebox Mix
• 1970's Jukebox Mix

       Jukeboxes were most popular from the 1940s through the mid-1960s, particularly during the 1950s. By the middle of the 1940s, three-quarters of the records produced in America went into jukeboxes. Billboard published a record chart measuring jukebox play during the 1950s, which briefly became a component of the Hot 100; by 1959, the jukebox's popularity had waned to the point where Billboard ceased publishing the chart and stopped collecting jukebox play data.

       The invention of the portable radio in the 1950s and the portable cassette tape deck in the 1960s were key factors in the decline of the jukebox. They enabled people to have their own selection of music with them, wherever they were. Jukeboxes became a dying industry during the 1970s, before being revived somewhat by compact disc jukeboxes during the 1980s and 1990s, followed by digital jukeboxes using the MP3 format. The greater selection and track length flexibility of digital jukeboxes offered more for the listener, with lower space requirements and operating costs making jukeboxes more attractive to establishment owners. While jukeboxes maintain popularity in bars, they have fallen out of favor with what were once their more lucrative locations—restaurants, diners, military barracks, video arcades, and laundromats.

Fonz from "Happy Days" sitcom works the jukebox, his way.

More Links to Jukebox History:

• 1950s Wurlitzer Factory Tour
• Jukeboxes: the complete history
• Comparing a Wurlitzer to a Rockola Jukebox
• The 1940s Wurlitzur jukebox, 5 cents a tune.

Soda Fountain/Ice Cream Parlor Clip Art Pages

        Our soda fountain clip art/ Ice Cream Parlor pages are for little ones to decorate the shelves and counters of their doll's soda fountain, diner or ice cream parlor with. Neopolitan ice cream, Soda fountain colas, chocolate sundaes, egg creams, Sweet Peach Ice Teas, Phosphates, and many more delectable looking ice cream scoops are included in three pages of colorful clip art below!

• Learn how to make soda fountain inspired Valentines at Thrifty Scissors...

• Learn how to sculpt Ice cream puzzle cones for play at Art Education Daily...

 

Sew a Stack of Felt Pancakes

Barbie would enjoy eating these breakfast cakes!

      To make a stack of felt pancakes you will need to collect: tan felt, pale yellow felt, scrapbook paper, cardboard, white school glue and a matching needle and thread.

       First cut out circles from the tan felt using a quarter as a pattern. Stack several together and sew the sides together to give each cake a bit of dimension. I made three pancakes from nine circles.

       I cut tiny squares of yellow felt for the top of this stack to look like a square of butter. 

      Thread the final stack of pancakes and butter with a needle and tie this off on the bottom side of the felt breakfast. 

       Cut a plate from the cardboard and cover it with decorative paper. Glue the final felt flapjacks to the plate!

Decoupage a Spool Canister Set

The finished canisters on top of our doll's diner shelf. You can cover
 your faux canisters in any scrapbooking paper you like.

       You will need the following supplies for this simple doll craft: empty spools, buttons or beads if you do not have the dowel pegs that I used for my own version, scrap paper, white glue and a print of the words for doll canisters included below.

       Decoupage the tops, bottoms and sides of the empty spools with decorative papers. I chose black and white polka-dots for our versions. Then I pushed the dowel pegs through the holes of my spools on the top end of my doll's canisters only. The pegs are the handles for the canisters, except this version of a canister craft does not have canisters that actually open. 

       I then painted the faux handles red to match the occasional red dot in the printed paper. Then I printed out the canister labels located below and chose the ingredients I thought my doll's would use the most inside their diner's kitchen: Flour, Sugar, Tea and Coffee. I drew an oval shape around these words and carefully cut them out. Then I pasted these on the outside of each canister to identify the contents for our pretend kitchen.

Left, you will need empty spools made from any material and wooden
 dowels with plugs. Beads would also work as an alternative. Right, cover the
 tops and edges of each spool with paper. Then push the dowel peg
into the holes of spools at one end only.

Four varieties of text for your doll's canister sets.
Canisters may be marked: Flour, Sugar, Coffee,
Tea, Rice, Salt Oats, Barley and or Cookies.