Since we are fast approaching toy making season, I thought I would spend some time on ideas for personalized toys. One type of toy that can be easily personalized is a dollhouse.
My Niece has a dollhouse that was originally built by her great-Grandfather. He built it for his little girl who would eventually become my Mother. My Mother passed the dollhouse on to her little girl, my sister, who eventually passed it on to her little girl, my niece. The family history related to the dollhouse is visible when one looks inside. Hanging on the walls are small reproductions of photographs that include a picture of the original builder of the dollhouse, my Grandfather, there is also a picture of me as a teenager because I helped with the renovation of the dollhouse before it was given to my sister. There is a picture of my Mother taken when she was a child, and for whom the dollhouse was originally intended.
Picture of my mother for whom the dollhouse was originally built. A smaller version of this picture is in the dollhouse.
There are also pictures that may not mean a lot to the casual visitor, but that mean something special to my sister and my niece. For example, there is a real house on Long Island Sound that, since the late 1950s, my family has returned to again and again. For us, this house was the embodiment of summer. Hanging in the living room is a once magnificent print entitled La Siren. Three generations of my family have grown up with it and it figures prominently in family legend. And, as you might have guessed, a small reproduction of La Siren hangs in the living room of my niece’s dollhouse.
It is easy to make personalized art for a dollhouse using a personal computer. A scan of a family photograph or a digital photograph of a real painting or print can be reproduced at the appropriate scale for a dollhouse using a computer printer. Use the glossy photo paper made for computer printers and make sure the settings for the printer are set at either “photo” or “best”. Because the size of the print will be small you will not use vast amounts of printer ink, but be sure to return your printer settings to where they were when you are done.
Making a frame for the picture can be as simple a buying a very small picture frame and then making your print match in size, or, what I do is to make a long strip of miniature molding using a strip of balsa wood and sandpaper. Next, I cut the molding to the desired lengths to make a frame with an X-acto knife. Then, I either glue the frame right to the picture, or cover your print with a piece of heavy gauge clear plastic, or even thin plexi-glass or acrylic.
I have friends (mostly grown women) who spend a lot of time trying to find doll furniture that matches the real furniture that they own. I even have one friend who had her husband build an elaborate miniature version of her dollhouse to put in the dollhouse. I think making your own personalized artwork is much easier.
