How green is your house? Your doll house that is.  If you've got kids, especially daughters, you've more than likely got some form of a doll house in your toy box. Before my girls got their gently used thrift store doll house, they used an old shoe box turned on its side as a home for their favorite dolls. But finding gently used doll house furniture required a bit more creativity. In my search for ideas, I spoke with Mary Lyon (aka The Crafty Mom) and she filled me in on these fabulous ideas for DIY recycled doll house furniture:

 

Refrigerator - I used a tea box, cut to form a freezer top and a regular bottom. The shelves were cut from one of those green plastic cherry tomato boxes, and mounted in place on sections of drinking straws. Door handles were paper clips glued into place. And I used little magnet strips on either side of each door so we can close them tight!

 

 

 

Sink - This was half of a tea box, a juice jug lid, a flex straw, two pins and two push pins. A hole was cut in the top to accommodate the lid -- as a sink. Part of the straw forms the towel rack, with pins attaching it, and securely glued from underneath, and the pushpins on top, by the flex straw faucet are red and blue to denote hot and cold! (This was a website tutorial.)

 

 

Sofa and coffee table – A red pipe cleaner man relaxes in this nice living room set. The sofa is a blue Styrofoam mushroom tray (from the produce section at the grocery store!), cut to the appropriate shape. Fun foam with cotton ball stuffing made the sofa cushions. The coffee table is an “International Coffees” plastic lid, mounted on white water bottle lids and glued in place.

 

 

Stove – This was half of a tea box, with cardboard for the stovetop and the back. Knobs are little push pins and thumb tacks, and the thumb tacks in the back are glued, in the back, to cover any sharp points completely. The burners are bottle tops. The oven rack is cut from one of those green plastic cherry tomato boxes! The handle of the oven door is a paper clip glued into place.

 

 

Toilet – A HUGE crowd pleaser! This is made from a soapbox, a plastic drinkable-yogurt bottle, a plastic plumber’s washer, and a little card stock, plus part of a flex straw for a toilet flusher! I’ve actually witnessed groups of grown women holding this up and screaming at it.

 

 

 

Vanity and stool – This was a couple of stacks of matchboxes, with brass paper fasteners as drawer pulls. They were glued in place with cardboard legs and tabletop. The mirror is a plastic “International Coffees” lid, with a foil-backed cardboard insert. Decorative hors d’oeuvres toothpicks provided embellishment on either side. On the table top is a lamp – made of a metal washer, a piece of plastic drinking straw, and toothpaste tube lid, and a flower arrangement, whose vase is another toothpaste tube lid. The stool is a section from an egg carton, with a cushion cut from a blue Styrofoam mushroom tray.