I’m just putting the finishing touches on the children’s bedroom in my dollhouse. I wanted to have a tiny teepee in it as they look adorable but they are very expensive and I’d already spend nearly £70 on furniture for the bathroom and bedroom!
I decided to make one myself and found a tutorial on YouTube by MyFroggyStuff to make a 1:6 scale teepee for Barbie dolls. I’ve adapted this tutorial so it works for a 1:12 scale, but if you want to make a bigger one, do check out the video.
What you’ll need
Materials
- Cardboard
- Craft paper
- Kebab sticks
- String
- Fabric
Tools
- Ruler with a hole in one end
- Pencil
- Craft knife
- Cutting mat or cardboard to protect your surface
Step 1 – Make the teepee base
Cut a piece of cardboard to 8cm by 8cm and push a hole through each corner of the card. I used a kitchen knife to make the hole and then a kebab stick to widen the hole to the right size.
Next, glue the piece of cardboard onto the back of a piece of scrapbook paper or plain paper with all purpose glue or hot glue. You can use plain paper or patterned paper depending on the look you want. I went for wood effect paper to complement the flowers on the fabric I used.
Cut around the piece of glued-down card, making sure you leave around 1cm of craft paper around the edge so there’s enough to fold over the bottom of the card. Bend the craft paper over the edge of the card and cut a square out of each corner of the card, doing this means you won’t have to make another hole in the craft paper on the underside of the card.
Step 2 – Make the teepee poles
I used wooden kebab sticks to make the poles but you could also use very thin doweling. I cut four poles to 12cm each using a combination of a craft knife and scissors. It would be easier (and probably safer!) to use a junior hacksaw though! You might need to sand down the ends of the kebab sticks to ensure they’re nice and smooth.
Step 3 – Make the teepee frame
Now you have the teepee poles, slot them into the base, you may find you need to make the holes a bit bigger by pushing the pointy end of a kebab stick all the way through them. Once the poles are in place they should naturally fall into the centre, with the tops of the poles touching.
Secure the tops of the poles together with string – I used about half a metre of string and tied one end in a tight knot to one pole and then wrapped the string in and around the other poles until they were secure and then knotted the two ends of string together. The string I used was silver and quite slippy so I added a blob of glue to the knot to make sure it stayed in place.
The picture below shows the base before I added the craft paper to it.
Step 4 – Make the teepee cover
Now the poles are in pace and secure, it’s time to make the teepee cover. I used an old pillowcase but you can use any material you like, provided it’s at least 12cm by 12cm and not too thick – thick fabric may be more difficult to wrap around the poles and glue down.
I laid the fabric out on my cutting mat and placed a metal ruler with a hole in the end at the bottom of the fabric. I then moved the other end of the ruler across the fabric, marking in pencil every centimetre or so to make a semi-circle.
I then cut around the pencil marks to create a semicircle of fabric. I folded the fabric in half and cut a small semicircle out of the top of the fabric – this is where the poles will come out at the top.
Step 4 – Attaching the teepee cover to the poles
This is when your teepee will start to take shape! Wrap one end of the fabric around one of the poles and secure with glue – I used UHU all purpose glue but you could use fabric glue or hot glue. Gently pull the fabric so it’s tight around the other poles and then trim off any excess fabric at the front of the teepee. I had about 2cm of spare fabric so I cut up the fabric towards the top of the teepee to remove it.
Secure the fabric to the other front pole with glue. Finally, tuck the fabric under the base (again, you may need to trim it slightly) and glue down. I finished mine off with some flower bunting but you could use tiny fairy lights, flag bunting or leave it as it is!
This should leave you with a super cute teepee, perfect for a children’s bedroom in a dollhouse!
You can see the video of how I made this teepee below: