DIY Cardboard Miniature Houses

Winter brings the need for a new look for my large fireplace mantel. For me, this can be a struggle after the holidays. 

After all of the bright lights and colors of the holidays, I usually crave a more subdued decorating vibe in my home for a few months. 

This means my winter mantel is usually dominated by an all-white or neutral color palette.

A vision for a white and black mantel has been on my mind for a couple of years, inspired by a favorite ribbon purchased from Walmart several years ago.  In fact, I liked it so much that I purchased several rolls of it.  The black-and-white ink-drawn little houses on the ribbon were the perfect inspiration for a winter mantel with miniature black-and-white decorative houses. 

However, I started my search for miniature houses in the after-Christmas sales too late to easily pull off this vision. But some leftover cardboard boxes that were meant for the recycling bin actually led to the inspiration to make my own DIY cardboard miniature houses. 

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My vision for a Winter themed mantel.

This year I was determined that I was going to finally pull off my vision for a winter mantel inspired by this adorable black and white ribbon with ink-drawn houses that I had purchased from Walmart last year.   The vision also included black and white miniature houses sitting all along the length of our large fireplace mantel.

This ribbon is such a favorite of mine, that I also used it on a Winter White Grapevine Wreath this year. 

 

 

 

Pulling off my vision for the mantel took some creative work.

I had already been shopping at places like Target and Walmart, and even Dollar Tree trying to find miniature village houses to use for the décor of a winter-themed mantel idea.  I found several left over from after-Christmas sales, however, the main problem was that they were much too small for the grand size of my fireplace and mantel.

Because my mantel is so big and long, the miniature houses I could find in the stores were tiny little houses that looked even more dwarf-like on the mantel.  Or you couldn’t see them at all.  It looked ridiculous they were so small. 

I needed bigger houses to be in proportion to our large mantel.  

Shopping for larger-sized decorative houses online during the after-Christmas sales didn’t give me many options to choose from. What was worse, I would be dishing out so much more money than I was willing to spend on any larger-sized miniature houses that would look nice even if I could find them.

My next thought was that purchasing a few dollhouse kits could be the solution.  

I just adore dollhouses with living rooms full of true-to-life versions of miniature furniture. 

The cost of the dollhouse kits and the time involved to build them was not a viable option at this time. 

 

Of course, I also considered the popular Christmas village houses.

Most miniature houses in the store for Christmas villages ended up being only about 5 or 6 inches in height.  The cost of the larger ones ranges anywhere from $100 or more especially if they are the Department 56™ brand.  All of them are such beautiful houses, just not in my budget.

Nor the right size for my mantel.

And if you realize this, I was trying to pull together the new look for my mantel the week after New Year’s.  Any larger houses leftover from the after-Christmas sales were long gone.

In frustration, I was on the verge of mentally tossing out the whole vision I had for my winter mantel.

 

 

 

I needed a different solution and I found it by returning to my Designer background.

Right after the holidays, I had this huge stack of cardboard boxes that needed to be taken to the recycling center.

I knew I had to either improvise or find a new Winter mantel theme.  I decided to improvise.

While loading up the leftover cardboard boxes for the recycling center, inspiration struck and I remembered that I already knew how to make miniature houses from my college days.  Several of these boxes would work perfectly in size and scale for my winter mantel décor idea.

And even better was that this project wouldn’t cost me any money. 

 

 

It was while I was cleaning up the recycling after the holidays, that I was inspired to make my own cardboard miniature houses for my mantel.

Honestly, this is not my first attempt at making miniature or scale model houses. 

In Interior Design school, we were assigned several “building” projects using foam core and cardstock to make scale replicas of our house and furniture projects. 

I didn’t appreciate the assignment as much as I should have.  At the time, I was a working mom with two young kids and a husband deployed to Iraq so it was just another tedious assignment I had to try to rush through with a schedule already jammed packed with so many other responsibilities.

Looking back, I honestly don’t know how I kept my sanity during those years.  But I digress.

I do remember that making tiny models with tiny furniture pieces was actually fun and creative.  I just didn’t have the time to appreciate it.

 

 

This time I did get to enjoy the creative process and had some fun with it.

Before I even started my own version of miniature houses made out of leftover cardboard, I spent time on Pinterest and several websites that specialized in making DIY dollhouse miniatures or little craft houses. Taking time to learn from others who have written a post about dollhouse tutorials was a very good idea. 

It was like a good refresher course before I wasted too much time relearning some of the basics of building scale models. 

For this project, I used:

• Cardboard boxes
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• 0.75 Inch White Masking tape
• X-Acto cutting knife
• Ruler
• Scissors
• Pencil
• Black and White Acrylic paints
• Paper Bags

 

 

For the vision of my winter mantel, I knew I wanted at least two houses on the mantel.

So I dug through the stash of cardboard boxes to find two that were already close to the size I wanted.  I was lucky in that I had an Amazon shipping box which was already a great size for the simple smaller house, and a large Kellogg’s Pop Tart box that was also the best size for a taller house.

No, I don’t eat that many pop tarts in my house!  I had family staying with me during the holidays and the multipack box was on sale.  Either way, I ended up with a great size box.

I also had so many other little boxes at just the right time to use, such as this square cardboard tube that was part of the packing for my new laptop. It made the perfect-sized chimney for each house.

When making miniature houses, you will find that your mind starts to see every piece as a building block.  Or at least my does. 

I started with the smaller box house.  Based on the measurements of the box, I easily figured out what size doors and windows would look good.  The box was 9 x 6 x 6 inches.  It was easy to draw out a 3 x 1.5-inch door and several 2 x 1.5-inch windows.

 

 

 

Using a pencil and ruler, I drew out the sizes and shapes of each window and door around the box. 

Then I cut each shape using the X-Acto knife. 

For safety, I cut these out on top of another piece of cardboard to protect the surface of the table, and always mindful of where my hands were in relation to the blade.  I learned that lesson the hard way when cutting display boards for design school to keep your fingers out of the way of the blade.  Safety first!

 

 

For the roof pitch, I measured to the middle of two of the flaps on the box, drew out angles from top to bottom, and cut off the excess. The other two flaps were completely removed.

 

 

 

Then I needed to cut two long pieces for the roof.   This was easy to measure based on the length of the box with an inch added to the length and wide for the overhang of the roof.

 

 

These two pieces were then attached to the top of the first box with hot glue.

 

 

Pulling out the square-shaped cardboard tube from the laptop box I was lucky to have in the stash, I measured 3 inches down from the top on two corners, and 1.5 inches down on the other two corners. 

 

 

Then I drew a cutting line with the pencil to connect across the sides and down to the next two marks.  This created the angle of the roof line to cut for the fireplace.

I know not everyone will have something like this in their cardboard stash, but you can easily just cut and glue four pieces of cardboard together to create the box.  I was just lucky this time around.

The cardboard fireplace was then hot glued in place.

 

 

One problem with using cardboard to build miniature houses is that the cut ends of the cardboard are not smooth.  To cover this up, I then cut and attached 0.75-inch masking tape to all of the cut edges of the house, around the roof, and the doors and windows.  The tape also helps the hot glue hold the house together.

 

 

 

I repeated all these steps to create the taller house out of the pop tart box as well, adding in lots more windows of course.

The pop tart box was going to make building a taller house so much easier.  Again, I got lucky with the size and shape of the cardboard boxes in my stash.  I pulled the box apart and laid it completely flat to consider how to design the house. 

 

 

One big problem I had with this box was how to hide the bright blue on the outside of the box, which would become the inside of the miniature house when it was fully assembled.

I figured out the best thing to use was some paper grocery bags I had in the pantry.

 

 

I cut open a large brown paper grocery bag, used Mod-Podge and tape to glue the bag over the blue side of the box, and allowed it to dry overnight, adding in more Mod-Podge as needed. 

Once I glued the sides of the house back together, the blue would not show on the inside of the house anymore.

 

 

The next day, I once again used the same steps and measured out windows and a door to cut out, created the roof and the chimney just like the smaller house, and then covered the edges in tape.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I now had two miniature cardboard houses built for my mantel.

 

 

But I still wasn’t ready to paint them yet.

I wanted the houses to have a little bit more rustic charm and character so I decided to give each roof a layer – or multiple layers  – of shingles.

This part took much longer than the first steps and so much more hot glue but definitely worth it.

 

 

I decided to cut out the shingles into one-inch squares.  So I took pieces of another cardboard box, drew out a grid of one-inch squares, and cut them out using sharp scissors and the X-Acto knife. Then repeated that process several more times to have enough small cardboard shingles for each house.

Attaching the shingles to the roof of each miniature house was much like putting together a puzzle. 

On each house, I started at the bottom edge of the roof line. 

Using lots of hot glue, I attached the first row of cardboard shingles across the width of the roof, then attached the next layer on top of that row but offset over the edges of the first row.  Just like a roof goes on for a real house.  As needed I would cut the one-inch cardboard shingles in half to fit at the ends.

 

 

At the peak of each roof line, I measured and cut a long 2-inch piece of cardboard, scored it in the middle without cutting all the way through, and folded it over in a V-shape.  It basically worked just to cap off the cardboard shingles of the roof.

Now the miniature houses were ready for paint!

 

 

Both the black and white paint took several layers to cover the cardboard of course.  For the edges of the rough cardboard shingles, I used a small craft brush and forced the paint into all the little nooks and crannies. 

This part took a few days to complete because I kept going back to it to add a bit more paint as each layer dried.

 

 

And this is how my entire black and white winter mantel came together. Not bad for my first attempt at making miniature houses out of cardboard in a really long time.

A little time and creativity were all that was needed to reuse some cardboard boxes to create these free cardboard miniature houses.

 

 

I have had an idea for the last couple of years, especially since my first granddaughter was born, that I wanted to build dollhouses for them.  Each granddaughter would get their own dollhouse in the style of their choice.  Complete with miniature dollhouse furniture and dollhouse accessories. 

Impulsively, I have looked at doll house kits in crafts stores and online, wondering just how hard they would be to pull off.  And how much work space and time would be needed to actually put the kits together.

Since making these easy ones out of leftover cardboard, I am more confident now that I could tackle the challenge of making a dollhouse for them.  It would definitely be so much fun.  

Of course, I would want a miniature version of a mid-century home. 

And I also know that it would just be easier to make one dollhouse that would stay at my house for them to enjoy on visits.  Something to look forward to. 

 

 

 

In case you were wondering, yes, I finally recycled the rest of the boxes in the leftover stash!  I was tempted to make more miniature cardboard houses but had to move on to other projects as usual. 

Hugs,

 

 

Matthew 5:5  “Blessed are the humble, for they will inherit the earth.”