An eco-friendly dollhouse makes an awesome holiday gift for your little one. When I was little I got a dollhouse one Christmas; the kind you build with an adult. I LOVED it. My grandma and me spent hours on it which means I got a cool toy and plenty of fun memories with my grandma. Plus I learn a lot about building miniatures – what worked what didn’t, choosing colors of paint and more. It’s harder to build your own from scratch but still doable. The benefits of using a kit or going in full force with a DIY dollhouse is cost – it’s usually a lot cheaper. Plus as noted above it’s a gift of time and experience not just a toy.
With that in mind, you may want to consider an eco-friendly DIY dollhouse we’re going to be looking at some killer green dollhouses soon that you can buy pre-built but before we do that I wanted to do a post about some less expensive eco-friendly DIY dollhouse options. There aren’t too many sustainable kits on the market. When looking for a greener dollhouse kit or DIY supplies, you want to avoid basic MDF which is made with formaldehyde. Look at your local home improvement store for a more sustainable wood choice. Birch is lightweight and safer than plywood. It’ll cost a little more, but it’s worth it for safety. Check out McKillican Panel Source for some FSC Certified Plywood.
One thing to keep in mind is that a kit or DIY option is usually time intensive so start now if you want the finished product ready for the holidays. If you’re going to build it with your child then no worries. Look for some how-to resources at the bottom of this post.
Wood Victorian Dollhouse has two kits made of birch plywood (shown above) the Victorian Doll House Birch plywood Laser Cut Kit and Victorian Gingerbread Dollhouse Baltic Birch Plywood Kit. Both are very reasonably priced and lovely.
A Very Different Dollhouse – full wood scale dollhouse how-to from Mother Earth News including blueprints, diagrams, and more.
The birch Brookwood Dollhouse shown above is contemporary and awesome. Plenty of ways to personalize as well.
Tiny little fairy homes you can sew with scrap fabric and felt. Not exactly dollhouses, but along those lines and how adorable right!?
Super inexpensive dollhouse plans.
UNIQUE DIY ECO-FRIENDLY DOLLHOUSES:
A totally fun pink paper dollhouse – plans are very inexpensive and download ready. Some freebies too last I checked.
Digital Dollhouse (shown above) – a low footprint, fun, interactive online subscription dollhouse option that’s seriously like a real dollhouse but without the materials or shipping involved. My kid testers and me loved it and prices are low – $5-10 per month.
DIY Dollhouse Bookcase – You could use any sort of bookshelf to pull this off; even one you find at a thrift store or garage sale.
CRAFTY DIY DOLLHOUSES:
The following dollhouses are less Christmas morning type gifts but are still really fun. These are the least expensive of the bunch, in fact mostly free if you use recycled goodies from around the house and they make for lots of great fun for you and your little one.
Dollhouse made with recycled shoe boxes that’s surprisingly professional looking.
RESOURCES FOR HOW-TO BUILD A DOLLHOUSE:
Visit Green Dollhouse for ideas or get the book - Green Dollhouse – Creating a Doll’s Eye View of a Healthier World
An Overview of Building a Dollhouse Kit
The most amazing mini inspiration you’ll find.
Dollhouse inspiration for mod kids.
Coming up some DIY additions for your dollhouses plus some premade eco-friendly dollhouses and supplies.
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Thank you for the post – these are my dollhouses which I sell on Etsy! We have a great website at http://www.woodvictoriandollhouse.com – we mainly provide custom parts for scratch builders, but we love building these kits! We just built one and donated to a playhouse for use in The Secret Garden!
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