Crafts and Hobbies, Doll Furniture, For Sale in the Store, Links, Pincushions, Props and Dioramas, Tutorials: Crafts

Would you like to make a sewing room for your dolls? Here’s how I made mine… #Dolls #Diorama

 

Over the years, I’ve had lots of people ask me how I made my doll’s sewing room. There are plenty of options out there, but today’s blog post shows you how I turned a Gloria home office dollhouse set for 1:6 scale dolls (i.e. Barbie-sized) into the little sewing room you see in my videos.

Now the earliest version of this sewing room used a red-brown-blue color scheme (shown in the video above). Later on, I remodeled it into the purple and turquoise blue sewing room that you see in more recent videos:

In this photo, the Chelly Wood doll (actually a Spin Master Liv doll that has had its face re-painted and its wig dyed grey to look like the doll clothing designer, YouTuber, and writer Chelly Wood) stands in her sewing room with her arms spread out wide in a welcoming stance. On the doll's right (your left) we see her hutch filled with tiny folded fabrics. There's a window directly behind her. At her side is her sewing desk with tiny fabrics, a miniature sewing machine, and other sewing supplies on top. To her left (your right) behind the doll, there's a sea blue mannequin displaying an in-progress sun dress with a tape measure around the mannequin's neck. Hanging from a sea blue hanger on the wall is the white party dress with tiny polka dots that often appears in Chelly's videos on the mannequin. The floor is hard wood. The wall is purple. Chelly's desk chair has been upholstered in sea blue fabric. In the corner of the image is the logo for ChellyWood.com
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

Today’s blog post will give you links to all the goodies I bought, when I was originally making this set, and also the bits and bobs I bought to remodel it into the set you see today. So before I go on, I have to make my affiliate marketing obligatory statement…

As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. You can learn more about my affiliate marketing program on my Privacy Policy page.

This is a wide-view of Petite Barbie in a tiny doll's sewing room. She wears a pair of bright pink ankle pants or low-flying capri pants decorated in tiny flowers, and she has a plain white tee shirt on as well. She wears tiny white plastic sneakers, so she looks very casual in the little sewing room. Behind her, as part of her miniature furnishings and decorations, we can see (left to right) a wardrobe closet, a sewing table, a window in the wall behind her, an office chair, a blue dress form that displays a strappy little short-skirted dress, an ironing board, and a party dress hanging from the wall on a blue hanger. The logo for Chelly Wood dot com appears in the lower-right-hand corner of the rectangular-shaped photo.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

The first thing you’ll need to make this sewing room is the Gloria Home Office set of furniture and accessories, but be advised that Mattel also has a Barbie Fashion Designer Studio Playset which includes a little sewing machine, a craft table with a sort of fake corkboard wall, and a dress form mannequin.

Long after I made my sewing room diorama with the Gloria Home Office set, a relative of mine bought the Mattel set as a gift for me. I now use the Mattel Barbie dress form mannequin in my mostly Gloria furnished purple and turquoise blue sewing room diorama, but honestly, my own sewing table is much larger and more useful for my stop-motion videos than the Mattel version would be.

This photograph shows the Chelly Wood doll clothing designer doll measuring Skipper's arm with a tiny 1:6 scale tape measure. Skipper extends her arm while the Chelly Wood doll looks at the tape measure to determine how long Skipper's arm is from the underarm to the wrist. Skipper stands barefoot in a swimsuit beside Chelly Wood's tiny 1:6 scale sewing desk. On the desk, a Creatable World doll is seated, waiting her turn for measurements. The creatable World doll seems to be wearing a training bra and panties. Their legs are crossed so the CW doll leans back on the sewing table elegantly. Behind them is a dress form, ironing board, and a tiny window. There's also a miniature china hutch filled with fabric. This is clearly a teeny-tiny doll sewing room. All the dolls seem to be having fun as they prepare for a new wardrobe that fits both Skipper and the Creatable World doll. If you'd like to see the wardrobe of free printable sewing patterns that Chelly Wood has designed for either Skipper dolls or Creatable World dolls, please visit ChellyWood.com and click on the 10 inch doll size from the main Home page gallery.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

The black sewing machine that I used in the video at the top of this page is different from the one I use today for my stop-motion videos. The black machine is actually the wrong scale, as it’s on a 1:12 scale for typical Victorian dollhouses, but it’s well-made from metal and had a lovely look to it.

The text reads "sewing room for dolls (DIY)" and the image shows a glue gun poised over the top of an open diorama room box that contains a miniature dress form mannequin, a table, and on the table stands a tiny vintage sewing machine. Visit my website, Chelly Wood dot com to learn how to make your own doll's sewing room diorama like the one I use in my stop motion videos.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable sewing patterns for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

But the white sewing machine is actually a vintage toy sewing machine from Galoob. I love it because I can wrap actual thread around the spool at the top of the machine, so when my Chelly Doll (a Spin Master Liv doll) is sewing, it looks like she’s really using the thread. I love that!

In the image below, you’ll notice that the spool on the Galoob machine does have actual thread on it.

The image shows a 1970's Sunshine Family "mom" doll wearing an easy-to-sew felt shirt with elastic-waist khaki pants. She stands in a sewing room. The desk beside her has a Galoob sewing machine on it, along with a tiny tomato-shaped pin cushion, a bottle of glue, a coffee cup, and some fabric. If you'd like to make this or other doll clothes for your Sunshine Family doll, please go to ChellyWood.com (or just click on the link in the caption and it will take you to the page where these doll clothes' patterns are available on the Chelly Wood free doll clothes patterns website).

Galoob’s sewing machine had a winding feature so children could make it “run” by using the winding mechanism. My winder still works, but I never use it for stop motion. It’s more fun to focus on the movement of the fabric through the sewing machine, which is what I do when I make my stop-motion sewing videos.

The quilt rack that appears in my video at the top of today’s blog post is actually a jewelry holder that I bought for maybe 25 or 50 cents at a yard sale, if you can believe that! But you can buy miniature quilt racks for displaying doll-sized quilts both on Amazon and on eBay.

Here we see a sewing room 1:6 scale diorama made for Barbie and similar sized dolls. It includes an ironing board, a sewing table, an office chair, a wardrobe or storage closet, miniature sewing tools, and a dress form mannequin for trying the handmade doll clothes on. The wall behind these objects appears to be brick, with tiny windows set in.

When I painted my furniture and accessories, I used Rust-oleum “American Accents” spray paint, but if you’re going to buy some of this stuff, you have to make sure you get the kind that says, “bonds to plastic.”

In all honesty though, as far as the accessories go, I kind of wish I’d left them white and purple instead of spray painting them black. They would’ve looked better with the newer version of my sewing room. Oh well. I guess you live and learn…

This image shows a muscular action figure wearing handmade boxer shorts and a painted-on T-shirt. He sits at an office desk, holding his morning cup of coffee. His colorful polka-dot shorts are handmade using the free printable sewing pattern for boxers or undershorts (or summer shorts or swim trunks) provided by Chelly Wood, and this (and other doll/action figure clothes patterns) come with free tutorial videos showing how to sew the shorts. The overlay says, "ChellyWood.com" and says that free doll clothes patterns and tutorials are available at that URL.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for FREE printable sewing patterns and tutorial videos.

I made my pincushion quite some time ago, but I’ve since made a newer tomato-style pincushion. I have never made a tutorial for this because My Froggy Stuff has a perfectly good tutorial on the very same thing.

If you wanted to buy a miniature tomato pincushion, Dritz makes one that’s available on Amazon.

My tiny buttons were purchased on Etsy, and my store has links to doll-sized buttons in a variety of different styles and sizes. So any time you want to buy doll buttons, please consider visiting my online store.

Here are two images of a woman's hand. In one image, there are pastel-colored 6 millimeter buttons displayed in the palm of the woman's hand; in the other image, a smattering of brightly colored 6 millimeter diameter buttons are resting in the palm of the woman's hand.
Please visit ChellyWood.com for free printable PDF sewing patterns and tutorial videos for making doll clothes to fit dolls of many shapes and all different sizes.

I bought my original miniature scissors at JoAnn’s but as far as I know, they no longer carry these. However you can buy miniature sewing scissors on Etsy for next to nothing. Your cost of shipping will likely be more than the scissors cost!

Glue Dots are essential whenever I want to temporarily affix something (like the windows) to my diorama. I use Glue Dots to hold various items of furniture in place, so it doesn’t move, when I’m making my stop-motion videos. They also affix the little Galoob sewing machine to the Gloria office desk.

Sometimes you can see a little 1:6 scale folding chair in my dioramas. I bought that on eBay, and this link will help you find some like mine.

The image shows a GI Joe doll wearing a pair of handmade shorts or boxers. Behind him, on a spackled wall, is a classical painting, and under that is a work desk with computer, printer, and an office-style desk lamp. A folding chair is pushed up to the desk. G.I. Joe seems to look off into the distance, modeling his argyle shorts/ underwear with a nonchalant look on his scarred fact. The GIjoe action figure is African American, with sculpted abs and bare feet. The overlay offers the website where the free printable sewing patterns for making these shorts can be found: ChellyWood.com.

And, well, that’s all I have on building your own sewing room diorama!

Hopefully you’ve been inspired by today’s blog post, to do a little diorama-building of your own!

This image of a turquoise blue sewing needle pulling purple thread away from a line of cross-stitching is used as a divider between sections of a blog post.

If you enjoyed this blog post, and you’d like to see my videos, you might want to navigate over to my YouTube channel, ChellyWood1 to look through my playlists.

If you would like to make a donation to this free doll clothes pattern website, please click here. There’s also a “Donate” button in the main menu.

For anyone who would like to expand their dolls’ wardrobes, you should really check out my “How to Alter Doll Clothes Patterns” course and my “Design Your Own Doll Pants Patterns from Scratch” classes on the Creative Spark online learning platform. Here’s my bio page on their website, where you can learn more.

This image shows four rows of artist's renderings of doll clothing items. The top row shows four different styles of pants. The second row shows four different styles of shirts. The third row shows four different styles of skirts. The fourth row shows four different styles of dresses, with skirts in long, short, and mid-length styles. The text reads at the top, "Classes in Doll Clothing Design" followed by this paragraph: "Have you ever wished you could create patterns of your own? Click on the links to Chelly's online courses below, to learn more about her paid courses in doll clothing pattern design techniques."

For any class on Creative Spark, you don’t have to follow a schedule. Just sign up when you’re ready.

It’s a one-time fee for the course, and there’s no specific time limit to finish your course. You can just take your time and learn at the pace that suits you. So go check out my paid courses on Creative Spark, using this link.

As always, feel free to pin, like, or tweet about my free patterns and tutorials.

To read more about my free sewing patterns and tutorials, please visit the “Helpful Tips” page.

Disclaimer/Credit/Affiliate Marketing Link:

*Please note: when you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include Amazon, JoAnn Fabric, Etsy, and the eBay Partner Network. As an Amazon affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases. To learn more about how my website uses affiliate marketing, please visit the website’s Privacy Policy page.

Chelly Wood and the ChellyWood.com website are not affiliated with any of the doll or toy companies mentioned in this blog post, but Chelly enjoys designing her doll clothes to fit a variety of dolls. To learn more about the doll companies mentioned in today’s post, please visit the doll or toy company’s website.

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