Dollhouse Decorating – The Many Shades Of Pink

What does the word pink conjure for you? When you think decorating a dollhouse with pink, does a soft pastel room with girly cream-colored ruffles come to mind? Or maybe a shocking, vibrant, knock-your-socks pink on your room box accent wall, strewn with fuchsia flowers? Do get a subtle image of a modern dollhouse with pillows and art work providing discrete pops of orchid and royal blue. No matter. Pink offers a vast variety of choices in creating a beautiful miniature décor. 

It may sound surprising, but pink works with almost every color. There are no best shades; it's a matter of personal preference. However, most oft-used combinations, with pink as the primary color, include gray, white, cream, gold, silver, black, brown, green, soft blue, burgundy, cranberry and raspberry.

The thing to remember when using pink is to break it up with different colors to achieve balance. Start with the look you want to achieve. which will dictate the intensity of the pink. Fear not! Pink is a great color to play with, so have fun.

Soft Pink

Soft pinks are light and feminine and work beautifully with whites and creams. The picture of the bedroom with pink and white striped fabric on the stuffed chair, bedding covers and throw pillows, combined with the muted wall covering, provides a sense of peace and quiet. The tiny strong points of orchid an fuchsia above the center of the headboard are in perfect balance with the light blue background, which  provides depth to the scene. This would also be a good color scheme for a nursery  or bathroom. 

You can also create a warm, glowing palate with pale pink on the walls and ivory trim. Use yards and yards of tiny patterned fabric to cover a bed or sofa or other large pieces of furniture. For a grand finish, embellish the room with soft roses and patterned accessories. Use fabrics in several shades of pink and different textures: velvet, satin, shag, linen and cotton. Work into the scene big shinny ribbons. 

Hot Pink

This in-your-face-shade of pink doesn't have to make your eyes hurt. Tori Spelling designed the wallpaper in the nursery picture. It's strong, but the white ceiling and furniture, and uses of peach and a little fuchsia soften it. 

A More Modern Use Of Pink

Mark Cutler and Carl Berg designed the Italianate dollhouse (at te top) for a charity auction. Notice how they used various shades of pink against neutral wall colors in different rooms to give this traditional dollhouse an updated look.

There are so many shades of pink, and any of them can work for you if you keep your color pallet coordinated. And of course, if you are a “pink person” at heart. 

Dollhouse Decorating – Beige Is Beautiful, IF

You have more than one shade of beige in the room. That's one design concept when working with a neutral as your primary color. Go from light to dark hues on the walls, rug and large pieces furniture. The walls could be the lightest shade; curtains, a filmy darker hue; the rug a much darker shade. Be careful to keep these secondary colors compatible. Because of the compacted spaces, unfortunate choices in color are more obvious in a miniatures than a real dwelling. But it's a lot easier and cheaper to fix the mistake. 

Varying textures are important too. If your sofa is beige leather, the pillows and throw can add color and varied textures. Mix it up with velvet, burlap, long hair, rope or large weave fabric. The rug could be sisal or long shag.   

Since beige is so neutral, you could take any favorite color and use it for a color “pop” here and there. If blue is your favorite color use art on the walls with your favorite shade of blue, then make sure this accent color is the same shade wherever you use it. The blue in the art work should be exactly the same blue as in the vase on the side table, or the blue in the flower arrangement on the coffee table. 

Beige can be beautiful, if you give it some help.

Dollhouse Decorating – Patterns in Dollhouse Decorating

When you are painting, wallpapering and making tiny things for your dollhouse, be aware of what patterns you are using ... do they do justice to the room. Here are a few guidelines for combining patterns in a small space.

Think about using a large, medium, and small pattern in the room. You could start with a tiny print in the wallpaper or sofa or bed or some other large area. A medium print with coordinating colors in the curtains, or chair or smaller area. Finish with a big bold print on some throw pillows or a small accent wall or other small area.

Coordinating the colors in these prints is critical. The main color should be repeated in each fabric, but not necessarily in the quantity. The minor colors can be different, but having the same undertones. Autumn colors together, cool colors together, is the way to go.

Think about the type of print as well. Small print could be tiny flowers; medium a plaid; large a circle or square pattern. All of the disparate sizes need not be and probably shouldn’t be the same type of print. Don’t use all flowers or all plaids.



A “theme” room would be the exception. Let’s say you grow flowers and you want a garden room that has flowers everywhere. Then all flower prints would be appropriate. But that would be exception. Too much of a good thing, etc.


And don’t forget solid colors. With all those prints going on, solids make a good background and show off the pattern even more gloriously.

Dollhouse Decorating – For The Perfect Fabric Think Color, Pattern and Weight.

If your inspiration for decorating dollhouse miniatures comes from interior design magazines or TV show, do not forget the scale in which you are working. It sounds self evident, but so many of us loose sight of that fact, when we gaze at all the wonderful fabrics offered to us.

Following are some guidelines to stay focused on what is most important: you are searching for a perfect fabric to use in a dollhouse miniature. Now please don't say, “Duh!”just yet.

I strongly feel that when we focus primarily on color, and don't keep the “technicalities” of pattern size and the weight of the fabric in mind at the beginning of the design process, we risk falling in love with an inappropriate material. The color is gorgeous, but perhaps the pattern is too large, or the fabric too stiff and heavy. But it's such a beautiful color! Right, then we try to force this material into our project and the next step is usually to start over. Fortunately, we can “audition' fabrics before we buy them.

Brick Mortar Stores

Educators tell us we all learn in three different ways: visual, auditory and kinetic – touching. The trick for teachers is to figure out which the three is the primary portal to the brain or each of their charges. We have a kinetic learner in the family. When he encounters something new, he says, “Let me see!” grabs the object. This darling is kept out of fine glassware and porcelain shops.

Fortunately for miniaturists, fabric stores give us the opportunity to hone our kinetic skills, without fear of breakage.

Choosing The Right Pattern

One trick is to cut a one inch square out of a piece of stiff paper or a plastic card. I prefer a plastic card because its convenient to keep in my wallet.

Scan the bolts of fabric in the rack and pull several that might be suitable. Remember, you are considering color, pattern and weight, all at the same time. To zero in on pattern, pass the one inch window over a fabric. This expands your choices because even large flowered prints may have areas like stems, buds and leaves that may be useful to your design.

This video from Joanne's Minis gives a good demonstration of the One Inch Window technique: http://youtu.be/zXd38Jm4bpI

Wrinkles Are Good.

If you need pleats on curtains, dresses or furniture skirts, the fabric must hold a crease, Scrunch the material in your hand and see if it wrinkles. If it does, it's a prospect.

Stains Aren't Good.

Wet a small spot with some saliva and see if it stains. This will be important if you want to use glue anywhere and don’t want it to show.

Fraying, Sometimes Good.

Check out the cut end of the cloth to see if it frays. You don’t want to be sewing tiny seams and have it fray apart. On the other hand, you want it to fray a bit, if a fringe is in your plan.

Weight Control.

Pay attention to the weight of the material. If it is heavy, it may be too thick for miniature work. I feel comfortable working with cotton, light-weight wool, cotton and silk blend, rayon and some other light-weight fabrics – if they behave the way I want. Regular quilting cotton or similar materials have the qualities I like for most projects

Online Shopping

No local store can compete with the variety of fabrics available online. And you need not be overwhelmed by the number choices. A “long tail keyword search” gives you ample control on what is presented to you.

As an example, start with “fabric tiny prints.” Narrow it down by adding “cotton” or “large weave.” Use as many key words as you can, before the search engine gets totally confused and nothing but irrelevant choices are offered.

Using Both Online and Local Shops

Here is a recent experience I had. Custom made curtains are a popular item in my online shop, I received an order for pleated curtains in shade of gray that aqua throw pillows would love. The local JoAnns had nothing useful; same at Jay's Fabrics. Online shopping was next.

First I went to several tried-and-true websites and used the internal links to browse. Still no luck, so I went to my favorite browser and entered this long tail keyword string in the search field: “dollhouse curtain fabric brocade cotton gray” and got links to three possibles. The descriptions of the fabrics looked good. I did a screen print of each and emailed them to the customer. She made her choice, I made and shipped curtains. All is well.

It would have been much easier, less time consuming, ergo more profitable if I could have found what I wanted at a local fabric store. They sell to a mass market, and the miniature artisan gets lost in that demographic. In the end, there is always a way. Sometimes we just have to learn new things.

http://www.pinterest.com/minidecor

Susan Downing

Dollhouse Decorating – Curtains: Pleats or Soft Folds

I offer curtains in both soft folds and pleats, in fabrics suitable for dollhouse miniatures.

Click on the images for details.

Susan Downing