Does any one know of a nice doll house and furniture that fits the mini AG's?
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Does any one know of a nice doll house and furniture that fits the mini AG's?
The Madeline doll house is supposed to fit. I got one (with furniture) on sale years ago when etoys went out of business and I've been saving it as a Christmas present when my dds get a little older.
As much as I hate to use the B word...
The Barbie dreamhouse fits fine. Things are a wee bit big, just as they would be to a real 10 year old.
They are kinda plasticy but they usually can be gotten second hand pretty cheap (I bought one for $3).
This is the one I had
(I don't endorse this seller, they just had decent pics, hehe)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...e=STRK:MEWA:IT
<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ September 23, 2005 02:07 AM: Message edited by: GreyMyst ]</font>
Okay, Lindy, WHERE are you going to find room for a doll house!!!!???? Come on!
Normal doll houses won't work. They are 1 foot to 1 inch scale, so the mini AGs come out equivalent to a full grown basketball player.
Franks used to have wooden furniture that fit them perfectly. It sounds like refitting a Barbie Dream House might be a good start. However, with the exception of the ones I made over to look like seiriaf (read backwards to avoid censorship), I keep my minis as dolls for the girls so limit their playtime to teaparties. That means table and chairs, food and dishes.
You can make drinking glasses for the mini AGs by saving and painting the screw on caps off your toothpaste tubes. You can make plates by putting pretty stickers over the holes of large flat buttons. You can make a nice cake by painting the cap from a big flat prescription bottle so it looks like it's frosted. And there are very inexpensive dolls' china teasets that are only a little too big where the cheap toys are sold in drugstores and grocery stores.
I made my own tables and chairs. The table is just a round or oval piece of plywood cut out with an electric jigsaw -- mine is a Drexel, I think. I cut a round dowel into sections and glued them on for legs. Chairs are a flat square with a rectangle glued to the back of it (1/4 inch wood "borrowed" from my father's stockpile in the cellar) with a curved piece on each side cut from craft balsa, maybe 1/8 inch? I drew a shape that looked like the wings on an overstuffed chair. Legs are those push pins that have the plastic tops, pushed upside down into each corner -- then you put the doll in the chair and figure out how tall the legs for the table need to be. I glued a fabric tablecloth onto my tables and painted the chairs. But you can also upholster the chairs with fabric wrapped around cardboard backing, a little batting tucked into the pocket and then glue the back onto the cardboard.
Another idea is if you can find the balsa punchout dolls house furniture. It isn't quite large enough but it's cheap, easy to assemble and it will do.
Finally, I did make a "scene setting" for my mini Josefinas by painting the insides of some styrofoam packing that held the old clunky computer keyboards. I scrounged them from the trash at work. You could do the same with a folded cardboard screen. Much easier to store than a doll house!
My daughter uses her Fisher Price Townhome with her minis. And on a similar note about Madeline - we have the folding dollhouse put away for Christmas. It's similar to the scenes and settings, but folds out completely. These aren't as pricy as the regular Madeline house - less than $20 on eBay.
Yeah, the mini AGs are a very unusual scale so it's pretty difficult to find doll furniture for them. I have a thing for figuring out doll scales, and from my calculations, AG Mini Dolls are 1:8.25, while Barbie is 1:6. Standard dollhouse miniatures work best with Dawn-size dolls, which is 1:10.75. Really, AG minis are smack dab in the middle of Dawn and Barbie, scale-wise. Although they can share shoes and some clothing with Barbie's little sister Stacie from the '90s, they really seem closest in scale to dolls like The Sunshine Family(produced by Mattel in the '70s) and Jody, An Old-Fashioned Doll by Ideal(also from the 1970s). I reccomend looking on eBay for furniture and accessories for these dolls. Jody, in particular, was not the typical static model type fashion doll, she was a historical doll in her own sense, as own of her most popular playsets is a general store. What a wonderful playset to use with mini Kirsten! The Sunshine Family, on the other hand, were contemporary dolls, but were portrayed as living simple, wholesome, nature-loving, granola kinda lives, as evidenced by their accessories, which included a now rare and very hard to find farm playset. The Sunshine Family's plastic accessories often used the same molds as Barbie-size dolls and totally got away with it, which is amazing considering there is a noticable scaling difference. Other dolls of a similar scale are the Hasbro World of Love dolls and the Disco Girls, but their playsets and accessories are predictably very much rooted in the whole early '70s hippie discoteque theme, which is clearly innapropriate for our favorite historical heroines. [img]wink.gif[/img]
Hope this helps! Remember, I'm your resident Barbie/fashion doll expert, so if you ever have any questions involving AG compability with fashie stuff, please PM me!
<font color="#051E50" size="1">[ September 24, 2005 01:29 AM: Message edited by: CasualAGFan ]</font>
Wow! That was a really interesting and informative post, CasualAGFan. You've really done a lot of research. I never even thought of using Barbie or other fashion doll furniture for the mini dolls, but that is a great idea! I have a huge box in the garage of my old Barbie, Dawn, etc. stuff that my mom saved for me from when I was growing up in the early 70's. Now that I think about it, maybe a lot of the things I saved might really work. Thanks so much for the great ideas! [img]graemlins/thumbs_up.gif[/img] [img]smile.gif[/img]
If you want something simple, yet authentic try the AG/Hallmark Mini Books that come tied with ribbon and open up to show two scenes and also come with mini props/stickers from your Mini doll's AG story. I use my Addy book for my Addy mini doll and she fits perfectly in the storage area in back. I'm surprised more people didn't realize that these are like little scenes and settings w/ props for the 6" mini dolls. Even though the books come with a cardboard "paper" doll you can substitute your mini instead. Unfortunately, these mini storybooks are not longer available, but you can sometimes find them on sale online.
I thought the mini books made perfect scenes for the mini dolls too. I was lucky enough to get a couple when Hallmark still had them,the rest i have gotten off EBay.
I have gotten a few pieces of doll house furniture that fits them too at Hobby Lobby. I actually took one of my mini dolls with me to check for size
Thanks everyone for the great ideas.
Cherry,the a doll house isn't for me. It's for my GD Amanda. She loves the mini dolls. I want to fix her up a house for them for Christmas. If I get started sometime soon it might be finished by then.