Lesson #1
Instructor: Melissa Darnell
Email with questions: [email protected]
Please note: this lesson's printable
floors are all quite large files and can not be attached (Yahoo has maximum
email size limitations and will not send this email out with these floors
attached). So I have put the printable floors on the archive site with
links to each one so that you can find them easily. I apologize for any
confusion this might cause.
Printable Floors
Materials/Tools Needed:
1. Begin by making a template
of the floor to be covered in your dollhouse or room box. This can most
easily be done by
cutting a piece of newspaper slightly bigger than your room, then insert it into the room. Press it down onto the floor, hold it in place with one hand, and use the other hand or a pencil to make creases in the newspaper along the base of each wall in your room. Remove the newspaper from the room, then cut away the extra newspaper along the creases you made.
2. Next, choose below the style of flooring you need and in the scale you prefer, and click on the link provided for that flooring choice. There's two styles to choose from: a white tile with small black diamond tiles, or a cherry and pine inlaid wood floor. You'll be taken to where that flooring is stored in our archives. Once the flooring comes up on your computer monitor, you can print that page out in full color on cardstock (make sure your printer options are set to print in Landscape mode, or so that the page prints out on the paper sideways instead of straight up and down). Let the printed flooring dry completely.
Flooring Options for Today's Lesson:
3. Now apply one coat of clear acrylic seal across the top of the flooring and let it dry completely.
4. To give your flooring realistic grooves where the tiles or sections of wood join together, you can use either the tip of a butter knife or an empty ball point pen to trace along these lines. Be careful not to press down too hard while tracing, or your tool may go through the paper!
5. Once all the lines have been traced, give your flooring another coat of clear acrylic seal and let it dry completely.
6. Now you have one of two choices. You can either cut the flooring to fit your room using the newspaper template and then glue the flooring into the room for a permanent installation. Or you can make the flooring removable at a later date by using the newspaper template to cut a piece of posterboard to fit the room and gluing the flooring to this posterboard "false floor". Then use double-sided tape to temporarily install your false floor into your room.