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Author Topic: Making a Barbie wardrobe.  (Read 4346 times)

Offline Cubs

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Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« on: April 07, 2020, 08:24:55 PM »
Now bear with me, this is a bit unusual.

My daughter's birthday party had to be cancelled because of coronavirus and with money being a bit tight and a lot of retailers, high street and online, shutting down for the duration, we needed to get a bit creative. She loves her Barbie dolls, but doesn't have anywhere to store the clothes, so I thought I'd try to make a wardrobe out of spare wood sheets I've got lying around. Ulp. I have no carpentry skills and no experience of anything like this, so it should be interesting.

Step One - making a plan. Kind of. More of a sketch really. A scribble perhaps. Originally I had wanted the wardrobe to be 14" tall and 9" wide, but then I decided that working in metric would be a lot easier and that was way too big since I didn't have enough wood. So I had to scale down a bit to 26cm tall, 20cm wide and 10cm deep, to give enough depth for stability and so the various dresses would fit. I'm planning to put a dowel rail in and make little wire coat hangers for the inside, so it needs to be wide enough to hold them too.




Step Two - cutting it out. Not too bad. the scroll work on the top was a bit fiddly, but okay with my little hand saw. I realised I've cut out all the bits except the top panel, but I'll do that later. I also realised that I haven't allowed for the width of the wood, but I'll fudge that later when I'm trying to put it together. It'll mean I have to cut the end off the base panel, but that's okay. At least I hadn't done the top panel yet! 


 
'Sir John ejaculated explosively, sitting up in his chair.' ... 'The Black Gang'.

Paul Cubbin Miniature Painter

Offline Tom Reed

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2020, 08:43:34 PM »
It's looking good so far!
Jane! Stop this crazy thing!

Offline syrinx0

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2020, 08:44:04 PM »
Cool.  I am sure your daughter will be ecstatic when it's done.   Are you going to have her help you finish it or will it be a surprise?
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Offline Hobgoblin

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2020, 08:44:54 PM »
Bravo - and a very nice design! There's little more satisfying than making stuff for your kids, I reckon. My own efforts are confined to masks and monsters and other things that don't require any geometrical precision, so I'm deeply impressed by your making something that does!

Offline Cubs

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #4 on: April 07, 2020, 08:49:57 PM »
It's a surprise. And don't tell me it's not gaming! Her models are just a bit bigger than usual!

I've found some old tins of enamel paint - red and white - so I can mix up some classic Barbie pink for when it's done. I think we've got some little shiny jewel beads somewhere as well, to jazz it up. No-one does sparkle like Barbie.

Offline syrinx0

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2020, 08:57:10 PM »
It's a surprise. And don't tell me it's not gaming! Her models are just a bit bigger than usual!

Never.  I tried to get my daughter to play GW games with me by pointing out they were just like her Pollies or Barbie dolls but smaller.  Sadly she did not approve of my figures actions or wardrobes.  :)

Quote
I've found some old tins of enamel paint - red and white - so I can mix up some classic Barbie pink for when it's done. I think we've got some little shiny jewel beads somewhere as well, to jazz it up. No-one does sparkle like Barbie.

Barbie is all about the bling and sparkles.   lol


Offline Captain Blood

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2020, 08:57:27 PM »
I hope you’re going to give it a bit of weathering  ;)

Offline Dr DeAth

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2020, 09:03:40 PM »
A man walks into a store to buy a Barbie doll for his daughter.

"How much is that Barbie in the window?", he asks the shop assistant.

The assistant replies, "Which Barbie? We have Barbie Goes to the Gym for £9.95, Barbie Goes to the Ball for £9.95, Barbie Goes Shopping for £9.95, Barbie Goes to the Beach for £9.95, Barbie Goes Nightclubbing for £9.95, and Barbie Gets Divorced, but that's £295.00. "

The man asks, "Why is Divorced Barbie different from all the others ?

"That's obvious," says the assistant, "Divorced Barbie comes with Ken's house, Ken's car, Ken's boat, Ken's furniture... "

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Offline Cubs

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #8 on: April 07, 2020, 10:46:51 PM »
 lol

Offline snitcythedog

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #9 on: April 08, 2020, 07:56:06 PM »
Good start.  I have had to do similar in the past.  BTW this was my missees favourite song as a child. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyhrYis509A
A bottle of scotch and two aspirin a day will greatly reduce your awareness of heart disease.
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Offline Cubs

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #10 on: April 08, 2020, 08:30:30 PM »
The weather was lovely today so this project went outside and I had lots of fun in the sun! Wee Cub said she knew I was making her dolls a wardrobe because I had left 'doll wardrobe' on the Google search history and she saw it. Sometimes I'm thankful we have a child filter. She was excited to watch the process and in a way it's nice for her to start enjoying it now before she sees it finished. Plus she'll see the work that's gone into it and I'll be able to hold it over her forever.

Step three - putting in support batons for glueing. Fortunately I've apparently been saving up that giant box of balsa wood bits just for this! Lengths of baton were measured and glued in place on the back panel to help the sides stay in place later. Also shown is the foot panel for the front. Oh yeah, I also cut out the feet on the bottom of the wardrobe with my little scroll saw. It's earned its keep on this project, that's for sure.




Step four - the doors. I wanted to keep them plain, but MrsCub assured me that they have to have the little panels on them. Bugger. Those eight wee rectangles of wood were the most time consuming part of the whole damn project so far! Each one had to be individually cut and then sanded down by hand to give a chamfered edge. Bollocking fiddly and labour intensive. I measured out where they needed to go, glued them in place and then sandwiched them between two big floor tiles I had lying around in the shed to set. Unfortunately, despite my extreme care, one of the panels slipped and set skew-whiff so I had to chisel it off and redo it later. It was fine in the end.



 

Offline Cubs

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #11 on: April 08, 2020, 08:42:44 PM »
Step five - the rail supports. I was going to glue the dowelling direct onto the sides of the wardrobe, but in the end I thought some little supports would be better. I cut two squares of wood, drew a circle around the end of the dowelling on them and sketched in a sort of scoop from the top, down to the circle, so the dowel could nestle down into it comfortably. I then cut this out with the trusty scroll saw.




Step six - glueing the body. Who says she's too old for Duplo? Her box of her old bricks came in very useful for holding it in place during glueing. Note the wardrobe is upside-down so the flat side is on Lego base and the foot panel is just wedged in to keep the sides from hingeing inwards while it dries. it started to look real at this point and I was getting excited. My daughter had wandered off long ago to help mummy paint a fence.




Step seven - the wardrobe all glued and ready for painting! The top and bottom horizontal panels have been added and the doors have had knobs added (!) which will later have some sparkly jewels glued on if I find some the right size. Note that I realised I had made the doors way too long, because I'd measured down to the ground, not to the foot panel! I cut a bit off the top and bottom, but left it about half a centimetre bigger all round than the gap, so it would close against the front of the wardrobe and not collapse inwards. Luckily my daughter announced at this point she didn't want a pink wardrobe (just in time - I thought all Barbie stuff had to be pink!) but would prefer white with pretty blue swirls. Riiiight. Nice and easy then. So the dowel rail is just sat in place and I think I'll keep it like that in case it needs to be removed for play. Everything is going to be painted tomorrow then left to dry before being assembled.



 

Offline Blackwolf

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #12 on: April 08, 2020, 09:39:50 PM »
Very cute :-*
If she gets bored with Barbie,she could always do a Lunch and Judy show...
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Offline Cubs

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #13 on: April 08, 2020, 09:52:28 PM »
Very cute :-*
If she gets bored with Barbie,she could always do a Lunch and Judy show...

MrsCub did say she'll probably demand a stage with curtains and puppets next year!

Offline gamer Mac

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Re: Making a Barbie wardrobe.
« Reply #14 on: April 08, 2020, 10:24:03 PM »
Very good project I Hope your daughter likes it and gets years of play out of it