Everything required for the furnishing and peopling of a cardboard dolls' house can be made of paper; and if colored at all cleverly the furniture will appear to be as solid as that of wood. After cutting out and joining together one or two of the models given in the pages that follow, and thus learning the principle on which paper furniture is made, you will be able to add all kinds of things to those mentioned here or to devise new patterns for old articles, such as chairs and desks.
Glue and Adhesive Tape
Two recent inventions of the greatest possible use to the maker of paper furniture are fish-glue which gets dry very quickly and is more than ordinarily strong, and adhesive tape. Glue can be bought for very little, and adhesive tape, which is sold principally for mending music and the torn pages of books, is put up in inexpensive spools.
Home-Made Compasses
A pair of compasses is a good thing to have; but you can make a perfectly serviceable tool by cutting out a narrow strip of cardboard about four inches long and boring holes at intervals, of a quarter of an inch, through which the point of a pencil can be placed. If one end of the strip is fastened to the paper with a pin you can draw a circle of what size you want, up to eight inches across.
Materials
These are the materials needed when making paper furniture:—
A few sheets of stiff note-paper or drawing-paper. Scissors. A penknife. A ruler (a flat one). A mapping-pen. A box of paints. A board to cut out on. Adhesive tape or stamp-paper. Glue.
Tracing
If the drawings are to be traced, tracing-paper, or transparent note-paper, and a sheet of carbon-paper, will also be needed. To trace a drawing, cover it with paper and draw it exactly. Then cover the paper or cardboard from which you wish to cut out the furniture with a piece of carbon-paper, black side down, and over that place your tracing. Draw over this again with a very sharply pointed pencil or pointed stick, and the lines will be repeated by the carbon-paper on the under sheet of paper.