Over the past few years my Daughter and I saw a lot of videos featuring these cute miniature dollhouse kits. We decided to buy 3 kits from Amazon and try them out. Here is our honest review of the kits from beginner crafters.
*Please note we bought these kits ourselves, we were not paid for this or asked to do as part of a sponsorship.
The Basics
First thing, the kits don’t come with everything you need. You will need a few tools to help with the assembly of the kits. Here are some of the tools we used:
- Super Glue (we like the gel kind best but also used the kind pictured above)
- Exacto knife
- Tweezers
- File
- Wire cutters
- Glue stick
- Scissors
- Needle and thread
- Cutting mat
You are going to be dealing with VERY tiny items. They are adorable but they are small. A lot of the items are paper, or paper glued to wood. I highly recommend using a glue stick with most of the paper objects, it holds well and it gives you a little time to re-arrange the pieces, where as super glue just kind of sticks right when they touch, so things like this little book end up crooked. (we struggled with this a LOT in the first kit)
My daughter is 13 and I did these kits together, we have very little crafting experience and I would say it was challenging. You will learn a lot and improve with each kit. There were some things she needed me to do, or needed help with but I would say most the kit can be done by anyone 12 and up (or a very patient younger child) My 9 year old wanted to help but beyond gluing some of the big items there wasn’t much she was able to do. Make sure you have a dedicated workspace, it will take about 10 hours to complete (even with 2 of us) so you want a space it can be left if you spread it out over a few days.
Miniature Dollhouse Kit 1
Our first kit was this darling living room.
It’s ROUGH and we know this. We learned a lot along the way. The instructions on these kits aren’t the best, but they aren’t bad. If you have ever put together a piece of Ikea furniture you will do just fine with these kits. If you have only ever followed something with very detailed instructions, you might struggle.
The only thing that did not work the way they instructed was the curtains, I ended up trying to sew them, it still didn’t work. Then the loops were too small for the curtain rod. It was rough, we learned to skip the curtains or pick kits that don’t have curtains.
We also learned to sew the pillows instead of using glue like they suggest, sewing works a lot easier. They also come with a dust cover, which we started to put on but it was hard to super glue the edges neatly so we skipped the front piece and then skipped it all together on the later kits.
Pros:
- Small kit (single room)
- No overly complicated pieces
- Not a lot of cutting
- Came with light kit and music box
- Detailed pieces are really charming.
Cons:
- Some of the instructions are lacking
- Curtains didn’t work as instructed
Miniature Dollhouse Kit 2
Kit 2 was one of our favorites. It would actually be a great kit to start with, I think it was a little easier than the first kit. Cute details we liked the style and simple furniture.
This kit came together better than the first, partly because we learned some things like to use the glue stick on paper items, we also skipped some of the details that seemed unnecessary or overly difficult and alter them to be a little easier. Like for the guitar, we skipped the small little tightening knobs for the top, but we did add the strings. We still struggled with some of the assembly and getting it all perfectly squared but it was much improved.
Pros:
- Small kit (single room)
- Simple furniture
- Clear instructions
- Lighting kit included for working lights
Cons:
- No music box (which is fine but the other 2 kits had music and we did like that)
- A few of the small detailed items were nearly impossible to complete the way it was instructed
Miniature Dollhouse Kit 3
Kit 3 was a whole house, we were up for the challenge. It had the best instructions out of all the kits we did, but it also had a lot of pieces that were hard to make look good, or at least hard to make the way they instructed. (although again this one had the most clear instructions)
By this point we had also just list a little steam and we have a little box of things we still have to finish for this kit. Like making several books, and the bedding for the kids bed. The only other “issue” with this is the instructions to make all the items were great but when it came to putting everything together some things were skipped so we forgot to put the faucet in the shower (even though we made it and it was cute) We also forgot the utensil rod in the kitchen, and piece of the tile backsplash. It’s all ok the house still looks cute, we just forgot some of those things until it was too late.
A few of the wall pieces were bowing or warped, so much like a real house it was hard to have perfectly square walls. It didn’t ruin the house, but it did throw off a few areas making it a little frustrating to put together.
Pros
- Larger set kept us busy for longer
- Very detailed assembly instructions for each piece
- Most pieces were simple and easy to build
- Light and music
Cons
- Warped wall pieces didn’t come together perfectly square
- Building instructions miss a few things
- There are a LOT of wires to connect and we missed two and had to rewire
- LOTS of little pieces that were hard to do the way they instructed
- There are a lot of things to cut out.
Overall, we really enjoyed the miniature dollhouse kits and would for sure do more in the future. They are kind of like legos for adults. Fun to build and display. I like that it was something my daughter and I could do together and enjoy.