If you haven’t heard, American Horror Stories is coming back soon! Season two is going to have a creepy dollhouse theme – which is why this is the perfect time to create your own haunted dollhouse. There’s been a growing trend on TikTok where people take old houses that they’ve had from childhood (or have found at garage sales) and convert them into haunted houses. This is a creepy DIY decoration you can put out for Halloween – or can leave on your shelf for the whole year. If you want to recreate one of the haunted dollhouses that went viral on TikTok, here are a few ideas on how to get started:
Take your favorite dollhouse and paint it black.
@eatsleepletter
The first step to creating a haunted dollhouse is finding a regular dollhouse that will work well with your vision. Most dollhouses come in bright colors like pink or purple, so you should start by covering the exterior of your house with black paint (and maybe a little purple if you want to give off Victorian vampire vibes). You can also paint the floor and add some gray to the exterior in order to make the house look older and abandoned. Then board up some of the windows with popsicle sticks if you want to make it look even creepier!
Add the right wallpaper for your theme.
@deadgjrl day one of creating my abandoned crime scene doll house 👻 #dollhouse #creepy #horror #haunted
Once you’re finished with the exterior of your dollhouse, you should move onto the interior. Before you start adding decorations, you should make sure you’re happy with your walls. Find a material that you like at a craft store and use a hot glue gun to attach it. Or, if you don’t want to spend too much money, you can always print out designs from your own home. Then, if you’re going for a more gory, gruesome house, you can add blood to the walls and floor once you’re finished. All you need is some red paint to splatter.
Add spiderwebs in every corner.
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Adding cobwebs to your dollhouse is a great way to make it look like a ghost town. You can pick up some white webs from the craft store or order them online, then simply spread them around the dollhouse the same way you would do around your own house at Halloween. Although you might want to add cobwebs to the corners of the room early on, make sure you save some to use for later. Once you put your props down, you might want to spread some cobwebs over them too so it looks like clocks and couches haven’t been touched in a while.
Add props to every room.
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You can add more than just dolls to your house. You can also add black cats, pumpkins, skeletons, and candles. And you don’t have to stop at the inside! You can add props to the exterior as well. Try making some dead trees by grabbing branches from the yard and spray painting them black. Then add some moss around the bottom of their trunks to simulate the grass. You can also create crooked ‘iron’ railings and place them around the property to warn visitors to keep out.
Add the right lighting.
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If you’re willing to put extra effort into your dollhouse to take it to the next level, you can add lights to each room. You can do this by creating walls on art board and pulling the wires through the back, then placing the boards into the house. This step requires a lot of extra work, but if you’re planning on keeping this dollhouse in the family for generations, it’s worth the effort!
Add a crumbling ceiling.
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Start by gluing a bunch of stir sticks together and staining it, then add spackle. Next, sand it down and peel off places where you want the ceiling to look like it’s crumbling. To finish it off, you can trace the cracks with a knife and paint inside the cracks to make sure that they stand out to anyone looking inside. Then you can add some green or brown flocking fibers to create the appearance of mold!
Add hidden puzzles for children to find.
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If you plan on passing down the dollhouse to your grandchildren, then you can add some little treasures for them to find – if they look hard enough. You can write them little notes or even create puzzles for them to solve. You could even print out miniature pictures of yourself and your family and add them to the walls with little picture frames.
Put the finishing touches on the house.
@lisamcgowen Finally put my haunted house up! #dollhousemakeover #IKnowWhatYouDid #fyp #foryou #haunteddollhouse #halloween #diy #ForYouPizza #TreatiestCupContest
Once you’re finished adding your furniture, try to get creative. You can add doll limbs dangling from the ceiling or draw pentagrams on the floor, whatever you think will take your house to that next level! It’s always a great idea to have a theme you can stick to – like crime scene or haunted house. That way, you can draw inspiration from movies and shows that have a similar theme. Remember, the more creative you are with your haunted house, the better. Don’t be afraid to get weird!
