DIY Laptops For Barbie Dolls!

I don’t know about you, but I am desperate to get back to crafting!  There’s a mile-long list of things to make and clothes to sew floating around in my head, and the time has come for me to turn those ideas into miniature realities.

So, this week I updated my dolls’ tech with some new laptops!

Want to see how I made them?  Then dust off your tinkering tools and let’s start crafting!

To make the laptop you will need:

1. Laptop Printables from our Printables And Freebies page.
2. Scissors.
3. Glue.
4. Cardstock, paperboard, or heavy construction paper.
5. Mod Podge and a paintbrush.

• Go our Printables and Freebies page to print out the laptop printables.

There are two laptops per page: one with a black and silver laptop and one with a teal and pink laptop.  There is also a printable with a variety of screens for your laptop.

• Print out the page with your favorite laptops and the page with the laptop screens.

• Cut out the pieces of the laptops.  Leave the inside section (with the screen and keyboard) in one piece but separate the outside sections.  These will become the top and bottom of the laptop.

• Glue the pieces of the laptop to cardstock, a piece of paperboard (like a cereal box), or heavy construction paper.

I am using pink construction paper to match my pink laptop.  You can glue the printable to any color paper you like; however, using paper that matches the laptop helps hide the edges and saves you having to recolor them later.

• Once the glue has dried, cut out all the laptop pieces again.

Now we need to give the laptop some stability, and we are going to do this by adding layers of paper to the printable–a technique I learned from My Froggy Stuff.

• Take one of the outside sections (I am using the outer top) and place it on your paper.
• Trace around it to make a rectangle roughly the same size as the top of the laptop.  Do this several times to make lots of rectangles.

• Then cut out the rectangles you drew.

Gluing layers of paper to your dollhouse printables does more than just strengthen them.  It adds dimension which makes them look realistic.

• Stack and glue the rectangles together until they equal the depth you want your laptop to be.

Since I am using construction paper (which is thinner than cardstock), I had to use about eight rectangles to get the thickness I wanted.  If you are using cardstock you should only need three or four rectangles to get a good depth.

• Then glue the outside sections of the printable on top your rectangle blocks.

• Now take the inside section of your laptop, fold in half, and make a crease down the center.  This crease is going to act like a hinge making it possible for your laptop to open and close.

• After folding the inside in half, glue it to the outer top and outer bottom pieces.  Make sure to avoid the crease–you don’t want to cover that!

• Trim the edges of the laptop to make them neat and even.

Here is the (almost) finished laptop!  See what I mean about using layers of paper to add dimension?

Now we just need two things:

1. A screen–we can’t expect our dolls to surf the world-wide web with a blank screen, can we?
2. Some Mod Podge–because I want this laptop to last for generations…or at least a few months?!

• To give your laptop a screen, cut out your preferred screen from our Laptop Screens printable.
• Then apply glue to the white section above the keyboard and press on the screen.

• Finally, brush a thin layer of Mod Podge over the laptop to seal it.  I like to pay special attention to the edges to make sure the layers of paper are completely stuck together.

When it comes to the screen, though, I only apply Mod Podge to the edges.  Brushing it over the entire screen can cause the ink to smear but limiting it to just edges will hold them down without ruining the screen.

Give the laptop some time to dry and you’re done!

Aren’t they cute!  I tried to include as many fun screens as I could think of.  There is a desktop screen, a few games, a search engine box and, of course, a screenshot of our blog (because I’m sure your dolls would like to check in every so often?)!

And, if pink and green aren’t your style, you can opt for black and silver instead.  The silver laptop is actually white with a greyish border because the one I made that was true silver didn’t look good after printing.  However, I like white electronics and think this version looks nice and sharp.

Well, what are we waiting for?  Let’s give the girls their new gadgets and see what they think!

Yes, these laptops are 1:6 scale (playscale) which means they are a little small for Toni and a little big for Tink.  But, since the printable is a JPEG, you can always resize it to make the laptops larger or smaller for your doll.

So, if your dolls would like some new electronics, head over to our Printables And Freebies page to get started!

I sure hope you have as much fun making them as I did designing them.

Feel free to pin this post and leave a comment letting me know what you think of our DIY Barbie doll laptops!