How to make a kitchen for 18 inch sized dolls. Part 1-Stove with Oven

If you are interested in giving your dolls or your child's dolls a kitchen space for the dolls to play in, I have a simple way to make all the items you will need for a complete kitchen.  I am going to explain the steps to making the kitchen items in multiple posts (mainly because I have not finished all the items for my daughters' kitchen yet.)  Part 1 will tell you how to make a stove with an oven.

The inside shelves are pieces of cardboard that are hot glued to the box.  I ran out of silver duck tape so I will be finishing covering the inside when I purchase more.

I use up-cycled or re-purposed materials to make the furniture for my daughters' dolls.  For this project, I used boxes from Christmas gifts my daughters received, duck tape, cardboard, poster board, hot glue, thumb tacks, and silly bands.  It took me about an hour to complete the stove with an oven.

The Stove:
I started with a box that my daughter received a jewelry dresser in for Christmas.(We also re-purposed the jewelry dresser to use as a dresser for my daughter's American Girl in the doll's bedroom.)  The first thing that I did was cut a large hole out of the front of the box for the opening of the oven.  Next, I covered 3 sides of the box in silver duck tape, one side in purple duck tape, and also added some purple duck tape lines with polka dot holes in to the silver duck tape side for decoration.  You could use whatever color duck tape you want or hot glue poster board or foam to the sides of the box.  I do not recommend construction paper because it is just not sturdy enough.
To create the oven door, I cut a piece of extra cardboard to the size of the front of the box.  The I covered the cardboard door in purple duck tape.  Next, I used additional duck tape to attach the door to the bottom of the box.  I also placed a strip inside the box to secure the door.
The next step was to create the stove top.  I traced one of my youngest daughter's baby doll food containers onto black poster board (it is circle shaped.)  I cut out the circles and hot glued them to the top of the stove.  Then I took another piece of cardboard, covered it in purple duck tape, and hot glued it to the back of the stove to create the area to place the knobs.  I used thumb tacks with ball heads as the knobs for the stove.  I stuck each tack into place on the cardboard and the hot glued an additional strip of cardboard over the tacks.  I applied a few strips of purple duck tape to cover the cardboard and keep the tacks from poking out.
The last step was to create the way to keep the oven door closed.  I used two thumb tacks, one with a ball head and one flat head, and a silly band.  I hot glued the flat head tack, with the silly band around it, to the front of the oven door and backed it up on the inside with a piece of cardboard and duck tape.  I took the ball head thumb tack and hot glued it in place on top of the stove.  To close the stove, just wrap the silly band around the ball head thumb tack. 
Now, my girls have a stove with an oven in the kitchen of their "Split Level Dollhouse."  In the follow up parts to this project, I will give you instructions on how to make a refrigerator, a sink, and table a chair set, and a storage cabinet/shelf.  Again, all of these projects are made with items that can be found around the house and purchased for a craft or hardware store.

Please feel free to comment or email me @ leasekristis@yahoo.com with any questions.