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!

DIY Doll Laptops.

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

How To Make A Laptop For A Barbie.

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.

Supplies Needed

 

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.
Note: If you’d rather not print out the screens, you can use images from advertisements and magazines to make a screen for your laptop.
  • 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.

Cut Out The Printable Laptop.

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

Glue printables to cardstock.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.

Trace and cut out more paper.

  • 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.

Stack and glue rectangles.

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.

Glue the printables to rectangles.

  • 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!

Glue laptop together and trim edges.

  • 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?

DIY Barbie doll laptop.

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.

Cut out and glue on laptop 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.

inishing sealing laptop with Mod Podge.

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.

Brush Mod Podge over edges of screen only.

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

Barbie Doll Laptops (Pink and Green).

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?)!

DIY Barbie Laptops (Black and Silver).

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!

Doll Photo Story Image

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.

Toni with doll laptop.

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

Tinkerbell holding DIY doll laptop.

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

Blondie Locks and DIY doll laptop.

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

5 Comments

  1. Awesome! Do you think they will be big enough for barbies?

    1. Author

      Yes, the laptops should be sized just right for Barbie dolls.

  2. You mentioned that covering the screen with Mod Podge is a bad idea because it would make the ink run. I wanted to suggest covering the front of the screen with a small piece of clear packing tape or clear contact paper for added durability, if you happen to have either of those things in the house already. You’d have to be very careful to avoid wrinkling the tape, but I think it would be possible to do. Of course, there’s a chance that the tape would reflect too much light and make the laptop difficult to photograph, but I’m not really sure. Still, it might be worth a try.
    Signed, Treesa

    1. Author

      Thanks for the suggestion! Yes, clear contact paper or packing tape are excellent alternatives for protecting the screen. I’ve seen many crafters cover their doll printables with tape without a problem so it’s definitely worth mentioning. It is true, though, that tape and contact paper give off a glare and don’t look super great in pictures which is the only reason I didn’t use them.

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