Dollhouses may not seem like a Halloween decor choice, but that's because you aren't channeling your creative side. Known for their cutesy, pastel interiors with sweet notes of home life, moms and craft enthusiasts are challenging the traditional dollhouse with some serious spooky details.
The idea has taken off, with over 42 million views of haunted dollhouse-related posts on TikTok. Even craft chain Michaels has gotten in on it, offering Halloween miniatures that are perfect for giving a dollhouse a change in look.
If you're interested in haunted dollhouses for Halloween or every day (the calendar can't dictate your spookiness, after all), check out these excellent examples.
Dollhouses have long had their own place in horror. Recently, dollhouses have been central to the plot of Pretty Little Liars, Sharp Objects, and The Haunting at Bly Manor. Now families are bringing spooky dollhouses into their homes to get into the Halloween spirit.
Samantha Browning was one of the moms inspired when she saw a dollhouse painted black on TikTok. During the pandemic, she made making a spooky dollhouse her own creative outlet.
"I'm an artist but I've never done much more than draw or paint on a canvas in what little free time I have with kids and everyone in my life has always been very supportive of my art, but when you look around at all the beautiful and incredible things other people are making, you look at your own art as inferior or underwhelming and that can crush your drive to keep creating," she told Bored Panda.
This got Samantha through a time when she was struggling with her creativity, and she hopes that her projects will do the same for someone else.
"This whole dollhouse thing was completely different from anything I'd done and if you told me even 6 months ago it would go viral, I wouldn't have believed you," she said.
During the pandemic, people were looking for soothing activities. Those who aren't creators were simply fascinated to watch.
"Creating for me is always therapeutic and the spookiness of it is part of the reward," Hannah Sellers told i-D.
"I did really dive into it during quarantine because I actually had the time to just do something I wanted to do. Making dollhouses was almost like finding myself again through complete freedom of creativity."
For some, working with minis has been a lifelong passion. Ara Bentley of Bentley House Minis is one of them.
"I started building models in school because I was studying architecture at the time," she told i-D.
"I really enjoyed picking out details and trying to duplicate them."
She recently debuted a dollhouse project that has been 11 years in the making. "The first project I started that was officially in the dollhouse miniatures realm was my Addams Family mansion," she explained.
"Being able to make things that weren't perfect really appealed to me because if something turned out wonky or wasn't painted perfectly I could just add some ageing effects and no one would know that it wasn't supposed to be like that!"
A video tour of the dollhouse, which is older than both of Ara's children and has been a constant in her life for over a decade, has gotten over 1 million views on YouTube. Considering that miniatures were once looked at as a solitary hobby, it's pretty impressive.
"When you finish a painting you varnish it or frame it and it's 'done' — but a project like the Addams Family mansion can be tinkered with for years," she shared.
"I imagine I will be adding and moving around bits for the rest of the days that I have it. My goal to 'finish it' was really just to get it to a point where it could be displayed and it didn't seem like anything was necessarily missing."
If you're not the DIY type, you can still get in on the haunted dollhouse craze. Etsy has a number of listings, ranging from simple to stunning, that you can incorporate into your Halloween decor.
*Psst: if you choose to purchase an item from this post, LittleThings.com may receive a small cut. Each item and price is up to date at the time of publication; however, an item may be sold out or the price may be different at a later date.
