I've always enjoyed crafting, especially cute things for dolls. I guess it comes from my mother crafting with me as a kid. Crafting is a fun and creative way to spend time with kids.

You can create anything you want, exactly the way you want it, and it's usually cheaper than buying the items in a shop.

In this tutorial, I'll share how to easily make your own couch for Barbie dolls.

What you'll need:

• A piece of foam. Any foam will do, even a small piece of foam that comes with some health supplements or electronics you bought.
• Felt or fabric. Choose a color or pattern you want to cover your couch in. Note: You can always drape another fabric over the couch later to give it a different look.
• Glue. I don't recommend glue guns because they are dangerous and can burn your kids fingers. The glue I used was a Liquid silicon glue. It's easy to peal off one's fingers, quite effective, and not at all hot.
• Cardboard - any old cardboard box will do.
• Scissors.
• Pencil.

Step 1: Creating the base

The foam will be the couch's base. Cut the foam to be as wide or as narrow as you want your couch's base to be.

Step 2: Covering the base

Cover the bottom of your foam with glue.
Wrap the fabric around the foam, so the ends meet at the bottom where no one will see it. Press the fabric down. Wait for the glue to dry.

Alternatively, you can sew the fabric onto the bottom of your foam using a regular needle and thread. This is sometimes better than using glue, because some cheap glues don't hold long, and when they dry the fabric lifts up and peals away from the foam.

Step 3: Create the back of the couch

We'll use the cardboard to create the couch's back.

You can create any style couch you want. You can go crazy and make a spiky backed couch for princess Dracula, or make an ordinary square or rounded couch.

If you want a symmetric couch, use a ruler to measure and a pencil to mark where you want to cut your cardboard.

Once you've drawn the pencil lines, use the scissors to cut the cardboard into your desired shape.

If you don't have a very thick cardboard piece, to create a sturdy couch, glue several pieces together. If you use a very thin piece of cardboard, the couch will both look and feel flimsy and fragile.

Step 4:

Cover the cardboard in glue and wrap it in the fabric. Pat down the fabric and wait for it to dry. Tip: You don't need to apply glue to the front part, only to the back and a bottom strip on the front. If you apply glue to the entire front, depending on your fabric and glue you might get ugly glue spots showing through the fabric.

Pat down the fabric, smooth it down nicely.

Step 4: Glue the 2 parts together.

Smear glue on the back of your couch's base and glue the back piece to it. Hold the pieces together until the glue has dried.

Step 5: Clean up any extra fabric

If you have extra fabric hanging off the edges of your couch's base, cut it and fold it, gluing it down out of sight. Do this along all the edges.

Step 6: Creating the arm rests

The arm rests can be made in the same way as the back of the couch. After gluing whatever fabric you want to use onto the arm rests, glue the arm rests to the couch.

Step 7: Apply glue to the side of your couch and glue the arm rests onto it.

Wait for your glue to dry and then make pillows. Because I hate sewing, I usually glue my pillows. It's much faster.

Once the couch is ready, you can make it look different by covering it with a different fabric.

Have fun! :)