Are you ready to get down to the nitty-gritty with the how-to for the DIY Toothsome Chocolate Emporium for your American Girl dolls? Today I will show you how I created the backdrop. After a lot of searching through our own vacation photos and photos found on the web, I created a simple and easy backdrop for the doll sized Toothsome Chocolate Emporium.
I wanted the backdrop for our doll version to have that steampunk vibe that runs throughout the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium at Universal Studios Orlando.
Some of the walls of the emporium are black, while others are a textured and patterned brick.
I decided to use a black tri-fold foam display board. This was purchased at Michaels. It is 36 inches tall. It was cut down to 24 inches tall by using a Foamwerks channel rail and straight cutter. You can also use a box cutter and yard stick if you have a steady hand.
To mimic the arching of the brickwork I used a large piece of poster paper from the Dollar Store and traced a large platter for a curve. The pattern was cut out. To add some texture to the backdrop I decided to use a stone finished spray paint. Allow the paint to dry completely and then glue to board with a glue stick.
The textured paint I used was Bleached Stone by Rust-oleum.
When we visited the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium, we found both red and white bricked walls. I knew that the sweet treats that would be displayed would already be providing a lot of color to the scene. I decided to use white brick accents to keep the backdrop clean ad neutral. The brick cardstock paper was found at Michaels. I created a brick pillar on each side of the center panel.
I purchased steampunk gear clipart on Etsy from shop, Gia SVG. You can purchase them here: Steampunk Gears
I used copper, gold, and silver metallic cardstock paper and my Cricut machine to create the gear artwork. If you don’t have a Cricut machine you could scale these gears into Microsoft Word and print a pattern, trace pattern onto cardstock of choice, and cut with scissors and an Xacto knife.
There is a huge ‘Toothsome Chocolate Emporium & Savory Feast Kitchen’ sign out front of the eatery. I found the logo and printed it off onto 65 pound cardstock paper.
The sign was cut out and laminated. If you don’t have a laminator, you may want to glue your sign to another piece of thick cardstock or cardboard to make your sign sturdy so it stays upright.
Click here for your Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Storefront Sign: Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Sign
The sign was attached to the backdrop with a self adhesive Velcro tab. The sign can easily be removed for storage of the backdrop.
This classy backdrop worked perfectly with all the added color coming from the sweet treats that you will learn to DIY in the upcoming posts.
See here for more information on the other posts in this series: Toothsome Chocolate Emporium for Dolls!
A huge thank you goes to KeLibu Designs and Miniature Sweet for sponsoring this series!
***FLOORING for the Toothsome Chocolate Emporium was brown packaging / shipping paper.
Craft ON!
Nicely done! Looks great!