Fairy Tale Miniature Ideas & Themes

Fairy Tales are always a great source of inspiration and ideas for miniatures and dollhouse scenes. You can also do a lot of fun altered art mixed media assemblage creations as well.

I’m one of those list-brained people who is always making lists, so I thought I would share my list of fairy tales to give you a little bit of creative inspiration as well. Not a fan of fairy tales? We have plenty of other dollhouse and miniature theme ideas you can use for inspiration!

Most popular fairy tales are in the public domain, so for the majority of these you can safely use them for all of your creations. If you want to play it extra safe copyright and trademark-wise, I would avoid using any types of Disney characters. You can see my post on copyrights and trademarks in miniature art for more info on that.

Fairy Tale Themes for Inspiration

I love, love, love fairy-tale inspired houses. There are so many great fairy tales out there, and many people are very familiar with the stories. Here’s a couple of different fairy tales to inspire you:

1. Snow White & The Seven Dwarves: This would be another fun cottage to create, complete with 7 dwarf sized beds, chairs, and all of the accessories of course!

2. Little Red Riding Hood: You could choose to recreate a cottage for Grandmother’s House, or even perhaps build the house of the wolf.

3. Three Little Pigs: A house made of straw, a house made of sticks, and a house made of stone! This could also be a fun idea for mixed media collage/assemblage.

4. Hansel & Gretel: Everybody needs a gingerbread house!

5. Cinderella: Maybe you will make the ballroom, the grand castle, or even the cottage complete with a fireplace – that is where Cinderella got her name afterall!

6. Princess and the Pea: I think it would be very, very fun to make a gigantic layered bed for a fun theme for a room box.

7. Tom Thumb/Thumbelina: These are stories of miniature people, so of course these would naturally be very fitting characters for almost any miniature scene.

8. Jack & The Beanstalk: This could be a fun one to do with the giant portion built in 1:12 scale and then use 1:24 or even 1:24 scale for Jack and his house.

9. Rapunzel: A tower themed dollhouse would definitely be some fun to recreate!

10. Pinocchio: Imagine how much fun it could be to make the toymaker’s room!

11. Aladdin: My first thought is it would be fun to design a magic lamp shaped room box for the genie – could always try making the base with paper mache or clay.

12. The Elves & The Shoe Maker: I’m envisioning a cute little shoemaker’s storefront here!

13. Alice in Wonderland: There’s no shortage of Alice in Wonderland inspiration. This C.S. Lewis classic was first published in the 1800’s, so it is also in the public domain. Whether you recreate the tea party scene or simply have fun with Wonderland themed decor there’s a lot of options. You could do this with a series of different miniatures or even dedicate an entire house to this one.

14. Goldilocks and the Three Bears: This would be another fun one that would allow you to mix and match different miniature dollhouse scales together – too big, too small and just right!

15. Town Mouse/Country Mouse: This is the classic tale of a mouse from the country and a mouse from the city. A house for a mouse sounds like a perfect idea.

16. The Frog Prince: This is the classic fairy tale of the frog who befriends a princess and  turns into a prince. You could definitely make a frog habitat in miniature for the frog prince!

17. The Old Woman in a Shoe: I am in love with the idea of building a dollhouse into the side of an old boot or maybe even creating your own shoe out of paper mache. One of these days I might just have to try it!

I will keep adding to this list as I think of more fairy tales – there are enough ideas here to keep all of us very busy for quite awhile now!

Do you have a favorite fairy tale? What fairy tales inspire you for miniature scenes? I’d love to hear from you in the comments section below!