We’re not pyromaniacs, really. But we do manage to go through matches at an alarming rate. And I always squirrel away the matchboxes–like clementine crates, I find them impossible to toss. So I guess that makes me a pyromaniac and a hoarder.

After I wrote about dollhouse love last month, I remembered making this matchbox chest of drawers as a kid. For those of you who share my affection for little things, this Lilliputian project is fun & quick. I used 4 matchboxes, a piece of polka-dot card stock, and those doodads (not brads–snaps?–but brads would do the trick). Here is a downloadable pdf with step-by-step instructions for making your own mini dresser.

I also admired this groovy homemade dollhouse in the April issue of Family Fun magazine (“House & Carton” by Amy Brown). This Family Fun link shows you how to make your own (from two cardboard boxes) complete with the fancy furnishings (all fashioned from egg cartons).

(Photo by Andrew Greto; ideas and craft stylings by Lynn Zimmerman. Reprinted with permission of Disney FamilyFun. Copyright April 2011.)

And while I’m on the topic of the miniature (I know, I know–again!) . . . I thought I’d mention the three-book series, Doll People, by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin, with exceptional black-and-white illustrations by Brian Selznick (including a cut-away of an antique dollhouse).

Yes, the doll people are alive & there’s a creepy baby doll in one of the stories–but the books are gentle and true to a kid’s perspective. They are emphatically not Toy Story. Toy Story 3, with its hints of torture and apocalypse, left my 5-year-old weeping in the theater aisle. And me, too, for that matter. But Zeke & I just finished these books & we loved them.