A Dolls House - One Day

When I was a kid (and played with Barbies) we converted a section of my bedroom cupboard into a dolls house.  It was a built in cupboard - floor to ceiling...something like 60cm wide with shelves top to bottom.  I don't think we did anything fantastic or amazing to the 'house' - no wall paper, no carpet.  But each shelf was a house floor. My Barbies lived in a mansion!  I loved it!

Anyhow, I have seen a few children's dolls houses around - like fancy-pants wooden ones that you'd be fleeced £200 for the privilege of owning.  Definitely not on my wishlist.  But, we visited a friend yesterday and her little 3 year old has been given this really great cardboard dolls house.

It is just like this one, but it is white.  I have just done a bit of googling and I see that you can purchase one of these here.  So fun.  I especially love that it is created for drawing on and that a budding little artist can go totally nuts on it or leave it completely minimalistic...and then when it's days are over, just recycle it.  No dilemma's or guilt over what to do with it when the enjoyment has fizzled out!

On my cardboard dolls house google travels, I also found this one.  I just have to share it!

How completely crackers is that?!  I love it.  The creativity appeals to me in a beeeeg way.  There are a few more must see views here.  Nappy boxes here - we - come!

Ok.  I got distracted.  This is actually where I was heading before google-land side swiped me....

It's a book shelf turned into a dolls house.  So, totally pretty.  Ok, I love this even more than a recyclable dolls house.  I love that I could re-purpose something that we already have.  I love that it can be re-purposed back into regular storage when the girls grow out of dolls houses.  Not that they have grown into dolls houses yet....maybe One Day...some day soon....I want to make a dolls house already!  Our family need a home!

Oh - if you know of any great dolls house furniture DIY's - I'd love to hear about them.

More nappy box crafting

All these soft toys needed a home.  Chloe has taken residence in Ava's old room, which has nice wall shelving and is where many of these guys have been living.  Ava's new room has no real storage just yet.  A temporary home for these chappies was needed.

{My mom made this gorgeous colourful ladybird quilt}

{More after the jump}

What to do with nappy boxes?

....other than recycling them in the rubbish bin....

When you have 2 little people, or even 1 for that matter, you go through a LOT of nappies.  We get our nappies from Costco, so they are in bulk quantities and boxed.  We seem to be getting a box for each little person (they're in different sized nappies) every 2 months or so...making for a lot of recycled boxes.

When Chloe arrived, Ava decided that her dolls rather enjoyed occupying the basinette when it wasn't being used by Chloe.  As I kept having to evict a doll to put the real baby in her own bed, we figured that Ava's dolls needed a bed of their own to share.  There was no way that we were going to pay £20 for a doll sized moses basket!!  This led to us making this little dolls bed out of a nappy box.

For the box all I did was:

Draw a freehand line on the box where I wanted to cut the sides

Match the sides at the top and bottom of the bed and use a ruler and craft knife to cut nice neat straight lines

Cut the sides of the bed with the craft knife - freehand - following the line I drew earlier

I added ribbon handles by making holes in the box, threading the ribbon through and knotting the ribbon

For the bedding all I did was:

With some left over batting and fleece I made a loose fitting mattress by simply wrapping the fleece around the batting and pressing it into the bed box

You could of course be clever by:

Adding feet with anything lying around - maybe little yoghurt pots

Painting/wallpapering/decoupaging the box

Sticking foam shapes or other embellishments on

I have another nappy box craft idea to share for another day....and I am sure that there will be more to come.