SCORE!!

Today, we had a yard sale to raise a little extra money for the girls from Jena's ballet class to take to France. Several families brought things and Jena made fresh squeezed lemonade to sell.  I think they did pretty well for themselves (I haven't heard the final count yet).  It took a lot of willpower, but I did NOT buy a ton of things from the yard sale (be proud of me), but I did score an AWESOME dollhouse complete with furniture (porcelain toilet and sink, too) and a family.  I was not thrilled with the color (it was bright purple with turquoise shutters and yellow and blue trim), so I brought it home and painted it a pale yellow (because that's what we had in the garage).  Now, I think it looks like a sweet little island cottage and Zion is thrilled!

Brand New Dollhouse

I've been getting taunted daily by all of the modern dollhouse that making an appearance on the internet lately. I love them, ALL of them! So I woke up inspired today and determined to build a fabulous modern house. Fortunately the temperature today was a fantastic 60+ degrees. Now, we don't own power tools (or any tools really except for a hammer, several screwdrivers and a Dremel), so building this house was a brain teaser. I had some scraps of wood that I swiped from the Home Depot throw away bin and a collection of various Home Depot Kids Clinic projects that had been mutilated by overzealous children. I figured somewhere in all of those random pieces a dollhouse lurked. I would say it was more like doing a logic puzzle than actually constructing anything. I did not cut any of the wood, but I did have to use the Dremel to shave of a few millimeters from a couple of pieces. Originally I was going to sketch out the different pieces and try to put a design on paper, but that didn't work out so well. So, I just winged it!

The big girls helped dismantle some of the pieces. Jena pulled out the nails and Ashni sanded all the rough edges.

These are the pieces that we had to choose from. There were lots of nails, but fortunately no trips to the ER for tetanus shots.

Here it is pretty much completely constructed. The white door on the front slides. I used some pieces from a message board that had a track to slide the white board in. The door is actually a piece of the white board.

Jena helped out a lot. She's good at getting her hands into tight spaces and she's very enthusiastic about creating things. She was out in the garage pulling out nails before I could even get out there.

Completed paint job. The little trees came from out bush outside. It smells very piney. The little planter is from a perpetual calendar that we made a couple of months ago.

Notice the sleek modern fireplace complete with photo of Miles Davis!





The kids couldn't wait to furnish their new house. So now, they have this house with the living room and dining room and they've put all of the beds in the barn that we found yesterday.

We have retired the cardboard dollhouse. It hasn't been discarded, but it has been relocated to their closet. I'm sure it will still get plenty of use.

Wooden Doll Makeover

Back over the summer when we put together the cardboard dollhouse, we also made a little wooden family to live in it. Well over the past few months, the family (as well as the house, actually) have begun to look a bit unkempt. So I decided to give the whole family a much needed make over. They originally had fabric scraps for clothes. It was very cute when they were first completed, but months of my girls playing with them...well, let's just say that they looked unloved. I figured painting clothes for them would be much more durable in the long run. You can see a few pictures of what the family used to look like in their home here. We will do some house and furniture touch ups some other day.


I love the little old fashion butt flap on the back on the triplets' pajamas (not that my kids have any idea what those are).

A VERY short Grandma and Grandpa (or a very tall Mom and Dad). I told them that sometimes we shrink as we get older (tee hee).

Reduce, Reuse, RECONSTRUCT

I am a big fan of cardboard and its many uses. My favorite use right now? Fabulous and virtually free toys for the kids. Because the phrase "starving artist" in heavily weighted in truth, awesome toys can be beyond our financial reach. The solution, my friends? If you can't buy it, recreate it. To date, we've made a lovely kitchen for Bijou complete with sink and oven. She was in desperate need of a place to prepare her array of felt food (I was beginning to miss my pretend meals). It took weeks, but the girls and I finally finished the cardboard dollhouse. AND because I've gotten so much positive feedback, I've decided to complete my illustrated instruction book for both projects. Honestly, I've tired of retyping instructions in emails over and over again. Here are some pictures of Bijou's kitchen (and food) and the dollhouse. Keep and eye out for the instruction books coming soon! At some point I would like to be able to construct a few pieces of cardboard furniture. Keep your fingers crossed.

The dollhouse in its skeletal stage. It's all held together with packing tape and Elmer's.

A fresh coat of yellow picked out by the girlies.

Sandpaper and black construction paper make the shingles on the roof. Shutters and doors added.

The kiddos trying their hand at interior design. Their choice of wall treatments is questionable.


The kitchen. Complete with fridge, stove, oven and sink. The lovely shelf above the stove is cut out of an Ikea catalog.

The living room sofa and more Ikea home furnishings. We are particularly fond of the green lamp.

The completed front door with handle and porch light cut from a home furnishings magazine

Blue bathroom on the third floor.

The family is all moved in and ready to play!















Some pictures of the kitchen, as well as pictures of the felt food I made to go along with it. Some of the food is new, the rest is transplanted from the cardboard kitchen we had in St. Croix.

Some day I will master the blog format....unfortunately it will not be today, blah...