DIY Dolls House Decorating

Poppet got a dolls house for her third birthday back in January. We got it from ASDA for £35 which I thought was good at the time as it's really sturdy and big, but now I see it's reduced to £20 which is even more of a bargain! 

 I'd always had plans to decorate it as it's simple plain wood (or wood veneer even) inside; I even had plans to transform it into a beautifully decorated house before we gave it to her for her Birthday but decided it would be more fun to decorate it with her and take our time with it. I really have taken my time as it has taken me 6 months to do anything to it at all.

We started today scouring magazines and catalogues for pictures that we could use to make framed pictures for the walls. This meant Poppet got to use scissors so she enjoyed it a lot. We managed to find a few suitable pictures, so then started to make little frames for them.

We smoothed out some leftover Easter egg foil (it was pretty crumpled up still though), cut it into a square/rectangle depending on the picture shape and then glued our picture onto the centre of it. Then we folded the top and bottom edge of foil over and over on itself until it framed the picture. This bit was too fiddly for Poppet. To fold the side edges of the frame I first snipped off the thick folded bits so they would fold easier (much better instructions can be found here!). I also had some leather-look card which I just cut into a rectangle and glued a picture onto.

We ended up with a sunflower scene in a gold frame, a scenic sea view in a leather effect frame, and a portrait of Bonnie Prince Charlie in a gold frame which is obviously a must in any home. 

They were a bit homemade looking but still recognisable as pictures (I hope!)

And here they are adorning the walls of the dollshouse:

On a decorating roll I also found (ok not found, sacrificed Poppet's dressing gown for) some pink fleece fabric and glued it down in one of the smaller rooms to become a tacky and gawdy bedroom carpet which obviously Poppet loves. I measured it a bit wrong in my haste so had to stretch it and weigh it down with heavy things to make it fit while the glue dried. The green wooden block was Poppet's effort.

It does make a very cosy looking bedroom.

Not content to stop there, I also set my sights on some bathroom furniture! We bought a pack of dolls house furniture when we bought the house so already had a toilet but no bathing or washing facilities.

 I came across a post on Red Ted Art where they create a shower and a bath from an old iPhone box and so inspired I set off looking for my box.

The shower is the top of the box with a straw pushed through holes for a shower rail and a piece of a poly pocket threaded on for a shower curtain. I drew silver hearts on the shower curtain for a bit of decoration.

The bath was just the bottom of the box with a bit of blue fabric for water. I tipexed over the apple logos but they still show through a little.

The girls just loved playing with the new bathroom. The whole dolls house family had a shower or bath, or both, and then Poppet requested towels to dry them with so we rolled up little scraps of fabric and put them in a cabinet in the bathroom too. Little loved putting the people into the shower, closing the curtain and saying "bye bye!" and then "wash wash wash!" before taking them out and starting the process all over again. Poppet plays differently, instead of talking to the dolls like Little, she provides the voice of the character she is playing with so she had the mummy in the shower with the little girl telling her to 'be careful you don't fall'.

These little additions to the dollshouse have really reignited their interest in playing with it, it's been their favourite toy today. The rooms can be a little dark though so the next project is to light it!

Poppet: 3 yrs

Little: 21 mos

DIY No-Sew Curtains

I've had this material with the intention of making curtains for over 2 years but always been too daunted by the prospect so put it off and put it off, until a couple of evenings ago when I took the plunge and finally did it!

Well not really. I had intended to make 'proper' curtains - I read countless instructables on how to accomplish this feat of homemaking and swithered and swayed between using curtain tape, eyelets, rods etc,,,, but in the end I am just not that confident in my sewing machine skills and didn't want to risk messing up such a large piece of material. So I resorted to the old iron-on hemming web tape and a pack of curtain clips (from Ebay). I've used this method before to make the curtains in our old flat so I know that it works well - the result is not the most polished set of curtains but they serve the purpose and don't break the bank so it works for us.

It is quite straightforward - all you need to do is measure the size of curtains you need and cut your material to size (add a couple of inches to the length and width to allow for the hems). Then iron a hem onto all four sides of each curtain, following the instructions on your hemming web packet. Then it is just a matter of clipping the curtain clips onto each panel of material and hanging them up on your pole! I find the hardest part the measuring and cutting of the fabric, once that is done the ironing is time-consuming but simple. I did it while watching TV one evening.

I like how these curtains have an in-built safety feature - if anyone tugs or gets tangled in them (ahem, who could I possibly be referring to), the material would simply be released from the clip and fall to the floor leaving the pole intact. Handy when you have little ones around that like hiding in the curtains (especially since that scene in Tangled where Ana wraps herself up in a curtain while singing).

DIY Wreath

Assorted shrubbery from Grandad

This was my first ever attempt at making a wreath for Christmas and I am so pleased with how well it turned out! It cost me exactly nothing to make; everything was either lying around our house or garden (well most of it was from Nana and Grandad's garden!) and hopefully will make our home look nice and Christmassy when I eventually figure out how to hang it on the front door. 

Grandad arrived bearing gifts of conifer, holly and some shrub with red berries, and he had also knocked up a wreath base using some insulation tubing - I have still to turn this into a wreath but plan to do so shortly as I have loads of greenery still to use.

Our two wreath bases: insulation tubing on left and coat hanger & hanging basket liner on right

Poppet had already seen a picture of a wreath in a Christmas story book we had been reading her and asked "What's that?" so she had a rough idea of what they looked like but she liked seeing one appear before her eyes! I started off by bending a wire coat hanger into a circle with Poppet's help, leaving the hook intact so we could use it to hang the wreath up when it was finished. I had an old hanging basket liner that I tore roughly into three pieces and then wrapped around the coat hanger, securing it on by wrapping twine round it.

Together we then attached bits of conifer all the way round the wreath, just by pushing the end under a bit of the twine. We kept doing this until we had quite a good layer of conifer built up, Poppet was really good at this bit!

I was surprised at how long she was able to concentrate on it, I didn't need to try and keep her interested she just wanted to help.

After the conifer we had a search around the garden to see what other greenery we could turn up, and came back with some rosemary sprigs that we tucked into the wreath as well. Poppet kept coming back with little sprigs of weeds saying 'Here's some thyme!' (a herb she knows well because she has some in her garden) but I managed to avoid having to put any weeds into the wreath!

Wreath in progress

I then started adding pieces of holly and red berries and this is where the swearing started as I kept spiking myself on the holly. Understandably Poppet was from this point onwards reluctant to help attach the greenery and preferred to have a more background role just observing "Watch the spiky bit mum!"

I had sprayed our pine cones gold and scented them with cinnamon oil so Poppet loved taking them out the bag and sniffing them. We tied a few pine cones to the wreath as a finishing touch and declared it "all done!"

DIY Garden Train

Poppet and Little are pretty lucky to have a grandad who is also a joiner - this means that they get cool wooden toys to play with! 

At the weekend we were at Grandad (and Nana's) holiday cottages, which were formally two derelict cottages and after a lot of hardwork from Grandad and Uncle Mike are now two pretty snazzy holiday cottages! They are in the middle of beautiful Perthshire farmland so great for the little ones to explore the outdoors. Take a peek at their website www.cambusmichaelcottages.co.uk, they have just started to rent them out (shameless plug over)!

Poppet and her Grandad

We introduced Grandad to geocaching while we were there (and got him hooked I think!) although I have my doubts as to whether he will ever figure out how to download an app on to his Iphone.

Anyway, back to the subject of this post, Grandad's latest creation! He had a whiskey barrel, and so did what any normal person would and turned it into a train at the bottom of the cottages' garden.

I think it is safe to say that it is popular with the girls (well more so Poppet than Little but give her a few months!).

It has a bell to ring, windows to stick your head out of, a coal cupboard (I'm sure this has a more technical name) to open and shut, and a ladder to go up and down so is perfect for hours of imaginative play outside! Grandad has plans to add in a bench and some levers and buttons so there will be even more to keep them entertained. C'mon grandad what about some working headlamps!

We were kept up to date with the train's progress while Grandad was making it with picture messages that I had to show to Poppet for creative input and approval. When Poppet saw the circular windows at the front she exclaimed 'It's got eyes!', then 'Where's eyebrows?', so Grandad dutifully obliged and the train gained some eyebrows and a mouth to boot. 

A friendly sort of fellow

You have no idea how long it took to coordinate this photo

Little figuring out the bell

I'm looking forward to giving the girls a picnic lunch onboard the train one day, hiding out in it during a rainy day, seeing them play on it in the snow - I think it will be getting a lot of use over the years!

Thanks Grandad!

Shoulder-carrying is obviously quite an important Grandad function as well

Poppet: 2yrs 8 mos

Little: 11 mos

Homemade Rainstick

This is another addition to our do-it-yourself musical instrument collection - Poppet got FAR more enjoyment from making this than she does from actually using it so it tends to stay sat up on the windowsill but it was still worth it for a day of crafting activity!

I saw the instructions for how to make a rainstick over on The Imagination Tree ages ago and kept it in my mind for such a time when I had a cardboard tube available; well I finally framed and hung up a print that had been languishing in a tube in the cupboard for a long time so we gathered our materials together and got started! We used

• 1 cardboard tube (thick type)
• small nails (type for hanging pictures)
• hammer
• glue
• craft paper
• collage bits to stick on
• split peas and peanuts for the inside (you could use anything you have to hand - lentils, dried beans, rice, pasta etc...)

To start off you simply hammer in the nails at random intervals all around the cardboard tube - the more you use the better it will sound. Poppet was very insistent that she have a go at banging some in so I started them off for her then held the tube while she hit them, being careful to keep her hands away from the nail. She LOVED this.

Once we had finished the inside of the tube looked like this:

We filled the tube up with some nuts and some yellow spilt peas and made sure the lid was sealed very securely. We tried it out and they gave a good sound but I think you would get an even better sound if you used shiny, hard, dried beans like kidney beans or something. We will definitely try this again once I get around to framing some more prints that I have lying around! Then Poppet covered some pieces of paper (she chose pink and purple) in glue and rolled them around the tube to cover it and pressed it all down. It doesn't really matter if it creases as it will get covered in collage bits anyway.

We left it to dry (as usual, copious amounts of glue was used), and then in the afternoon Poppet decorated it with some torn up tissue paper, feathers and foam shapes.

And here she is trying out the finished product. The girls were distinctly underwhelmed by the noise it makes in comparison to the drums we made! But it was free and we had great fun making it!

Poppet : 2 yrs 8 mos

Little: 11 mos