DIY Dolls House

This has been by far one of my favourite craft projects so far!

I have decided to make a dolls house for the girls as a joint Christmas present. Its not totally DIY as I did buy the basic shell. I bought this really large basic Dolls House from ToysRus. It's super cheap at £50 for a wooden house with accessories and figures. But it's plain and boring...hence the price.

Cute toilet before make over

So if you fancy giving it a go, this is how I did the girls one on a super tight budget.

Firstly I painted the house parts before assembling it. Its much easier to paint before screwing it together. I used a some left over matt paint for the exterior walls and added white gloss to the raised areas for definition. I painted the door in a slightly darker blue to the walls just so it stood out.

Secondly I managed to decorate the entire interior walls and floors for free...how?
I searched the internet for a few hours and ordered every free sample of wall papers I could. Most major shops do free samples with free shipping, next, john lewis, homebase ect, but lots of high end designers do them too. The living room wall paper would be over £100 per roll to buy, but I got a large A4 sample for free. You also get the free sample rolls in most DIY shops, I just visited one and took some free strips. I used wood effect wall paper to create wooden flooring in the dolls house too.

I had to wait a couple of weeks for them all to arrive but once they did I got cracking.

Lastly the finishing touches. I used a home catalogue and cut out pictures of photos in frames to sick on the walls, fire place photos, mirrors, lights, plants. Once they were all stuck on they added character to the rooms.

So here are the finished rooms.

This is the master bedroom. This is wall paper glued to the walls and floor. Note the added picture on the wall of a rose from a catalogue of home décor.
I also covered the bed with a scrap of material and made a new bedding set.



The kids bedroom .I used wall paper on the walls and floors again here. I also cut out some kids cartoon pictures from a kids magazine to show it as a kids room. I added coloured paper to the stairs to add extra colour.

This is the living room with the super expensive wall paper. I've use the wood effect paper in here to look a bit like wooden flooring also.

You can see some of the added details here with the photos hanging on the wall, the fireplace and the clock. These were all taken out of a home style magazine.

Next my favourite room. The toilet. But mostly because I managed to find this awesome wall paper. I think this was from a DIY shop, which I took from the free sample roll.







This is the kitchen, again this was an expensive wall paper which I love. I pained the kitchen appliances and put some silver wall paper onto the pretend fridge. I also added some pictures of kitchen house decor stuff like the chalk boards on the left and house rules on the right.

Lastly here's mum in the dinning room, with a drink. I tried to make this as realistic as possible after all. I used fabric on the floor here to create a carpet feel and another square of carpet for a rug


Overall this is now a fun, colourful and hopefully something they will have fun with and play with for a long time. Plus if /when anything gets inevitably damaged, it doesn't matter..we can just re decorate.

Sensory Board

This is a work-in-progress project here as I'm planning on giving this to the girls for Christmas.

I wanted to create a sensory board which would grow with the kids. So currently we have lots of fiddly bits on it, but later on I'll use it as a notice board and jewellery rack in their room.

I took a trip to a DIY and pound shop. I've spend about £20 altogether, so this is a super cheap craft with a lot of impact.

I bought the following.
1. MDF board. This was a cheap off cut from the bargain bin.
2. Along the top we have a metal rule which also acts as a magnet strip for the alphabet letters and light.
3. In the middle we have a mirror, door knobs, chalk board, photo frames, alphabet stickers, felt picture board and pink pencil case.

Firstly I arranged the bits on the board, finding out the best placement for everything.

Once I liked the positioning I raided the craft cupboards, stuck down the pieces and this is what we have. the circular photo frames are not finished, but they are hanging so you can lift them up and see underneath. I'm going to fill these with different textures and pictures.

Kids Artwork, Art Gallery

Scarlett always comes home with lots of artwork from preschool and although we put the odd one up, they easily get damaged by falling down off the wall and into the hands of littlest one, or misplaced in the odd pile of paperwork. So I decided to create the kids their own little gallery so they can show off their proud doodles.

I got a cheap £9 frame from Ikea (Norrlida if anyone's interested) 

Here's the before shot.

I then covered the back with some pretty paper, for when the frame isn't full.

I then carefully placed Scareltt's recent artwork. The a4 paper is a drawing of herself. We then have a lolly pop mummy and daddy with a love heart kite. Beautiful.

The finished result looks good. With her art on display, not getting damaged and we can easily change the bits over when she next brings something home. 

Woodland Themed 1st Birthday

We had an awesome day for Millie's 1st Birthday!

My little lady bug.

Now we're on a tight budget with me staying at home looking after the kids, so I had to be careful. Parties can easily get out of hand so this is what we did.

1. Hired the local hall for the day £10 per hour charge. (I don't have a big enough house to host at home)
2. Did a BBQ, pulled pork was the main dish, which was cooked in a slow cooker the night before. Minimal effort and just reheated on the day.
3. All games were home made with crafty bits we had around the house.
4. Most of the decorations were home made.
4. We had a bouncy castle which was hired to us for free from a friend in exchange for some baby sitting the week before.

Hanging Decorations

Home made decorations included loads, and loads of these paper lanterns and fans. All used from some super cheap tissue paper and looked lovely hanging from the high ceilings.

Room Decor

A friend had this tree and kindly let me borrow it for the day to add to the woodland feel. I had bought these paper photo frames very cheap (£1.50 delivered) and got a load of photos printed for free. You can get loads of free prints online when signing up to new photo printing sites. 

I used the cake as a centre piece. Above the cake table I placed the wooden letters I'd decorated. The giant number 1 was made from a cardboard box and wrapping paper off cuts.
I also bought a helium canister (£25) and used the balloons to decorate the venue. At the end of the party I handed out the balloons as party favours so I got my monies worth out of them.

These are the toilet roll mini pinatas I made for the little ones. They loved these!

I also made a large pinata for the older kids to enjoy. I made this with off cuts of the wrapping paper and a spare balloon. Filled with sweeties and confetti which was off cuts from making the tissue paper fans. 

 Happy Birthday Millie Moo!

Millies 1st Birthday

I've been doing the odd post showing the odd little craft here and there leading up to Millies 1st Birthday party, so I thought I'd share some photos from the big day and fill you all in on how it all went.

Firstly for both my girls I prepare a birthday table for them to come down to on the morning of their birthday. My mum did this for me as a kid and I used to love coming down in the morning before school, opening presents and having a cheeky slice of birthday cake for breakfast.

Here is Millies 1st birthday table.

For Millies cake I use a giant cupcake mould for the toadstool and a standard Victoria sandwich cake as the base. The woodland theme party was based all on the Ikea birthday decorations party pack I had bought. So to tie the cake in with the decorations I cut out the animals from the wrapping paper, backed them onto card them placed them on the cake. Simple and effective with very little skill involved. I placed the cake on top of a wooden stool I'd bought the kids months ago. I thought it just added to the woodland theme.

I also decorated some wooden letter I picked up from the local craft shop with woodland theme paper. This was a great party decoration which I've now used in her room.

For party details see my Woodland Party Blog.

An Eggcellent Alternative to Chocolate

An eggxpertly finished chocolate alternative gift for Easter.

So we're on a tight budget, which means I have to think a little out side of the egg box when it comes to getting multiple gifts for family members. We are visiting family over this Easter break, and I know they are getting gifts for the girls, so I thought it would be nice to reciprocate. Plus Scarlett is of the age now where she loves giving gifts too.

I needed to purchase at least 5 presents, with most decent eggs are at least £5 to £10 a go for something more than basic and that's just too much for me to spend.

Thinking alternatively I headed to my local garden centre which always have a few managers specials, which are usually less than perfect plants with a very, very good discount. I got lucky and found these.

Hyacinth

I picked these up for £1.12 for 3 plants, I then put them into pots I had saved back. These two pots were given to the kids in last weeks Robot party and contained the party favours. So they were free.

I then cut out some rabbit and egg shapes from some free wall paper samples I picked up from the local DIY shop.

Rabbits and Eggs

Using a strip to wrap around the plant pots I stuck the eggs and bunnies in a pretty pattern. Scarlett enjoyed doing this bit and I let her colour some in for a fun Easter craft.

Ready to wrap.

And we are done. Easter flowers in a pot, with home made decoration for £1.12 or total £5.60 (about the price of just one egg)

They last longer than chocolate and smell just as sweet. Easter on a budget!

New baby on the horizon - Baby box present idea.

One of my very close friends is due to have her 3rd...yes 3rd baby...I thought this completely crazy but if anyone can pull it off it's her. 

So with my other very close friend Anya we decided to put together something a little bit special. As I know baby no 2 onwards tend to get forgotten about by friends and family. I think they wonder why you're putting yourself through it all again when you moaned so much the first time around (just me?).

Anyway with this (probably) being her last child we felt we needed to make a fuss. So whilst on Facebook I noticed an article about the Finland baby box and decided this would be great. Perfect to put in the must haves for a new born and a few extra treats. With the added bonus of a storage box. 

Here is our version:  

• Nappies
• Wipes
• Breast Pads (we know she's bfeeding)
• Burts Bees baby kit (love their stuff)
• Newborn Vests, bibs, baby grows
• Scratch Mits
• Socks
• Knitted Blanket
• Rattle
• Lamb comforter
• Baby book (guess how much I love you)
• Baby Towel and Wash cloth

 Presents wrapped in brown paper and I cut a couple of old baby grows into ribbons for a cute decoration. Finished with a luggage tag eluding to what might be inside. 

Bottom layer with the essentials

Top Layer with the nicer bits and a hand knitted blanket I originally made for Millie, but I went on a bit of a knitting spree and made far too many, so I put a few aside for friends who I knew were having babies shortly after myself. 

All presented in this lovely box.

The best thing about this present is how inexpensive it's been. All the wrapping paper and ribbons cost £1.50, the presents were bought over a few months so we managed to get some good deals. The box was less than half price too at only £9 which is brilliant considering it's huge, pretty and practical. Perfect for an "on maternity leave budget"

We're giving this to Adele tomorrow as baby is due next week. I hope she likes it.