Family life is always bustling, but we have made our lives simpler especially for this year, and we are less busy by design. It’s lovely and there’s a healing going on in our family, I can feel it, after 2 very long years of challenges.
We didn’t bring many toys with us to New Zealand and so there’s been an opportunity for more creative play and we make more things. Isn’t that great! In the house where we are staying, there are low shelves along one wall in one of the bedrooms. We don’t need all the space so I made ‘apartments’ (as the kids call them) for the Barbie dolls.
Most of the furniture are made from recycled materials, and I’ll go through all the items below. The only products I needed to purchase were:
- Wadding
- Material (I purchased a packet of remnants for $5)
- Lace ribbon & fake fur edging
- Wrapping paper
So a small investment to foster many wonderful hours of play.
Step 1 – Line Shelves (or box)
Back the shelves with wrapping paper. I used tape. This became the base for everything on the wall so it’s easy to rip it all off without damage. This could also be done inside a large box instead of a shelf.
Step 2 – Make windows
Make the windows. This is simply a water colour scene quickly splashed on a piece of paper, then 6 paddle pop sticks stuck on to make a window shape. Cut around the square shape and glue to the wall.
Step 3 – Furniture / Extras
I made the furniture mostly out of a recycled materials.
- Wall pictures cut out from magazines & boxes. I framed some of them with toothpicks (cut the tips off)
- Beds are made with shoeboxes and cereal boxes and you can find the step by step tutorial here.
- Circle chairs are made from empty tin cans and there’s a step by step tutorial here.
- Sofa chairs are made from empty boxes (like children’s liquid Nurofen box) and are made a similar process to the beds.
- Bookcase is made from an empty bandaid packet.
- Curtains are left over material.
- Tote bag is made from an empty shampoo bottle and the full tutorial is here.
- Lamps are made from the middle section of an egg carton covered in fabric for the shade part, soda lid for the base and beads on a toothpick for the stand.
- Bedside tables are made with a baking soda bottle (the round one) and a tea box (the rectangle).
- Mirror is made with silver cardboard.
- Rugs are made from fake fur trims (you can get from Spotlight).
- Pillows are made from left over fabric and wadding.
- Wallpaper is made from wrapping paper.
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