Dolls House Makeover

It's finished at last!  Well, it's as finished as it's going to be.  
This dolls house has been taking up too much room in my house for the last few months and as school starts back next week, this is where is will be heading, so I HAD to get it finished.

I'm fairly pleased with it and have to admit it does look much more modern, clean and inviting but having spent literally no money on the makeover, it is somewhat lacking in detail such as accessories, lighting etc for the rooms.  However, it does have the basic furniture - I guess you could call it minimalist!

If you want to see the house in detail before I started click here 

I'm sure you will agree, it was quite depressing.

Bedroom with paper bunting

As I explained in that post I pulled out the broken windows, scraped up the carpets, ripped off the wallpaper and coated everything in white paint.  

Second bedroom with printed rug and wall art

Then I printed some pretty paper and glued it to the walls (this was the only cost involved).

Simple kitchen with large printed clock

I painted the furniture and made colourful covers from scraps and then finished the rooms with some paper rugs and art which were also glued down.  

Most of these I printed from the Ikea website!

Colourful lounge is so much brighter!

I'm glad it's done.  I wondered about curtains, window boxes and so on but I've spent enough time on it for now - it needs to go back!

I painted the front a beige/cream colour
with white trim and grey roof

Have to admit though, I saw a dolls house on Gumtree a while back complete with loads of furniture and had to have it....

....it's currently in the loft waiting for a makeover for my little one, possibly for this Christmas or next?  

We will see. 

Left side of the house

 

Right side of the house

Rosemary and Lavender Scented Playdough

I cut back the rosemary bush in my garden yesterday and have an absolute stack of it!  I'm planning to dry it and then store it or maybe even freeze some but there's just soooooo much of it.

So this morning - a grey day - we decided to make playdough au natural and add some fragrant rosemary to it.  












We ended up with rosemary trees and some pebbles around the playdough and then also added some lavender from the garden.  It smells delicious! 



Then we added some animals and little one had a great time moving the animals about, pummeling, rolling and squishing the playdough and rearranging the trees and pebbles.

He was absorbed in this for a whole hour!  
What a hit!

If you want to make playdough you can do so in a couple of minutes.....

1 cup flour
1/2 a cup salt
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup boiling water

Mix it all up and add whatever you like - colour, glitter, scent etc

Change Bag Pouch

This is the second changing pouch I have made and only really made this one as I left the other one behind at my sister's house last week and didn't realise how much I would miss it!







It holds all our changing bits and pieces and other essentials in one place, making them super easy to find instead of rummaging around the many pockets in the change bag.

This time though, I put an extra little pouch pocket inside the bag to hold tubes of cream, plasters, and sachets of paracetamol - after somebody asked me if I had any paracetamol and I just about tipped out the contents of my bag to find it!

It seals up nice and easily with a simple strip of Velcro.

The initial idea came from Simple Sewing for Baby by Lotta Jansdotter, although I have put my own touch to it by fully lining the bag and added a little pocket inside.  

This is a fabulous book and I would totally recommend it.  I've made many of the ideas or at least adapted them for my own use and they are super simple!

Best of all, little one is loving the camper van print.

Linen Bear

I started making this cute, old looking bear ages ago, like over a year ago maybe and just never got around to finishing it. 

He/she (?) really just needed a face and a little bow so why I didn't bother, I have no idea!

Anyway.....little one saw him sitting on a shelf in my sewing room this morning and asked for him to be brought down.  

He has taken quite a shine to him so while he's been napping this afternoon, I gave the little chap a proper face and bow and he's sitting, on a chair waiting for my little one to waken up and find him!







If you want to make him, I think (?) it might be a Tilda pattern and can check up on that if you want me to.

Oh, I think I can hear someone wakening up!

Toddler Bed Set

My little one has loved snuggling up to sleep in a sleeping bag since he was tiny but he's getting too big now - even though the label says it suits up to three years and he's only recently turned two!

So, time for a big boy bed and a duvet and why not throw in a pillow too!

I haven't even really looked around at duvet covers in the shops yet, I just fancied making my own. 



So I gathered up lots of scraps and bits I had lying around - mostly in my favourite spotty prints and colours.  

I knew I wanted splashes of colour but the cover to be predominantly white.  

I took some measurements and then made a rough pattern for the coloured strips and then tore up some more white strips from a supermarket sheet....then started stitching it all together, topstitching each panel to secure in place.

Once all the pieces were stitched together I cut out a backing piece from the white sheet and attached that too.  I put three little bits of Velcro along the bottom to close the cover up.

Then I used more of the white sheet to make a pillow case and trimmed it in co-ordinating colours.

He LOVES it and I'm quite pleased too!

Summer Flower Fun

The weather here has been gorgeous over the last few weeks and that combined with our summer break means that the sewing and making side of things has pretty much come to a standstill over the last few weeks.
But we've still been busy playing and having fun.


Today we found some petals lying on the grass that had fallen off some beautiful pinky-red roses so we decided to pick them up and then collect some more flowers from around the garden and float them in some water.  



The colours are fabulous don't you think?  They just say summer!

Anyway, little one poked, prodded, dunked and sailed the flowers along like little boats before watering them and then decided that they needed some company and added a couple of ducks and a shark.  

Well why not?  

They need water too, right?!

Elvis the Rag Doll

I bought a magazine recently purely because of the free pattern that came with it, but don't you agree these dolls are pretty cool?
















Little one hadn't been too well so I decided to cheer him up by making one of these.
 
The actual doll sews up really quickly but the clothes are a little more fiddly and time consuming.  

But the great thing is I can make more clothes so that he can have fun changing him too.

 I posted him on my Facebook page a week or so ago and someone thought he looked like Elvis so the name has stuck.  

Certainly, before he had clothes there might have been a resemblance but I'm not so sure now.
Anyway, I'm pleased and think he looks pretty cool!