The House That We Built

I have a confession to make. I played with Barbies for a very long time. Well beyond any of my friends. My favorite thing was to decorate their living spaces. I never had Barbie's Dreamhouse or Malibu house or even the RV but I found all sorts of places for her to live. More often than not she lived on my vanity table. The one with drawers on each side and the middle shelf that dropped down a bit. LOVED turning that piece of furniture into her New York loft. So you can imagine how delighted I was when I stumbled some homemade doll houses like these...

from Ohdeeoh

from Craftastica

In a recent round of thrifting, I picked up a bag full of Polly Pocket dolls (excuse me, Holly Pocket dolls according to Miss M). I thought that this little craft would be perfect for them. Because they're so small, we could work on a smaller scale. I decided to make two houses. One for M and one for me! I mean, er, for the dolls, of course. I chose to make the second style of house because it could easily be disassembled and stowed away.

First, I unfolded a box that originally housed a tower fan - tall and skinny - and cut four rectangles out. Two rectangles = four rooms = one house.

In the middle of each rectangle I cut a slit halfway up/down. This is where they slid together.

Then I cut out doors, doorways, and windows.

I spent the other day ripping out pages from old home decorating magazines and catalogs. Scrapbook paper works great too!

M and I grabbed our scissors and glue sticks and got our decorating on! M called herself a "builder" during this phase. "So that peoples could live there."

M brought the dolls out and we had a "reveal" for them!

M's house:

And mine:

I can't tell you how much fun we had doing this activity together! I have a feeling this is only the beginning...