Barbie's Flat-pack home pt1

She-who-worships-Pink has requested a Barbie dolls' house for her birthday. What she is struggling with now is the waiting. Her birthday is not until just before Christmas.

Then I found this in the IKEA catalogue; The HUSET dolls house mini IKEA furniture. So cute and only $14.99.

Included in the packaging are pop-out accessories - cardboard clocks, books, pictures, mirrors and lamps to colour-in and stick-on.

I got to thinking; How about a room to put this stuff in, a kind of  three-dimensional  room but, like a play-mat, could be folded flat and kept on a bookshelf when it's not in use.

And this is what I came up with:

Hardware stores, grocers and wine shops are good for cut-away display boxes. Or you can just cut down your own box.

I wanted wall paper but settled for contact paper, since I couldn't buy a sample roll or piece of proper wallpaper under $60 which kind of defeats the purpose of a cheap interim solution.

After applying the contact paper, I glued all the little IKEA cardboard decorations into place. 

I cut up a cheap carpet tile ($4) to fit the space of the expanded box. I could have also used a piece of thick fabric like some sort of plaid or wool blend.

I certainly would have preferred a more discrete colour, but you-know-who was with me so we HAD TO BUY PINK!!!. This particular pink is a shocker but this is what happens to parents who shop with their children..All options are exposed and as a result, dubious choices are made. I may have to fish around in the fabric box yet and change it over time - this one hurts both my eyes and my fashion sense.

So this is the first of, I suspect, at least a couple of themed rooms. Maybe with same size boxes I could do them back to back.  Originally I had an idea to cut furniture photos out of the old IKEA catalogue and glue those onto the walls.  For now I might use our Outdoor Living catalogue, glue a beach or pool terrace scene onto the back of this box and just make Barbie and Ken a little towel each for sun bathing.

I  might even poke this into our suitcase to take on our holiday next week, since She-Who-Worships-Pink tells me Barbie and Ken and possibly also Ben and Vanessa will also be joining us..

And because you can never get too much of Barbie...

a Toy story

Mother of all Tantrums