Make Your Own Doll House for CHEAP!

So my niece's 4th birthday was coming up and I knew I wanted to do something super special for her.  She's going through a serious doll phase, so when I saw this dollhouse shelf at Michael's on sale for like $20, I just couldn't help myself!  Now while the original purpose of this "house" is to hold books and other gadgets and gismos for display, I saw serious potential for an awesome little dollhouse that my niece could play out her own soap operas in.  I always dreamt of having a dollhouse, with the little furniture and miniature appliances, but never got one, so I used a dash of imagination with a sprinkle of creativity and came up with some of the cutest ideas to furnish the house.  And catch this, most of it was made using items I already had lying around the house or taking up space in that junk drawer (you know you have one of those drawers), so the cost was minimal.  So if you love crafts, have a good imagination and have always wanted to make a dollhouse for that special little girl in your life, then here's a project for you:

STEP 1:  BUY THIS AWESOMELY CHEAP DOLL SHELF AT MICHAEL'S 

STEP 2: PAINT YOUR HOUSE 

(and I bought a flower calendar from Michael's for $1 and used a couple of the pictures as wallpaper)  Just used wood glue to paste it to the "walls".  Trim as needed to fit perfectly.

STEP 3: PAINT AND DECORATE THE FRONT OF YOUR HOUSE!  

I found packs of wooden squares for about $1.50 at Michael's, the trees are actually place card holders for a $1 in the wedding section and the fence pieces were like $1.

STEP 4: MAKE YOUR FURNITURE AND ACCESSORIZE THE HOUSE!  

Here is the canopy bed that I made from scratch.  It's probably my favorite part of the entire project.  I bought a piece of rectangular styrofoam for a $1 or so and used an old white pillow case to wrap the foam in and hot glued it in place.  I then used 4 chop sticks (yes, the ones you get when you order out chinese food), painted them white and poked them down into the styrofoam.  Then all you need is a little bit of ribbon for the top of the canopy and the bed skirt, some lacy material for the drapes and some material for the comforter set and pillow.  So much fun to make! It took me a little while, just because I wanted it to be perfect, but I could probably make the next one in half the time now that I know how I want everything done.  And you can't really see it, but I glued a piece of cardboard that I cut and shape like a headboard and glued little rhinestone squares (look like mini mirrors) to it to make a glamourous headboard.  

STEP 4:  PUT IT ALL TOGETHER TO MAKE A FABULOUS DOLLHOUSE FOR THAT SPECIAL LITTLE GIRL IN YOUR LIFE.   

Or shoot, I have two boys and they totally loved playing with it before we got it to the Birthday party.  Throw some blue paint on it, make some boy accessories and your little guy has a cool Batman Cave or Spiderman Hideout house!

And please note the lights that put up around the house.  These came in a pack of 6 and are the battery operated miniature lights that have a little on/off switch on the back.  I glued one piece of velcro to the top of the house where I wanted the lights put up and another piece of velcro to the actual light so that you can just pull the lights off the house to turn the switch on or off and then just stick it back up there.  (notice I also put one by the front door)

I must say, this particular dollhouse doesn't fit the adult sized Barbie dolls in the smaller rooms, but if you have a small Skipper dolls or any other little doll, the kids will use them!  Luckily, my niece got a pack of little Disney Princess Figurines which she used and found to work perfectly.  It was definitely a great gift and was not only a hit with the little girls, but with everyone else at the party.  My family and friends joked that I made their gifts look pretty lame and that it was obvious which gift was her favorite!  My response:  "Well it better be after all the time and hard work I put into it."  ;)

STEP 5:  ADD A CURTAIN (IF YOU WISH) 

I'm not sure if I'm totally glad I did this or not.  I saw a similar idea somewhere and it was super cute, but I'm not sure I am quite advanced enough to pull this one off, but as you can see above, I put hooks on the sides so that she can pull it aside and have it held when she's playing and then can close it when she's done.

Do you have a dollhouse project or doll furniture that you've made?  I'd love to see what other people have come up with! Enjoy and please message me pictures if you decide to go make your own now!

McDonald's Happy Meal Change: Good or Bad?

While I realize it's tough to put the words McDonald's and healthy into the same sentence, there was just something about ordering a chicken nugget kids meal with whole milk and apples that made me feel a little less guilty about feeding it to my child.  Recently, McDonald's has made a change to their happy meals: "The New Happy Meal - With fruit in every one.  See how we're changing. Together."  Instead of giving parents the choice to either order fries or apples with each meal, McDonald's has decided to give a kid-sized fry and a smaller bag of apples with their meal.  While this may be better for the kids whose parents have always just ordered fries with their meals, as a parent who has always only allowed my child to have apples and milk with their meal, I find this change to actually be a negative change.  I quickly realized, I can just take out the fries, but now they only give about 4 slices of apple in each bag of apples, which they used to give about twice that amount.  I wonder if they would allow me to order 2 bags of apples and no fry with my child's next kids meal.  To me, it's worth a shot!  

What do you think about this change?  Do you think it will actually get more kids to eat "healthier" when getting a kids meal, or will those apples get tossed aside and thrown out?

Back to Baking!

Last week was my youngest guy's first birthday!  I can't believe how fast the time has flown by.  Since I went all out and made my other son an extravagant spiderman cake for his third birthday, in March, I obviously had to do the same for my little guy.  Instead of spiderman, we went with the Elmo theme since he's a big fan of Sesame Street.  I bought the cake pan from Party City and used the homemade fondant recipe from TheCookDuke.com and let my creativity and imagination go to work from there.  I must say, it took a while to do everything, but in the end, the cake was spectacular and everyone loved it...especially my little birthday boy!

Checking it out...

Doing  a little bit of taste testing...

I think he liked it :) 

Hurricane Party Cocktail

Only days after the unexpected 5.9 earthquake shook us up, we now find ourselves taking cover as Hurricane Irene violently beats and batters us over here on the east coast.  As you stock up on necessities and prepare for the worst, don't forget to make a stop at the liquor store (or if you're like me, make sure your wine rack is stocked).  For those of you planning on having a hurricane party or just want to enjoy a new drink for the occasion, I give you... (drum roll please): 

THE HURRICANE COCKTAIL!

Ingredients:

2 oz light rum

2 oz dark rum

2 oz passion fruit juice

1 oz orange juice

juice of half a lime

1 Tbsp simple syrup

1 Tbsp grenadine

orange slice and cherry for garnish

Preparation:

1. Squeeze juice from half a lime into shaker over ice

2. Pour the remaining ingredients into the shaker

3. SHAKE (like the earthquake baby)

4. Strain into glass (preferably a hurricane glass such as this)

5. Garnish with a slice of orange and a cherry

Now drink up and most of all BE SAFE!

20 Fun Things for Kids to do this Summer:

This summer, we decided to make a bulletin board of things we wanted to do at some point.  I've been watching my husband's little cousins who are 11 and 13, as well as my two little guys who are much younger.  I had each of them write down about 5 things that they wanted to do while they're with me this summer.  Although they have expensive taste, we came up with some great ideas, so here they go:

1. Make a fun list of things to do this summer (such as ours above or I love this idea!)

2. Make a music video

3. Paint ball

4. Make tie-dye shirts

5. Go to the water park

6. Laser Tag

7. Make ice-cream sundaes

8. Go to a theme park (they listed plenty)

9. Water balloon fight

10. Drop mentos into a soda can and watch it fizz and overflow (this was a new one for me)

11. Go see a movie

12. Go to the Pool

13. Have a Lemonade/Cupcake Sale

14. Slip-n-slide (don't forget the baby oil)

15. Have a picnic at the park

16. Create a ziplock bag explosion

17. Conduct the Fizzy Colors Experiment

18. i-Spy (scavenger hunt)

19. Make pizza from scratch

20. Make a photo album of our summer fun!

Fizzy Colors Experiment

As much as I love to play outside all day, some days it's just way too hot!  So this week we decided to put our bath fizzies to use in a fun colors experiment.  We filled up 6 glasses of water and dropped a different colored fizzy into each one (blue,  yellow and red).  We then picked two of the three colors to mix into the glasses of clear water.  My little guy quickly discovered that he could magically make new colors just by mixing a couple of the primary colors that he began with.  Not only was this a lot of fun, but it helped my 3-year-old learn a little bit about colors and how they are made by mixing with other colors.  You can also use food coloring for this experiment, but I must say, the bath fizzies are way more fun because they act like alka-seltzers when you drop them in, bubbling and fizzing in the cup for a minute.  And not to mention, they are a blast when it comes to bath time!


And while I'm sure all you moms and dads are already well aware of this, it just wouldn't be an experiment without our objectives and equations.  Shoot if you want to get even more scientific, have the kids make hypotheses (guesses) as to what color will result each time before you combine them.

The Fizzy Colors Experiment

OBJECTIVE:  Learn about the 3 primary colors and how you can mix them together to make brand new colors.  And have lots of fun!


PRIMARY COLORS: Blue, Red & Yellow


MATERIALS NEEDED:  
*6 clear glassses filled about halfway with water.
*either red, blue and yellow food coloring or bath fizzies (which you can find in the bath section at the grocery store)
*something to stir the water with


RESULTS:


BLUE + RED = PURPLE
BLUE + YELLOW = GREEN

YELLOW +

RED + YELLOW = ORANGE

BLUE = GREEN!

So excited to see his new colors MAGICALLY appear!

Help me win a HONEYMOON!

So, those of you who follow my blog, know that I have two little boys with my new husband.  We have been together for quite some time, but sort of did everything a little backwards.  And since we have kids, we weren't able to spend money on a honeymoon (which we desperately need).  So when we heard about a contest on a nearby radio station, giving away a free honeymoon to the hottest bride, I joined in.  What do we have to lose?  So if you guys could help us out and go VOTE FOR CRYSTAL, we would greatly appreciate it.  With two little ones, we barely get a night to go out to dinner, much less a free trip to a Sandals Resort in Jamaica!  I love you guys and thank you ahead of time for your time to do this!