Barbie's chairs are finished

The Barbie chairs have been evolving for a few weeks now. From my initial idea that came from recycling a mailing tube, to being a shade of pink that didn't really agree with me.

They are now a very groovy textured gold.

Here's what I did. I sketched the shape onto the tube. After I was happy with it, I cut it out. I sized up how high to make the chairs by measuring up Barbie sitting on something. My chairs are about 4 inches tall. Then I traced around the chair shape to make a template for all the other chairs.

I used some scrap photo mat board to make disks and hot glued them into the top opening. To make the cushions I used some disks of board as well and made them up in the same way as I made my fabric name badges.

I ended up using self adhesive contact to cover the chairs when the painting thing didn't really work out for me. I put the contact on and then trimmed off the excess with a craft blade. Finally, I hot glued the cushions on.

The girls were impressed that their Barbie's have chairs now. Except that there is six chairs and only five Barbie's. They said it's handy because if there is a visitor they will have some where to sit :-)

The Barbie box house

I have finished the box house for the kids Barbie's to live in. And by finished, I mean it's getting there. As I showed here, I used glassware boxes I bought from the hardware shop. The kids can change the house around because the boxes are not joined together.

Esther and Ellamay bought themselves another Barbie each with some birthday money they had. We were really careful when opening them so we could use the packaging as part of the wall decorations in the boxes. We used some scrapbook paper too. It turned out great!

I would still like to make some beds, a table and some kind of kitchen cabinet. I would really like to try making a bedroom screen that dorriebelle made after some inspiration from my Fabric farm fences. I haven't had the sewing machine out for quite a while now so not sure when that will happen. I had hoped that I would have actually achieved that one by now but things have been really slow here. When I do get these things done, you'll be the first to know :-)

Chairs in the making

Don't know when I will get these completely finished. Here is a quick look at the beginnings of some chairs for the kids Barbies.

They are cut from a postage tube that Tim was kind enough to give me with the comment "Can you make something with this?" As soon as I saw it, I saw chairs. I scribbled the shape onto the tube as I went. Should have used pencil because the paint I have put on them isn't thick enough to cover the pen. Grrr.

I am hoping that the chairs won't look like toilets when they are done. I have made little cushions for the seats and have painted them but I am not happy with the colour. I'd really like to use some dark wood grain contact on them but I haven't got any. I will post some pictures when they are done.

I have made some more rooms for the Barbie house too. It looks pretty cool. I will post that soon. Esther and Ellamay start back at school next week (HOORAY) so I hope to get back to my stitching and what not.

Twirling wands

Trying to find things to make on school holidays can be a bit of a problem. The kids are usually pretty happy if you give them a pile of boxes, paper and sticky tape but sometimes they like an actually project. Now this one is probably a bit of a stretch to call a project but whatever. It took two minutes to make and the rest of the afternoon to play with. Good crafting!

I found a packet of these party favour wands at the Reject Shop. They were $2. I already had some crepe paper streamers at home.

The kids picked out which colour streamers they wanted and we just tied them onto the end of the wand. We did try threading them through the star but that didn't work too well. Then they pranced, played and danced around the house. Happy kids. Yah! Some streamers got ripped and so they decided to do that. Rip their streamers that is. So we suddenly had screwed up streamer pretend food and decorations in their rooms and shredded streamers everywhere.

And still, happy kids. I got out a new DVD to go with their prancing too. The girls are very into their Barbie DVDs.

I could probably sing all the songs now. I start singing them while I am doing things around the house. Then I realise I am singing them so I stop and hope that Tim hasn't noticed :-)

Only one more week before school starts. I am hoping to post some more kids crafts before the end of the holidays. I have emptied out all the stray papers, worn out box constructions and forgotten creations from last week so we can start fresh for this week.

Barbie stuff

So my brain has been a little preoccupied with Barbie dolls lately. How very frustrating when I am trying to get ideas on how to finish the stitching project that I started after the moustache's. It would seem that I am having a break from my projects at the moment because the kids are on school holidays.

Anyway, as you can see from the above photo, I made a home for the Barbie's to live in. Actually, it's more of a room. I bought a box for storing glassware in from the hardware shop to use for this. It is two layers of box instead of one and I thought it would stand up better to the wear and tear the kids would throw at it. It's covered in wood grain contact to make it pretty and give it even more strength. I also put some of that on the 'floor'. I found Barbie contact at Target the other week which they were clearing at 56 cents a roll so I bought a few. That's where the stickers are from. And I used scraps of photo mat board for the walls to make them nice (except for the joins... gotta think up a way to hide that).

See that thing Barbie is sitting on? Couch. Hmm... yep had to have a go at making one didn't I. Silly, silly me. Trying to make small furniture when children are around asking if its finished and trying to make it something special when it didn't need to be... Let's just say I spent a very frustrating afternoon on it!

It started like this. Scrap photo mat board again. And a dodgy hot glue gun.

Before I glued the back on, I stuffed the box section with scrunched up newspaper to stop it from getting squashed should somebody stand on it.

I covered it with a couple of layers of an old polar fleece baby blanket to give it a little padding and then tried my best to get the fabric on. The fabric is actually a tea towel I found in my fabric stash. It's all hot glued. Blerk. I had so much glue stuck on my fingers when I finished this! This is what I was thinking about doing when I started out. I made the cushions the same way. As you can see, I didn't really follow the picture at all. Except for the cushions, of course. Note to self: If you are going to make small furniture for your children to play with again, either go with the simple recycling boxes and containers idea or make it at night after all the kids are ASLEEP!

When I googled furniture for Barbie, I also found this. I might study this a bit more and see if inspiration hits. I should probably add at this time that all three kids ended up playing with other things after I made the stuff for them. I am glad we haven't spent any extra money on the Barbie's just yet. Probably those Barbie's just need more stuff to cosy up the room to get the kids interested.  You know like a bit more furniture, some pictures for the walls - that sort of thing!

Look who's come to stay

Barbie. Well, Barbie's actually. Esther and Ellamay got one each for their birthday. They are pretty excited about that. Now I am hearing about how they need all these clothes and accessories. I declared just the other day that I would not be making any clothes for them because I thought they would be too small and fiddly and then I saw how much they cost. We shall see.

It seems these Barbie's are going to have to learn some decency at least. They are already so comfortable they seem to be always in the nude! Have to do something about that. Don't be surprised if you see a few Barbie type things going on here in the near future. Just warning you.

At the moment, they are unnamed so I will have to suggest the girls come up with suitable names. And don't you love that "play with" look their hair is sporting already?