I had the very lazy intention of simply cutting a hole into an old Britax carseat box just for some random play...buuuuuuuut....yeah right...it was impossible. I took one look at the door in the box with print all over it and that THING stirred within me. It's the thing that starts all of my little wheels turning and then they suddenly become a vision in my head and then I remember all of the random scraps of things laying about somewhere and before I knew it...I had an all day project before me.
Of course it was completely worth it in every way. My little and I had a blast painting, glueing, bending, etc. I'm sorry I didn't take images as I went along, but I'll try to explain the basics of what I did!
1. I had an old Britax box that our original infant carseat came in. The bottom of the box (which was still taped up) became the top of the house. I cut the middle of the tape so that I could use those cardboard flaps for the sides of the roof. I simply cut the side flaps into triangle shapes for the sides of the roof and left the other two flaps flat to help support the roof to come.
2. We had to paint the box white to cover up all of the brand and writing and Britax stuff all over it. That was a lot of fun for my 2 year old! Once it was dry, we moved on. I have to use a pencil to outline everything I do before I paint or cut so that I have a guideline. So I drew and cut out a door, two windows on each side as well as a top square window and a little window in the door. I drew the outline of shutters, a window box, flowers etc so that I could paint them later. I cut out shapes that looked like window panes for the top window and the door window just to add some interest and dimension.
3. PAINT! I painted a little porch lantern, flowers, shutters, vines, house number etc. This is when everything started to come together and look like a playhouse!
4. For the roof I used a large, flat piece of card board I had and bent it in half. I also had the magnificent contact paper for cabinets left over from another project that I cut out and attached it to the roof for a whimsical look! The contact paper and the little butterflies came from the Dollar Tree by the way ($1 each) and I already had them laying about!
5. I used an empty toilet paper roll for the mailbox. I painted it bronze and punched two holes in the back as well as the house so it would hang properly from the house. It's the perfect sized "mailbox" for our little playhouse and to receive special notes in!
6. I wanted to make something extra special for a "friend" to come into the house so I made a mouse sized door and used felt, mini clothes pins and string for Mouse's clothes line above his door.
Lastly, we made a last minute addition...a chimney! I decided to make this after I ran out of paper towels and had an empty roll the next day! I painted it to look brick (again, just to be whimsical) and stuffed it with batting to look like smoke! I cut a hole in the contact paper and cut the bottom of the paper towel roll into flaps so I could tape them down onto the roof and then cover it with the contact paper. All in all, it came out better than I thought and it was so fun to make with my little!!! It became an instant favorite...for our cat too, who loves to sleep in it when it's not being occupied!! Big win for everyone with something that we made with scraps!!
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