I don’t think I really need to tell anyone that most toys these days are plastic pieces of you-know-what.  Why should they be anything else, really?  Kids have such short attention spans with their toys because so much advertising is thrown at them.  They go from one toy fad to another, so long-term use doesn’t seem to be needed.

There are a few things that I think kids will play with for a longer term.  For boys it is generally their cars.  With girls, it is dolls.

My grandmother made this doll bed for my mother.  My sister and I played with it, too.  I had to do a bit of refurbishing of it, but now my daughter plays with it.

When I was little I really wanted a dollhouse.  My sister and I made do with temporary makeshift “dollhouses”, but it was something that I think I would have played with a lot.  When I saw an unfinished dollhouse at Michael’s (for only $30!), I knew what I wanted to get Anya for her birthday from Mommy and Daddy.  I’m hoping that it will become a family heirloom, and be passed along in the family.

My timeline was somewhat limited, having only a few weeks to do this project.  Add in trauma’s galore and a kitchen renovation, and I wasn’t able to do everything I wanted.  At the very least, I wanted to have it painted, with the basic decorating completed in the rooms.  In order to get some input from Anya before giving her the big present, I asked her what color she would like and let her pick some of her favorites out of the scrapbooking papers I had.  I had set aside a bunch of pink and sparkly ones…she chose them all.  😉  I then used them to create her rooms.

I didn’t buy any paint for it, and just used what I had.  I had a quart of purple that I mixed with white to get a pink color.  I had some cans leftover that had a Ralph Lauren pearly paint, which is the sheen you see above.  I mixed the pink with the gray and cream pearly paint to get the different colors.  I had a stamp for the fleur-de-lis and painted the other wall decoration freehand.

I used modge podge on the scrapbooking papers for the floors and some ceilings.  I’m not so sure how well they will work, but I can always “redecorate”. 😉

Now comes the tasks of getting/making some furniture for it.  I’m not going to rush, just so the stuff I make has some quality to them…hopefully.  I’ll post them as I get it done.

I also made this dress for her birthday, too.  It’s a new design and had some good twirl factor to it, as she likes.  It took me around 3.5 hours to make it, including drafting time and making mistakes.  She was pretty happy with it. 🙂