Play Kitchen

Since I saw this post, I wanted to make a play kitchen for my little girl.  I decided it will be the perfect gift for her 3rd birthday.  After I bought the television cabinet, I planned for days/weeks.  And here is the before and the after photos.

And here is how we did it…

We decided to take out the divider (between the TV and the shelves).  For the back, we used old knotty pine ceilings (we took it out when renovate our house).  Hubby made the hole for the sink. Then I primed the whole cabinet.

Then 2/3 coats of soft blue paint.  The inside of the oven was painted black.  Hubby did the tiling and grouting.

For the shelves, I re-use an old cd rack that we don’t use anymore.  I took of all the CD dividers and made space for the microwave.

The stove is a wooden placemat and the burners is wooden coasters (I bought those at a craft store).  The stove knobs I got for free from a Appliance Repair shop.  After a lot of cleaning, it was like new.  The oven door is a piece of wood that hubby had cut to size.  He cut out the hole and insert a piece of Perspex.

The sink is a stainless steel dog bowl.  The faucet is from our old bathroom.

And then the fun part…  the decorating.  I just loved that.  The two baskets is for the food and baking stuff.

A place for the shopping bag and apron.

And a blackboard for the shopping lists of menu.

And my girl???  Well, she was just loving it.  You can tell from her big smile.

 

Now that it is finished, I’ve already started to think about next year’s birthday project.

Kid’s gifts to count the days

So, me and my dearest husband went on a vacation.  Just me and him, without the children.  It wasn’t easy for us to go without them, but the thought of my parents looking after them, made it easier.  But I want them to enjoy their time and know that we still love them and thinking of them everyday. 

I decided to make them gifts for each to tell how many days left before we came home, what we were doing that day and a small message.  And I must say, it was a hit.  My mom said the kids woke up early each morning to open their gifts, reading (or listening) their message.

Here is what I made:

Firstly, the message paper:

On one side of the paper I wrote a message for each one of them.  their own personal message.  then in the middle, I made a big circle (Pink circle for my girl and the blue one for my boy) and wrote the qty of days left in it.  and of course, a picture.  on the other side I paste a map of where we were and a short description of what we will be doing that day (we went on a coach tour and knew what we will be seeing, etc). 

If you fold the paper in half, it had a message on both sides.

Ok, and here is the fun part.  I bought a few small toys.  If there was more than one toy in a box, I took them out of the box to give them on separate days.  and I bought a few sweets for their gifts.

Then I took some brown paper bags:

And put a toy and a sweet in each bag. 

Then I place the folded paper over the opening of the bag and stapler it all together.

The front side:

The back side with the map on it.

And there it was:  a gift for each day.  quickly (okey, I must admit, the typing part took some time) and cheap.  But most important, they LOVED it.  And you can use it for anything, maybe counting the days to Christmas, an important date or a birthday.