Things I Know | threelilprincesses.com

How to make Harvey Norman-worthy furniture for your doll house

I KNOW that you’ve all been waiting for the follow up post to the grand doll house. You know, the one where I promised the equally grand doll furniture? Well, the wait is over. Brace yourselves – this post features furniture that even Harvey Norman would be happy to house. Prices will never be slashes on these little beauties.

Before unveiling the wonderful individual creations we made yesterday, there are a few things I know I learnt and want to share.

I know I forgot an oven. Maybe it was a subconscious thing, because cooking dinner conjures up images of witching / arsenic / feral hour.
I know that while you left beautiful comments on the grand doll house post (for which I was very grateful), you were surely humouring me when you said you liked the beer carton version. Right?
I know I have a creative daughter. Despite being quite ill yesterday and wanting to just watch mummy make the furniture for her to play with, she did manage to make a car – unprompted and without assistance.

I know this project would have been great for product placement. Now there’s an idea for brands!

So, I know that about now you’re itching to find out how to make the furniture. So here goes:

Take an egg carton and a used toilet roll

Cut out two of the cups from the egg carton and cover in coloured paper to make chairs. Cut the toilet roll in half and glue to a circle to make a table. We used a piece of foam from a craft bucket.

Take a rectangle box (see the product placement photo) and open one end so the flaps become a bed head and bedside drawers. Cover with a piece of decorated paper for a bedspread. Fold paper over a straight piece of egg carton for a pillow.

Take another rectangle box.

Cover it in paper and draw on a sink, taps, cupboards and drawers.

Use a Kinder Surprise toy container for a… loo. Yes, we don’t have an oven, but we have a dunny. And it’s in the bedroom. Let’s hope bowel movements happen in the mornings.

Positioned right where people can see through the window. Classy.

Assemble it all into the house and… ta da! Fit for a princess… who probably just wants to curl up in the bed right now and sleep. Poor little girl.

Does your child have a doll house – made or bought? Or maybe one of those cool two-storey car parks with a ramp?

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August 26, 2011

How to make a doll house from a cardboard box (take 2)

I KNOW sometimes you post an innocent little doll’s house made from a cardboard box on your blog and it becomes one of your blog’s most searched items via Google. I know that I’m really wishing I hadn’t actually made that doll’s house out of a … beer carton. Yes, there’s been some hugely disappointed Google searchers land on that post.

So, finally, I’ve found some time to upgrade the doll family from its humble abode into a nicer and bigger home – this time via a much classier postal box. Which, quite frankly could have been used to send off a parcel and save me money. But anyway, Google takes precedence.

So, if you came to this blog looking for a doll’s house made out of a cardboard box, here it is:

If you want to see the old one, then make sure you’re sitting down before you check it out. There’s some nudie action happening over there.

Anyhow, here’s what I know about building a grand doll’s house fit for a princess (as opposed to a bogan, as the beer carton house was):

Take a Bx4 postal box (430mm x 305mm x 140mm) cardboard box.
Take blank sheets of paper, a ruler and pencil and draw lines horizontally across each. Then make vertical lines between them to make bricks (see photo). Glue these to the entire outside surface of the box.

Cut a door into the front of the box and draw, then cut out, a window.

Cut out a piece of coloured paper the same size as the door and glue onto the exterior of the door. Repeat for the interior. If you don’t have coloured paper, you can use white paper and colour it in, as we did.

For the floor, you can be as creative as you like – felt, white paper with your own pattern, old school paintings or drawings previously destined for the bin, paint or wrapping paper, as we did. Glue in.

The same applies for the interior walls. We went for a mix of our own homemade wall paper using white paper and crayons for the bottom half and a pale blue paint to match the carpet for the top floor.

Add some curtains to your windows. We used tissue paper, cutting out a square where the window pane would be, gluing it along the top of the window and then scrunching the ends of the curtains to make pleats. You could also use scrap material or cellophane.

Add a painting or picture to the wall. Ella drew a beautiful picture of an alien, then I made a crayon frame for it.

Start playing!

During the weekend, we’ll be attempting to make some furniture for the Little Princess who has taken up residence in the grand doll’s house.

Do your children play with boxes? What have you made together?

I’m linking up with Yay for Home as part of Things I Know.

August 19, 2011

Are our kids outsmarting us?

I KNOW that you now know that I have a pretty clever li’l princess. And I don’t mean the part about her knowing how to whistle to attract my attention. Although, that is pretty darn clever.

Princess Ella, at the tender age of 3.5 years, has taught me to sign. Surprisingly, we’re still talking to each other – and not just in Auslan.

If you didn’t visit yesterday and have no idea what I’m talking about, let me recap. Ella’s child carer has taught her to do sign language, including: “how are you?’’ and “good, thank you’’; along with “mummy/daddy/brother/sister, I love you’’. Plus, there’s the little addition of me teaching her to sign “stinky breath’’. You never know when you might need that one.

She’s also managed to learn the majority of the nursery rhyme The Owl and the Pussy Cat, which is no mean feat considering I can barely get past the first two lines in the spoken form.

It leads me to the things I know this week:

If you want to learn a bit of Auslan, my daughter is the person to teach you.
Our kids are beginning to outsmart us in so many areas and that scares me.
Every time I turn the video on, loud and boisterous Ella suddenly turns shy.

I’m linking up with Shae from Yay For Home as part of Things I Know. Click on the button to read some other great things you should know.

July 15, 2011

SHED: How to pick a winner

BABY Holly has developed a disturbing habit – this is one thing I know, for sure. No, it’s not her habit of passing wind or pooing religiously at every tea time (although that is disturbing). No, at only nine months, she has learned the art of picking her nose.

And this just isn’t any accident either. Her movements are slow and calculated. Her index finger slowly extends and calmly heads towards her nostril of preference where it quickly embeds itself. Then the index finger is slowly removed, making its way south to become lost in the abyss of Holly’s eating cavity.

Now, if that wasn’t disturbing enough, it gets worse. The other day I was sharing a lovely moment with Holly – she was on the floor on her back and I was giving her kisses on her cheek.

At one point I sat back a bit and she looked deeply into my eyes. “She really loves me,’’ I thought foolishly. It was then her index finger, which had been resting on my face, extended. Slowly it made its way to my nostril, as I sat frozen in disbelief. Then she pulled it out and tried to stick it in her mouth, only for me to wake from my trance, to save it millimetres from her lips.

Since then, she has become a nose picking machine and at any opportunity will try to pick the nearest available nose. The experts say all baby behaviour is learned. So I am blaming Ella, who has turned picking her nose into a secret society akin to the Greek mafia.

Ella will disappear for moments or skulk behind your back at a quiet moment to mine her nasal passages discreetly. Not sure where Ella learned it from though…

Is your child a nose picker? What do you do to deter your child from this terrible habit?

I’m linking up with Shae from Yay For Home as part of Things I Know. Click on the button to read other great posts on the topic.

July 8, 2011

FEATURE: Worst Parent of the Week Award

IT IS with (dis)honour I accepted the award for Worst Parent of the Week. At the awards ceremony, I donned a beautiful blue pair of trackies, gorgeous white tracksuit top with Bolognese stain on the front and a dainty little pair of tan-coloured ugg boots with scuffed toes.

Today, I’d like to share my acceptance speech for the award and share the “Things I Know’’:

Thank you. Thank you. Please, you can all sit down now. I accept this, the Worst Parent of the Week award. Firstly, I’d like to thank my total negligence. If not for that one moment of distraction this week and my fast-paced eight-month-old daughter, Baby Holly, slipping through my arms and falling off my bed onto the floor, I wouldn’t be here tonight.

There were tears. Mainly from me. And The Bloke in The Shed – who was on the other end of the phone at the time of the accident. That was the “distraction’’ part. If he didn’t have hearing problems before, he certainly does now. This is aside from the selective hearing, which miraculously appeared about 18 months into our relationship.

I know the guilt I felt at the moment she hit the floor has yet to leave me. I know this will not be the last time I will feel this guilt, nor see her tears. I know that there’s a reason the progress we were making on her saying the word “mum’’ has now stagnated. I know that I’m sure to receive this award again – although I’d rather not. So thank you. I know that I deserve this award as a reminder to be a better parent. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to find a toilet cubicle to have a little cry – it has free “tissues’’.

I’m linking up with Shae from Yay For Home‘s Things I Know meme.

You can follow me and my bad parenting on Twitter at @ThreeLil and @MumPR, along with Facebook.

June 24, 2011

Tag: Things I Know