Barbie pet shop

As of Tuesday, 2/23/2016, the pet shop in our Barbie house/retail area is now open for business! 

In reality... it's just finished and ready to be played in. 

I am pretty happy with the results though and have had a lot of fun making everything for it.

We did get the little animals in the mail Monday afternoon.

 

Cat toys and dog chew toys.

I found this picture in a Mary Jane's Farm magazine.  It looks like Katie Bug (but much cleaner).

 I adore the fish tank I made.  Even though there's no fish.

Cat Toy.

Little leashes.

I printed these boxes and folded them from Myfroggystuff.blogspot.com.

I made the little pet bowls out of clay and painted them.

Some of our animals have already been adopted out!

These two girls have too much fun with Barbies!

 

 

I am already thinking of what the next business will be.  Probably a clothing store.

That could be fun... with handmade purses and clothes and jewelry. 

We'll see how that one plays out. 

What's your opinion? 

What kind of Barbie retail outlet would you like to see us make?

 



summer shopping

I absolutely LOVE when QVC has their spring garden party smack in the midst of winter.  If they did this show once a week I strongly believe my winter blues would diminish.  I walked in the day care this morning and flipped on the tv to find the deal of the day reeling me in.  I quickly called Mary Evelyn and within minutes we had split the deal.  So... this summer my container plants will be my begonia bulbs that I bought from QVC last year and saved over the winter in the basement, my caladiums that I do the same (4th year now) AND these beautiful sedum... WHICH come back every year might I add.  I don't landscape.  I have two rose bushes but other than that I strictly stick to containers of all sorts.  I wanted to share just incase you are interested yourself.

 

 

 

Fantastic!  AND it will go dormant during the winter and come back the next year.

 

Now... I do remember (pretty sure) that my Mother had a yellow-ish type of sedum that was a ground cover.  So if you put this in an area that you don't want to fill you might now like it.  But it looks really easy to transplant.  The video of how they harvest this stuff was amazing.

 

Here is today's link to this deal. 

 

I plan on sharing my half too!  And having some at the day care.  It only takes a little bit!

Wes Anderson Flicks

I am stuck on Wes Anderson movies.  I have one that I kept from the library for two weeks and then turned around a week later and rented it again.  It all started with

 

that I rented last winter.  I remember Shaun and I both sitting on the edge of our seats through the whole movie.  I liked the settings and music and oddness of it and decided to look up other films that were made by Wes Anderson.  Now I have just gotten around to my movie list at the library and started renting some of them.  My very favorite is


 

This is the one I have watched probably nine or ten times.  It's due back tomorrow.

My next one that fascinated me is

 

.

 

This one is based on a classic children's book.  I watched the movie thinking that the characters and a lot of the movie was probably computerized.  It wasn't until I watched the extras at the end that I found out that they are all puppets and that each shot is made by slightly moving each puppet and taking shots.  The sets are miniature worlds.  I loved it even more!

 

I also watched

 

.

 

I thought this one was great too.  Shaun didn't much like it.  Sometimes I keep my odd movies to myself.  Bill Murray appears in a bunch of Wes Anderson movies.  Even in The Fantastic Mr. Fox although it's just his voice.  I liked the quirkiness of this film and especially the music which Billy Idol wrote for this movie.  Some of them were in French and would be in a scene where a crew member was singing and playing the guitar.

 

There was one that I couldn't get into.

I don't really know why.  Maybe it was my mood.  I may try it again one day.

 

Tomorrow I am picking up a couple more from the library that I've had brought in from all over Davidson County.  They are

 

 

and

 

 

It will be hard to beat the other ones I've seen.  Oh, also The Royal Tannenbaums was a Wes Anderson movie.  I saw it a long time ago back when I had cable. 

 

And there's my movie watching as of late.



DC Barbie Retail Spaces

I got the urge to make some new spaces for the Barbie area at the day care.  I split a box in two and gave them both contact paper flooring and a splash of interior trim paint with a semi-gloss finish.  The paint warped the cardboard just a touch.  Gluing things to the walls fixes that problem sometimes if you plan on doing that.  I let one of my kids here help me decide what the retail spaces would be.  We decided that one should be a pizza place and the other a pet shop.  The ideas were flowing in faster for the pizzeria so I started with that one.  I used food boxes, card stock and recycled containers for the counters and table and stools.  I printed some pizza boxes from myfroggystuff.BlogSpot.com and made little pizzas from clay and painted them.  I also made a pizza oven and a cash register with the help of myfroggystuff on youtube.  I like the way it turned out!

 

And this one will be the pet shop!  I've already got the check out counter made. 

 

My day care friend and I ordered some pets from amazon this morning. 

 I think they will be adorable!

They are the Littlest Pet Shop pets.  I was hoping for a fish too.  I guess the aquarium I have in mind could be for the turtle.

We got them from THIS listing.



a tiny suitcase tutorial

I guess we all knew this was bound to happen right?!?!

With all the dollhouse mayhem going on around here I knew I would eventually get around to sharing how I did something.  While I was thumbing through Pinterest looking for attic ideas I saw a couple of tutorials and watched them.  One made suitcases out of clay and the other a match box.  I liked the second one but the majority of it was way too complicated and perfect for me.  Mine would never look as good as that and frankly it doesn't need to.  I am not a perfectionist and like to take the easy route.  My motto is "If you think it's got to be perfect then you worry about a lot of shit that really doesn't matter." 

 

During naptime on Tuesday I happily threw my first tiny suitcase together.  Then while I was rummaging through a draw in the office I found a little jewelry box that only had twenty or so sequins in it.  It may be a little bit big for my dollhouse but I figured I could take some pictures and show you how I made the first one.  OK... so here goes the supply list.

 

 

1 iddy biddy box

Aleene's Quick Dry Tacky Glue

Scrap pieces of leather (Thanks again Barb!!!)

Black card stock

Scissors

Gold craft paint

 

First... make your area look like you are ready to craft.  I prepared food in this same spot an hour before this!

Pull your leather or fabric up around your box to make sure it will lap over each other and cut out a good rectangle.  You can always trim it down if it's too big.  You can't add to.

Making sure it will fit before I glue.  I did straighten this edge out.

Apply glue to the top of your box and lay it top down into the center of your leather.  Press down for a good fit.  Let it set for ten minutes or less if you are impatient like me.

Cut straight towards each corner so you end up with four flaps to glue up.

Apply glue on each end, one at a time, and pull leather up gluing it down as you go.

Then glue the larger sides, gluing and pulling as you go.

Trim off any excess leather with scissors.  Looks like a little brief case doesn't it?  This will actually be the bottom or back so you won't see this.

The covered box... and my first suitcase.

For this one I cut strips of black cardstock for the straps with my handy dandy cutter and trimmed the end to a point.

Apply glue to one side of the cardstock and bend into place, pressing down as you go until they overlap a bit.

I cut a smaller piece of cardstock and bent it up for the handle.

I trimmed the ends on it too and glued it down.

Too fancy!  And while the glue is drying I might as well let some paint be drying too!

One tutorial said she ordered the fancier gold bits for the corners and clasp look from ebay.  I don't have that kind of patience... or care... or money to throw around... not that they would cost an arm and a leg... but you get it.

I painted circles as best I could on each corner and also gave my suitcase little button fasteners and gold "holes" going up the straps.  I also wrote down my motto as it came to me on my paint plate.

I wound up giving them a little bit of "use" look by dabbing and streaking brown paint on the green one and white paint of the brown one... lightly... on the corners and belts.

I swiped some travel "stickers" from one of the tutorials (they said it was ok), printed them out, sprayed them with a top coat spray and cut and glued them out.  Aren't they cute?!  I only picked the ones of places I'd like to go.

And here they are!  Attic ready and literally took me about twenty minutes to make.

 

I thought this picture was clearer than it turned out to be.  Oh well!  Maybe you will recognize them in my dollhouse when the day comes that I actually put all the things I've made into it.