Do It Yourself – Page 9 – The Creative Salad

Dollhouse Inspiration

David’s father just drove over a thousand miles to bring us the dollhouse David’s maternal great-grandfather made for David’s grandmother when she was a little girl in the 1930s.

We have a fun decorating project ahead of us! We need to paint, decorate and furnish the dollhouse for our daughter.

Look at those molding details! What a beautiful dollhouse.

In preparing for this project, we found some adorable dollhouses on the internet to inspire our decorating efforts.

Featured above:
1. SmithWorld! (source for Japanesse Miniatures)
2. Mini Handmade Atelier (view all her handmade dollhouse miniatures posts here)
3. A Mousehouse Dollhouse (with many DIY tips)
4. Sarah Jane’s Dollhouse (featuring her line of fabric re-purposed as wallpaper)
5. My Little Pink Bakery (her Etsy shop contains miniature food)
6. Sweet P’s Dollhouse (with several DIY project tips)

Let the Dollhouse Redux project begin!

(images obtained via Pinterest)

At our local art supplies store I spotted a packet of blank watercolor postcards for sale. Instead of purchasing them, I bought a large pad of (deeply discounted) watercolor paper. We traced a 4×6 inch postcard on one sheet and found that we could fit four postcards on each page. Instead of paying $5 for 15 postcards, we can make 120 for approximately they same price.

Does this count as a thrift store score?!

Tracing our postcard template

Erasing the pencil outline of the traced postcard

Using water color pencils and glitter glue to decorate the postcards

Dried and ready to mail

Our daughter has been busily working on making postcards to send to her friends. Whether they make it out of the house and into the mail remains to be seen. I have a feeling they may end up in our pretend post office instead.

Postmaster Leyba has some beautiful, handmade watercolor postcards to deliver!

Swapping the Sand Out of the Sand and Water Table

Our daughter loves playing in the sand and water table that we set up on our back porch.

She plays on the porch for hours, excavating shells, driving matchbox cars on ramps and over bridges, playing in the water, building castles with sticks.

Unfortunately the play area has gotten to be a bit of a mess.

Actually that’s a bit of an understatement.

With sand in both sections of the table (the side that drains should contain just water) and sand all over the floor, our back porch had morphed into a big wet sandy mess.

We decided to swap out the sand for inexpensive colored aquarium gravel.

So far, so good.

Hey, it looks pretty too.

Building a Computer with Daddy

After filling the hard-drive of our eight-year old computer, we decided it was time for something new. Instead of taking the easy route and ordering a new one through a manufacturer like Dell or HP, my husband decided to order the parts and make it himself. I ask you, what could be more fun for an engineer than to assemble a computer himself?!

Even better when it becomes a father-daughter weekend project when the little miss, to no one’s surprise, insists on helping. We’re all about transforming everyday activities into learning experiences in our household. David started assembling the computer the night before and then set aside a few simple tasks for the toddler to help with.

About the computer:
David wanted a super fast processor with a great graphics card. I insisted we think about energy efficiency. So we swapped out our over-sized desktop cpu for a more petite case and traded our old screen for a larger, energy-star qualified, LED monitor.

Specifications:
– Antec ISK 300-65 Desktop Computer Case
– ASRock H67M-ITX Motherboard
– Patriot Memory ‘Sector 5’ G Series 4GB
– Western Digital 500 GB Mobile Hard Drive
– Intel Core i3-2100T Dual-Core Desktop Processor
– LG Super-Multi Slim Blu-ray Combo Drive
– Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 64-bit
– Samsung 27-inch LED Monitor
– HDMI Cable
Inspired by Jeff Atwood’s computer written about here.

Concerned about potentially exposing your child to lead while building a computer? There’s no need to be worried. Each piece in this computer is RoHS compliant (circled in the photo, above) meaning it’s been manufactured without lead (also mercury, cadmium, and other substances). (See that sticker symbol with RoHS on it? Each computer component has a sticker like that.) Having your kids wash their hands before and after working on the inside of the computer may still be a good idea because of dust and other small particles, but you need not be concerned about lead exposure. (Love living with an engineer who can tell me about things such as these!)

Father’s Day Picture Pencil Holder

Father’s Day has been renamed Daddy’s Day in our house. Every time I talk about Father’s Day, our daughter is quick to remind me, “No, Mom! It’s Daddy’s Day and it’s in June.” In this day and age, who is this Father person anyhow?! Our daughter calls David, “Daddy,” and there’s an end to it. Now if only I could remember that.

Well, June is upon us and it’s time for us to share our Daddy’s Day present for David.

And, in case, you’re wondering, I already blew this surprise for David. Last night I left it out in plain sight drying in the living room. Evidently he didn’t notice it on his own, it took me apologizing for leaving it out for him to notice. Whoops! Mama’s bad. I’m banking on him putting on a good show for our daughter come Sunday, June 18th.

This simple project took several days to complete, because of the drying time of each layer, so please plan ahead! (i.e. start now because Father’s Day is less than two weeks away!)

We gathered favorite father-daughter photos, resized each of them using Photoshop to between 1 and 2 inches tall, copied and pasted them all into a new document, and then printed that document on a single piece of plain printer paper.

After cutting them out, we marked each photo with the year it was taken, and then adhered them to heavy card-stock cut to fit around an (empty and clean) aluminum can.

We also wrote out some loving messages for Daddy, which I then resized using our color copier-printer so that they’d fit in the remaining spaces on the card-stock.

We then mod podged the card-stock to the can and used clothespins to hold the paper to the can while it dried.

Then we mod podged over the card-stock to seal the photos and add a glossy sheen.

Happy Father’s Day, David! Your girls love you.

Category: Do It Yourself

Dollhouse Inspiration

Handmade Watercolor Postcards

Swapping the Sand Out of the Sand and Water Table

Building a Computer with Daddy

Father’s Day Picture Pencil Holder