Making Barbie Houses

Hi there!  We are so glad you stopped by.  We have 2 granddaughters with birthdays in March.   Our daughter called and asked us if we would make a Barbie House for her daughter.   This got us thinking.  Let's make a Barbie House for each of the girls. 

We started with 1" X 12" pine boards.  3 were 8' foot long and 1 was 4' long. As you know, I am NOT a power tool girl, yet. That is on my to do list for the summer.  Learn how to use power tools and not lose a finger, or hand.  Enter, my assistant in all things wood.

We my assistant made a square box.  Put in dividers for the rooms and put on the roof.   Pretty easy, for my assistant.    Maybe, just maybe, I'm the assistant.............hmmm.

Next, start the painting and decorating.  My favorite part! I LOVE to paint, my house.  My son tells people our rooms used to be a foot wider, but I've painted so much that the rooms are now smaller.  This might be true. Because of my love for painting my rooms every few years, I have a huge supply of paint.  I'm talking 15-20 cans of left over paint.  This is a good thing when making a Barbie House.

I had picked up this really pretty, brighter than the sun, pink.  I'm telling you it did not look that bright in the store. Imagine my horror as I started to paint, thinking it was barbie pink. I'm telling you, I started to sweat. I had to fix this, but didn't have time to go out and find the right pink.  So, I poured it in an ice cream pail and started adding cream paint to it.  It worked. Thank you Jesus! I got my composure and moved on.......

This is the point in the blog where I tell you about my epic fail.  I had this brilliant crazy idea to use wrapping paper as wallpaper.  Great idea in my head, not such a great idea on the walls. If I were to do it again, I would only attach it in the corners, instead of slathering Mod Podge all over the back of it. It wrinkles.  Yep, like old pantyhose after a night at the club, wrinkles.   I pushed on, leaning from my mistake and hoping that my granddaughters would over look my boo boo.

I used a stencil sponge to make the polka dot look in the lavender room.  I used mirrored butterflies, with sticky backs for the pink room.   I also had some white foam stars with sticky backs, so I attached them to the wall in the striped room.

For the rooms downstairs, I took craft paper and put it behind squares to look like pictures hanging on the walls.  In the room on the right, you can see I added a butterfly to the middle.  The floors are contact paper that looks like wood.  I cannot tell you how easy that was to work with.  I'm talking a "4 year old could do it, easy"!  It's the peel and stick type so you can pick it up and move it and it does not lose the stickiness.  It's kind of like working with post it notes.  Who came up with this idea?  They are brilliant I tell you, brilliant.

Where is the other Barbie House you ask.  Our daughter, Tiffany, my Side Kick Blogging Partner on this here blog, took it home and worked her magic. If you don't have a painting addiction like I do, you could just go to Lowe's or Home Depot, like Tiffany did.  She bought those little paint samples in a jar, and they mixed all the colors she wanted.   I don't want to say she was like a kid in a candy store, or her mother in a paint store, but...........she was.

Here is Barbie's new living room.   That adorable picture on the wall is made from a frame in the dollar section at Target.   She also took craft paper and a sticker to make a picture.  They are the perfect size for Barbie.

Barbie's Kitchen.   

Barbie's laundry room.   I love how she used the stickers that look like laundry hanging on the line.   Seriously, what will they think of next?

Last, but not least, Barbie's attic.   I love how Tiffany's house turned out.  It is so modern, bright and sunny.  Exactly what little girls love! This is a great example of how you can take the exact same piece and make it look completely different?   Our granddaughters are loving their new Barbie Houses.   My daughter-in-law emailed me the day after Elle got hers and said she played with hers all night. The night Presley got hers, Tiffany woke up in the middle of night and could hear her playing in her room.  When I say middle of the night, I'm talking 2:00 am!  There was Presley, playing with her new Barbie House.  She was too excited to sleep, which makes this grandma very happy. Thank you so much for stopping by.  It means so much to us!