A Shoebox Bedroom For A Little Mouse

Hello there! Thank you ever so much for your many kind comments on my post about my Grandma. It was quite a deep breath moment, posting such personal family memories and photographs, yet it felt right and I am glad I did it. 

Well, what with Christmas, New Year, a funeral and lots of travelling up and down the country, it was something of a relief to return to our normal routines yesterday. We spent the weekend taking down decorations, clearing out the garage, going to the tip, washing the car (it is very stupid to give a three year old control of the hose - changes of clothes needed for all four of us) and doing those end of holiday things like writing thank you cards, searching for PE kits and the obligatory Sunday night hair wash. Yesterday morning was unseasonably mild and when I got back from the school run I opened all the windows wide and did some housework. It was satisfying, even - dare I say it? - enjoyable to strip the beds and dust and vacuum with only Radio 4 for company and fresh air blowing into the rooms.

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Anyway, to today's business...we have been getting crafty with shoe boxes again. Do you remember when, last September, Bella and I made a little shoe box kitchen from household odds and ends for a competition at Cath Kidston? We enjoyed it so much, and it has been played with endlessly, which is surely the point, and we wanted to make more rooms. So, over the holidays, we (well, I, really) made a bedroom for the lucky mouse. My self-imposed rule is that everything must be made from bits and bobs that are lying around the house - boxes, buttons, bottles and lids, pipe cleaners, straws, that sort of thing. No cheating with Sylvanian Families, Barbie or dolls house accessories!

If you are interested in how we made the mouse boudoir, then read on.

1. A bedside table was created from a pretty box which once contained a tube of hand cream.

2. My favourite bit here - an anglepoise reading lamp was made from a button, a pipe cleaner and the lid from my contact lens solution bottle.

3. An overhead lamp shade is provided by a silicone muffin case.

4. The plant pot is a contact lens container, covered in lace trim, with leaves made from some kind of crafty foam we found lying about the house.

5. The mouse bed is a box covered in felt, with cardboard drinking straw legs.

6. I crocheted a granny square blanket with embroidery threads and a tiny hook. I know this must sound like the behaviour of a mad woman, but actually it did not take that long.

7. A felt pillow is trimmed with lace and stuffed to a suitably plump shape.

8. We made a dressing table from a mini loaf cake tin liner (I think these have never actually been used for baking, but for crafting only) with straw legs and some bobble trim to cheer it up.

9. The same trim adorns a large button for a matching stool.

10. You know how when you get a new child's board game, the sort with counters that you move around, and when you set it up for the first time you have to push the little cardboard squares out of their templates? Well, the bit you are left with, a sort of empty cardboard grid, forms our window frame (and the picture frames too).

11. Lastly, Miss Mouse needs somewhere to hang her frock so we made a clothes rail from (another) drinking straw and fashioned a wonky coat hanger from a pipe cleaner.

It is papered with some yellow spot fabric and carpeted with felt. Miss Mouse likes it, and Bella likes it too. Her favourite part is the bed because she likes tucking them in, she told me.

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One last thing - this blog is one year old today! This has completely caught me off guard, I have to say. I knew I started it in January last year, but I thought it was much later in the month. So I am woefully unprepared - I feel I ought to have a giveaway or do something celebratory. Instead, I'll cut myself a slice of Christmas cake and wish myself a happy bloggy birthday, and thank you all from the bottom of my heart for visiting and reading and making this blog such a thing of pleasure for me.

Some Thoughts And A Box of Play Patisserie

I don't think I can really say anything today without talking about two sad things - one private, one public. We had some very sad family news a couple of days ago, which I'll talk more about later. And I am shocked and appalled (like everyone, I imagine) by the tragic events in America yesterday. The youngest victim was five years old. Five. Schools should be a place a safety, and thank goodness they usually are. I send my two off to school and nursery every day without a second thought. My heart breaks for those parents, and the families of the adults involved too.

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But I wanted to post something today and I really need to find my "happy", and that is usually to be found in things involving the children. So I will share some felt play food I made a couple of weeks ago. 

I made two little boxes of assorted play cakes for craft fairs - neither sold which I was very happy about as one will be given to Bella on her birthday next week, and the other to another little girl we know who turns six today. 

I especially like the little gingerbread star. This would be a sweet tree decoration. Next year, maybe. Sorry there is no tutorial - I forgot to take photos during the making.

I never told you how the craft fairs went, did I? The first was a total disaster, the second and third were respectable and the fourth was very successful. I am quite realistic about these fairs now - you rarely make much money and you have to enjoy the making and selling process. All the little things like jam, lavender and mulled wine sachets, brooches, small bags and tea towels went. I sold all the girl's t-shirts bar one and a couple a boy's t-shirts. Anything that didn't sell is being "re-purposed" as Christmas gifts. I did the stalls with my friend Gemma and it was very nice to stand chatting and laughing with her, especially during the disastrous first fair. Gemma is a fellow crafty soul and a very talented artist, and she made the beautiful wooden boxes in the photo below, among other things.

Tune out the breeze block background, the horrible flourescent lighting and the general sports hall ambience, and focus instead on our lovely handmade wares...

I wish you all a happy and peaceful weekend. Today I have to take the kids to two birthday parties, make a birthday cake for Bella, wrap the pass-the-parcel and stuff fourteen party bags in preparation for her birthday party tomorrow. I'd better get cracking then! 

A Shoebox Kitchen for a Little Mouse

Back in August, while browsing the new Cath Kidston catalogue, I found the most delightful crafty competition. You had to make a room from a shoe box and furnish it with only items from around the house, then send a photograph of it off to the Cath Kidston website.

Well, Bella and I were most excited about this, as I'm sure you can imagine. We started plotting and searching and rummaging. Fabrics were selected, colour schemes dreamt up and the kitchen cupboards were raided. Nothing has a box or lid now. Items were held up and examined for size and suitability, then ruthlessly added to the pile. Tea bags were decanted into jars, stock cubes now rattle about among the jars and tins, we only have eleven silicone muffins cases now...you get the picture. 

Next time John puts his "smart" shoes on, he will be confused and probably quite irritated to find them in the bottom of the wardrobe in a plastic bag. The box was sacrificed for Project Shoe Box Kitchen  (none of my shoe boxes were big enough you see...)

Would you like a little tour? From left to right...

It's is "wallpapered" in some Cath Kidston fabric, and the flooring is striped cotton fabric covered in sticky back plastic.

1. Little scraps of gingham make tea towels stuck to hooks made from pins. The poster on the wall is from a tin of travel stickers bought when I renovated an old suitcase.

2. The table top is made from the back cover of a notebook. I liked the laminated/Formica effect. The place mats are crafting felt and the plates and cakes are all buttons.

3. One of my favourite parts - the lamp shade is made from a silicon muffin case.

4. The stools are made from buttons topped with felt, and the legs are paper straws.

5. The flower pot, made from an empty cotton reel covered in ric rac trim, holds pipe cleaner stems and bead blooms. The drawers are three small match boxes taped together.

6. The sink is a square plastic lid from a bottle of moisturiser, and the taps are picture hooks.

7. The window was cut out with a craft knife, then I tidied up the edges by sticking double sided sticky tape around to make a window frame, then didn't peel off the second layer of tape. The view, torn from a magazine, is very different to the view from my kitchen window! A girl can dream... The roller blind is more gingham fabric wrapped around a straw to create the tube shape of the roll.

8. A brass roman blind ring makes a towel rail, with a felt towel.

9. The plate rack is made from part of the metal spiral from a spiral bound notebook, sticky-taped to some pink card and pinned precariously to the wall. More buttons for plates.

10.  The large range cooker is an empty tea bag box covered in plain white paper. Buttons make hob rings and drawing pins the knobs.

It was very much a joint effort. I did anything involving craft knives, scissors and extra fiddly bits (like unpeeling double sided sticky tape) and Bella did almost everything else herself, requiring some help here and there with holding things in place and fixing things. Bella likes to play with her mice in it, although it's all a bit wobbly. The plate rack had to go as it kept falling off the wall, but otherwise it's all ok.

It was a lot of fun. We are dreaming up shoe box bathrooms, bedrooms and living rooms, in different colours. I'll just need to buy some new shoes first...for the boxes, of course.

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Don't forget there is still time to enter my little giveaway, should you so wish. A huge amount of rain fell over our little island this week, causing much misery and stress for many people. Thankfully, we are all ok here - I hope you are warm and dry where you are.