Winnie's DIY Play Kitchen

We fit into that widening category of folks who are broke.  We live with Jake's parents and spend about 90% of our money on food.  We don't get to go shopping or out to eat often.  We don't go to the movies. BUT, we have a wonderful life where we need for nothing, nor want for anything.  We are blessed with wonderful family, friends and creativity.  We spend our time loving each other, and laughing with one another.  We have made a commitment this year to buy nothing new (unless we absolutely must).  It's more than just a fix for our money problem.  

We have boycotted Walmart for about two years.  We believe that Walmart is a huge problem in the United States that will continue to monopolize the consumer industry and take small businesses out of the scenario.  They will continue to replace the good jobs that they destroyed with part time, minimum wage jobs.  I honestly could go on and on, maybe that's a different blog post for later.  And I'm not trying to make you feel guilty for shopping at Walmart.  Honestly. ;) 

So we shopped at Target and I remained blissfully ignorant...by choice.  But it was just a matter of time before the facts and evidence of Targets corruption came spewing out into the open and I could no longer close my eyes.  I was devastated.  Where would we shop?  We chose to vote with our dollars and I was no longer willing to vote for Target.  

That's when we thought of our no new things idea.  Everything you need has already been made.  It already exists.  Even "new" fashion is a recycling of older styles.  Why not sport the real deal?!  

So here we were at Christmas and I knew that I wanted Winona to have a play kitchen.  I also knew that a new kitchen ran about $100.  Why not make one?  Exactly the way we wanted for much less.  And so we did.  Or mostly Jake did.

 We went to our local Habitat for Humanities Restore and picked up this old cabinet for $20.  What a deal!

 The refrigerator is painted with chalkboard paint so Winona can make out her grocery list.  Right?

 Meet Roy and Bunny.  They are regulars in her kitchen and she makes sure they never go hungry.

 Something we did buy new was her dishes.  Ikea has the most beautiful play kitchen dishes and cookware.  They also have quite beautiful felt food.

 This is the inside of her fridge/pantry.  Does this feel like Cribs yet?

 Oh that's just some broccoli being rinsed off in the sink.

She is in absolute heaven and I think this year is going to be a lot of fun with our new resolution of sorts.  Next year Jake is already planning on a doll house!  EEEEK

What are some resolutions that you made for this New Year?

A Little Catching Up {Photo overload}

We are back!  Things got really busy and I had to step away from the blog for a few months but we are back and running. (Yay!)  I feel as though so much has changed and I have grown in so many ways in the past few months.  We have made some incredible friends and life has gotten much busier lately.  We have had to minimize our media usage to make room for much needed family time.  We also finally got rid of our family room television!  Woo hoo!  It was something we had been working up to for over a year.  We replaced it with a beautiful (new to us) vintage stereo/turntable system that my parents gifted us for Christmas.

Fall passed us by much too quickly but we did make room in our tight schedules to relish in the autumn color and participate in fun, family festivities.

 I wish I could find the picture that we took last year right here.  She is SO much bigger now.  

 She was a garden knome for Halloween.  AHHHH it was a cute overload.

 Winona and her friend Soli.  

 These beautiful people are my parents.  My Dad and Stepmom came up to see us for Christmas and made our holiday!

 She insists on wearing these boots quite often.

Somehow, I managed to take very, very little pictures.  But I did get this gem of a photo!  We (mostly Jake) made Winona a play kitchen for Christmas.  It was from Santa.  She also got the beautiful table and chairs.  I will be doing another blogpost on the kitchen.
We are planning on making this year the best so far.  I have a lot of "resolutions" to be more positive, loving and self sufficient.  So here's to a New Year that makes 2011 hold his head in shame.
I hope your holidays were filled with loved ones, laughter and joy.  Happy New Year!

Felt Strawberry Tutorial

In case you haven't heard, we are making a play kitchen for Winona's Christmas this year.  Along with a kitchen is needed food.  So I am attempting to make all of her felt foods to go in the pantry and fridge.  

I am so excited.  She is going to want to eat these!!  

What you need:

• Red felt
• Green felt
• coordinating thread
• yellow embroidery thread
• a needle
• stuffing of some sort

First make your circles.  I like to go ahead and trace all mine out.  Just a little FYI, a CD makes a great size strawberry.  However, I like to make different sized ones and did three different sizes.  (I'm committed to making thirty... Lets see if that really happens!)  Maybe ten?  Haha.

Once you have cut out all of your circles, cut them in half.  

Sew up the straight side making a little cone.  I prefer to use the sewing machine on this part, but if you don't have a sewing machine you can hand sew it.  Then sew on all those blasted seeds.  I hated this part.  It took about an hour which seemed like five hours.  ACK!

After you've sewed on all the seeds and taken your much needed break, make a gather stitch around the top of the strawberry.  I should have used a different color thread so you could see it.  

Pull the gather a little and stuff it with as much stuffing as you can fit.  Then pull it tight and knot it off.  It doesn't have to be pretty because it will be covered up.

Cut out a small X to go on top.  I just freehanded this as I like them to all be different.

Stitch that baby on there and voila!  Felt strawberry.  Perfect.  Delicious!  

Christmas in July

Okay, not really.  But I am thinking about Christmas already and I'm so very excited.  I wanted to make sure we weren't stressed at the beginning of December, wondering how we were going to get all the things we wanted for Winona.  So I've thought long and hard about what I wanted to do.
We play Santa Clause.  Don't judge.  It works for our family and I love the tradition.  I loved Santa Clause as a child and was so disappointed to find out he wasn't real.  But I wasn't angry at my parents for filling me with delusions... only disappointed.  Now that I knew he wasn't real, I could no longer believe the wonderful delusion that a jolly man snuck into my house year after year leaving behind gifts especially for me.
However, Santa brings Winnie three presents.  Three good presents.  The three presents represent the three gifts from the wise men to Jesus.  It's also a good way for us to never get ahead of ourselves and leave Winz disappointed the next year when it isn't as good as before.  So here is a little list of her three future gifts, and some of my inspiration.
1.  Radio Flyer Tricycle, the classic style.  I can't remember what style tricycle I had as a child, but in my head, this is it.

This is the one.  Jake found this tricycle at a flee market last weekend.  TWENTY dollars.  It has a little rust, but other than that, its perfect.  We are going to clean it up and make it like new.  It's refreshing to get a recycled nice toy.  I can't wait to see how it cleans up.  I also can't wait to see Winona ride it around the drive way and neighborhood.  EEEEEEEH!  I'm like a kid when it comes to Christmas and having a child has made it so much better.

2. A play kitchen.  I've known since before last Christmas that on Winona's second Christmas she would get a nice play kitchen.  Since then I have searched far and wide for the perfect kitchen.  The perfect ones are expensive.  A little too expensive.  I just can't justify spending that kind of money on a gift for a toddler.  And the fact of the matter is that the best kitchens I found were homemade out of old crappy furniture.  Here are some of my inspirations.

This one is made out of an old night stand.

Can you believe these were all handmade?  All DIY play kitchens!  For much less of the price than you pay for some prefab piece of junk.  No offense.   And here is the mother of all play kitchens.  The most inspirational and beautiful that I've found.  You can also go to the mommy's blog that made the kitchen here.

Swoon.

So I've wondered, where can I get this perfect piece of furniture?  We have been looking at yard sales, flea markets, and craigslist and then... we stumbled upon a gem in our own storage shed.

Looks like a real gem right?  Haha.  Wrong.  It looks awful, but its the shape that is key.  Nothing a little sanding and paint can't fix.  It's perfect.  Even has a pantry/fridge.  Don't mind all the junk that's piled on it.  It's in the storage shed so give me a break.  I will keep you posted on the progress of this beautiful piece of furniture.

Ikea sells some pretty amazing and affordable play kitchen accessories.  

And if you don't know about felt food... go on over to Etsy  and check it out.  They are beautiful.  Also I found a list of tutorials for making felt food.  

3.  By Christmas I plan on moving Winona's rocking chair out of her room.  She is getting bigger and bigger every day and I think she would really appreciate a toddler size chair where she can read books.  She loves books.  I haven't found the perfect chair but here are some of my options.  

Are you thinking about Christmas already?  What are some of your gift ideas?