Making a Dollhouse

Asalaam ‘Alaikum:

Well, I said that I was working on being more creative – and I also mentioned our latest trips to the resale shop to stock up on stuff for homeschooling our preschooler. With our latest trip to the resale shop (see my last post) we have finally gotten everything we needed for our preschooler, alhumdulilah. Since I have been homeschooling the girls for quite some time now – we already had many things to keep her occupied – but I just wanted to add specific things to her collection – manipulatives were most important.

Anyway, after that trip to the store I recalled that I had once had the idea to make a dollhouse for my daughter. She has some small felt dolls that she loves to play with and some wooden dollhouse furniture we found at the resale shop last year (the house was broken, but we got that and all the furniture for about 3 dollars – so I can’t complain). The problem was, we put her dollhouse stuff in a large box and she rarely played with it because she would often forget it was there. I wanted to find a way to display her things as well as give her a place to play with them.

I guess I was encouraged from my latest visit to the resale shop. The next day I decided just to stop by and see if they had any shelves for sale. I guess I should explain. My girls had a dollhouse before – but it took up too much space. It was always in the way and they also rarely played with it – so, I ended up donating the dollhouse. Since then, we have been doll-houseless. One day I was thinking that there was so much space on a bookshelf – it was too bad our bookshelves were all full of books or I could have my youngest play with her dolls on the shelf.

Our next visit to the resale shop was also successful, alhumdulilah. I found a heavy wood bookshelf that was brand new – except for one thing. The new owner decided to paint and stencil the bookshelf and failed miserably. I guess they gave up and donated it to the resale shop. Alhumdulilah, I saw its potential right away – and only spent 6 dollars on it. We had some paint left over from other projects – so I set up shop on our back deck and spent a day last week painting the dollhouse.

After painting the bookshelf, I then found some plastic baskets around the house and put all her doll stuff in two of them. In the other two baskets I placed her toy cars (she is the only girl I have that has played with cars, masha’Allah – she loves them). Let’s just say that I bought some small toy cars for my older two and after they went off to play I found them in their playroom putting their baby cars to sleep under a blanket and singing a lullaby to them. I am so not kidding!! This little one actually moves the cars around and makes car noises even – I guess I have a little tomboy with this one – but believe it or not, masha’Allah – she is also more girly than my other girls too! Go figure!! I have her put her toys away in the baskets when she is done playing and put the baskets on the shelves. Then, when she is ready to play again – she just takes out the baskets and starts laying out her house. Each shelf becomes a floor of her house.

I cannot tell you how glad I am that I found that bookshelf. Masha’Allah – even my older girls have mentioned time and again how their sister plays with that thing all the time. She absolutely loves it, masha’Allah. This is also a project I wanted to finish before the next school year because I wanted her to have some other things to play with to develop her imagination as well – I think this fits the bill nicely, alhumdililah.

By the way – last year we found a book at the library that teaches you how to make nice dough dollhouse furniture – the results are really nice (at least in the pictures). We are thinking of doing that later this summer to add to our current collection. If we do, I promise to share, insha’Allah!

Asalaam ‘Alaikum,
Sumayyah Umm SAA