DIY Dollhouse

Now I am not the craftiest person. And I am certainly not creative. What I am good at is copying. I can see an idea of Pinterest and copy it to a T. Or I can get inspired by a fellow blogger's craft projects and attempt to replicate it. As far as coming up with ideas on my own, or taking an idea and putting my own twist on it I am horrible at that. Although I am trying to be more crafty.

Last year one of my favorite bloggers Pillow Thought, instagrammed a picture of a wooden dollhouse they scored at Tuesday morning which they painted, decorated and presented to their daughter on Christmas Morning. See post here. I was in heaven. One of my favorite toys as a kid was the wooden dollhouse that my grandparents and parents bought for me one Christmas. It was a huge, victorian style unfinished dollhouse which my dad promised to help me decorate and paint. ( He got as far as painting the outside of it, while my grandpa put all the tiny shingles on)However my dad never hesitated to take me to Rose's dollhouse. This beautiful store that sold beautiful dollhouses, dolls, furniture and accessories. I loved that store and have coutnless memories of playing in my dollhouse and of hours spent wandering around that cute shop, envisioning ways to decorate my dollhouse. To go along with my dollhouse one of my favorite books as a kid was this

So of course once I saw that this blogger had scored this dollhouse for cheap, decorated it and presented it to her daughter for christmas I immediately ran out and scored one of my own. Envisioning the hours and hours Gianna would spend playing with it and the memories as she passed it down to her daughter. So I intended to start working on it and give it to Gianna for her 2nd birthday present. Well it has sat in myt garage since I bought it so now with the Christmas season approaching it is time to start working on it.

So of course I turn to pinterest for inspiration and find that two of my other favorite bloggers, Young House Love and The Busy Budgeting Mama have each made and decorated their own dollhouses for their little girls

Here is the Busy Budgeting Mama's tutorial

And Young House Love's

I have my work cut out for me. The one I purchased for Gianna is a lot smaller than the above. Here is the one I purchased

I have debated about getting her a bigger one after looking at the two tutorial's above, however since she is only going tobe 2.5 at christmas time the smaller one is probably the perfect size for her right now. And then of course if she likes it we can always get her a bigger one a few years down the road. And who knows, I could put all this time and effort into it and she may not like it. We already have a little people dollhouse and a disney princess castle that she hardly plays with so it could end up like both of those. Discarded among the toy pile in my living room

For all of those with little girls out there, at what age did you introduce a dollhouse to them. ANd for those that have undertaken dollhouse DIY's of your own any tips or advice? Best place to buy dollhouse furniture or decorations? I need all the help I can get!