Homemade.

This past Christmas I decided that rather than buying the girls more toys, which I knew that they were going to get loads of anyway, I wanted to make them something to play with. 

Do you cringe at the idea of homemade toys?  

Did you have a bad experience with something your parents slaved and toiled over just to have it wind up in the lame "toys-I-never-play-with" box?

Actually, I do have one memory worth mentioning...

So, my older sister has a September birthday.  One year {I don't even remember how old we were}she got a Cabbage Patch Doll for her birthday.  This doll was beautiful and I was jealous!  

Kelly{my younger sister}, were you as jealous as I was?

I think that the biggest part of the beauty of this doll was that it was BRAND NAME.  AUTHENTIC.  It had a signature on it's behind and it came with a birth certificate!  

Zip forward 3 months to Christmas....I don't remember doing it, but I must have made my desires clear because I was in the middle of opening a present I knew was about to change my life...I was becoming a mommy..sort of.  And there she was...my first Cabbage Pat...wait a minute!  What is this?  A homemade Cabbage Patch Doll???  

Oh no you didn't just give me (and Kel) a knock off!  

...looking back, I am ashamed that I was so ungrateful.  Someone {not my mom or my grandmother, by the way} stitched that doll together carefully and probably lovingly.  And I rejected it.  What a BRAT!!

Anywho...Homemade gifts don't always go over too well.  But, allow me to redeem my childhood self, and tell you that some time later my dad crafted us some awesome couches and chairs for our Barbies and I played with them endlessly.  I wish I had known to save them....they were quality construction.  

So, back to the present day. I decided I wanted to make the girls a front loading washer and dryer and I wanted to do it on a shoestring budget.  

I scoured Craig's List and Goodwill for the pieces to be the basic shell of the miniature appliances...here's what I found...a couple of laminate book cases at Goodwill.  $11/each (which is actually a little more than they are worth...can one haggle at Goodwill? {I was too shy to try.}

I knew that there were plenty of tutorials out there on how to paint laminate furniture, so I purchased them, despite the fact that they were the wrong color.

**Note: I do wish I had spent a little bit more time on the process of painting the laminate.  It is crucial to get this step right or they will chip and scratch...which may very well happen anyway with kids...**

I had a little bit of MDF {medium density fiberboard} from some previous project that I used to make doors and control panels.  I also had some paint left over from previous projects.  Finally, I had 2 sets of casters {wheels} from some Rubber Maid storage cabinets that I never put the casters on.  

Perfect example of how "I think I'll save this seemingly worthless thing..I might be able to use it someday.." is totally valid.

Supplies I bought:  Hardware including hinges, door pulls and these little latchy-catchy things that hold the control panels on and the doors closed...$12 for all, a couple of frosty glass round trivets from the dollar store...$2. I also walked the aisles at Lowe's to try and find some kind of trim pieces for the fronts...I can't even tell you what they are or what they are for.  What I can tell you is that they were originally black and they cost $2.50 each...so $5.

Me, my jigsaw and my friend, Jon's power drill donated our time.  FREE.  

First, measured and cut out the doors and control panels.  Then I traced and cut a circle in the middle of the door for the window.

Then I painted.  I used some oil based paint on the inside since I knew it needed to be super strong {kid proof?}. The lavender for the outside is a mixture of a light silver gray and pink that I mixed together.  

After everything was good and dry, I glued the trivets on for the windows, screwed the trim pieces over those and attached all the hardware and casters.  

{selecting and attaching hinges and latchy-catchy things is a little bit complicated, but it's boring and tedious, so I won't go into it.}

The final step was to put some details on the panels. I used some little wooden crafty pieces for the knobs.  

When it was all done they came out looking pretty good! I was happy with them and the girls loved them...still love 4 weeks later...let's hope it lasts.

Love,

S

PS: I did eventually get a real Cabbage Patch Doll with the signature on the behind and the birth certificate...but I don't remember anything about it, not a single detail.