Sunday, October 04, 2015

Our Cardboard Dream Home


I was contacted recently to see if we would like to take part in a fun home decor competition, with a little bit of a twist. This was no ordinary home, but instead a children's playhouse, a very special eco playhouse, made from sturdy cardboard! Here is a picture of it as it comes, what a great idea!


The idea is that we decorate the 'home' in the most imaginative way possible. For anyone who knows a little about my illustrations, you will know that my son A and I have slightly off the wall imaginations and so the house was likely to take on some what of a bizarre twist. We were so excited to get started on this project and eagerly awaited the arrival of the kids new 'home'! The competition has been organised by Ocean Finance and the prizes would be just amazing for us! Fingers crossed.

I started brainstorming with A about what he would like in our new dream home and his immediate thought was a Hippopotamus museum! Closely followed by a cat shop, boat and an old lady cottage. We started by putting pen to paper, well every great building starts with some awesome blue prints, so if we were to do this thing properly, we needed to get our architect hats on and work this out. Besides, a hippopotamus museum cant just be 'done', these things need planning! Baby S mostly just contributed by saying 'Nangarrrr' and eating cheese.

We got to work straight away with A painting the roof of the museum, with his trusty cereal box monster on the roof watching the proceedings. I will start with a break down of each side and at the end I'll show you the final piece. It's a crazy organised messy chaotic house, but it's our dream home apparently! I hope you enjoy...



Baby S was in charge of interior decoration - she's pretty bossy so just had to let her do her thing!


The hippopotamus museum


Now A was pretty insistent that all sides be different for different playing, and that it couldn't just be a house. Well of course, that would just be too easy wouldn't it?! He was equally as insistent that one side should be a hippopotamus museum. We don't have any locally, though I am sure there are plenty around (?) so we had to really think about this one. Again the paint, along with my drawing and hey presto a selection of hippos as requested, and a graffiti-esque style wall and roof as you would expect in a museum of this kind.




Of course the museum also needed an 'open sign, so A helped me paint that - but wanted the reverse side to not say closed but instead say 'sausages' - naturally. We also needed a price list so the Hippos etc knew how much they were expected to pay to get in. Pretty reasonable prices if you ask me, unless of course you are a herring. Those pesky pesky herrings.


 The cat shop


The cat shop was a strange one, but what the boy wants - the boy gets. A thought that the cat shop should have a cat flap for the customers - so it turns out it wasn't a shop to buy cats from, but in fact a shop for cats, he really is very strict at this whole project manager thing. It looks like he may even have been trying to sell his sister?


The Boat

I love the boat side best of all. A wanted colourful fish and googly eyes a plenty, so he got to sticking. He wanted a flying fish so that's the orange fellow at the top with the feather 'wing'. We also made a little foil fish on a rod so he could go 'fishing' and he and his dad made some binoculars so he could look out to sea. How cute is that!


The Old Lady Cottage

A is a little bit obsessed with old ladies and I think as one of his favourite books is 'A Squash & A Squeeze', he was inspired to have a cottage to play in too. We made this super old lady chic with some bunting, a homemade hanging chicken and some splodged roses growing on the front. Initially A wanted a thatched type stick roof, but luckily when our stick hunt was rained off, he settled for roof tiles.

Here are the pictures of the final masterpiece, being enjoyed as it has done the last few weeks by my monkeys! These play houses are so much fun and such a bargain too. We have loved taking part in the competition and we hope you like A's dream home too!

The Finished House!














That's it! We've had so much fun and the kids absolutely love the play house and have had so much fun right from it being plain to now. You can read all about the competition here! Wish us luck - A is so very excited at the prospect of winning, but they both love their new story playhouse too!


Thanks for reading,

Wafflemama