Homemade Kitchen Playset

My son loves to play with the toy kitchen set every time we walk through IKEA.
But let's face it, he's not going to play with it enough to justify the cost of actually buying him one. So I made him one today.

I took an old moving box and taped it up. Covered it with white butcher paper (doesn't have to be covered with anything... it is pretend after all)
I drew 2 stove burners and 2 knobs on one side of it.


On another side, I drew an oven door, with a knob and a window.
(with yellow for the lighted window...
to which my 3 year old says, "Mom, I can't see through your window"
... pretend dear, pretend)

I flipped the box over one more time and cut out a rectangle to place a small pan into. This is his pretend sink.

He loves it! And it was made in about 30 minutes.

I'm sure it won't last long... but sure beats forking over the cash during the holidays for a toy that he'll ignore in a day or two. ;)

IKEA recall solution

If you had IKEA Roman Shades hanging in your house (like I did), you were probably very sad to see this recall.

I love my Roman Shades. So, I created a solution for them.

First, I removed all of the dangerous strings and ropes from the shade. (so it was just a big piece of fabric hanging from my window) Then, I stitched several loops of ribbon to the back of the shades. I put 2 on each side of mine. The top 2 loops are shorter than the bottom 2. So it will hang more like a Roman Shade is suppose to. Then I attached buttons on the front side to make it look nice.

Next I screwed 2 hooks into the wall. Now the loops can hang up on the hooks. It isn't quite as easy to use as a true Roman Shade... but I didn't have to buy a new window treatment!