I am nothing if not cheap frugal.  When it comes to saving money, I have a memory like an elephant.  My sister got a great idea a few years ago from I-don’t-know-where to make a Groovy Girl dollhouse for her daughter from a bookshelf.  It turned out REALLY cute.  My daughter is not so much into dolls, so although I had an appreciation for the idea, I had no reason to recreate it for my own little princess.  Until Christmas, that is.

My girl, she likes animals.  Little, teeny, tiny animals to be exact.  This year they came in the form of Calico Critters.  I must say, they are kinda adorable.  She got a family of rabbits, a couple of beavers, some random baby mice and cats, and a pair of animals dressed as Santa and the Mrs.  She got a cute travel house that folds up like the vinyl Barbie travel playhouse of my childhood memories.  She also got furniture to fill (some of) her rooms.  Of course on the day after Christmas she decided that she absolutely, positively needed a more permanent structure for all of these little pieces.  When I saw the prices for the cramped plastic offerings on the Tama Boutique site, I decided that we could do much, much better.

We have big plans for this book shelf we found in the basement not being useful enough.  Here’s how we spent our day yesterday:

It’s just a start, because this is a marathon, not a race.  We have three additional shelves to install besides the one you see, and have lots of building and decorating to do.  Today we’re working on flooring for the additional levels, wallpaper for the walls of each of the rooms, creating windows with a view and artwork for the walls, turf for the bottom level which will be the front yard of the house along with a faux front door, the rooftop deck including a bridge, stone path, popsicle stick patio, and planters.  Ok, maybe we’ll be working on this for the next many, many days.  The babysitter doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to be helping out with this project too, because we know she has lots of great ideas.  That poor, poor caregiver.