Charlie and Lola house

I'm a huge fan of Pinterest and love the concept of virtual mood boards as a way of inspiration. One of my boards is dedicated to craft ideas for my children. I was showing Bean, back in January, all the lovely ideas I had 'pinned' for her and Spud, in particular a beautiful idea of a dolls house in a small suit case. (Click here to see it in all it's fabulous glory!)
My idea had been to work on my own version of it whilst Bean was in bed and then give it to her for her Birthday. Unfortunately she had other ideas and for a month didn't stop asking me if we could make it!
I guess my mistake was showing her the idea in the first place, but I had wanted to see her reaction and see if all the effort would be appreciated!


Bean was desperate to make this project together and after seeing the Charlie and Lola stage show on New Years Eve, she had made up her mind that she wanted it to have a Charlie and Lola twist!
When she was hit with a bug that month I decided we should get to work on it to pass the time. So whilst Spud was having his naps we got all her Charlie and Lola books together for inspiration and got creating.


It's taken us a while, catching half an hour here and there, but we have finally finished. It isn't how I visualised it but it's exactly how Bean wanted it, so I'm happy!

All the rooms store in the lid of the vanity case and the dolls and clothes store inside too.

Here's what we used:
An old vanity case
Cardboard
Foam board
Fabric
Felt
Ribbon
Buttons
Stickers to decorate
Glue gun
Thread
Toy stuffing


We found a vanity case in my mum's loft which was perfect for this project!

We cut the card (x4) to size so it fitted neatly inside the lid of the vanity case and then planned out each room on the card.

We made paper stencils

We then cut out the furniture using the foam board and Bean coloured them in using felt tip pens. I used a Sharpie marker to draw the detail.

We covered the boards using fabric and a glue gun on the front and felt on the back, trapping some ribbon in between to use as a handy tab.

We then stuck the furniture onto the fabric using the glue gun again.

We decorated the front of the vanity case to look like a house using felt.

Next we made Charlie and Lola by cutting them out of pink felt and hand sewing the face detail on with black thread. (this was done by me whilst Bean was in bed!)

Stuffing them with toy stuffing

We used small pieces of yellow felt for their hair and coloured felt for their clothes and shoes. 

We made Charlie's jeans out of some scrap denim.

Bean helped me with the sewing of Lola's dress and shoes. She's actually quite good at hand-sewing!

Lola Has buttons at the back of her dress so that we can make some more clothes for her and swap them over.

I've really enjoyed doing this project with Bean and will miss having something to go to when we have some spare time. Here it is completed....

She is now asking me if I can teach her how to sew on a sewing machine! I'm a little nervous as she is only 4 but I guess we have to start somewhere!
Wish me luck, and until next time...


Happy Making!

xx