Little House you can Cairie (ahem, carry)

Now I'm gonna spill a little secret here. At the start of the year I made a silent pact with myself. I kept it silent because if I didn't tell anyone it didn't matter if I opted out. Well, I would have kicked myself but at least no one else would have known.

Here's the deal. I agreed with my own little self to make my gifts this year. MAKE. HANDMADE. GIFTS. Each and every one. There. I've said it out loud. Yikes! I know, its a big call. Here's hoping!

My beautiful God Daughter just turned one! One! Its crazy how quickly a year can pass..I still remember the day she was born and I swear it was only a few weeks ago. So, this sweet little thing was the recipient of my first handmade gift - and I gotta say, I'm excited about how it turned out. I got NO bouts of sewing rage and I made no errors along the way - what the? That NEVER happens! Yup, I'm the type of sewer who always needs to unpick at least one (but most times several) steps along the way through rushing and/or simply not concentrating.

I found this adorable tutorial over at UK Lass in U.S. At first I thought it may be a bit ambitious and so I read, re-read and re-read again before I decided to just jump in and do it! It really is a very well explained tutorial, so easy to follow and very forgiving.

How did I go? See for yourself..

I love it! You'll see what I mean in the first pic about this being very forgiving - see how my roof doesn't match up perfectly? And the sides don't close perfectly? But it still looks great! And its meant to be played with while open anyway and I don't think any excited little girl will spot the difference.

And the furniture? Gotta give credit here to my hubby who suggested I cut up a sponge to make simple furniture pieces - aren't they adorable? I was going to leave it furniture free but I'm glad went with his suggestion. (See babe, I even gave you public credit! love love)

Oh and the dolls? I bought these unfinished wooden peg dolls on Etsy as a set of 5 which were unfinished (raw). They an educational tool to help littlies match up colours so I grabbed my 3 year old sons poster paints and got busy.

Also adorable, right?

 

I wasn't feeling overly ambitious with the painting so they are all bald (bald but beautiful ;)) and have simple expressions that were drawn with a fine tip permanent marker. Oh, and I finished them off with a lacquer to shine them up which also brings out the colour better. 

It was completely unintentional to pair these two gifts up - they just so happen to be a perfect size for the doll house and they can also be played with as an activity completely by themselves. 

Phew. So I made it over the first handmade hurdle without any hiccups...looking forward to the next one.