Kitchen Time!

Lets start this blog off by me thanking the toy company Melissa & Doug! After doing some research and seeing Zoey J play with some of their products, I was in love! So I bought a few of their toys, and not only do I love the sturdiness and quality of them, but it helps her imagination and keeps her quiet (which I'll take anyday!). We purchased a few play kitchen products, a few are an apple pie, cookie set, "food group" sets (bins that come with the different food group items) and many more.

I bought them shortly after I had purchased an entertainment center off of craigslist for $5. Why would I buy an entertainment center for this you ask? Because I'm giving it a make over and turning it into a play kitchen! :) With much help from pinterest.com, I have found inspiration and have begun my conversion!

Nic and I had been looking around for quite sometime for a sturdy, wood, play kitchen for the girls after seeing them play with others kids' kitchens, looking every where from Wal-Mart to Costco, they can run a hefty $200-$300! I don't know about you guys, but my wallet told me otherwise :) So after 3 coats of some Pink Carnation paint (courtesy of Lowes) I am well on my way to creating my own play kitchen!

Here's a little disclosure to exit the blog now if you don't care about my kitchen crafting adventure! haha. I would also like to mention my good friend Amber for the yay's and nay's of creating a kitchen, considering I've been using her ideas as a template. Another 'shout out' to my Nana for making me so darn crafty over the years! :)

And so it begins:

As I stated before, I bought the entertainment center on craigslist.com for $5, it was right down the road, so it cost me pennies in fuel!

The quart of paint I got at lowes with my military discount and a coupon for $7. Yippee!

I purchased 4, round wooden plaques at Michael's craft store for $1.98 a piece for the burners and a bottle of Martha Stuart metallic silver paint to doll em up for $2.09, and a bag of popsicle sticks for a $1 at the dollar tree. I painted the sticks black,(which I had the black paint already) cut them in half and used them for the burner 'coils'.

The next step was a stainless steel mixing bowl I purchased at the dollar store to use for a sink. Now for the faucet of the sink, I was a little confused, but that's where Amber comes into play! She scored a sink faucet at Habitat for Humanity for cheap, and you bet your bottom dollar I did the same thing! I got one for $4.99! It needed some TLC, but I shined it up and it's tip top!

My next purchase was at Jo-Anns (which is better known as Narnia, because you could get lost in there!) where I got 2 yards of fabric. I'm making a valance and 2 curtains to hide the food for storage and mod podg-ing them onto some cookie sheets. (You'll read about that later) That cost me $12.99 with coupons.

Last, but not least, I had a run to Wal-Mart, there I purchased 2 cookie sheets to mod-podge (which I already had) some fabric on and use as covers for the "fridge" to hang photos or drawings on. That cost me $3. I also bought 3 tension rods for the curtains which ran about $5 for all three. I also picked up some laminate pockets to make some "recipes" for the girls, that cost a whopping $3.88.

I must say I am awfully proud of my crafting at this point, considering I've saved over $200! Total this project has cost me $52.87, that's pretty darn good considering you can't even buy a plastic toy kitchen for that much, and this bad boy is custom! I will post photos later of the progress and the finished product!


My next craft I will be turning an old dresser into a dress up closet for the girls' princess gowns and accessories. So stay tuned!


Here are some photos thus far! The beginning and 3 coats of paint. The burners aren't screwed in yet, so ignore them being lop sided. But I'll post more as I progress!