We’re big fans in this house of making toys using cardboard boxes. For ages H had a car, which was essentially a box with four glued on wheels and the Mario Kart Wii wheel for steering – the rest was H’s imagination – and she loved it! The car had to be written off, the box converted instead into a pirate ship which has lasted just as long and is just as loved. Recently we’ve come to the decision it’s time to recycle it – it lives upstairs and isn’t played with as much (if only you could do that to all toys), so my next idea was hatched – we love The Mouse Mansion by Karina Schaapman which is about a house where mice live made from recycled material (it is amazing) – and while we’re not at home for long enough to do anything which comes close to that, a simple dolls house would work.

The right kind of box was procured, then it was finding the time to put it together. Any good dolls house needs some preparation time – so H and I spent one Wednesday morning doing potato prints to be used as wallpaper and carpets. I fully intend to go through my scrap fabric collection and make H some curtains for the house too.

So today Shaun and H assembled the box to make what will be her new toy. A roof was made (with a chimney), as well as a floor so the box was broken up into two rooms.

We were sent a Le Toy Van starter pack of dolls house toys which are a perfect size – and also fit all her Playmobil toys nicely too. The furniture is all wooden and gorgeous – another incentive to make sure the house looks fabulous when it’s finished.

Right now H’s imagination is off, and she was playing with it immediately. The house still needs some work (the aforementioned windows and decorations), but it does seem like H may miss nursery tomorrow, so Operation Dollshouse may be finished sooner than we think… I love anything which gets her imagination going, you don’t need to buy the best toys to have the best imagination.

We’ll be back with more updates on how the house is going… this is only the start (I give it a week before we’re ‘building an extension’…)

We were sent the Le Toy Van set for the purpose of review from Dollshouses.co.uk – all opinions are our own. All Operation Dollshouse progress can be followed on Instagram with the #operationdollshouse hashtag (by myself or Shaun)