Play Eats: Beautiful Felt Eggs

Katie of Hippos and Dinosaurs brings Play Eats to the next level today with a Felt Egg tutorial. You can "decorate" them for Easter or just make them white for your kitchen. She has even uploaded a pattern that you can print out. Katie is super talented and her blog is full of great projects that you can make for your kids.

I know that a lot of readers don't have sewing machines (or don't want to lug them out of the closet) and this is a project that can all be done by hand. In our kitchen we just have a couple of plastic eggs from last Easter and although they are cheap and easy (I even included them in the repurposing post), they are really hard for Z to open and close. I'm thinking when I make these, I might leave a seam open but finished so that we can hide things inside. What do you think?

Click over to Hippos and Dinosaurs for the full tutorial and pattern. Don't miss this play loaf of bread or the rest of her felt food tutorials.

Thanks so much to Katie for stitching up this awesome post. Of course, all photos are courtesy of Hippos and Dinosaurs.

Play Dollhouse . Scale

Or should I type, "Scale"? Because play dollhouse furniture is not remotely to scale. I've mentioned scale before but I wanted to do a full post on it with pics so you can see how the play sets work in relation to each other.  Here's the low down: Plan Toys, Ryan's Room, Educo/Hape, and Le Toy Van all pretty much have the same scale. It's just about 1:12 or 1/12. That means that for every foot in real life, you have an inch in the mini. As you can see in the photo above, the awesome mushroom bed (by Enchantmints) is smaller. Not much, but enough. In the play dollhouse, it's not going to make much difference. I'm sure my 2 year old is not going to mind.  Pictured above is the double bed from Educo/Hape with the Plan Toys bunk bed and the Enchantmints bed.

Sylvanian Families or Calico Critters run smaller. I've read both 1:16 and 1:18. Some of my favorite dollhouse companies like Lundby use the smaller scale. That means that 1:12 scale items are going to look a little large in the space. But I have seen photos on flickr and I find it hard to tell the difference. Think about it: the couch I'm sitting on right now looks big in my tiny house but in my friend's McMansion, it would look small. Above on the left is the stove from Ryan's Room (came with the house), on the right, the Le Toy Van Sugarplum kitchen stove, and in front, the stove from Enchantmints.

The thing with play furniture is that it doesn't have the fine detail of regular or collectible dollhouse miniatures. Also, as you can see in the photos, even within some of the sets, there is a big size difference.  Pictured above is the Enchantmints bed -- about the same width as the Plan Toys crib. And that crib is not much smaller than the bunk beds. In real life, the crib would not be that big. That's the Plan Toys bunk bed. Play dollhouse furniture is made with thicker pieces of wood than traditional miniatures so that little fingers will have a harder time destroying it.

The white sofa is Ryan's Room (came with the house). Leaf settee from Enchantmints. The Enchantmints line works really well with the Calico Critters (known internationally as Sylvanian Families).

And three sets of barstools! I can't remember if the orange is Ryan's Room or Le Toy Van. The white is the other one. The mushroom set is obviously Enchantmints.

And a little more information on other brands: Barbie and Blythe dolls (not the petites) are 1:6 scale. So there will be some stuff for them that you can use in a play dollhouse that will work fine because of the chunkiness of the wooden toys. I found some dishes in a box from when I was a kid that I'll be adding to the loot so she'll have some accessories. 

For the rest of the play dollhouse posts, click here. They are all in one place.

Dollhouse furniture review: Educo Hape

I have to say that I was most excited about this bedroom set and also the most disappointed. A bedroom wasn't needed because we already had a couple of beds. But I thought it would be nice for Mama and Papa Panda to have a room of their own. This is from the regular Educo Hape dollhouse line. There is also a very contemporary bamboo line that I love the looks of but it's more expensive. This bedroom is going for about $14.00 on Amazon. Not bad. Like with the Le Toy Van set, I used my Swagbucks to buy Amazon giftcards.

Scale: These are identical in scale to the Plan Toys, Le Toy Van and the Ryan's Room sets that I have previously reviewed. As you can see, they are a little big for the Calico Critters (or Sylvanian Families) pandas that we love. Also, they are slightly larger than the Enchantmints mushroom stuff.

Quality: This is where the disappointment comes in. The construction is just shoddy. The plexiglass on the doors of the wardrobe and shelves of the bed is scuffed and the pieces are not square. The dresser is okay but the bed is very crooked. The paint is fine but where glue seeped from the seams, it was not cleaned up very well. There is one cut of the wood that is very rough. So basically, these items just lack the attention to detail in craftsmanship that all of the other companies have.

Overall: I bought this set because of the beanbag. I liked the colors and I liked the modern styling -- especially the striped comforter. All of the fabric on the other sets was yucky and floral. So I have no complaints there. I love the little lamps and those will work well in other parts of the house. And the beanbag is fabulous. While this set doesn't have details in the paint like the Le Toy Van, there are cool details elsewhere -- the drawers pull out and there are tiny hangers in the wardrobe. Cute.

So I do recommend these. The lower price point and modern styling make up for the lack of quality on some of the pieces.

If you would like to read the rest of my dollhouse reviews, click here.

Dollhouse furniture review: Le Toy Van

Even though it's at a higher price point than most of the dollhouse furniture sets that are sold by individual rooms, I really wanted a set by Le Toy Van because they are just so cute. This is the Sugar Plum Kitchen, part of a line of brightly colored rooms including a bright pink bedroom, a bright yellow dining room, and a purple and fuchsia living room.

This line is imported from England so that probably explains the $$$. But Le Toy Van or Hotaling (the distributor) is known for their quality and design. This was in my Amazon cart for a couple of weeks at about $15 then all of a sudden skyrocketed to $19.99 as I was waiting for my Swagbucks giftcards to post (more on Swagbucks later). I want to be mad at Le Toy Van but I honestly couldn't find a flaw worthy of much complaint.

Scale: These are identical in scale to the Plan Toys, Educo/Hape and the Ryan's Room sets that I have previously reviewed. As you can see, they are a smidge big for the Calico Critters (or Sylvanian Families) pandas that we love. Also, they are slightly larger than the Enchantmints mushroom stuff.

Quality: I'm very pleased with the quality of these sets. I don't think they are hand-painted. Everything is done very precisely. I only found a couple of spots of imperfection and that could have been due to transport. Where glue seeped through the seams, it was wiped away. I didn't really find any splinters or jagged edges on anything. Because of the price, I was really looking hard for flaws! The only thing that's bothering me is that the oven door doesn't want to stay shut. I've got to do something about that. 

Overall, I have to recommend these sets. The detail is very nice. The little sprayer on the sink is attached with elastic cord so it has some resistance just like in real life. There aren't any shelves in the fridge so you can't really put stuff in it. We may have to make some. I bought this specifically for the little polka dot teapot and it's better in the picture. Just sayin'.

If you want to read the rest of my dollhouse furniture reviews, click here.

Play Dollhouse Guide

 DIY dollhouse furniture tutorials
(photo courtesy of Made by Joel)

DIY dollhouse tutorials
(photo courtesy Cookie)

Enchantmints

Educo Hape

Le Toy Van

Plan Toys

Ryan's Room

Buy handmade dollhouse furniture on Etsy

Introductory post with information on reviews and scale here.

Another introductory post with links here.

Bias: It was important for me with these reviews that everything be equal. I didn't actually pay for any of the items that I reviewed. CSN provided the Plan Toys sets in exchange for my reviews, I used Swagbucks to buy some sets from Amazon and some sets were gifts for Z for Christmas. Enchantmints is the only company that provided sets outright. None of this influenced my reviews at all. I still feel that the best quality play dollhouse toys are made by Plan Toys (who I never bothered to contact because of the availability on CSN). The cutest good quality stuff is Enchantmints (whose products I would have bought had they not so generously provided them -- and my mom bought Z the bathroom). All the rest is about the same, give or take. Let me know if you have questions.