Christmas Kitchen

Ray and I decided to do a DIY Play Kitchen for Claribel this year for Christmas.  It was such a fun project, Claribel LOVES it and we love how it turned out (which is important since it resides in our dining room/ living room :) ) 

We started with a nighstand with a layout mirrored from the one below (this is the other half of the match set that mom bought at a garage sale).  I forgot to take a picture of ours before Ray took it apart to sand it.

We went to Home Depot and found some cute trims, hardware, and knobs.  Ray built the entire back, trimmed it out to be so cute, and sanded and painted it while I worked on the painted knobs, burners, salt and pepper shakers and recipe box.  I also made fabric trimmed dishtowels, oven mits, apron, and chefs hat.  I also used the fabric to add a little to a basket from Pier 1 that fits on the shelf perfectly.

 We painted it a pistachio green-blue color.  It is hard to tell the color on the pics...

 We did a chalkboard on one side and will add chalk later when we know she won't just draw on the wall.  I love that this is something that she will grow into and be able to use in different ways for years to come.

 Ikea was the sweet spot for lots of accessories:  they had the awesome stainless pots and pans, cooking utensils, soft fruit basket set, soft vegetable basket set, breakfast food set, and baking set with a baking pan that fits on the shelf Ray added to the inside of the cabinet perfectly.

We got a chef set and dishes from Green Toys.  Below are the salt and pepper shakers (wooden spools with a disk on bottom and rounded top with seed beads inside), and recipe box with laminated "recipe cards", food pictures from a baby einstein first foods book and some that I sketched on index cards.  One of her favorite things is to take recipe cards out of my recipe box, so I thought she needed her own.  So far it has not disappointed, she LoVeS it!  This picture also shows off some of the trim that my talented husband added to the shelves.

 Christmas morning enjoying the recipe box.

 She is a cooking machine!

 At one point, her chefs hat had dropped over her eyes and I took it off, thinking it was bothering her.  Claribel touched her head and looked at me like "where did it go?"  So I put it back on her and she smiled and chuckled, so funny.  It is so nice that she is enjoying it, since we worked so hard on all the details!