I am sure you would have seen many beautiful wooden doll houses and tree houses out there which are perfect for small world play. Well I have! But they are usually on the pricier side, which I do not have the budget for. If you have been following us on Instagram, you would have seen our cardboard doll house from a month back. This time, I set out to make a tree house for my small world play loving son!
Fully inspired by minimadthings.com, here are the materials you will need to make your own tree house!
YOU WILL NEED:
Glue gun
Pen knife
Cardboard
Kitchen rolls
Toilet rolls
Kraft paper bag
Disposable chopsticks
Yarn
Small round log slice (you could also use cardboard for this)
STEPS:
Floors: I started out with the pieces which would make the 'floors' of my treehouse. You will need to cut out three differently sized irregular shapes out of cardboard. Small, medium and large.
Pillars: Next, I cut 3 kitchen rolls to the height I wanted. These should be at least double the height of your toilet rolls.
Cubby House: I cut three 9x11cm rectangles, and one 9x9cm square out of cardboard. Then, I cut up a kraft paper bag and drew and painted some leaves on them.
Slide: I cut a rectangle out of cardboard for the slide. I also attached smaller strips to the edges to act as a rail.
Ladder: To make a ladder, I cut up a few disposable chopsticks and glued all the pieces together.
Swing: For the swing, I strung yarn thru a small log slice (left over from my wedding decor!). You could also use a piece of cardboard!
Once you have all the parts of the tree house assembled, glue everything together with a hot glue gun, starting from the main structure, followed by the extra features (e.g. swing, slide, ladder and cubby house).
TIPS: Use a sharp pen knife when cutting your cardboard. For this project, I also made the base surfaces and slide out for two layers of cardboard in order to reinforce it.
It all came together much better than I expected! When I set it up for my son to explore, I also added some log pieces, wooden trees and our adorable Holdie Folk! He was so excited. I have a feeling this one will be in rotation for a long time.
The whole project took me a morning and my favourite part... it cost absolutely nothing! Let me know if you try it!
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