My Little Pony Binder House

I go in crafty phases. I obsess about one craft or another for a while. I get all of the supplies, start a hundred variations and eventually peter out and don't do it again for months. My current obsession is making Barbie Binder Houses. I have started 10-15 and I have completely finished only a handful, because each one is a labor of love. I entered my Lego, Tinkerbell #1 and Asian binders in the count fair and got two 2nd place ribbons and like $3 bucks prize money. Eat your heart out! I spent it all in one place. The little girl that I gave the Tinkerbell binder to won't let her little sister play with her binder unsupervised because it is "award winning." Yes, I do have a binder for the little sister in the works! So, these are some pictures of the My Little Pony binder that I made for a family friend's four year old daughter for her plastic horsies to call home.

This is the finished inside of the binder with a little bed for the ponies. I cut out of one of the flowers from the curtain fabric and sewed it onto a little mauve watermarked pillow to help everything coordinate. It's all in the details. The feet on the bed are little floral porcelain knobs.

This is the inside of the binder without the bed blocking the view. I think the pillows totally match the wall art. I am not sure where I found the pony art, but I will add a link to their work if I can find it again.
I claim "fan art" protection rights.

This is the outside walls of the binder. The original idea for these ingenious binder buildings is from southerncomfort.com. I just jazz them up with couture curtains and fab furniture.

Trapper Keeper

So I don't use my children's real names because the internet is a scary place sometimes, but I still have to share a few brags with the world. I took some awesome (modestly speaking) photos of Trapper at the historic building that I mentioned in my last post. I have to share them because we make really cute people at our house, but they are so wiggly that it is hard to catch them on film. Ah hah! This time I have proof!

Witch Way to Speech Therapy?

I love the stage when kids are really into costumes. I have taken Darth Vader to the grocery store, Disney Princesses to the post office and Superman to the supermarket. This year I have taken a witch (technically a wizard or warlock) to speech therapy three times. We go to this historic building downtown that was built in 1916. I took my camera with me to snap some pictures of the baby and used it on big brother too. People get a kick out of the hat. I think it's super cute. The only time it bothers me is when he is sitting on my lap in front of the computer. It's like staring into a black hole.

Baby Lottery

Time passes so quickly. I wanted to share the fact that I was given an amazing baby boy just one year and one week after my Autistic son Ben moved into a care facility. We knew that it was a miracle to get Ben into one of those homes, but we didn't know that it was also part of God's plan to bring another child into our family. Our son "Trapper" is so wonderfully neuro-typical. He looks and acts like our oldest son. He is observant and interactive and just can't wait to be big. He is in the middle of every wrestling match, crawling over the mound of boys just to be part of the action. He likes to be lifted up to touch the ceiling, turn on and off light switches, speed crawl up the fourteen-step staircase, climb the outdoor slide, and anything else that seems like fun. He's a baby maniac. He says a handful of words and has 5 teeth. He loves hot dogs (chopped up), strawberries, pizza and ice cream. It is so fascinating to watch the development of a person. He is becoming such an individual and enjoying every minute of it. I feel like a lottery winner, having been given a healthy and happy child to complete our family. He is our last one. We made sure this time. I remember how hard it is to keep an active toddler out of trouble. Here we go again. We are lucky people!

Minnie Mouse Barbie Binder House

I am a huge fan of, not so much Barbie, but her house. I always wanted a Barbie house as a kid and never got one. There were four girls, and it would have been a well-used item. So being that I have only one daughter, she has a Barbie house extraordinaire made from an old armoire. I did some research via Pinterest to find inspiration as to how to send a doll house through the mail for a gift and I found this link for Binder Houses: http://southerndisposition.blogspot.com/2011/12/diy-three-ring-binder-barbie-dollhouse.html

I made multiple houses and loved them so much that I am keeping them to enter into the fair. I am posting pictures of the Minnie Mouse version that I made for my daughter's sister from another mister, her best friend from across the street.

I used the white binders with plastic pockets on the front and back so I could have four walls. I made a bedroom, a bathroom and a Gallery wall that can be any room at all.

To find the images on the internet, just go to the "images" tab and look up "white toilet" or "pink fridge," etc. Find images that face forward. If they are turned to the left or right, they look strange. It is sometimes hard to find images facing forward because they look better at an angle to photographers.

I made a bed with reversible blanket, so it can be changed and give two looks. I like to make the pillows two-sided sometimes too. I made a Minnie Mouse rug, but the edges all curled up and it looks silly. Oh well, I tried.

In the original Southern Dispositon blog, she made plain white curtains for her daughter's four binders. I studied Fashion Design in college, seriously considered doing Interior Design and I am a Custom Picture Framer, so I like to really jazz things up.

The curtain is the very best part, in my opinion! It really sets the theme for the whole project.

This is the other side of the blanket. I used upholstery foam cut to 9" by 12" with a thin piece of wood on the bottom and stapled cloth over it. I covered the bottom with felt to hide my staples. When I made the blanket, I cut a square out of the corners the same depth of the bed (about 2") and made tailored corners. I sewed the pillows and my 9 year old daughter stuffed them. We now have decided that 7" by 12" is probably a better size because it still fits two Barbies but doesn't take up so much room.

This is the front and back of the binder. These binders are currently $1.79 at Target. I love being able to do the four walls! The recipient's name could go down the spine to really personalize it.

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So here is my confession, I can't use Modge Podge. That stuff hates me! I tried using it for these binders and everything got wrinkly and ghetto looking.

For this binder, I took 12" x 12" plastic scrap booking sleeves and taped them around the card stock to protect the paper and then I attached to whole page to the binder with double stick scrap booking tape (Recollections brand $2.99 at Michael's). The pages could also be laminated which would cost about $3.00 a page at an office supply store.

I have made other binders in all different themes and will post them as time allows. I wand to figure out how to use this idea for boys since I have five of them. I will have to ponder that.

Last Halloween

I has been almost a year since my son Ben moved into a care home. We were so blessed to find a facility at all. There are about 8-10 kids for each opening. I happened to call a few days before his house was going to choose another boy. I quickly faxed all of the paperwork that they needed and then we waited.


These homes are so expensive that the government isn't really opening anymore. Richard, who is the social worker for the care home company said that is is about $9,000 per child for care and housing. So Ben's house with the six occupants costs about $54,000 per month to run. That is psycho!


Ignoring the bureaucracy, if it wasn't our son, it would be someone else's child, and we were at our wit's end. I was sure that my husband would have a heart attack from all of the stress. He was working full-time, in school full-time and had five kids at home. Me? I have a lot of gray hair.

Well, obviously, he was accepted into the care home. He went in on Halloween morning last year. We still are not sure what to do with ourselves. We are working hard to get organized. He is doing really well. He walks a lot to keep out of trouble. He has lost 30 lbs. and looks great. We were afraid that he would get type 2 diabetes the way he was growing. Having small children in the house and often only one exhausted parent on duty, we couldn't meet his needs.

When he comes home for visits, it is pretty shocking. He is a lot of work. We have forgotten. We feel that he is innocent before God because of his Autism. He is so childlike in his understanding, but he sure knows how to make a little hell for everyone else when he is bored or feeling OCD.

He is twelve years old now and has turned into a handsome young man. I can't wait for the day that Christ makes him whole again. I cry every time that I think about it.It is a long journey and I am so glad to have the help that our family needed and I am so glad that Ben is happy.

Baby Dream

I am very pregnant with my sixth child and fifth boy. My first son CeDricK was a surprise. This little fellow was a shocker, but we are very excited for him to come.

My husband likes to do a baby check each night. He rubs my bulging belly, gets the baby all riled up and then turns on his side and goes to sleep. Since I am about 34 weeks into this endeavor, the baby is pretty good sized. You can feel little limbs and hard places that must be a torso or other bony area.

The other night, once the baby was "activated," my husband says "Wow, that must be a leg. I don't remember the other kids kicking in rhythm like this."

Later, as I was sleeping and dreaming one of my weird pregnancy induced dreams, I felt that leg again inside my belly a couple of times. THEN, the leg was on the outside of my belly! I gave birth to the baby through my belly button! The baby was all clean, which was nice. He was very blonde and beautiful. I don't really make blondes, but it was a dream. We didn't have any diapers for the baby because he was so early, but I found one in a sample pack, unwrapped it from it's packaging and put it on the baby. He was so tiny that the diaper swamped him, so he proceeded to swamp our bed by peeing out of the leg hole of the diaper. Then I gave him a bottle (odd, since I have nursed all of my kids) and was so distracted, that I didn't burp him and he threw up all over the place. I woke up after that.

I am guessing that I am not feeling prepared for a baby yet and that all of my insecurities were surfacing. When I told my husband about the dream, he thought it was pretty strange to dream about giving birth through my belly button. He reacted like most good fathers would and brought home a package of size 1 diapers.

Photo credit:http://www.pregnancystagesweekbyweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/baby-in-belly.jpg