One Little Bean: Creating A Small World

It was probably 8 months ago when I was reading this post written by a friend of mine on play sets. Now, this was the first time I'd ever heard of them but I was immediately inspired by the creativity and imagination involved in putting them together. For those of you who are new to play sets too, the basic idea to create a scene or 'small world' to facilitate imaginative play and story telling. Sets range vastly from amazingly elaborate to small and minimalist, some use all natural materials like felt and wood, others are put together from found items around the home, whilst some use a mixture of natural and man made products. I went online and drooled over some of the ones for sale on Facebook and Etsy, I even splurged on one (very prematurely!) for Bean's second birthday - which is still up in the closet patiently awaiting its grand debut! But i'm artistic by nature, and so I was also motivated by the challenge of creating something myself. Of course back then Bean was still a little young for the whole idea, so I squirreled the plan away in my mind for a time when she was more ready for this type of imaginative play. And about 3 weeks ago I realized the time had come! :-D

I'm very excited, and also quite proud, to unveil my first play set making attempt - " Under The Sea"

I was surprised at how quick it was to put together, the part that took the most time was sourcing the various components.

The items included in this set are:

Blue satin fabric (Which I already had from my sewing days)
A large rock (From the garden)
Some smaller rocks (From the local park)
Pebbles (Already had from the dollar store)
Glass pebbles (Already had from the dollar store)
Shells (From my vast collection from various beaches)
Plastic sea animals (Ebay)
Aquarium Plants (Ebay)

Because I already had most of the items around the house or in storage the total cost was very low, less than $20.