How To: DIY Barbie Brunch Hollywood Style

From gift bags turned wallpaper to coasters turned art, this project offer some great ideas on how to create your own Barbie dining experience. 80% of the project was made with things I found at The City of Edmonton Reuse Centre, which is one of my favorite places to both donate and purchase items that can be re-used and kept out of the land-fills and the remaining elements are re-purposed garage sale finds or from my “this could be something” box full of bits and pieces of this and that.

Like with all my Barbie projects I hope to inspire Barbie enthusiasts both young and old to create their own accessories by re-purposing every day things and turning something old into something new.

HOW TO

1) WALLS
To construct a room display you have lots of choices – you can cut and glue foam board together, bend the outside of a binder into 45 degree angle or use an office file box and cut out one front and one side panel.

2) WALLPAPER
I used a deconstructed gift bag, cut and pasted it to foam board and then added a bit of silver trim. The sparkling swirls add a bit of bling and the  scalloped edge and stripes make a perfect wainscot. You could also use wrapping paper or scrap-book paper.

3) FLOORING
This faux marble drawer liner was yet another find at the The City of Edmonton Reuse Centre,. It’s comes in a small roll like wrapping paper but has a sticky back and is primarily used for lining drawers or shelves. It’s available in most dollar stores and kitchen departments. I simply applied it to a piece of foam board and  without any fuss or muss – I had a marble floor worthy of even the most discerning Barbie.

4) ART
The art on the wall are re-purposed coasters that work perfect to add a bit of color and mood to the dining scene and easy, easy, easy! I found these at the The City of Edmonton Re-Use Centre, but I’ve also seen these at the Dollar Tree Stores.

5) TABLE
The black metal table base was a great find. I’m not sure what it originally was but I think it may have been a flower-pot holder??? Whatever it was, I knew it would make a great table base. The table top is a textured piece of silver scrap-book paper pasted on to a stronger piece of cardboard and trimmed with small silver cord embellishment. The table-cloth is salvaged fabric that matches the chairs and trimmed with a sparkling string of tiny black sequence glued to it. Other than the goblets, all elements came from The City of Edmonton Reuse Centre including glue and paint.

6) VASE & FLOWERS
The vase is a highlighter pen lid that is covered in sparkles and the flowers were salvaged from an old Easter ornament. I found the silver goblets  in one of those garage sale bags full of miscellaneous and I’ve had them around for a while, just waiting for the right project and this was it!  The plates are foam cut outs and the cupcake platter came as is, pink polka-a-dots with glitter edging from reuse scrap-booking bin at The City of Edmonton Reuse Centre,. Finally,  the cupcakes are beads with white glue mixed with dark pink paint for glaze.

7) CHAIRS
These dining room chairs are a great starter project and are really quite easy to make. Measure a strip of cardboard (approximately 17″ long and 2.5″ wide) and measure two pieces of fabric that are a little longer and wider than the cardboard and sew or glue  together on both sides and one end.  Make sure the good side of the fabric is facing inwards when you’re doing this.  Once  you’ve turned it inside right,  slide the cardboard in and then fold the remain fabric up inside and stitch closed or glue. Now, bend it to shape, glue back pieces together for structure, add a ribbon and some stick on jewels from the dollar store and your Barbie is ready for her Hollywood brunch ! For support I added a square strip of cardboard covered in black fabric under the center of the length of the chair but could have used black foam board or stiff cardboard as well.  I warned you I was a fan! If you don’t have fabric you could always decorate the cardboard by covering it in wrapping paper.  Of course the majority of these elements were  from…….. yes; you guessed it, The City of Edmonton Reuse Centre.

I hope this project gives you some ideas and inspires you to give some DIY Barbie furniture or accessories a try,  if not, consider donating unused items like fabric, glue, ribbons and whatever else they accept at your local Reuse Centre so someone else can reuse or re-purpose it.  Making something new from something old is  a great way to spend some time with your little one and kids have a lot of great ideas once you get them started, so save your extra pieces of this and that and get creative!!

See More Barbie Doll DIY Projects Here