Handmade Heaven: Dolls and Daydreams The Haunted House

Spooky eco playhouse fun

Aimee Brock
26 October 2010

Most families in New Zealand can take or leave Halloween. Mine could mostly leave it. But when I saw this cool paper ‘haunted house’ idea, I got in the spirit! A few months ago Australian blogger Sarah from Dolls and Daydreams spent hours designing and drawing a downloadable PDF of an ‘eco friendly’ paper dolls house that you can print, colour-in and stick onto an ordinary cardboard box. It teaches kids about recycling and ‘upcycling’, and was a massive hit, with bloggers around Australia and New Zealand being drawn to her website. She quickly followed it up with printable themed accessories, ‘wraps’ for clothes pegs to make little people, and different patterns for a ‘big red barn’ and a ‘school house’.

Her latest design is a haunted house for Halloween that is filled to the brim with bats, cobwebs, spooky ghouls, a mummy, and a scarecrow in a field of pumpkins outside. It’s exactly the right kind of (non) spooky for little kids, and the best part is it doesn’t require staples, glue or tape. It simply slots together and can be taken down and stored flat, ready for next year. If the kids ever let you take it down!