Bing's Play Market and Sweet Shoppe

I wanted my daughter to have a play market for awhile...right after I finished her play kitchen project. I could not find one that I love especially find the right one that is not way overpriced. So I decided we should just make her one for her on her third birthday! I have been doing a lot of research to see if people have DIY tutorials on it but most of them built them from scratch. Well, I am no carpenter...so I was looking for pieces of furniture that resembles like it just like I did with the play kitchen project..I was thinking bookshelves, old end table, shoe racks...and then one night I came accross a DIY Market tutorial from the Ikea website using shoe racks as a play market! Great idea! I am glad someone thinks like me and I am not all crazy...however we did not have an Ikea around North Dakota, so I found some from Bed Bath and Beyond website for 14.99. The good thing about the BB&B's shoe rack, they have 3 shelves!! 

I was living at my mom's house at the time and could not live with my husband yet due to the flood that happened it Minot. I did not want to bring shoe racks with me in the plane either! So, I drive to BB&B and purchase them there from their website, and had it delivered to our new home in Minot!

TIP: If you order from BB&B at the store through their website, you can use their 20% coupons for each item, and they will ship it to your home!

I really liked how the Ikea DIY play market tutorial turned out, but I knew I still had to make some changes, and make it my own. Well, their version was to have each shoe rack back to back and leave space in between, just enough to have a child go in and out of the market, and have a fabric material go across on top, almost like tent that markets do. I wanted mine side by side, and meet in a corner, and have each side have a different theme, in this case, a Sweet Shoppe, and a Food Market. Not to mention, the Ikea shoe racks are built differently from BB&B ones. Little Imagination goes a long way.....

So here is what I came up with, and this is how my husband and I built it!

Pretty Cool huh? The market is actually two piece, instead of being connected, it is easier to move it anywhere this way. We used 2x4's to make it sturdy! All the curtains were sewn by me! It took hours since my machine keeps acting up on me! The fabric and the sign can be found at Hobby Lobby, and the Cupcake painting was from Home Goods. She already had the food but we had to get her the gum ball machine and the register to complete her market and sweet shoppe! It cost me less than $50 to make this project! It looks more authentic not painted, don't you think??

Well I hope you enjoyed this post! Thank you for reading and have a fabulous weekend!