A house for a mouse – Tissue box challenge

 
I thought it would be fun to take part in this year’s tissue box challenge hosted by JDaniel 4’s Mom .  We don’t use tissues often but I knew I had a pretty tissue box saved in our craft/junk box.  I asked Luath what we should make from the box.  She suggested a jack in the box – we have made one before.  I spent a day or so thinking and had decided that we would make a house for her flower peg dolls.  However we were reading one of Luath’s library books and she pointed out a mouse hole and I thought “oh we could make a mouse house as the box decoration does look like garish wallpaper”. 

I extended the tissue hole into a traditional mouse hole shape.  Luath immediately started playing with the house

Using one of the flaps from the side and some extra cardboard from a cereal box I made a door.  Partly so it looked a little like a hole in the skirting board but also so we could use it as a door.

The first thing Luath wanted was a bed.  I cut a bed shape at the base of the cereal box and then reduced it (a lot) width and lengthwise.
 
I raided the material upcycle box and used some sweater ribbing for the mattress and a t-shirt for the pillow and sheet.

Luath insisted that we next make a light so the mouse could turn it off when he went to bed,  Using a tin foil cake case we had saved from Christmas mince pies as I thought we would use them for something! I cut it to make the lampshade and then cut a small hole in the foil and pushed a straw through to use as the bulb and stand.

Next on Luath’s list was a table and seat.  I made the table using a milk bottle top, cardboard legs and gave it a sweater ribbing table cloth.  The seat was a cut down bottle top with some material padding.  I added a cardboard plate and straw cup.  These don’t really work with the mouse and they are a little fiddly for Luath, but I made them anyway.

We gave the mouse two books.  The Lion and the mouse, and The Country Mouse and The Town Mouse.

For decoration I added a carpet, again from the sweater.  Cut a picture from a magazine of a house that looks like it has a mouse hole.  I also cut a picture of a dog and added this to the back of the door to help scare any nosey cats.
 
It took us less than an hour and it was ready for the mouse to move in with his large cheese.  Luath added a bath for him.

Luath had fun playing with it for the rest of the morning.
   
Later we read one of our favourite mouse books (The little mouse,the red ripe strawberry and the big hungry bear by Audrey Wood ) and admired his tree trunk house. 
  
We also read  See how they grow – mouse  on we give books which shows that mice live in nests.

(Luath is 27 months)