This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone.
Have you ever had a project consume you? That’s what happened this week when I started building my Inside Out Emotion House. I heard from so many friends about how helpful Inside Out has been when it comes to talking about emotions and feelings with their little ones. I thought building a small house to display the emotion they were currently feeling the most might help with those conversations.
And then I went to go pick up the Walmart exclusive Inside Out plush toys and found out they were much bigger than I expected. That’s OK, though-I just had to build a bigger house!
But then I couldn’t find a box that would work that was also big enough for the toys. But that’s OK, I just decided to build a box that was the perfect size. And then I’d use the box to build the perfect house. Is it starting to sound complicated? 
I picked up some craft plywood and used duct tape and wood glue to hold it all together. It was actually easier than I thought. 
And the house needed a roof, so I used more craft plywood and some balsa wood (since I could cut the balsa wood with scissors to make the angles) to create the roof. 
I used craft paper and a glue stick to wallpaper and floor my house. (And if you look closely you can spot the floral paper I used first before I spotted the oh-so-perfect Inside Out memory looking paper while out shopping.) 
Now here’s where the time suck comes in. I decided to add siding to my house. And I used popsicle sticks. 300 of them. 
And I used the ends of the popsicle sticks to create scalloped shingles for the roof. Then I trimmed out everything with some balsa wood and painted it all. 
This project really wasn’t hard. I didn’t get angry once. 
But it does take time. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither was a house made with 300 popsicle sticks. Just grab a snack, stream your favorite movie and settle in. 
And fine, if you just can’t picture yourself adding quite so many details, you can totally scale this back. At the end of the day it’s all about using the toys to talk about what your little people are feeling. 
So there’s no need to fear this project. Make it as complicated or as simple as you like.