Pretend Cleaning

British novelist Shirley Conran once said, "I make no secret of the fact that I would rather lie on a sofa than sweep beneath it." To that I add, "I would rather make miniature cleaning supplies than actually clean." So last weekend, instead of vacuuming the carpet in my human house, I crafted 6 janitorial items for my dollhouse. It was twice the work but also twice the fun. Actually, make that quadruple the fun; vacuuming sucks. (Pun intended.) 

Below are the visual instructions I followed to make the bucket, paper towel roll, and mop. (See timestamps 0:50, 3:00, and 5:32, respectively.)

For the bucket, I used the cap of a hairspray bottle instead of a yogurt cup and a plain steel paper clip instead of one coated in plastic. As a finishing touch, I added soap bubbles in the form of cotton stuffing.

The paper towel roll turned out rather well, on the first try, no less. 

The mop was a different story. On my first attempt, I used too much of the wrong kind of yarn for the head, plus the wooden skewer was too long for the handle. The whole thing undoubtedly looked disproportionate to the size of the bedroom closet. So I switched yarns, from Red Heart Super Saver Solids in White to Lily Sugar'n Cream Solids & Denim in White, using less than half the previous amount, and I cut the skewer a few inches shorter. Then, instead of painting the handle, I wrapped it in a third yarn, Lion Brand Heartland in the color Great Smoky Mountains.        

To make the scrub sponge, ... 

... I watched this second YouTube video (see timestamp 4:21), spending an ungodly amount of time trimming the sponge, feeling very much like Edward Scissorhands. 

For the off-brand floor spray mop, similar to a Swiffer WetJet, I cut off the head of an old toothbrush with wire cutters and superglued to the handle a small black rectangle made of craft foam to serve as the power button. Then I covered part of a popsicle stick with purple foam and attached it to the handle. The last step was to glue the bottom of the mop head to a slightly larger white mop pad, also made of foam.     

Finally, for the robot vacuum (a knockoff Roomba, if you will), I started with the lid of a McCormick spice bottle, to the center of which I glued a black foam circle to cover the logo. Next, I made a rectangular start button out of gray foam and attached it to the circle. Using the same gray foam and the tip of a ballpoint pen, I created a charging socket which I then glued to the front. Now that the functional pieces were in place, it was time to decorate. With a black permanent marker I outlined the inner circle of the spice lid and drew 22 lines radiating out from it. Last but not least were 3 strips of white foam to encircle the circumference of the lid.  

I suppose once I'm done with the make-believe cleaning I should get to the real thing. If only the miniature robot vacuum were life-size....