My Froggy Stuff Review: "Coffee Shop"

I love watching the My Froggy Stuff crafting videos for Barbie and other dolls. They are excellent and creative guides, plus just fun to watch! I finally got a chance to create a Froggy project with my nieces during Christmas vacation. So, this is a review of how well someone can mimic a Froggy project. Here's the original video:

Time Commitment
Obviously, the video makes things look easy, but this project took much longer than I expected. I spent three vacation days on it, maybe 15 hours in total.  It would be a challenging project to finish during a busy season.

Cost
The cost was much lower than I anticipated. I only spent $14 since my mother-in-law had many basic craft supplies already. The instructions are clear enough that I got everything I needed on my first trip and only took a second trip to the craft store when I had difficulty making the chairs.

Scrapbook paper costs vary. Hobby Lobby had a sale, only ¢22 per sheet. Michael's were ¢66. I couldn't find brick during that trip, but I have now found some at Artco for $1 per sheet.
One item not included in this video is an exacto blade. I used scissors, as per instruction, and I wish I hadn't. It is tedious and less accurate.

Skill
I had hoped this project was something my nieces and I could do together, but that mostly didn't work out.  I prepared the cardboard box, and had fun letting the girls chose locations for the cover-up paper. However, both the 9-year-old and 4-year old lacked the patience for cutting, wrapping and glueing paper into the room. They somewhat covered it, then I fixed things. (I also did the counter by myself.)

Day one: messy glued-on papers, hand-made coffee sign

The tiny fiddly projects were hard: coffee bags, cups, and dispensers. I did them by myself.

Kids could help with glueing some paper in place (the 12" x 12" sheets were helpful).

Trim makes all the difference in covering up messy edges.

We had fun making tiny food with Sculpey clay, and they also did a good job with painting. The girls were even able to "age" the chairs with black paint, as long as I kept their brushes fairly dry.

If only I could sit on that beautiful chair, Taylor Swift thinks.

The tables were simple. I traced the top and bottom of some rice bowls for the circle shape. The stem is a toilet paper roll cut and rolled tight, glued with hot glue.

Unfortunately, I found these instructions for making paper chairs impossible.

While I was struggling to roll up paper for the 5th time, my mother-in-law said, "Isn't that like sucker sticks?" So I went to the store and bought sucker sticks. They were much easier, although they tend to go flying across the room when you cut them. 

Here's my quick guide on making chairs with sucker sticks:

Each chair requires four 9 cm sticks, seven 5 cm sticks, and five 4 cm sticks.

A cardboard seat can be 4 cm in the back, 6 cm at the front, and 5.5 cm deep.

I tried to assemble the four chairs side by side, so that the sticks were attached at the same place each time. Even then... the process felt like a crooked mess. Hot glue works fast, but doesn't give you time to make little adjustments.

The chairs highlight my next problem:

Sizing

Froggy doesn't seem to measure any of her crafts. I'm not sure why, either she's so experienced that it comes naturally to her, or if she doesn't include it in her videos to save time. Here's a video for some extra coffee shop items:

The first video came with a link to a printable for little cups. But crafters must estimate the size for this video's larger cups.  I prefer the printable. My tall cups look quite shaky. (However, I loved the coffee dispensers! They encouraged me after feeling discouraged by hours of work and a tiny pile of paper crafts.)

My coffee shop itself was a tad short. Froggy's boxes at the beginning of the film were 14" x 14" x 14", mine was 12" x 12" x 12." (My size did match scrapbook paper nicely though.)

Durability
Time will tell. The idea of making everything out of paper seems iffy- yet, it's an indoor toy, and I don't think the girls will be rough with it. I'm more worried about tiny pieces getting lost. They could be glued down, but that would limit play. My idea was making a boxed area behind the counter to store everything when not in play.

Everything fits!

New Skills for Kids
If I were in less of a rush, I would enjoy teaching my nieces basic crafting skills at their own pace.

• How to use a ruler
• How to measure a straight line parallel to a paper's edge
• How to assess and measure additional paper needs
• How to cut neatly with scissors
• How to use a glue gun safely
• Problem solving (fixing something not addressed in instructions)
• How to make younger siblings feel included

Problem Solving
I should have made a bigger counter, but my niece helpfully suggested more shelves.
I didn't have enough paper to cover the hidden back sides of the cardboard, but I painted them solid black.
Doing this project over Christmas meant ribbon was available, and a shiny white thin ribbon made a perfect trim. (I used a hot glue gun.) It also covered up my niece's shaky cutting and glueing.
On the front exterior, we ran out of the stripes pattern and had to use dots on the awkward shaped intersections. This looked bad until I added trim- suddenly it looked intentional.
I included the adults by letting them draw a lovely "chalkboard" menu, then a smaller sign for each of the girls. (The girl's signs both say, "Home Sweet Coffee" for some mysterious reason.)

Happy Crafting!

Overall, our coffee shop didn't have a polished, professional look, but I'm thrilled with it, and I hope my nieces have many happy hours of play with it. I'm looking forward to the next one.