Polly Pocket Furniture

When I was in 2nd grade, I loved my Polly Pocket toys.  

Polly Pockets are still made today, but the 90's version is much cooler: back then, Polly was only about half an inch tall and came in a folding plastic house that could actually fit in your pocket.  Everything you needed was right inside the case.
Do you remember these?

My cousins and I took them everywhere. We played with them at other people's houses, restaurants, and especially in church.  This has to be one of the best toy inventions ever.

Each little house opened to reveal several stories with attached furniture and a front yard full of things for Polly and her tiny plastic friends to do.

You could buy dozens of houses along with other places for Polly to visit: the zoo, doctor's office, school, mall, and the list goes on.  This one is actually a daycare with Polly and two babies.  The pink clubhouse flips open and the cradle rocks if you push on the purple button below it.

Polly Pocket's front yard area always had a miniature gate that opened & closed.  The daycare also had a train that could be pushed around a track, and a merry go round that actually spins.  All of this fits in a tiny box that's only about three inches wide!

My very, very favorite Polly Pocket house was a light up castle.  In the eyes of a nine year old girl, it was pretty much the most amazing thing ever.  The big pink heart shaped case was actually too big to fit in your pocket, but it was the coolest set, so I didn't care at all.  It came with a horse and carriage that Polly could actually ride in (when she went on long journeys across the table to visit other Polly homes) and had a secret hiding spot inside behind the knight armor...you know how much I love secret hiding places.

Along with Polly and the carriage, there was also a handsome prince and an itty bitty plastic swan.
Unfortunately, being only slightly larger than a Tic Tac, Polly was very easy to lose.   It was a sad day when a Polly got eaten by the vacuum, or fell down into some crevice of the car seat never to be seen again.  Once she was gone, the houses weren't very much fun.  
(photo from flickr.com/photos/elizabethplaid)

I don't know exactly what I'll do with my Polly sized furniture, but it was fun to put together.  The bed is just slightly larger than an inch long and made from toothpick, popsicle sticks and fabric scraps.  A section of teeny tiny gold ribbon makes the pillow.  The bedside table is a mini wooden scrabble tile (from a travel sized game) with seed beads for the handles and feet.  This took a lot of  gel super glue and patience.  I'll be honest: at one point, I had to take a break so that I didn't go all "Hulk smash!" on it.

The table is a white button and a very small wooded spool with a fabric sticker covering the button holes.  To make the chairs, I used little round wooden pegs and the top 1/4 inch section of popsicle sticks.  For the rhinestone flower pattern on the chairs, I used stick on nail decals.


Sooooo...I guess if you still have any Polly Pockets, bring them over & they can shop for new furniture to put in their folding plastic house case.