One night, as I was perusing Etsy, as I’m wont to do (and often spend too much money), I saw little kits for tin boxes with peg fairies and I thought to myself, “Self, you could do something like that, do the things your kids like.“

So I bought a case of 40 tin boxes on Amazon (that my husband didn’t even question because he’s learned not to question my weird crafting things). They arrived on a Friday night. I spent Saturday designing clip art scenes (I especially like buying clip art on Etsy, especially from ©MyClipArtStore) for 10 different ideas I had. I printed them at Officemax just before they closed and cut them out with my Silhouette before going to bed. Sunday I glued them to the boxes. And Monday I started working on the things for the insides. (I bought a couple dozen tiny peg dolls the previous year for a different project).

I had my first three finished by Tuesday – construction, space, and the garden. My kids couldn’t get enough of them. And I realized I was going to need more peg dolls.

Our oldest kept talking about how they are the perfect toy to take on road trips and said I need to keep two or three in my bag at all times in case she gets bored when we are out. At home our kids regularly have two or three open and the people inside visiting with each other.

With the encouragement of many friends, and especially my husband, I decided to make more to sell. It has been a lot of fun working out the details of all the boxes and our kids have loved giving their input. We’ve already moved beyond those original 10 ideas and my kids still have more requests for me to work out.