Kid's Play Fridge

For Christmas, I made a play stove for my son and got him some play food. He likes to pretend to cook while I'm making dinner. Grandma got him more play food.

He had all that play food, but no place to put it. So, it only seemed fitting that I design a fridge! I started with a tall box. This box is from our swimming pool and is really thick cardboard.

I cut a door in the front with a 1-ish inch edge around 3 sides. I cut it all the way to the left edge so it opens at the fold. I had another box to use for the shelves. I cut the shelves out of the sides of the box and cut slits in the big box. 

The shelves stick out just a bit from the slits. I taped them down. For one of the shelves I tried a different approach. You can see the cardboard sticking out of the side. I cut a longer piece of cardboard, put it in, folded it, and taped it down. Not sure which shelf is better. They both seem to be holding up just fine and after I was done you could not see the bulge of the extra cardboard.

 I made a handle out of cardboard as well and used Velcro on the handle and the box to keep the door closed. You can see the handle hangs over the edge of the fridge door so the Velcro touches. I have 3 shelves in the fridge. 

Next, I wanted to make the fridge pretty, so I got some butcher paper. The kid picked red. I used packaging tape, which is a little shiny, but got the job done. 

I used gray cardstock/scrapbooking paper for the handle. I'm OK with leaving the shelves the way they are, but if you plan to do this project you may want to paint or decorate them before you put them in. 

Here is the masterpiece, with the door closed and open. The red box on the 3rd shelf there is perfect because it slides out a bit and can store a lot of play food. I am thinking of adding some sort of shelf to the door, like real refrigerators have, but haven't come up with the design for that yet. The fridge is really sturdy and my Little Chef just loves to play with it! 

-Me and my Hunny Bunny