Beauty Shop in a Box

Although this was a birthday gift for one of my nieces, I'm including it in Abbi's Handmade Christmas Roundup. Click through to see handmade gifts by others. And OK, this is more "homemade" than "handmade" but I put it together with my own two hands and that must count for something.


The idea came from Chasing Cheerios; I certainly can't take the credit for it. Instead of using a box, I found a hard-sided suitcase at our awesome thrift shop for fifty cents. I scrubbed it well on the outside, and tried to paint [Niece's name]'s Beauty Shop on it. The paint flaked off. So I scraped it all off and just used a sharpie.

There are two pockets on the top part of the suitcase, and in those are clips, combs, picks (no brushes - especially no round brushes! - as those are more likely to pull hair and/or get stuck), and a couple of small mirrors. There is one comb sitting below the pockets that has a small spray bottle built in - I figured they could either pretend or as their mom to put water in there.

In the main part of the suitcase, I have a set of hot rollers to which the pins are lost - they can use the clippies to hold them in more or less, a hair dryer, a hand mirror, curling irons in two sizes, and a straightening iron.

*** Please note that I cut the cords off the electrical appliances so that little ones wouldn't be tempted to plug them in, they won't get hot, and they also won't be in the way (or a tripping hazard, or heaven forbid, a strangulation hazard!).

I tried to find a crimping iron but didn't have any luck. Sadly I sent mine off to Goodwill several years ago. Regardless, this was a huge hit! My niece's party was in the party room of a pizza shop, and they actually had a little girl come over from the main part to join in the fun. Most everyone has has their hair styled and there have only been a few mishaps. Grandma and Grandpa (nope, he doesn't have much hair but it's been styled, too!) reported that the straightening iron really pulled, so they asked the girls not to use it on their hair.

This would be an awesome gift with Mess Free Play Makeup for sure! [Update - this makeup set has been sold; I'll get another listed later today, I hope. You can leave a comment if you're interested in a set and I'll let you know when I get it done.] Unless you are one of my sisters-in-law, you can see what I'm doing for handmade Christmas presents here. I'm also linking up to Frugal Fridays at Life As Mom.