Child's Play Table Help, Please

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Whimsey

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Whimsey
I happen to know a little person who is very taken with the Ponyville line of My Little Pony toys (they're small, maybe 2" ponies with lots of accessories), and we were talking about making a "Ponyville" to help keep things from getting lost.

Here's the plan;

Take a piece of plywood, add some low legs, paint it green, glue down some flocking, add roads, and attach all the little pony buildings.

Here's the problem;

Making it so the buildings are not permanently attached, so they can be taken along to Gramma's or wherever.

Any thoughts?
 
Omg!! I love your idea!!! Even as a 23 year old I still love those magical pretty ponies *_*

Hmm... I remember growing up my parents bought me this My Little Pony Beauty Salon. The salon itself was a great size and when you unhooked the walls it collasped into a carry box. So for me I could easily carry around all my ponies and my salon. That could be an idea maybe...

Maybe for the table you can create a cut out perimeter of each building that they can be placed in so they do not move and allow you take them out when the little one is done with pony adventures.

I'm not too good with building things, just ask Raes :O I glued a figurine vampire to my hand when I tried to put him together once! Raes is really good though with this kinda stuff :D I will ask him when I go home.

Go Ponies!!!
 
Mostly it depends on how elaborate you want to get.

In theory, for example, you could get a piece of sheet metal, glue/screw that onto the wood surface, flock over that, and pick up some rare earth magnets online, glue a few of them to each thing you want to stay put. They come in ridiculously small sizes, and are disproportionately powerful. It'd tend to keep things in place, let them be removable and repositionable, and so on. Downsides is that it's a bit of a pain to do all the gluing, and might be a little more work and expense than you want. Also adds to the weight.

Slotting the surface in some fashion would probably be the cheapest way, and not overly difficult assuming you have access to a router. And again, if you want you can use magnets to hold them in the bottom of their slots, but you easily get by with regular sheet magnets if you're looking at a specific place for each building.

If you have a local hobby supply or model train store, asking for advice there will probably give you better answers than me. I have a bit of a magnet fetish...
 
Not sure how big your buildings are, but did you ever play the game of Life? To attach those little buildings to the board there was an extra piece of plastic attached at the base that you would slide into the board itself. This also made them very easy to remove.

EDIT: I started writing when there were no replies and hit send after everyone else chimed in with better ideas. XD
 
Fantastic ideas!

I think we have a router. There's a barn full of all sorts of wonderful power tools my dad has collected over the last 30-odd years, and I'm pretty sure he said he has a router. I don't know what kind of condition it's in now, though.

I'm not sure velcro would work. The bottoms of the buildings aren't flat, they're molded.

Oddly enough, I think we actually have some rolls of thin sheet metal around. We would definitely have to put some kind of edge on the table if we use that. It's very sharp. I would have to make sure that the metal is magnetic, and we would have to make sure the pony buildings stay away from the computers.

Unfortunately, the local hobby is R/C cars, so if we wanted to build a Pony Engine, we'd be set, but not for this kind of thing.
 
Do you have any pictures of what the buildings/toys look like? :D
 
Reya said:
Omg!! I love your idea!!! Even as a 23 year old I still love those magical pretty ponies *_*

Hmm... I remember growing up my parents bought me this My Little Pony Beauty Salon. The salon itself was a great size and when you unhooked the walls it collasped into a carry box. So for me I could easily carry around all my ponies and my salon. That could be an idea maybe...

Maybe for the table you can create a cut out perimeter of each building that they can be placed in so they do not move and allow you take them out when the little one is done with pony adventures.

I'm not too good with building things, just ask Raes :O I glued a figurine vampire to my hand when I tried to put him together once! Raes is really good though with this kinda stuff :D I will ask him when I go home.

Go Ponies!!!
Click to expand...

Off Topic: Why did I see Reya posted this but thought it was Zalt? I thought, "aww, that's adorable Zalt played with My Little Pony's! too!"

Reya said:
Do you have any pictures of what the buildings/toys look like? :D
Click to expand...

On Topic: I'd love to see pics too!
 
Links to pages to buy Ponyville stuff;

It's just the stuff that says "Ponyville" in the name. There's no real size comparison to anything in those pictures, and the pictures are pretty small, but those tiny little ponies are about the same size as one of those claw staple removers. (It makes it very easy to lose things like shoes and cups, lol.

http://www.hasbrotoyshop.com/ProductsByBrand.htm?BR=704&SBR=494
http://www.hasbro.com/mylittlepony/default.cfm?page=Products/Catalog&subbrand=116
http://ponyville.artinsanity.com/ - Better pictures on here.
 
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Try fastening 4 pegs onto the bottoms of the building, and drilling 4 identical holes in the board. Placing all pegs on all buildings in the same position on the bottom would allow you to interchange orientation and placement of the buildings.
 
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