I'll start with our monastery. This is my peg doll "pièce de résistance," so to speak. I wanted a place for my kids to play "Mass," or play "Heaven" with their peg dolls, or whatever make-believe story they came up with. I thought having a monastery would be a perfect place to set the scene in their creative play.

I found a beat-up, crayon-covered Melissa & Doug PINK princess castle for $5 at a thrift store and knew it would be perfect for our peg dolls. If you're looking for something to use as a monastery, I think you can get an unfinished wooden castle at Michael's craft store for relatively cheap (with a coupon), but it has been a while since I looked to see if it was still available.

I could have left it as is, and my kids would have enjoyed it. But I had it in my mind to have chapels, a grotto, a cell, a confessional, a library, the refectory, the Stations of the Cross on the outside (this is one of my favorite details!), and other details to spark my kids imagination about religious life and the lives of the Saints.

I initially thought I'd paint it, but then decided I could print images from the computer and decoupage the walls. It definitely made it more realistic. I did a lot of measuring to make sure I printed enough to cover each side. And cutting out the pieces to fit some of the odd angles was a challenge. I painted a few of the walls to cover some of the crayon. And then to finish it off, I hot-glued miniature statues, small medals, and crucifixes to the monastery. Some of these items were keepsakes from my grandpa, and some were items I brought back blessed from Rome! It makes the monstery extra special.

We have very few toys out downstairs (see my post about toy philosophy/organization), but have the monastery and peg dolls out all the time for the kids to play with whenever they want. There's something special about keeping wonderful religious reminders out in full view... My kids love to pull the monastery off the shelf and pack it full of Saints. When I put it away, I often find the confessional jammed full of penitent peg dolls! So sweet...and hilarious!

I absolutely love it and how it turned out!

I thought I'd include pictures of our male Saint collection in this post. Here are the pictures of the ones I've painted. Blessed Solanus Casey, for example, was a Capuchin Friar from Detroit and is probably lesser known, but our family has a special devotion to him. We attended his Beatification Mass at Ford Field, and he has been a huge part of my healing from autoimmune issues. We even chose "Solanus" as our 4th child's middle name. Other saints are favorites of our family, saints our kids have dressed up as for All Saints Day, and various Saints with popular feast days we enjoy celebrating.