More from McDonaldland...

A couple of things are missing from the McDonaldland Playset Apple Pie Tree; there are no apples or pies! Take a look at the example from the specification manual. It is filled with apples and pies! Well, it seems a trip to Hobby Lobby is needed to begin fixing that omission. Only one pack of apples was purchased, so there are only three so far on the tree. There needs to be more...

Here is the tree with the apples added. It definitely needs more apples, so a couple of more packs of miniature apples are needed. It also needs some pies and that can be fixed by making some pies from sculpy. Eventually, the tree will have lots of apples and pies on it! But the tree wasn't the only thing about the playset found lacking.

The "Welcome to McDonaldland" sign is merely printed flat on the play surface. A real sign would be much better. First, a papercraft signboard template was created and the text was added to it. The font used is Sunset Demi Bold. A candy cane stripped dowel was used to make the sign post with a small round circular base from Hobby Lobby to complete it.

The McDonald's Restaurant needs a sign post as well. A McDonald's sign printed out on cardstock with a circular base and dowel, makes a nice McDonald's sign for the restaurant. The way it is designed the sign can be removed from the post for storage, if desired. Later on the sign post may be painted black and base green, perhaps adding a few flowers around it. It's the little details like this that make a set pop.

A happy meal from a Barbie McDonald's Funtime Restaurant playset was used to make a more realistic burger meal for the figures than the one that came with the set originally. The tray and food pieces were modified to be magnetic, allowing the food pieces to not only stick to the tray, but also be removed if desired. The Singing Wastebasket is actually a bank that was given away as a promotion at one time. These can easily be found on ebay.

For display, Kaleidoscope House figures and figures from Fisher-Price's Happy Family were used. Both sets of figures are 1:12 scale, which is perfect for the play set, even though the McDonaldland Characters themselves are more like 1:10 scale. Maybe an entirely new play surface could be made for the set using foamboard & felt. Perhaps, a Hamburger Patch could be made using sculpy and stick-on googly eyes, maybe even a French Fry Thatch!

Here is an updated photo of the entire set: