Peace Lily

Years ago, my Mum bought me a Peace Lily - which I love (lillies of all kinds are my favourite flowers)... I decided I wanted one for my dolls house. It was actually a LOT easier to make than I first thought it would be. After constructing the leaves and flowers from paper that I coloured (when needed ) with 'Whispers' markers, I used ModPodge to 'seal' everything, and make it a bit pliable.

The pot I made with strips of parcel paper cut into very thin strips. It's constructed the same way as you make paper beads, but with no hole in the centre. When the paper is all rolled into a flat disc, you simply push the middle down to make a bowl shape. This amazing new way of making bowls I recently discovered can also be found on the internet... yes, this is something else people have been doing for a while. However, I've discovered that a lot of these people use quilling paper... so that was my latest purchase, to make more bowls and suchlike for the future.

Anyway, here's the Peace Lily I made, as well as something that started out as Hyacinths, but is so tiny it could really be anything at all...

I couldn't wait to take a photograph, so the ModPodge is still wet in the smaller pot *lol*

Christmas Hearth

Hubby gave me some balsa wood leftovers, and so I got down to making a hearth for my fireplace. Some cheap white paint from the childrens craft section at Tesco and a soft pencil, and my piece of balsa was looking a little like marble. Bit of parchment paint in gold, a spray of glimmer mist and a coat of Glossy Accents and the hearth was almost finished. I decided that a couple of cocktail sticks coloured black with copic marker, with a few beads for 'finials', and the finished product wasn't half bad. Well, I am a beginner at all this tiny stuff :) I don't have any miniature tools or even a set of tweezers... yet :)

I bought a mantle-piece Christmas kit, but decided that just cutting out the shape of Christmas stockings would not do at al... I wanted proper stocking I could put something in if I wanted to.  My sewing skills are... how can I put this.... naff, seems an appropriate word - and the phrase "bloody useless" is very apt :)

But I did remember Mrs Huggins at school teach me blanket stitch... seemed like a nice idea, so I used that to sew my stockings together.

The vase is made from a little bead, and filled with the little stamens you can buy for the centres of paper flowers, as well as some strips of colours parcel paper for the leaves and some tiny carnations.

Making Little Bottles

I keep going through my stash of crafting items, looking for anything I might be able to use to make things for the house.  Recently, I found my collection of beeds, and thought that some of them looked like little bottles... Flat-topped pins at the ready, a dollop of super-glue and my beads were looking quite perfume-bottle like...

Of course, since my amazing idea, I've looked on the web and discovered that 'minituarists' have been doing this for ages... Don't think I'll be making my fortune this way then :)

Get Painting!

I've laid flooring and have painted the outer of the house. Everything had to have a base coat first - cheaply done, as Hubby had a can of Magnolia Emulsion just festering away in the corner of his shed. I wanted the outer colour to be a blue-ish grey sort of colour... so I used re-inkers (Weathered Wood and Vintage Photo) to colour the paint. The cute little brickwork at the edges of the house and at the top windows was also done by me - I bought a stencil and some of this mortar powder that I had to make up into a paste. Talk about messy! Apparently, these little corner bricks are called "quoins"... what an adorable word *lol*

I'm trying  set the house out as though it were a truly livable space - so I've blocked off one of the doors and made a hallway inside. This has made the kitchen a lot smaller - but it won't have a lot of furniture in that room anyway - though I am pleased with how that flooring turned out. I bought flagstone paper, and then covered it in a few layers of modpodge, scratching out the outline of each flagstone tile with a cocktail stick before the modpodge was fully dried. I thought it was quite effective...

Learning All The Way

The house is coming along nicely - although I've had no chance to do any blogging at all - on any of my blogs! Seems I have a bit of catching up to do all over the place.

My furniture collection is increasing somewhat...

How gorgeous is that Range Cooker? Personally I think it's just a wee bit too big... but I'm using it anyway - it's metal, heavy... and the door opens too!

The choice of "Forever Christmas" in my dolls house means that I can buy all the fun stuff - like the little red sled. Hmm... "Forever Christmas" ... I like that - may even choose that as the name for my dolls house.

I'm altering the screen, as I need it to be black and gold for the bathroom, and that grandfather clock just screams out for a nice round face instead of the square one it has right now.

The jam pot covers I bought as a bit of an impulse really - I just thought that the pattern on the material might be small enough for me to make a few things with. Of course there will be no sewing involved... fabric glue is easily bought *lol*

More Furniture

Just a quickie peek at the furniture that Hubby bought me... well, I say he bought it - actually I bought it ... I just used his bank card to pay :)

I couldn't resist the little grandma sat reading her book! And of course there's a Christmas tree too...

Buying Bits Already

I haven't any set idea on what sort of era I want my dollshouse to be set in - so I'm winging it... just buying stuff that I like when I see it (if it's cheap enough!). The only thing I've decided for definite is that, in my little house, it's going to be christmas all year round! Shocked? Nope... nobody else is either *lol*

Here's the selection of a couple of things Hubby and myself have bought - and the house isn't even base-coated or glued together yet! *lol*

 Nursery furniture in white - so sweet! It's so hard to see, but there's a robin sitting at the open birdcage, and that little bear is the cutest! These pieces weren't cheap - but they are amazingly detailed and so beautiful... and of course I had to have a robin... it's going to be Christmas in my house!

Here's some closeups of the robin and bear from Tjay's (the creator) website:

These aren't the smallest pieces she does either - she makes 1:144th scale bears and pandas... and the most amazing little toadstool scene that fits on a pintack head.

It All Starts Here...

It doesn't look like much at all right now... just some bare chipboard pieces, cut into strange shapes and stacked together into a rough-looking house shape:

... and it's not actually a house... it's two shops, but I liked the double-front opening, and thought I could make something personal and unique - a dolls house just for me!

Bearing in mind, that I have never owned a dolls house before (even as a little girl), and so everything I attempt to do will be trial and error (with less of the 'error', I hope! *lol*). I don't know what special products I'll need, or where to buy them either... but I have done a little bit of 'scouting' on the internet to see what I might be able to do, and where I may be able to buy things in the UK.

The two shops are supposed to end up looking a bit like this:

It's going to be interesting to see just how alike or different my version will be :)

A New Adventure...

This coming Christmas (2011) my Darling Hubby bought me something I always wanted... a dolls house (and he gave it to me early so I could build it in time for Christmas Day!)

It's a 1:24th scale little house that I am hoping I will make, decorate, and fill with tiny treasures, over the next few years.

As I buy or make things, I'll post them here - whether they may be fantastic finds, or abyssmal failures *lol*