My Dollshouse - Part 16

Because of the festivities I am only working on my dollshouse intermittently and therefore I forget to take regular pictures.  In the meantime I have added a sewing room.  Originally it was to be the upstairs hallway with stairs going to the attic, but I didn't feel like having stairs taking up all of the room.  We'll just have to imagine that the stairs are somewhere at the back of the house....

I created the wallpaper myself and printed it all out on A4 paper.  The floor was done with some 1.5mm thick mahogany that I had laying around.  I cut the strips and glued them on paper, after which I glued the whole floor down. Waxed with bees wax of course. ;-)

The lamp came with the dollshouse, as usual.

The little sewing machine I already had, as well as the dressmaker's dummy and the white cabinet in the back.  The folding sewing reck was a workshop from the past and the little sewing cabinet on the floor as well.  The teddybear I have had for years.  Just a little addition to the room.  As with all the other rooms, the walls are still bare, but I will look into paintings and other decorations in the future.

  

My Dollshouse - part 15

 Besides working on the bathroom I have finally finished the outside of the house as well. I have attached the supports for the roof on both sides and the white trimming for the front.  In the future I will do something about the base, but don't have a plan worked out yet.

I am still not very impressed with the quality of the house as a whole, but.... I can make mistakes, I can try things out, I can use different period styles, in short I can do what I want! ;-)  It still boils down to the fact that if I hadn't started this I would never have gotten into minitures!

I have also finished most of the bathroom.  The venetian blinds have finally been added and I have frosted the glass of the upper windows in the bathroom.  I will need to make a few small items still and after that I will move on to the 'landing' in the centre, which will have no stairs either (like the groundfloor), but will most likely become a sewing room.

working on the blinds

blinds attached, complete with pelmets

some window dressing added

frosted upper windows 

windows dressed and a better view of the frosted windows

And that's all for now...

My Dollshouse - part 14 (and Xmas vignettes)

I am now more determined than ever to finish off this house so I can move on to other projects-in-waiting. However, as always I do get distracted a bit, and I am also putting together my old Christmas vignettes.  They have suffered a lot of wear and tear over the years, so cleaning and repairing was my first job. 

My Christmas kitchen is without a stove.  I am therefore putting a Phoenix kit together that I have had for years.  I have not yet done a kit in metal, only plastic or wood, so this is a different challenge.  

So far I have cleaned and painted a few parts, but ran into problems, because I have to of the same parts for the sides and this missing a hole for the oven door handle.  I am going to look into that and let you know how I went.

all the pieces

waiting to be painted

painted in matt black

As for the dollshouse, I am still working on the bathroom.  I have decided I want venetian blinds for the bottom windows.  The top ones I may give a 'frosted' look, but need to look into that later.  I thought blinds only might look a bit boring, so I have added window sills, similar to the ones in the kitchen.  I may have one blind down and one half-way.  Will need to see how it looks first.

window sills added

prototype in paper

the real deal done with photographic paper

Since 'real' venetian blinds are not possible, because if the fine knotting work I would have to do, I have separated the slats with beads.  The idea I saw on the internet, but a while ago and cannot remember where. I have opted for photographic paper again as it is shiny and makes the slats look more realistic.

In the meantime I am still working on the various parts of furniture and decoration in the batheroom.  I have now finished the privacy screen.  Next, painted and drying while I am writing this is the shelving unit. There is also the light to be finished off and a towel rack.

privacy screen in parts

privacy screen finished

I have worked hard over the past few days and the bathroom is nearly finished.  I have added a shelving unit and a towel rack. I wasn't happy with the way the shelving unit looked side-on so I covered the ugly slots with veneer and painted it in the colour of the unit.  So much better.  I decorated the unit with strips and other parts of card-making stickers. The same for the towel rack. I am pleased with the look. 

Shelving unit with white decorations

The side with the ugly slots

The sides covered with veneer

The towel rack finished

I have dug out items that I have had for years and that were made with this bathroom in mind.  The toilet came with the dolls house.  The toilet roll holder, the scales and the laundry bag were a few of the first items I ever made back in 1998 when I had just started.  The toilet roll holder is a working one. The kerosine heater was a workshop of the dollshouse club and was made with the use of findings and other little items after which it was painted in grey gloss. 

Net a few pictures of the (near) finished bathroom.  The light has come out a bit darker than planned, but it's passable....

Besides the blinds for the windows I can see I could probably add a few more things, in particular on the wall, but I will leave that for later.  I have temporarily run out of ideas.

My dollshouse - part 13

May 2015! That was the last time I posted on my blog, and that goes approximately for my other two blogs as well.  The good news however is that 6 years later I have taken up the hobby again.  So much has happened since, mainly travelling, which got in the way of my hobby.  Anyway, I am back and have worked on my Witch's Cottage as well as The Florist, so both blogs are up to date.  I have now moved on to my main dollshouse, which has now been 23 years in the making!

Bathroom

For a while I could not decide if I wanted to have a smaller bathroom and add a sewing room next to it, or would just stick with the big one.  As I am (and was) becoming quite bored with the project and want it finished I decided to do no more work than strictly necessary so that I can move on.

I didn't want to use the standard wallpaper, ugly pink faint idea of tiles, so I jumped on my computer and designed a tiled wall, roughly to the height of normal wainscoting. I printed the design on photographic paper and scored the outline of the tiles.  I have done this satisfactorily before when I built a kitchen in a roombox. 

One of the prepared tile panels

The original floor paper was meant to make the floor look like one big pink marble slab.  In itself not bad, but for me just nog good enough.  I cut it up into 'tiles' at 1/12th scale of our original floor tiles in the house and glued them onto paper.  I had a bit of a problem with the cutting. so they are not all the same size.  Hopefully it won't look too bad after I will have added grout, which I haven't done as yet.

No grout added as yet

Don't know if this bathroom cabinet is staying...

I have gathered the bathroom kits.  The cabinet with sink and mirror I had finished in the very beginning (some 20 years ago!?), as I had the bath and toilet.  The other kits I have discovered in an old shoebox and I will complete them shortly, most likely during club meetings.

Next I made up a container with grout and added a bit of grey and black paint to it to make it look more like cement. I have grouted the tiles and the floor is currently drying.

In the meantime I have finished the lamp for the bedroom and hung and connected it.  It works!

The bathroom lamp is in the making, but I used a bit too much of the glass paint, so it takes a while to dry properly.

A bit at a loss of what to do with the bathroom windows, I have decided to try and make venetian blinds.  The prototype is going to be made of paper.  If it works I will decide about the finished product. 

Hubby helped me with the jig to drill the holes in the slats, because I haven't set up my machines properly yet.  Don't forget it's been six or so years since I have been working on my dollshouses!

He made the template, and I have set up the drill and the drill stand.  I'm getting somewhere...

Panniers for the push bike

It took a while, but I have added another little something to my collection.  I had a push bike.  In fact, I had three, but two I had used to make an old fashioned bread delivery cart with in 2011 as it needed three wheels.  This one I had kept for myself and will use to park in front of my florist.  Good old Dutch push bikes have panniers, because most people go to the shops on their bikes, so this one needed a set too.

I bought the kit at the German Dollshouse fair in Rheda-Wiedenbrueck, also in 2011, and finally got around to putting it together.  Here's the result:

The kit came with instructions and the panniers weren't hard to put together, but the instructions could have been more detailed. Personally I have enough experience by now to use my imagination, but left out was the description as how to put the buckles on so they can be undone.  On the other hand, there was enough material, which in some cases can be a bit of a problem if something doesn't quite work out.

And remember the garden seats I showed you earlier in the year?  That's going to be a workshop this month at our dollshouse and miniatures club.

That's all for now...

Something for the garden

My updates are few and far between nowadays, but mini still exists in my life!  As we have entered another year I would like to wish all my followers (whom I have neglected a fair bit!) a

Happy and Healthy New Year

Recently I picked up some of the magazines that I had received some two years ago, but never looked at, because I wasn't quite in the mood for miniatures.  However, I enjoyed once again leafing through them and I cam across an adorable seat for the garden.  I decided to make it for myself and would see if it would be good for a workshop for our miniatures club.  Well, I think it will, and I will take the sample to the next meeting for people to have a look at and decide.

I forgot to take step-by-step pictures, but here's the finished product:

I don't know if my dollshouse will ever have a garden, but I don't care, I just loved making this, and I am sure I will be able to display it somewhere...

My dolls house - part 12

Was it really May when I last worked on, and posted news about, my dolls house?  Shocking!  I have not worked much on it, and I have also been away and tied up with other things.  However, last week I decided it was time to get my act together and do some more work.  In all honesty, I have had that dolls house for so long now, nearly 16 years (!), and I think I am sort of loosing patience with it.  I want to see it finished, because I am getting a bit bored with the crappy furniture and I don't want to spend too much time on it.  I want to finish my florist and I want to start on my 'Dutch' dolls house for which I have been collecting and making stuff for years too.

Anyway, here's what I have done in the meantime.  Part of the pictures you will have seen before, because I have returned to downstairs and started to decorate the living room.  I have a box full items which I have made, bought or been given over the past years and it's quite a collection by now.  So, first a few items for the living room.

The Livingroom

I should take some more close-ups later, because you can't see it, but on the table I have a beautifully tatted doily underneath my vase with roses.  The latter I have made myself, the doily was bought from a friend who does beautiful tatting work. Photo album (made by myself), teapot (won in a raffle), cup and saucer (been given when extending a magazine subscription), leaf shaped tray with licorice allsorts (both been given a long time ago). The knitting work and basket were give-aways from Denmark.

The corner cabinet is new and fills the corner nicely.  In it some vases I have bought, a swan-planter which was a gift and a 'jade' elephant, which I made myself from Sculpy.

The bookcase I have made almost in the beginning when I started on the house, together with most of the other furniture in the living room.  My husband's hobby was building model boats and I'd started on a miniature one way back, but only finished it recently.  I am quite happy with the result.

The book stands were a workshop by a 12 year old girl.  She was very creative and I loved making those. The plate is finely painted fimo, given to me by a Dutch friend (as was the 'Goudse' vase on the mantlepiece).

The collection of books, which doesn't look like much when you see them all in the one book case, is quite considerable.  There are clumsily-made books, fake books, readable books, handmade and bound books and magazines.  A bit of everything.  My first books were created from blocks of wood with covers designed on the computer and printed.  Later I stepped up gradually to bound books, of which I am very proud.  Of course, the origins of books vary as much as all other items in my dolls house.

Most of what I have in my collection is listed in a database, so I know the origin, the date, and lots more. The only problem is that I had a crash in 2005 and don't know what I have lost in the database and of late I have become very slack and keep forgetting to update it.  I should be more vigilant, because it is such a treasure to have everything listed.

On the mantlepiece a clock made of fimo, the 'Goudse' vase and an oriental figurine given to me by a Dutch friend as well, back in 2001.

A crappy picture of the fire place, but it's not new so I should have better pictures somewhere else on the blog.

Ah, at least this picture shows the doily a bit better.

The Hallway

The hallway was too dark to take a decent picture without flash.  The only new item here is the standing coat rack.  The umbrella, walking stick, beauty case, apron, hangers, bag with binoculars are all given, made or bought over the years.

The Bedroom

Apologies for yet another crappy picture.  Today was not my day, I think...  This is the newly made wardrobe in the bedroom, where wall-to-wall carpet is now in place as well.

The mirror.  When hubby was still around I used to get some help with difficult jobs, like cutting mirrors and such.   As I am not good at doing those kind of things I had to resort to the foil that came with the stand. And I don't have the patience any more either to work in such detail.  I want this finished!!!!  Sigh....

Slippers were a gift, panty hose and underwear were made by me, the flowers were a gift as was the little heart on the pillow!

At the moment I am making the night stand, or bedside table, whatever you want to call it and on top of the dresser will be placed a smaller mirror.

I am also making a cradle, but I think I will place that in the attic as I was sick of the dark brown stain and I am painting it white and blue.  Something different.  I need a change! ;-)

Over the years I have won several raffles and one of them is a Chrysnbon set for the dresser.  I may start on that one soon too.

Well folks, that's all for now.  See you around