turkey feathers: Little Things

Hello again . . . and with the flip of a page, it's December already! Whoosh. 2018 is nearly a memory. But not yet. There's still lots to do in the next few weeks. Having some fun and making merriment is high on my list. And I've already started. Here are some of my helpers.

After participating in a couple of doll shows recently, I got inspired to dust off my old dollhouse and give it a much needed make-over. The girls have been prompting me to do this for years, but I just never had time for it. I still don't, not really, but it's either now or never--so I've taken the plunge. I looked around at my already full to the brim workspace and miraculously managed to clear a corner for it. It didn't take long however, before I had teensy projects in various stages of construction spanning three rooms! Not entirely sure how this happened, except that one thing always seems to lead to another. While glue is drying--another place is needed, and so on. So I'm trying to keep it all moving along at a steady pace because if I don't I will inevitably run out of places to move.

Here she is all cleaned out. A new starting point. The rooms are small, but the possibilities loom large in my mind. I assembled this 4 room + attic Victorian house from a kit in (gasp) 1992. Little did I know just how much time a dollhouse would take or the amount of space it would need while under construction, but I soon found out--it needed a lot of both. Our family home at the time was adequate, but had little room to spare with two teenagers and a toddler; so I worked on a picnic table under the covered patio outside. As I recall, the directions weren't much help and I made some mistakes. but somehow, many months later it all came together. A little wonky perhaps, but OK for my purposes.

The kids have had fun playing with it over the years. We've collected little things here and there. Always keeping an eye out for any small treasure to tuck into a room. It was never meant to be a showcase or anything, just a fun hobby for us to share.

So I've been busy sprucing up the place! Here's one side of the new updated kitchen. I removed things and added things, but decided to leave the wall paper alone. Wall coverings are generally applied to dollhouse walls before they are assembled for a very good reason! Besides, I still like pink and blue and the patterns and colors are easy to work with.

TIP: I have my dollhouse on a large (older) computer table that rolls, so I can move it around from place to place to work on it. This saves time going back and forth, because sometimes I need it to be next to the cutting table when I'm fitting things, or near the sewing machine, or just out of the way. I can also turn it around (front facing) and make it look like it's part of the décor!

Anyway, I started with the kitchen floor. It wasn't hard, but I won't kid you--it was rather tedious. I rolled the dollhouse over to my easy chair in the family room and every evening for a full week I watched movies while I cut lolly stix at various intervals and painstakingly glued them to the foundation. It really turned out great though. I love how it looks and just left it natural--no stain or varnish needed. I suppose you could paint it, but for now I'm pretty happy with it like this.

Next came the window treatments. For the bay area, I used core-board to make covered valances; wrapped them in batting and fabric and secured it all with hot-glue. The "curtains" are made from two matching lengths of 1-3/4 inch wide lace trim, glued side-by-side inside the front panel of the valance. No sewing required! The scalloped edges are effective--they look like matching lace panels even up close.

The kitchen café curtain did require some sewing and glue and a few tricks to get it to hang correctly in the way of wood stays to weight the sides--to keep them from flaring out. It turned out darling in spite of all the fiddling I had to do with it.

The cupboards and shelf over the window are made from light-weight wood from the craft store; painted and lightly sanded for a worn weathered look. The "peg board" is really just a piece of scrapbook paper glued to core board to fit that space behind the sink area. Another secret is that just about everything is mounted with dental wax and can be easily removed if need be. I still need to furnish the other side of the kitchen, but in the meantime . . .