Printie Love!

I just had to share... quite possibly the cutest printie I have ever seen!!!  I had this game as a child and wish that I still had it.  Anyone else love Mouse Trap?!  Now I need to find the perfect place to display it... :)

A beautiful place in Virginia Part IV

I'm getting towards the end of my photo collection from Virginia  There is only one more set left after this one so I thought today I'd show most of the outdoor pics today.  This first one is looking out the original front door.

Beautiful view isn't it?

A bird's nest that I found on top of some sort of electrical box.

Another beautiful view from the front porch.  I imagine it hasn't changed much since my great-grandmother was there.

A view of the upstairs window and the stone chimney.

This is an odd little door on the opposite side of the chimney above the kitchen area.

And the outhouse - lol!!!

I had to check to be sure, but I always look for nails on the inside of an outhouse.  I like to imagine a used Farmer's Almanac hanging here!

Another one of the outbuildings.  I have no idea what this was used for, but I'm thinking maybe animals?

I can't remember what kind of fruit tree this was, maybe apples, but everyone seemed to be enjoying them.

This is the enormous hill behind the tree and to the right of the front of the house.

A shed at the bottom of the hill behind another beautiful moldy fence.

An old rusted mercury thermometer hanging on the front porch.

A dried-up creek bed at the back of the property.

This was when we began hiking up to the back of the property.  The landscape was quite deceiving, there are small valley-like areas between the hills.

This is looking back about halfway up the hill.  You can just see the edge of the cabin.

Seriously it was so steep!

Another view from partway up the hill.  We really weren't far away from the last photo, but we already couldn't see the cabin anymore.

And finally!  My cousin and I made it to the top of the huge hill on the side of the property.  The view was amazing and so worth the ridiculous climb!  You can see homes down the road, but cannot see the cabin from the top.

A pic looking towards the opposite side of the property, and me of course :)  The only things that normally come up this high are the goats - you can see them in the distance.

The hill itself was not only tall, but also very round and steep.  I had to walk quite a ways down the front of it and then zoom my camera in to get a view of the cabin.

I can't get over how beautiful this place is.  Maybe one day when I hit the lottery I can go back and buy the property.  I think I would add a house on top of the hill where you saw me standing earlier.  I would leave the cabin as-is or maybe restore it as close as possible to original.  Of course my "house-on-the-hill" would need electricity and internet.  Just imagine how well you could see the stars at night...

Happy Friday everyone!

Lisa's Country Cottage Part V

So I finally took the plunge and started working on my bathroom again.  Needless to say I've been nervous about any kind of dollhouse bashing after my first doorway goof-up.  At least this time around I was certain where my door should go.  The Craftsman tool you see here was bought from K-Mart a while back.  It came with three different blades and the one for wood is sharp and actually works very nicely.

The wall underneath the window came out pretty easy.  I did cut through the flooring towards the bottom, but that will all we covered  up anyway.  Toward the right side on the bottom I must have had my hand turned to a bit of an angle because the cut wasn't quite as straight.  I did quite a bit of sanding to even it out.  This is also when I realized just how handy a Dirt Devil hand vac can be when crafting!

This is the inside view.  The doorway does actually go all the way to the bottom, its just the paint on the floor that makes it look as if there is a gap.

Being on a zero dollar budget I'm trying to use only what supplies I have on hand.  I "borrowed" a door from another dollhouse kit to fill in the bathroom doorway.  I did have to take it apart though as my door is shorter than standard.

Above is the dry fit of my doorway.

And finally a picture showing my completed doorway from the inside.  My flooring isn't glued down yet, but I needed to use it long enough to get the length for my doorway trim correct.  My floor needs a bit more sanding and another coat of varnish.  Once I get all of the trim put up around the doors and window I'll be able to add trim between the wallpaper and paint.

Happy Wednesday everyone!

"Colorful Garden" Art by Jane Maday

Lisa's Country Cottage Part IV

I thought I'd share some updates to my cottage.  If you're a Greenleaf forum member you may have seen these pics a while ago.  Truth be told I've been saving up posts for a while now.  I know that once school starts I won't have time for much else so I've been writing ahead of time and scheduling them out weeks in advance.

I adjusted the door that came with the cottage so that I could add a doggy door.  I have to think of something that I can use for a sort of flap to cover the entrance.

I finally got my main room painted and the wallpaper put up.  I had to mix alot of paint to try and match the stripes on the wallpaper.  On my next trip to the craft store I'm going to look for some kind of fancy trim to line the bottom of the paper.  By far the hardest thing was cutting the crown molding.  I've tried many times before and wasted so much trim.  This time I actually found a tutorial that made sense to me!  I like how the white crown molding contrasts with the vanilla ceiling :) 

This is the second time that I've tried making something that looks like linoleum for my kitchen flooring.  This is a piece of wallpaper that had a nice vinyl look and feel to it.  I used a piece of wood that I thought had a nice width for tiles and then used the edge of a crochet needle to score the lines.

The above picture is my inspiration for the wooden flooring at the front of my main room in the cottage.  I really liked the design :)

And this is my floor!  I think it turned out pretty well.  It was made from scraps of a wood flooring sheet that I bought at Hobby Lobby.  I used pieces that had already been stained for the outline and plain boards for the middle area.  I'll stain the whole thing to make it nice and shiny.

And now some pics of the outside.  I used skinny sticks for the porch area.  I think I'll go with white for the porch as well because I really like the contrast of the white posts against the color of the house, but I haven't decided yet.  It may be too much white in the end.  In this view you are looking towards the side of the porch that will have the outdoor shelf 

On this side of the house the porch only goes so far.  This is the side that I will add the bathroom.  I need to quit being so chicken and take a stab at cutting the bottom of the window out to make my door.  After my last door disaster I am a bit nervous!!!  I'll cover all the edges with trim and hopefully all will turn out well.  I also need to get a piece of thin wood and measure out panels for my walls.  I think I'd also like to find a piece of black and white checkered scrapbook paper to use for flooring.  Gotta plan my next trip to the craft store...

Happy Friday everyone! 

Solution to my unsightly door problem!

So I've been looking online for a outdoor shelf to cover the mess that I made of my cottage.  The cut out goes nearly floor to ceiling on this one side so it had to be something pretty tall.  The picture on the left is a shelf that I found online and fell in love with.  On the right you can see that I made my shelf taller.  I'll be able to store lots of potted plants and gardening tools there.  I like the slats on the back of the shelf because they help to hide that the fact that the siding doesn't line up in this one spot.  I also like the color of the original shelf so I'd like to replicate it if I can figure out how.  It doesn't look stained, it almost looks like some older faded wood was used.  Maybe I'll try an aging technique?

Happy Wednesday everyone!

My almost Aha! moment - diy miniature waterhose (in progress!)

Being inbetween jobs sucks.  Especially when you are in a crafty mood.  I've been working on Lisa's Country Cottage and I have all of these wonderful plans and ideas that I really want to try out, but no money to buy all of the miniatures that I want.  One thing I definitely want is a cute water hose coiled up on the porch.  The one above is adorable and comes from http://www.the-doll-house-cafe.com/dollhouse-miniature-garden-hose-faucet-set.html.  Until the day comes that I have enough money to buy the truckloads of minis that I want I'll just have to figure out how to make them.

I kept looking at the picture and thinking, "What is that?  I know what it is, but I just can't quite see it..."

Duh!  It's a jelly bracelet!

And now how do I make all of those other little pieces?  This is the part that I'm still working on.

(And would greatly appreciate some ideas if anyone wants to share!)

This is what I've got so far.  This jewelry finding looks to me like spinney handle part of a garden faucet.

One end of a jewelry clasp with the metal ring removed looks like the end cap on the hose.  I'm not sure how to make the spout part yet.

I removed the metal ring from the other end of the jewelry clasp and snipped off the end, which to me looks like the faucet connector that the hose screws onto.  So now how exactly do I make the rest of the pieces and put it all together?  I have no idea!  I'm going to search through the rest of my jewelry findings and hopefully come up with something.  Otherwise I'll have to wait until I can afford to go shopping and hunt for some more findings :)

Happy Monday everyone! 

DIY Dollhouse Bed

Have I mentioned that I love http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.com/?  Well I do!!!  I decided to try out another one of her fabulous tutorials and see if I could improve upon a dollhouse bed that I made a while back.  I think I shared pictures of the original bed somewhere on my blog, but I was just sort of  guessing my way and not trying too hard.

Here is the original platform that I made for my bed.  I used a flat rectangular piece of wood and added popsicle sticks underneath until I thought it was tall enough for a full size bed.  I didn't have a set of box springs for the original bed, the mattress just sat on top of the wood piece.  Definitely not my best piece of work.

So first I wanted to see if I could make something a little more realistic looking.  Since I wanted to have a bed with a dust ruffle I needed just a bed frame with no footboard.  I looked online until I thought I had an idea for a frame. 

My handy Easy-Cutter, a bunch of skinny sticks, and some tacky glue later I had something that looked like it might support a box springs and mattress.

  I flipped the frame over and added skinny sticks to the sides so the box springs will fit snugly.

I used four wooden pots that I had on hand to make feet for the bed.  You can get these at Michael's or Hobby Lobby.

I then cut the original piece of wood in order to make a headboard.  I'd like to find a pretty piece of trim to run along the top and maybe sides of the headboard.

And this is where Kris' tutorial came in.  This link will show you her "No Sew Mattress and Box Springs" tutorial.
http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.com/2011/12/sabby-chic-card-stock-bed-with-no-sew.html

Once again this tutorial is so easy to follow!  Perfect for me!  I think my box springs turned out great and they are accurate to scale!

Following her tutorial here is my mattress!  I love it!  The only thing that I haven't added yet is the buttons that she used to put in the little dimpled areas of the mattress.  I don't have a hole punch small enough to make these yet, but I will add them on later.  Here you can see that the headboard definitely needs some sort of pretty trim at least around the top.  Don't you think the fabric looks like a great 70's sort of pattern?

With my box springs on the bed I added a no-sew bed ruffle.  The original one I made wasn't to size so the whole thing had to be reworked.

And here is my mattress on top of the dust ruffle.

This is still a work in progress.  I have measured out enough fabric for my bedsheets, but haven't quite figured out how I want them yet.  I want the comforter pulled down far enough so you can see the sheets so I may have to glue the sheets down at least on the bottom.

Remember me saying no sew?  I hate sewing.  I'm so bad at it.  I have a mini Singer handheld and sometimes I don't even have enough patience to use that.  Casey at http://caseymini.blogspot.com/ has some great pillow tutorials that I am going to try to use.  My real bed has lots of pillows so my dollhouse bed definitely needs them as well!

My camera was being crappy so these next few pics aren't the best.  My original comforter/blanket worked pretty well and only had to be adjusted a little.

Here is a couple of the pillows that I have made so far.  I wanted some pillows cases to match my sheets and some to match the comforter as well.  I want to add a bolster pillow to match the fabric of the dust ruffle, but I will need an empty cardboard tube so that will have to be added later.

The bottoms of the blanket are folded back a bit at the corners and held with a dot of glue.  As you can tell I've got a bit more work to do to re-make my bed into a real mini treasure.  I want to work more on the pillows, the sheets, and also to paint the bed frame itself.  I was thinking maybe white for the frame and a pretty white chest of drawers to match, but that will have to be a project for sometime down the road!

Happy Friday everyone!