On A Good Day for a One Seater:

So I’m trying to ease back into making stuff for the dolls and doll houses again.

Yes, I should have made copies of all of the stuff in the envelope folder. Hind sight and all that.

I needed to make something that I had no references to in the missing envelope file. So I decided to make an Out House! (Not done, only a primer coat of paint so far.)

But I hope you find this just right considering the day. It is the first day of the last year of the Mayan Calendar. If you believe it, the end of the world is coming in one year from this date.

So we are in the crapper or out house as it may.



















The door is not hinged on yet. So the doll is holding it up.
















The catalog TP I spent the day making from reprint old catalogs; copied, resized, printed front and back, cut, folded, pasted together and hung.

Yes, I know it still needs a seat. But for now we will just make believe it is hanging on the wall behind the wood stove keeping warm for later.

It’s the end of the world as we know it and I’m trying to feel fine! Thanks REM.

On Grandma Candy Memories:

When I was a little girl. Way back in the day. My grandmother had a large conch shell candy dish on a lace doily that she crocheted on the table in the parlor. There was her Ebony Elephant collection on the shelf watching over the parlor and her things therein.

We would try to sneak a piece of candy now and then. She would always know what we were up to and call out from the kitchen to leave the candy alone.















I came across a small conch shell and made it a candy dish for one of my doll houses. It sat empty for months in the middle of the table on a hand made lace doily.

Picture frames, an elephant statue and a crystal ball on a black velvet pillow, along with a card to read palms with ring it.















Today I sifted through my miss matched, broken and malformed beads picking just the right sizes.

I cut up pieces of used, put still useful, tissue paper and cut them in almost inch squares.

Twisting them carefully around the beads I made candy for the dish.















I filled it with the butterscotch candy and left the taffy for another day.

My Grandmother would have like my project if she was still alive. And the fact that my sweet memories of her home are much of what I pull ideas from for the doll houses.

On Bed Time:

I was going to blog yesterday, but I was busy.

You see the sewing machine needs to be plugged in where the computer is, so the computer wasn’t on at all through the day and into the night.

I had 3 single beds and 2 twin beds to finish. Including mattresses, pillows and bedding.















You see, I have been fudging it. Using shoe boxes with bandannas, handkerchiefs and/or knitted washrags over them for some beds and cardboard mock-ups for others.















They are still mostly cardboard, but the wooden posts and finials helped a lot once the paint dried.

And the bedding was the topper. Real little pillows in crisp white pillow cases and sheets. Blankets and bed throws, comforters and patchwork quilts too.

Thou I’m still working on the covered bed with the curtains all around, now it is feeling so much more closer to done.

Some day I’ll find or make the rest of the bits and pieces I need to take the pictures for the books I wrote. You know, the things that set the scene in the illustrations to match with the story.

Oh! And there is still a doorway I need to make in the one house and a few windows and window dressing too.

Someday! But at least now that day is closer than it was.

On Small Uses for Tooth Picks:

Today is a gray day. I usually love a gray day, but this one is too cold and windy for me. You know, the kind that the cold goes right through you and stays stuck inside. Thus requiring hours of tea drinking wrapped in blankets by the wood stove with a book.

So, wanting to get something done, I hid in the house doing jigsaw puzzles and playing with the doll house.















I made some things for the doll house out of wooden tooth picks. I cut off the small ends of the flat kind of tooth picks and painted them blue for my ‘Ohio Blue Tip’ matches.


















And I used the round kind of tooth pick for my dolls knitting needles.

Yes, I did knit that bit of scarf for them using those small knitting needles. I just wanted to see if I could do it.

The dog needs walking so I’ll soon be shivering until properly tea-ed and blanketed, with a book. Agatha Christie, ‘The A.B.C. Murders’ I think. I am thankful for wood stoves on days like this.

On A Poke About a Doll House Kitchen:

(My Camera is back and doing well for the moment. I was told that if it goes bad again to give it up. So here are some more of the doll house pictures I promised you.)

One day I was feeling the need to add an older element to the kitchen and remembered that I still have a an old Pretzel tin. These were from the days when the Pretzel and Chip Man would come around every few weeks and you’d buy a few pounds from his barrels, keeping them fresh in your large company provided tins in the pantry.

And Yes, I do remember the various, regularly scheduled, delivery men coming around and delivering milk, butter, and yogurt, light bulbs, soda, snacks like pretzels, chips, and cookies, meat, and the Diaper service. There were the men that came around calling out that they sharpened knives or fixed vacuums at their truck while you waited. And we can’t forget the Avon Lady and the Fuller Brush Man selling their wares each month.

My ‘Becker’ Pretzel tin is 13 inches high, just for reference.














Anyway, one day I grabbed some pens and started to draw a copy of it for the doll house, just to see if I could. (You can see my version on top of the Icebox in the doll house next to the larger one.)



















A closer picture of my free hand version of the tin.














A look into the kitchen shelves.














And peak into the pantry.

I won’t post doll house pictures every day for those of you who don’t care about such things. But there will be more to come here and there until I’m done cleaning and fixing it all.

On Looking at the Details, Part 1:

Some Doll house bedroom details while I‘m cleaning them up.















Dresser top.
















Sewing basket and button box on hope chest.















Jigsaw puzzles.

Some details are better than others, but they all add to the overall reality of the place.

More tomorrow!

On Time for Cleaning Houses:

For those of you who don’t know, I have a couple of doll houses I made to go with the hand made Victorian dolls I made some 15 years or so ago.

It was one of those projects that just kept going and growing. First the Dolls. Then some stuff (Clothing and a few bits and bobs.) and more stuff for the dolls, houses to put the stuff and dolls into, books I've written about them for my nieces, pictures to use as illustrations in the books… a doll house garden… Yes, I know I’m crazy, but I hope it is a good crazy.

The dolls are 15 inches high. The houses are six feet high.
















Mountain Man standing next to one of the houses.

I have two of these large doll houses. A two part, six room, three floored house. Picture above. (7 feet wide and 6 foot high) and a four room, three floored house (4 foot wide and 6 foot high) with a garden.














If you look in the box of matches on the shelf, you will find mini matches. In the jigsaw puzzle boxes are jigsaw puzzles. And there is a block of ice and a drip pan in the icebox. The pantry is full of food stuffs, apples to oranges, crackers in the cracker box, cookies in the cookie jar.

It takes the better part of two weeks to clean it all. I use a paint brush for a broom. And I wash up and down everything I can, bedding to bustles.

All the little fiddly bits, knickknacks, and all. From the tops of their heads and the roof top chimneys, right down to the their high buttons shoes and the foundations of the building all gets a cleaning.

I fix the stuff that got broken, replace the things I can’t fix, and I make a few more things for the houses or dolls each time I give all of it a proper clean out.

I’m a busy doll mommy at this time of year. But I’m having fun doing it. Much more fun than I have cleaning my own house.

On My Dolls:

I have been getting a lot of questions about my dolls. They are a project started about thirteen years ago. I started by making one doll because I had wanted to try to make a Victorian doll for some time and had an unexpected day with nothing planned, some extra fabric hanging around and a need to do something new and different. You know, a just use up some extra craft stuff day.

After the first doll was born I wanted a place to put her to show her off a bit and finally I made her a parlor chair and side table to sit comfortably on my coffee table. Christmas came and I had to dress up her world, more doll stuff followed. Now I was dressing her and the coffee table up differently each month for her. And of course she needed a friend.















Now, what to do with small rooms full of stuff? Make rooms. The first house was just cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. After they got rumpled and shabby I went out to get some wood. Add wheels to get them around and the first house grew to a two sided thing now seven feet across and a second smaller house with it own side garden and family.

All this time I was also building stories about them in my head. I am still writing stories about their world.

The pictures here are older ones. I wasn’t going to wake Mountain Man to take pictures of the set up that has taken over half of the bedroom.

The dolls are 15 inches or 37.5 cm tall, 1 - 4 size. In other words, if you stack four dolls on top of each other they are as tall as a person. They have a number of clothing changes and lots of stuff.















You can’t see it well but Mountain Man is standing by the second house and in front of the garden. Thanks for the questions.

On Playing in the House:

My Doll House is calling me to play. I want to make more of my miniature world.


























Yes, this is one of my doll houses.