Decorating the ground floor.. #blogtoberfest13 day 21

Yesterday I decorated the ground floor of the dolls house. It was loads of fun and really very tricky! The only way I could get inside the tiny spaces was to lay on my tummy on the floor and wriggle up close, quite funny. My daughter picked out all of the paper, it is 1/12th scale but seems to work in the 1/16th scale house well. I painted the eaves with some acrylic paint ready for the next fun project for the tiddlers. I am hoping to get them finger painting a flower mural. Pretty pleased with how it is looking, it is beginning to look loved.


Jolene x

Wallpapering the dolls house roof.... #Blogtoberfest13 Day 9

Last week Ruby and I picked out some fab bright card and vellum from the craft box to wall paper the bathroom. It is now wickedly green and deep purple, I love it! Luckily we found some purple felt stashed away in the box too which made for great carpet.

We have been buying some wonderful little bits and pieces of furniture on ebay and the dollhouse family have started to move in too. Here are some snaps of how things are looking indoors right now.




Through browsing on ebay I am starting to find out a little about the names of makers  1/16th scale furniture, Barton, Lundby, Triang, Dol Toi......

Yesterday evening my hubby and I set to work on re-papering the dollhouse roof. To be honest I wasn't sure I'd make a good job of it on my own because the shape is so tricky.

At first I ordered three A3 sheets of red pantile roof paper thinking that A3 was much bigger than it actually is...then when the paper arrived I realised that the pattern runs portrait instead of landscape which meant  joins on all four of the largest faces including "filling in" triangles on either side of the centre portion.

I ordered more paper and while waiting for it to arrive used A3 sheets of plain paper and drew arrows all over them to show the direction of the pattern and begun to play about to make a sort of template/plan on how to cut the paper and the best place to start on the roof.

It's by no means perfect but nowhere near the lash up job I had anticipated. The kids are going to be thrilled with it when they wake up :-D

Have a lovely day, Jolene x

Papering the first rooms.....

As a crafty treat for Roo this evening she and I gathered some supplies together to wallpaper her dolls house bedroom. I decided to go for PVA for hanging the wallpaper as we already had plenty here. We used scraps of the paper in her own bedroom that were stashed away for a rainy day.

I did the cutting and Roo had a fun time pasting the walls with PVA ready for putting up the wallpaper in her mini bedroom.



Below is a snap of Roo's finished mini bedroom. I've used self adhesive purpose made dolls house carpet for the floor that I had found on ebay. It was really easy to cut and apply. I suspect when we get around to decorating Roo's real bedroom we'll need to redecorate her mini bedroom too :-D

Next I covered the outside lower story walls with yellow brick  paper - bit of a mishap when I forgot to cut out one of the windows before sticking the paper to the wall but I think I got away with it by snipping a cross in the paper from the centre to the corners of the window and folding and sticking the paper down inside the window frame.

The next job was to paper and carpet Ethan's mini room to look like his proper bedroom too. This is not a very clear picture as the paper has silver Dinos all over it, really cute.

I didn't remember to lave a little flap of extra paper to run down to the floor and under the carpet so there is a little white line around both of the rooms where the paper and carpet meet. I'm thinking that adding skirting boards at some point would be a nice thing to do to make it look much neater. I will definitely remember to leave an overlap for the floor on the next rooms to get papered though!


These three pics show how I made some plaster to render the front door alcove and pathway around the  house. It is a mixture of white emulsion, PVA, and food colouring.

The next bit was really fun, I dabbed the gloopy "plaster" on with a paint brush to give the alcove and pathway some interesting texture. I'm not sure what to do with the pathway area next really, maybe the kids will want to paint it grassy green or maybe we could make some planters and pots of flowers to decorate the outside space. I saved the left over gloopy mixture in an old coffee jar just in case we need it again for something.

And this is where the house is at so far.... I wonder how long the gloopy painty sand mixture is going to take to dry!

Here are some useful links on how to wall paper a dolls house that I found on google...

http://www.dollshouse.com/dhe/content/how-to-wallpapering-tips.aspx

http://dollhousedecorating.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/how-to-put-wallpaper-in-your-dollhouse.html

http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/five-ways-to-wallpaper-a-dollhouse-177887

Jolene x

Beauty Base Zero

Anyone with dolls house renovation experience, you may want to cover your ears at this point, but it seemed to me this morning that what would be really helpful is to have a proper blank canvas to work on. Beauty base zero if you will. To that end I popped down the shed and hunter gathered a big tin of brilliant white emulsion and a couple of two inch brushes.

My plans for the house are pretty loose at the moment, what I do know is that this project is one that I really want the children to be part of and for them to know that the house is theirs to play with. As most of this base coat will be covered in paper and carpet eventually it seemed a great time to get my littlest involved, so it was on with the painting shirt and out with the paint brushes and we set to work.

I separated the body of the house from the roof and we painted it in two parts starting with the roof. I think the house will need a rub down and a second coat tonight, particularly outside of the first floor which is not going to be papered at all. Stage two will be papering the roof but I am finding it hard to find info on the best way to tackle that on the net. Probably best to make a series of templates out of plain paper first I think.

We both have paint in our hair and smiles on our faces, so that is all good.

have a lovely week, Jo x

Renovating a dolls house and a little bit of bead weaving

A couple of weekends ago I went to the GBUK AGM (Glass Beadmakers UK) and was lucky enough to have a class with Carol Passaro on how to make a beaded Bezel. It was really lovely sitting around with a group of gals and working on a project together, time just flew by with all of the cheeky chat and laughing, a refreshing change from making beads in the studio at home with the radio for company.

I finished my project at home a few days later and even though I had to unpick it and start over 3 times I learnt a lot and am pleased with it, especially as a first attempt. Needless to say this necklace featuring a lovely Cabochon by Debbie Dew was quickly smuggled away into my Daughters treasure box.

Last night I thought I would see if I could take the technique and use it on a bigger Cab and made this bezeled mirror for the dolls house out of a Haematite cab that's been kicking around here forever. It was thumbs up form the little ones when they saw it this morning.

Things are ticking along slowly with the dolls house renovations. I've sourced and bought some tile and brick paper for the outside of the house and my friend Sam has had a rummage and sent me a perfect front door and fancy yellow and white window frames too, exciting stuff. She also sent some very cute little bits and bobs for the inside including a tiny little loo roll holder including a roll of paper! These little details really make me smile.

 Learning how to bezel a cabochon also inspired me to have a go at making some glass cabs at the torch the next time I managed to get in to the studio. These are on a base of CiM Stoneground with powdered glass added for a shot of colour. These sweet cabs are currently available in my Etsy shop www.etsy.com/uk/shop/KitzbitzArtBeads and they were such fun to make that I know that I'll be adding more of this sort of thing to my shop inventory very soon.







This morning the kids and I spent a productive hour stripping as much paper as we could off of the walls and roof. It would be fair to say we trashed our living room with all the little scraps of paper and sticky flooring but the worst of the job is now done. I also took out some very old and defunct lighting fittings and wiring. I'm not planning to put in a working lighting system into the house this time around because the kids are eager to get on and play with it! Maybe next time....

One thing I am worried about it the damage on the roof, it seems to be splitting at the corners so I need to have a good google and read up on what can be done to repair it or stop it form getting any worse.


Wishing you a lovely lazy Sunday Jolene x

Renovating a dolls house

My sons playgroup have had a massive toy clear out over the summer and were planning throw this gorgeous dolls house away if no one wanted to take it home and do it up. It is pretty tired looking and run down but it has clearly been made by hand  with lots of love and is still really sturdy.

I know it is a big project, but doing up a dolls house has been on my want to do that list for ever so long so after umming and ahhing about it for a few days (as Ruby already has a dolls house) while it sat unclaimed and unloved,  I decided to go for it and took it home. I just couldn't bear the thought of something this lovely ending up in a skip.

Sooooo I have not got much of a clue where to start, there will definitely be a big learning curve for me and I don't expect to get it all beautified in a hurry but yay, so excited!

All hints, tips and stories of doll house renovation much appreciated
Jolene xx