Since I am on a little hiatus from the house I figured I would at least show some of the furniture I picked up for it so far.

Here's a peek at the furniture. The white hutch in the bath type room is a micheals hutch that I painted and reworked a bit. The blue chaise and stool along with all the furniture in the bedroom are all Ideal Petite Princess furniture from 1964. I LOVE them. I actually have the dining hutch and grandfather clock from that line too. I think I will pick up almost all the other pieces since I like them so much. I had no idea plastic furniture could be so darn cute! And well made. The sofa and chair in the living room and actually a soft blue. I still need to finish the paper on the third wall of the bathroom but I am out of the glue I used. I'm going to be ordering it in bulk instead of paying retail. The upside to that is it is also a scrapbooking glue! I love it when my supplies work in several crafts. Asyou can tell the kitchen and bedroom are also both in need of paper. If I could decide then that would be helpful!

This will not be my last post on the dollhouses. I will keep added more on it as I do it in addition to my scrapbooking pages.

Change in tune

I've been busily trudging away at the dollhouse for some time now. I have a bunch of furniture that came in for it too. But recently I have had a lot of stress hit me from several sides. I don't handle it well and I often go back to comfort things when it hits hard. So I have shelved the dollhouse for now. I am going to a show next month and hopefully it will pull me back in then. For the moment I am back to my first craft... scrapbooking. I was an avid scrapbooker for several years and then(3 years ago) like now, I had a series of very stressful events and I was turned off completely from it. I have done one or two projects but they were hard to complete as I was completely devoid of inspiration and creativity. But now I actually had a craving to do it! My wonderful husband let me run a little wild at Michaels when I saw they had some beautiful new lines from K & Company, one of my favorite brands. So here are the pages I have done in the last 3 days. I am amazed I got so many done!

The pages are in chronologial order of when I completed them starting at the bottom and going up. I always forget blogger uploads backwards with multiple images. So the top ones were done today and the others over the weekend. They are of myself, my WONDERFUL husband, and my BF Summer and my friend Lyssah. Can you tell I adore them? And it actually got me to use some of the new things I got. Like the letters in Good Times. I'm sooo very bad about hording my supplies. I have too many! But now I am forcing myself to use them instead of saying: "well what if I need them for some special project down the road? I must not use hem until then". And then they get stuck in a drawer and shuffled through everytime I'm looking for supplies, looked at and drooled over and put away. The paper in the top 3 pictures is stuff I bought 4-5 years ago. And its so pretty and perfect for use on my friend layouts.

Stormy Paint

So my camera finally decided it was ok for me to take the photos. After taking them I can really see that it needs at least 2 more coats to be done. But you can see how it looks. I will also post a picture of it with the original blue. Now I really did like the blue but I am turning this house into a Victorian and the blue just yells FARMHOUSE!! No farming, cows, chickens or the like for me thanks. Nothing against them but the type of houses I want to create are more ornate then the typical farmhouse would be. Just like this one was when I got it. But you guys take a look!

Colors! Too many colors!!

So I'm wondering how many people out there doing minis have the same problem I have. Picking a color for my house! I tried pink, cream, a different shade of blue then it now is..... and finally settled on grey. It actually looks great. But the windows are the worst..... I again tried all the colors previously mentioned and more! Nothing looks good. Beige looked dirty. Blue did not look right. Too much like a house boat. Pink turned the house into a little girls play dollhouse and I am going for adult not childhood toy. Cream didn't really show up. Yellow looked wrong. I think I'm stuck with white. It doesn't look bad but it makes the house seem cold. I could be wrong though. I need some opinions. I will post pics as soon as my batterys for my camera recharge. It wouldn't even let me squeeze one more teeny little pic out of it. Traitorous camera!!

I did find some new pictures of my house. It's called The Washington. And since its an old dollhouse... It could be one of there earliest editions of it. But I'm not sure. I can't seem to find a first date of production, just that it was the first kit that Greenleaf(?) produced. Anywho the new photos of it are amazing. I love how they painted it. It seems to have disappeared from their website though. Otherwise I would post a link...... I may have a shot of it though, lets look. There it is for your viewing pleasure! I want to do the detail like that. It's interesting that they didn't put shingles or siding on it. They just painted the roof and outside walls. I was thinking that would be awful but just look at it! It's lovely. They even left out the silly little diamond thingys that go on the window frames. (I used a chisel and hammer to remove mine)

Alright, back to painting the house. I still have some grey to put on and then do a second coat. I think I will make an Addams Family house at some point too. Check back soon for a photo of the house in grey.... If the battery will hurry up and charge!

The Building of a Home - Muphy Manor

So here we are day one, finally working on the house. I ripped out the wallpaper and sanded down the walls. Not an easy task. That stuff did not want to come off. The hub and I decided that the stairs were too rotten to keep. So he ripped them out for me and now we get to look for stairs! On the other hand the hub may want to try his hand at making them too....

After the demo part of the evening, I started on the wallpaper and he worked on a pattern for a window box seat. I completed the wallpaper and started a valance for the window. Then I worked on curtains followed by covering the window seat.

I'm probably going to make stained glass windows for the front window so you can't see the icky job I did on lining the curtains.... It was pretty bad. But hey they are my first curtains so I figure its alright.

Today I will try the window making with vellum and move upstairs to paper the bathroom. I went nuts on Ebay this weekend and we have furniture, rugs, and accessories arriving over the next 2 weeks to fill the house! I might even make another set of curtains. I'm a perfectionist so the ones in there currently may not stay. I'm going to try to ignore that nagging little doubt in my head for as long as possible though!

Secret Wishes and Christmas Blessings

secret wishes do come true
Current mood: loved

I have had a secret wish since I moved to Florida with my mom. When we left California, I was ten years old and I had a dollhouse at my dads. I was there rarely so I didn't get to play with it much but, I loved it. When we moved I had to leave it behind. We had no room and I don't think my dad would have let me take it anyway.

Well every time I have seen a dollhouse over the years I have wished for my own again. And even though I know I exclaimed excitedly every time we saw them, I don't think anyone noticed how much I loved them! I have this thing about miniatures. Furniture, books, animals. I love them. And this year my wish came true. I got a dollhouse for Christmas. It's 40 years old and belonged to a woman who got it as a child so its awesome and vintage. Its in need of repair, which I think is awesome! I get to do construction on my house.... I LOVE it. Its 3 stories, a New England Style blue farmhouse with a wrap around porch and 5 rooms. And the awesome thing is, I already have tons of stuff I can use inside it. Scrapbooking paper makes excellent wallpaper with its anti yellowing properties! And I have LOADS of vintage paper.

So thats my secret wish and it came true.