Festival Dollhouse 2016

Unlike last year, I did not do the majority of the work on the dollhouse. This time it was a group effort with other members of our miniature club. It was also lots more fun getting to play with everyone instead of working on my own.

So without further adieu...

Before:

After:

And closeups of the Christmas decorations:

Not certain there will be a house for next year's auction. It's up to the executive board, but we've already started roughing out plans just in case.

That's all for now. I need to get back to work. We had to have two trees cut down and a friend is coming to pick up wood tomorrow. Lots of sawing and bundling to do. See you after Thanksgiving!

Teaser

I'm up to my elbows in real plumbing for the last few days. There's still some painting to finish on the charity auction dollhouse, which hopefully will be done tonight or tomorrow. Until then, here's the "before" and "after" pictures of the bed that was donated by another member of miniature club.

Before:

After:

I need to get back to work. See you next weekend!

And Done!

The charity auction dollhouse is finished! This is the basic layout for the "set dressing" for the auction, but without the holiday decorations.

Now for the fun part! I may end up doing a tutorial on the angel tree topper at some point. She was fun to do.

And there are plenty of other furniture pieces for fun and imaginative play!

I'll be moving the house and its contents to the auction site tomorrow. I'll get some pictures with the extra accessories and whatnot then. For now, I'm finished!

Four out of Five Ain't Bad

With the exception of baseboards, four out of five of the rooms are redecorated!

The lack of flash doesn't do the colors justice, but I'm happy with how this room has come out. Putting down flooring in one piece, on a tight budget, was maddening  but I finally found some wall repair paper at the hardware store that had a bit of texture, was wide enough, and is paintable. There are a few bubbles, but some gentle rubbing flattens them out without wrinkling.

The bathroom furniture is still being worked on.... and not all of it is going to fit. But this is a house to be played with, so being able to switch out furniture is more fun.

The bedroom had the neutral paper when the house got to me. I kept it as a focus wall and brightened up the room with paint and flooring that coordinate with the border. I cut the border strips from a piece of real-life, striped wallpaper. The threshold is a scrap of "wood" flooring paper that I kept from a previous project.

The bed is now fully dressed. I played with Casey's no-sew pillow design to create the larger shams.

The living room is very neutral. This room will have the option of being decorated for Christmas or being an everyday room, so I wanted plainer colors to let the accents shine. I cut another threshold for this doorway, but it won't be installed until the kitchen is finished.

Once the sofa and chair are in place, you can see just how small the interior space really is. Again, there is more furniture for this room than will fit. But "play with-able" is the key.

This is the bathroom sink. I used a different strip from the same wallpaper I cut the bedroom border from to accent the doors.

Kitchen hutch. This is a Michael's hutch that I dressed up with some real-life wallpaper scraps. The design is the same blue that's going into the kitchen.

Yet another strip of wallpaper from the original striped piece. The directionality of the hearts works well in this piece.

Medicine cabinet. I decided on the same strip used on the sink for this piece and only did the sides.

There are also some more ornaments ready for the mini tree.

That's all I've got, picture-wise, for this week. There are seven pieces of furniture left to embellish/finish painting. The bulk of it is staying "plain" to allow the eyes to have a resting place. Then it will all get clear coat later in the week when it's warm enough (hopefully!) to let it cure outside.

I need to get back to work, so I'll see you next week!

Forward Progress from the Top Down

This is the front of the charity dollhouse. Whomever built this spent a great deal of time and love in doing so. The front door does work, but the windows are all painted on. I'm leaving it as is, but I will be making removable Christmas decorations for the outside.

I forgot to get a picture of the inside before I started slathering everything with gesso. The back wall of the attic room was papered with life-sized plaid wrapping paper... two coats of gesso finally got it hidden enough so it won't show through behind the new wallpaper.

Speaking of the new wallpaper, here it is:

I had that wallpaper lingering in my stash and thought it would be perfect in this dollhouse. And this is the tentative layout for displaying the dollhouse at the auction. The walls need another coat of paint. I'm using Delta Creamcoat's 'Bamboo' for the walls.

While the paint was drying, I hopped over to Casey's blog and searched through her tutorials. I thought I recalled an easy way to make nice bed pillows and I was right. Hop over there to see how she does it. 

I started with some scraps leftover from upholstering the sofa and chair (further down) and played for a bit. Cookie came out of the Trading Post catch-box and decided to test them for softness. 

I ended up needing to trim a bit off the selvage end of the fabric (see her instructions) to make it look right on the single bed, but overall I was pleased.

Then I got serious about dressing the bed. One of my friends who's been helping with the furniture kits had the twin bedroom set in her stash and donated it to the cause. We;re only using one bed, the dresser, and the night table here though. Not enough room for the vanity table or second bed. But the second bed means a side by side before and after photo.

Now the upstairs room will be completely finished once the walls and floor are done! 

I mentioned upholstery earlier. The soft bits are done, but the frames needed one more coat of paint when this picture was taken. As of this afternoon, the frames just need sprayed with sealer and allowed to cure well. Then the cushions can be glued in place. I'll be making some contrasting throw pillows too.

I should get back to it while the weather is nice enough to use sprays. Lots to do today, so I'll see you next week!