My First Dollhouse, Pt. 3: Food and Other Accesories

My mother wasn't a "crafty" person. She was and is a damn fine dressmaker and an excellent pattern-maker. Her embroidery puts most people's to shame. She never learned about clays beyond what is used to make pottery. The newest, most impressive art supplies never caught her attention.

She does hear all about them from me now, but back then all I had to work with was Playdough. The hardest part about that was waiting for it to dry. And remember, in the 80's you didn't find Playdough in any color but blue, yellow, the pinkish red, and white.



I still love the candle, complete with flame. How else would they see if the candle had no flame? The roses on the cakes and the green cup aren't bad either. And my potatoes now are made much the same way...just with polymer clay in different colors and some chalk.

I loved to read. I thought all kids loved to read. So I made books with construction paper covers and staples for binding.
Books with pages that turned and had stuff in them.
I think this one was supposed to be a "My First Colors" book or something. There are many other books in the little house, but this one was the easiest to get to.

It seemed only natural that a set of twins would have bunk beds. Some pieces of balsa that I found somewhere, a few popsicle sticks, and some toothpicks became these beds. I even put the guard rail on the top bunk.

I was fascinated by different types of pillows. That came from the catalogs with bedding I think. Apparently I wanted to make the round neckroll pillows after I saw them. The fabric was scraps from my mother sewing new cushions for something.

I know there were more of these first minis at one point, but these are all that is left. Nineteen years later they still make me smile. And now I know about "earthquake glue." I'm sure you can guess how everything stays in place these days. ;-)

My First Dollhouse, Pt. 2: The Bed and Other Sewn Things

Of course the rabbits needed beds right away and not just any beds. I remember seeing pictures of bedding in catalogs and wanted beds to be pretty like the pictures. My mother let me have some nice fabric that coordinated well and turned me loose with a needle and thread.

The mattresses needed to fit into the halves of a flat box that I had found. I'm not sure why I chose the box, but it worked well.

Do you see the little knots to make the mattress look quilted?
I had forgotten all about them until I found these toys after I moved out. Next came the comforter and matching pillows.
Then I had beds. Apparently I decided to use some larger "practice" pillows to make something resembling a sofa or stuffed chair. Not sure where the red thing came from. Probably came with a baby doll or something when I was even younger.
Oh, the pink thing next to it... that was an attempt at crochet. No clue what I was trying to make. But I remember the pink yarn and still have that crochet hook. The rug is a scrap of fabric that I raveled the edges to look fringed.

Every little girl needs a doll. And just because this girl was a rabbit was no exception.
I vaguely remember taking a bit of fluff, wadding it up tightly and covering it with a scrap. Mom tried showing me how to make French knots for the eyes by myself, but she ended up doing both eyes for me. I drew the rest of the face and hair with marker. It still didn't look like a doll until I put the red scrap over it's head.

200th Post - My First Dollhouse Pt. 1

I noticed the other day the was close to 200 blog posts and I thought I would do something special to celebrate number 200.

Lots of people have asked me how I got started with miniatures or how long I have been playing with miniatures. The answer is I've always played with little things. Boxes became playgrounds for little dolls and furniture was made from whatever I could find.

The first "real dollhouse" was a San Franciscan that my father never finished putting together. And what he did get done is falling apart. If the kit hadn't been from my grandparents I would trash it. However I plan on turning it into a haunted house. This will allow me to save it and use every trick I've picked up along the way. Right now the pieces are in my MIL's basement.

The first dollhouse that I got to actually play with as a child came along right after dad stopped working on the San Fran. It's a plastic playhouse made for the Sylvanian Families toys.

According to my mother I was about nine or ten when this came along and I started playing. I made all of the furniture except for the big table and long bench. The little babies came with their cradles and bottles. The accessories were either found items or bits that I made.

The rabbit family in the house was played with often and predate the house itself.

I have more pictures of several items in there that I will be putting up in the next two posts. This breaks things up a bit more evenly and won't take forever to load. ;-)