Fairy Tree Stump Dollhouse

Well my friends & fellow bloggers, I have taken quite the blogging sabbatical, it is true. Once again, I have done the no-show. You know, it's funny ~ it's one of those blurt-blog things, I think. Yup, it's all becoming quite evident to me now, I am a *Blurt-Blogger*. I blog in blurty spirts. Hmmmm... I could ode that..... :-D (Hmm again, maybe I will change my blog name to that ~ it DOES fit rather aptly!!)

But instead, I will save you all the pain of yet another blurty-spirty blogging ode, & launch into my latest subject-of-interest.

Ahhhh yes, the Fairy Tree Stump Dollhouse!!!!

Here we have the delighted young dollhouse owner, trying on her new dollhouse, before any floors or interior walls were added.

Why, it FITS!!

She's very proud of Wood Genius' (aka Daddy) creation.

Wood Genius is adding some detail, taking off here & there to provvide a realistic ~log stump~ effect.

And now he has the interior fitted, and has begun to add more windows & doors.


Some of the detail on the main floor, tree growth rings & stone steps, all carved to make the piece look as much like a real tree stump as possible.

A few of the side windows & doors. Wood Genius used actual door hinges to hinge this, as it is QUITE heavy.

The main front doors ~ with a carved leaf on the front, and locking bars inside ( to keep out any wandering trolls, GI Joes, and miscellaneous Lego Pirate types..... younger brother does seem to have a rather impressive army of them.)

Here is the view walking into through the front doors. Just outside the window is a swing, hooked onto the large branch stump, of course. ;-D Oh, and it should be noted that that branch stump is actually an opening, for the fairies to take off & return from. They can fly straight out & come back through it.... apparently the front door is just for their little non-flying friends. :-D



This is the view from the side door, with the stump



Here we have another view from one of the windows.


And one more view.


This is the secret lock & key, so that no other humans except the owner can open the stump. Only fairies can have continual access through the fly-in's.



And here is the secret door for the key. (To which Wood Genius later added a carved leaf attached to a leather thong, so that it would be a lot harder to lose. Because even mature little Fairy Stump Owners sometimes have a hard time keeping track of special keys for special doors.)

Ahh, The fairies are especially active at night, & love to light up the stump with parties & fun!

Sometimes they even leave the doors open......I guess these are Idaho Fairies, not New York Fairies. ;-D

And now I have added a little color to the piece. Yes, it is still a little loud, because I haven't brushed it down with a dark wash.... all in time, my little ones, all in time.....




Once I get the wash added, I will accent a few of the rooms, and finish coat everything in a matte top coat, so that the wood doesn't stray from expansion or contraction.

Ahh, here is a better view of that Fly-In branch stump. The fairies really dig that, you know. It makes it so that they can be in (& out of) their abode without human interventions. Quite handy if you are a Little People. Unfortunately, the swing had to be removed because of painting, but the pesky humans will soon be finished with their ministrations, and the fairies can get back to partying like they prefer.

~Red

The Dollhouse Venture Part V

Well, it's been quite a while since I have updated on the Dollhouse Venture. Since we have been doing quite a bit to it in the last little while, I figured there was enough of an improvement to show another installment.

Here is a bed that Wood Genius designed, & I strung together. It's 1:12 scale & would be a queen-sized bed. See the little cedar chest in the background? Yup, he made that too.

And of course you can't have a new bed without some new bedding, sooo... I had to make a mattress & pillow, plus a sheet set to fit.

And then of course, what is a new bed & everything without a quilt & bed pillows? And yes, of course I even hand-tied it ~ ;-D ~ I used quilting thread as the string, and actually, although this may look like bitty pieces of fabrics, heheh... even I am not THAT dedicated ~ that pattern & a few other may be downloaded at Dollhouse Miniature Printables . I just starched a thin piece of muslin, & put it through my printer with a pc of paper, set on high quality print, and VOILA! ~instant dolly quilt. Also, you can play with the sizes, by stretching your printer settings or saving the printie to my docs, then running it through a photo-shop program.

Wood Genius & I have also been hard at work on the exterior of the dollhouse. I added most of the window fittings ( all right, just easy ones, it's true, in fact, if you click on the pick, you can see that I have still left the difficult fitting to him to cut ~ it's just better that way.) ;-D I might draw some attention to the NEW doorway & walnut front entrance door. We are painting the fireplace, entrance pillars & some floor trim as I write this, but the walnut door is getting stained. Plus I still have to add hardware to it ( handle, name-plate, doorbell, etc).

Here you can see that while there have been quite a few improvements, I am still definitely ~in process~. I am in the middle of adding ceiling mouldings, wallpapers, chair-rails, and in some cases, even partitions & closets, & such. While most of the wallpapers came from Jennifer's Free Dollhouse Printables, ( which, by the way, is a MOST FANTASTIC site!!), a few came from those old-fashioned dollhouse papers books, and ~ believe it or not ~ some of those chair rail papers & such came from a Martha Stewart line of scrap-booking stuff. Man, if I had the fundage, I would have used SO MANY of the ADORABLE scrapbooking goodies from Martha Stewart. I don't care if she DID go to jail, that lady is CREATIVE!

Another thing I have been working on is the interior window & door trims. What door trims?, you might ask ~ I don't see any door trims! Well, ok, so that's true, I HAVEN'T done any door trims... hence the "working on it" qualifier. ;-D

At any rate, this little room doesn't NEED any door trims, so HAH! What house can be complete without a sun-shiney sewing room? Now if only MY sewing room were this ...ahem.. ORganized... ;-D

Here you can see the important work getting done ~ the little girl is getting measured for her new dress! And that lovely old doll doing the measuring? She is something I picked up off of eBay, an interesting china head with only her head left as original, everything else seems to be either pasted back together or even whole new parts made ~ entirely out of paste. As a result, once the other dollhouse dolls are done, I'm afraid she is going to be relegated to maid status. tsk tsk tsk... such biases! ;-D

Here we have the little baby girl's nursery room, complete with a pretty china doll that seemed to want to be in the room, & therefore the picture as well. Note the basket of flowers ~ they are real dried Hidcote lavender, from my Mum's garden. Obviously a necessity next to a changing table, as they don't have disposables in this house.

Here is the formal dining room, complete with baby chair. I suppose in all reality, the baby chair should really go in the kitchen, & the table should be larger, however, the kitchen isn't quite done, and neither is the table, so... these old, not-quite-to-scale pieces will simply have to suffice.

I might point out, however, that Wood Genius was genuinely annoyed that I might mix both scale & non-scale pieces... and therefore has been talking about designing some more scale furniture.

hehehehehe

Do you see my clever plan? Naturally, once sufficiently bothered, he will have no choice but to make a few more scale pieces.

heheheheh ~ MWAahahahahahahaaaaaa....

Here is the parent's room, with that bed & cedar chest that Wood Genius made, as well as the dresser from Grandma G, & the bedding & perfume bottles that I made. The pictures are made from scrapbooking plates, and old stamps as the artwork. The yarn balls are from some dollar store decoration.

Here you can see that I did get some of the ceiling moulding in ~ the bathroom & a few other rooms. The moulding is trim picked up from Micheal's, very cheaply, I might add ~ about $1.95 for 3 ft. lengths. Also, if you click on the pic to enlarge it, please o please o please ~ DO notice the little tiny handmade soaps! It can't be a 1900's house without handmade soaps, you know. ;-D And the bathing beauty there in the tub isn't to perfect scale, but who cares, she has a funky blue bathing cap, and that's what matters! ;-D

Now in this pic, we have the largely unfinished playroom. It still needs mouldings & door trims ~ true ~ but more importantly, I still haven't finished a wall in the background ( as represented by the stripey wallpapers) which I will be putting in to add interest & depth to the room.

There is still much to do in the dollhouse, but at least it is starting to look inhabitable, if only by dustbunnies & non-eating or nanny-needing dolls. Yup, you guessed it, still have the kitchen & the nanny room to go, plus the parlor, the entrance, both floors of the library, the music room, the schoolroom, & the attic. Oh, and did I mention the hallway? And I thought it would be so COOL to have so many rooms! HAH! A love-hate relationship if there ever was one. Much like our real house, actually. Nice, large, many rooms... but UGGHH> the cleaning that that much space requires. Still, let me dis not my abode, lest I be found ungrateful. ;-D

And what, you may ask, is THIS pic of? Well, it's a start. Because, you see, this little 6" dolly is a FAIRY. That's right, a fairy... I mean, she obviously doesn't have her wings on yet, and she is naked as the day I stitched her together, HOWEVER, she is a START. You see, the next dollhouse update that I do will include pics of her tree-stump fairy house! That is right, Wood Genius is right now, even as I write, shaping the fairy house. It is 4 stories high, with a slide, and a swing, and once the doors & windows get cut out, it will really start to come to life. I will include a few teaser pics at the bottom of the post, just to get the gears turning.

He truly IS a Wood Genius! This is a totally engineered tree stump, carved to look real. And like I said, this isn't the half of it ~ when it's done, it will be a 1:12 scale fairy tree stump dollhouse.

~Red

The MASSIVE Dollhouse Venture Part 4

Well, I have this little confession to make ~ I have started on the little tiny dollhouse things ~ but I HAVEN'T finished trimming out the exterior of the dollhouse yet ~ I think I may take this opportunity to blame it on Kat.... It's HER dollhouse, right? She REALLY needs to get on it, and trim out that exterior. Sheesh! The lackadaisical attitude some people's kids have developed of late!!

;-D

OK, that over, wanna see some really awesome little tiny things? :-D

Well, Kat & I think they are really awesome, anyway!

If you want to really see them up close, click on them, and you can get a MUCH bigger pic.

This is a little collection of decanters, flasks, perfume bottles, and candle sticks that I made out of different beads I had. I also used some odd shaped nuts, a wall screw thingy, and some buttons for the bases of the chinese jars, and I used porcupine quills for the candles. The natural brown on the ends of the quills were perfect for a burnt wick look, and on the pair that didn't have the brown, I just markered it on. Also, I just used regular dollar store super glue. I recommend the gel kind for the bead work, rather than the thinner liquid kind, as the liquid kind tends to drip, run, and get your fingers stuck to everything!
I put a quarter in some of the pics, so you can sort of gauge the size.

Here are some little boxes and food containers. We were able to get the printies off of http://www.jennifersprintables.com/ . I used plastic from a WalMart bag to make the cereal liner, and wood shavings compliments of Wood Genius for the grape nuts & corn flakes. I also weighted the boxes with either a piece of wood glued to the bottom of the inside of the boxes or put cornstarch into them. For the gelatin & starch boxes, I just glued the printie around a piece of wood cut to fit.

Perhaps you can see the tiny size by noticing the wooden spool of thread or the needle packet in the background.

Here are a collection of miniature dolls I have made for the dollhouse. The largest doll is all porcelain, 6" tall, and she was actually a dollar store find. I just stripped off her cheesy fake Hawaiian outfit & made her some new clothes out of vintage fabrics & laces.

The other three dolls I made are out of porcelain body parts that I got off of eBay, with hand stitched leather bodies. They have wire armatures, and are stuffed with sawdust. Again, thanks to Wood Genius.

This tiny baby doll is so little, she is only 1 1/2" tall. Yes, that's one and a half. :-D

I hand stitched their outfits out of vintage laces & silk ribbons. Perhaps you can see the smocking on the little blue baby dress. I had to use a single strand of sewing thread to make it the right size.

Ahhh... see the little girl? She is holding her baby sister ~ the little girl is only 3" tall.

Here you can see her leather body, and the porcelain parts. You can also see the hand stitching, which looks large in this close-up pic, but is really hardly visible to the naked eye. (well, to MY naked eye, anyway... your naked eye may be better eyesighted than mine....naked eyes, you know...) I was extremely lucky to find these tiny porcelain parts on eBay, I have never seen anything so tiny to make dolls from since. I have seen larger pieces, but nothing scaled to this perfect 1/12 size, unless you go with pre-made pipe-cleaner dolls from China or Germany. None with my leather bodies, however. :-D

Hopefully, they last a good long time, which is why I made them out of leather. Remember, Kat says she is going to hand this down to a granddaughter, so I have to make things that will hold up. :-D ( It's my duty...heheheh) Plus it's fun!

And last, but definitely not least, here is Wood Genius, to whom we must once again, say thanks!! He keeps providing us with lots & lots of fun things from the shop to use, as well as ideas and technical support. (Kat & I are sorta clueless, we admit this freely, and without shame. After all, as I have mentioned before ~ you don't see the words "Wood Genius" tacked on in front of either of OUR names! ;-D)

For Part 5 of this Venture, I will show some of the furniture that Wood Genius has made into kits for us. ( that is a 2-fold reasoning ~ 1) Kat & I feel like we are actually *good* at making cute miniatures, and 2) Wood Genius doesn't spend all his time making miniatures. :-D)

Isn't he beautiful? ( and he would say ~ "Yup, that's what I strive for, beautiful......" ) :-d

PART 5

The MASSIVE Dollhouse Venture Part 3

PART 3

All right, I'll bet by now you are wondering just what this dollhouse looks like all put together, since up till now I have merely shown bits and pieces of it.

Here we have from the front, with no molding, no window trimming, no nothing on the ouside yet except a bit of trim around the roof line. This is because it's so VERY much funner to do all that itty bitty stuff on the inside. However, I was reading this book on miniatures by a Marion Mave O'Brien (sp?) and she SPECIFICALLY cautioned about getting too caught up in the insides before you finish the outsides. Boy is she right.

This picture shows the full extension drawer guide that Tony the Wood Genius used to support the front half of the dollhouse when opened. This makes it possible to have 2 kids playing and arranging without knocking elbows.

This is my cheesy mitered trim, Wood Genius was annoyed that I did not fit it better, over that brass piano hinge. I carved it to fit, but, of course, you don't see the words "Wood Genius" in front of MY name. ;-P

Trim still needs to be spackled, painted, etc.

This is my free-handed cheesy answer to Wood Genius being too busy to make a chimney box. Some Day I will add a real box on there, even if it only sticks out 1/4", and paint the stones on again. As it is, I mixed fine sand with the paint to make it a ~stone~ texture. It does feel correct, even if th e chimney sorta swaaaayyyys.

And here it is, open. You can see Kat papered the kitchen in contact paper trim. A little large in design, but oh well. Kat did it herself, and she did a darn good job of it. We found some FANTASTIC websites for wallpaper ~ http://www.jennifersprintables.com/ ~

She has tons of other fun miniature printies there as well.

We will show more pics of the dollhouse after we get some of those prints put up. I think that papering does sucha fine job of scaling a room. Just paint really doesn't seem to translate scale very well.

We also don't have any base or ceiling trim moldings up yet, which will help too.

Here is a shot before we hinged the front to the back and finished the flooring ~ you can see how those little miniatures just seem to gravitate towards the house, regardless of progress on the whole.

Here we have 2 different bathroom versions. I kind of think the teeny tiny terracotta room is just right for a bathroom. (All right, all right, I have to admit it, I was the one that set this & the other bathroom pic up ~ they were just so CUTE, it was hard to resist. But I really HAVE to get that outer trim and inside moldings & papering done.....)

This is the Luxurious Large bathroom ~ too much room, I think ~ I might have to talk Kat into putting the laundry room in here, instead. Laundry rooms can have swirly tile, right? ;-D

Uh oh ~ here you can REALLY see that snasty pattern faux pas in the flooring ~ but I DON'T CARE ~ I am so NOT digging that floor up ... it adds character, ..... it adds character... it adds character.....

Next Dollhouse Venture post will show papered walls and (I hope!!) trim moldings.

PART 4