Category: mini’s

In its previous incarnation, the 2nd bedroom in my dollhouse was set up as a girl’s room complete with faux white wicker furniture, stuffed animals and a doll themed wallpaper.

Here it is with all of the contents removed.

I zoomed in on this photo to try and show that doll wallpaper detail.

I’m sure I loved it when my dad and I first created this dollhouse, but it’s no longer my cup of tea.

After giving the room a good cleaning, I taped off the floor and then painted all of the trim plus the ceiling in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Next I painted over the wallpaper in a lightened up version of their French Linen.  I just mixed it with a bunch of Drop Cloth.

Next I had to decide what sort of embellishment to add to the border around the ceiling.

I’d ordered a few I.O.D. products that I was hoping I’d be able to use in the dollhouse including a couple of their Trimmings molds as well as their Adornment stamp set.

That being said, you know I have trouble with stamps.  I attempted to stamp within that border near the ceiling with one of the Adornment stamps no fewer than five times.

I just couldn’t keep the stamp straight or get a crisp look, and the perfectionist in me just wasn’t having it.  I also really had no idea how I was going to deal with the corners of the room when I got to them.

But I just knew that stamp was going to be perfect for that trim.

So after painting back over that border multiple times, I finally decided to create my own wallpaper border by stamping on strips of paper and then applying them to the walls with mod podge.

And that worked quite well.

Still not precisely perfect, but good enough.

I also decided to stamp directly onto to the wall beside the window with one of the stamps from I.O.D.’s Ephemeral Type set.

That went a bit more smoothly!

As you can see, there is a dollhouse within the dollhouse.

This is one of the original pieces that I kept when I initially gave the dollhouse away to my in-laws, so I pulled it out to use again.

You may remember that I also painted up some new furniture for this room a few months back.

You can find the details on those pieces here (bed, armoire).

As much as I loved the way these pieces turned out, I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of purple (I just really wanted to use those re.design with prima middy transfers).  That being said, of all the purples in the world, I do think the Secret Path color by Dixie Belle that I used inside the armoire is really pretty.

Even though I had the furniture finished back in November, and I had the room painted up and ready to go before  Christmas, I’ve put off finishing this room until now because I just wasn’t feeling particularly inspired by that purple.

But then this printable rug caught my eye on Etsy (more on printable rugs in a minute).

I thought it was so lovely, and the muted purples were perfect for the 2nd bedroom.

So I decided to fully embrace the violet.

I printed out the rug, added a pitcher filled with purple blooms, and a little framed ‘Violette’ soap label above the armoire.

And with that, I think the room is perfect.

Now, back to that rug.  Did you know that printable miniature rugs were a thing?  I didn’t.  But back in December I ordered a couple of rugs from an Etsy vendor.

When they arrived it occurred to me that they looked as though they were simply images printed onto a canvas-like material.  So I started doing some research and discovered that sure enough, I could purchase some printable canvas and print my own rugs.

You have a bit more flexibility this way, being able to alter the size of the rug to fit your space.  There is a pretty good selection of printable rug images available to purchase on Etsy.  I got the rug for this room from MiniatureMoo for around $5.  The nice thing is that I can print it over and over, and in different sizes if I want to.

I’m curious, have you tried printable rugs?  And what do you think of the violet bedroom?  Leave a comment and let me know.

On Friday I shared my mini Welsh cupboard makeover.

I really enjoyed the process of painting up this little cupboard, and I had some ideas for other color combinations and transfers that would work perfectly for more of them.

But I can’t put four or five of these in my own dollhouse, right?

Well, I suppose I could, but I’m not going to do that.

Instead, I decided it was time to see whether or not I can find a market for my painted mini’s (and I’m willing to ship them!).

I figured I was comfortable with investing a few dollars in a stock of pieces that I could experiment with, so I went ahead and ordered four more of these unfinished Welsh cupboards online from Hobby Lobby.

For my 2nd Welsh cupboard makeover, after removing the knobs from the drawers, I gave it a light scuff sanding to smooth out any rough spots.  Next I applied a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean.  The purpose of this base coat was to provide something to distress my final paint color back to other than unfinished Basswood.

Then I painted the upper shelves in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth and the rest in their Dried Sage.  Once dry, I sanded the edges ever so lightly to distress them back to the darker color of the Coffee Bean.

I then pulled out the Vintage Post transfer from Dixie Belle.

Sadly, this is another transfer that has since been retired, but you can still find it online on Etsy or eBay.  There are a lot of bits and pieces to this one that can be trimmed out to fit a miniature piece of furniture.

Isn’t that just perfect?!

I also replaced the drawer knobs on this one with some fabulous miniature cup pulls from MforMiniatures.  FYI, I tried to order more of these a few weeks ago and they were out of stock in this color, but they did have them in black, silver and a shiny gold still.  I used some Dixie Belle Bronze metallic paint on the remaining door knobs, much like I ended up doing on my first Welsh cupboard.

To finish off the cupboard I applied some of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.

Today’s q tip, if you have anything to glue in place, like the cup pulls in this case, be sure to do that before applying wax or Butta to make sure they’ll adhere well.  Glue doesn’t always stick to a waxed surface.  I used a super glue to attach mine.

So that’s cupboard no. 2.  What do you think?

I used most of the same techniques to prep cupboard no. 3, except I skipped the base coat of Coffee Bean.  I still painted the upper shelves in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, but then I decided to experiment with using Fusion paint on the rest of the piece.  I had been to a shop that sold Fusion recently, and they had lots of the little tester size jars for $4.95.  I really wanted to try out the color called Oakham, so I purchased one and used it on the exterior of cupboard no. 3.  Spoiler alert; Oakham is nearly the same color as Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road, so I needn’t have bothered.

Full disclosure, I was once a content creator for Fusion, so I’ve used lots of their paint on full sized furniture in the past (like this one, or this one).  That was back before they had this particular color though.

I have only good things to say about Fusion Mineral Paint in general and all of their products are very high quality.  Their wax is one of the nicest waxes on the market, in my opinion.  But their paint is an acrylic paint, not a chalk style paint, and ultimately I just prefer working with a chalk paint and I was reminded why when working with the Oakham.  I find that I get more visible brush strokes with an acrylic paint (even in miniature), and it doesn’t distress as easily as chalk paint.  You also need to distress it fairly quickly after it dries because after it starts to cure it becomes difficult to do.

This is all a matter of preference really.  Many furniture painters I know much prefer using an acrylic paint like Fusion or the Dixie Belle Silk line (also an acrylic paint), especially if they don’t distress their pieces.  One bonus is that acrylic paint has a built in top coat thus saving you that last step of adding clear coat or wax.  But for me, I always keep going back to the chalk style paint.

Anyway, enough about that, back to cupboard no. 3.

After my Fusion paint was dry and distressed, I added another section from the Dixie Belle Vintage Post transfer.

This piece would be adorable turned into a coffee bar for one’s dollhouse.

Next up, cupboard no. 4.  The upper shelves are painted in Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door, and the rest of the cupboard is in Drop Cloth.

With this one I tried something a little different and I simply removed the drawers turning them into little shelves at the bottom instead.

Once all of my paint was dry and distressed, I added some bees from a re.design with prima knob transfer to the doors.  Then I added one of the small roses from the I.O.D. Rose Botanical transfer inside the upper shelving area.  I finished that off with a little bit of wording from that Dixie Belle Vintage Post transfer.

I cut a few scraps of some floral bark cloth, folded them and added a little glue to help them lie flat so that I could add them to those lower shelves.

Sweet, right?

I mentioned that I purchased 4 more of the Welsh cupboards, but I’ve only shown you three, plus the original one I painted earlier.  That’s because I’ve decided to sell the earlier one, and will be painting up the last new one to keep for myself (you’ll have to stay tuned for that one).

To recap, I have four Welsh cupboards for sale, and the even bigger news, I’m willing to ship them!

This will be a bit of an experiment for me and I’m not at all sure how well it will work out.  Will anyone even want to buy these?  Will shipping them be a pain?  Is it worth the time and effort?  That’s what I’m hoping to find out.

For now I can only accept Venmo or PayPal as a form of payment for shipped items, and I can only ship to the lower 48 states.  The cupboards are $50 each if shipped, or $40 if shipping is not required.  Each cupboard comes with the items shown in the photos below.

Cupboard no. 1 (includes clay pot, seed packets & trowel):

Cupboard no. 2 (includes trio of mini books):

Cupboard no. 3 (includes trio of mini books):

Cupboard no. 4 (includes clay pot, seed packets and folded fabric):

I will be listing these on my ‘available for local sale‘ page (but they can be shipped this time!), and I’ll mark them sold once they are spoken for (first come, first served).  If interested in purchasing one, please email me at qisforquandie@gmail.com to make further arrangements.

P.S.  I also ordered several of the dining room sets that I used in my dollhouse dining room.

I’ll be painting these up and offering them for sale as well, so stay tuned for that!

So, let me know what you think of my Welsh cupboards.  Which one is your favorite?

 

As it turns out, working on my dollhouse renovation has been the perfect winter project.  I love nothing more than staying in my cozy warm house, wearing my fluffy slippers and painting tiny things.  Especially in January when sometimes the temperature didn’t get above zero.

So although I didn’t actually have a spot in mind for this next piece of mini furniture when I purchased it, I knew it would be a fun painting project that I could work on to avoid going outside.

This is another Hobby Lobby piece.

I kinda wish they had a bigger selection of dollhouse furniture, because the pieces they do have are pretty good.  And they are quite inexpensive.  I don’t exactly remember what I paid for it in-store, but I just looked it up on their website and it was $4.49 there.  That seems ridiculously cheap and makes me wonder how they can possibly produce it for that price.

But anyway … I digress.

I started out by painting the inside of the shelf area with Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.  Once dry, I chose DB’s Holy Guacamole for the rest.

I know this avocado (or pea soup green, if you prefer) color isn’t for everyone, but I really like it.  I’ve mostly used it on the insides of toolboxes, but I think it worked beautifully on this piece too.

But before we go further, I have to note that after completing the sideboard that I painted up for the dining room, and replacing the drawer pulls on that piece with some fun cup pulls, I decided to do the same with this piece.

So, if you’ll notice above, it originally had round knobs on the drawers and now (below) it doesn’t.

I just pulled off the round wooden knobs, and then glued the cup pulls over the holes they left behind.

And then, as I was sharing this updated look, I realized that I should also just dab a little of Dixie Belle’s Bronze Patina Paint on those two round knobs on the door to make them match.  Don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner.

There, that’s better, right?

I’m not going to retake all of my photos though, so you may notice that I don’t have bronze knobs in any of the other photos.

The wording inside the upper part of the cupboard is from the I.O.D. Seed Catalogue transfer set.

If you aren’t familiar, this particular set comes with 8 pages of transfers with seed packet designs in varying sizes.

I grabbed just the wording from this one …

It worked out perfectly inside this cupboard.

After applying the transfer, I used 220 grit paper and lightly sanded some of the corners and high spots.  I’ve found that you really have to be careful to not go overboard when distressing these miniature pieces.

After sanding, I gave the piece a coat of Dixie Belle’s clear wax.  Then I took a step back and looked at it with a critical eye.  It needed something more to make it look a little less ‘new’.

So I pulled out the Dixie Dirt in Earth.

This is a powder pigment that you can use to add subtle shading to your painted pieces.

A little goes a long way, especially with miniatures.

I used a little brush to apply the ‘dirt’ to the crevices of my cupboard.  It’s a little difficult to see in the photos, but trust me when I say that it really does add dimension.

I hadn’t originally planned to stage this as a potting bench, but with the addition of the seed packet wording it sort of called out for it.  So I stole the rusty watering can from my fairy garden, and then I ordered a few miniature clay pots online (from MforMiniatures on Etsy).

I also tried my hand at working with some ‘printables’ again.  This time I purchased a downloadable file from LittleMaggieShop on Etsy.  I paid $2.99 to download a .pdf of tiny seed packets.  Then I printed them, cut them out, folded and glued them up and ta da …

The world’s tiniest seed packets!

I’m not precisely sure where this cupboard might end up, but I have an idea brewing.  You’ll just have to stay tuned until Monday to find out what it is.  But here’s a hint, it includes an option for shipping!

But in the meantime, what do you think of this Welsh cupboard makeover?  Leave a comment and let me know.

It’s probably obvious that I’ve been spending a lot of time refurbishing my dollhouse this winter.

So far I’ve finished the dining room …

the main bedroom …

the 2nd floor hallway …

and the bathroom.

I’m also mostly done with the kitchen, just waiting on a last minute item to arrive before I share it.  The 2nd bedroom and the attic spaces are well on their way to being done as well.

And that leaves my friends and family asking ‘what are you going to do when the dollhouse is finished?’

That is definitely a valid question, and I have a couple of answers.

First, I don’t think the dollhouse will ever be ‘finished’.  For one thing, most of my rooms are really only minimally furnished compared to most dollhouses I’ve seen.  I still need some extras like bedside tables in the main bedroom, art for the walls, another piece of furniture for the dining room and so on.  For another thing, much like my actual house, I’ll probably never really be done.  I’ll always be tweaking things, adding new things here and there, changing things up and so on.  I plan to landscape the outside at some point too.

But the 2nd answer to that question is that maybe I’ll do another one next winter.

After all, I see dollhouses at garage sales fairly often.

You might remember this one …

I purchased that one at the Nokomis neighborhood garage sales back in 2016.  I cleaned it up a bit, and then sold it on … I believe to my friend Amy.  I wonder if she still has it.

In May 2022 I found this little number …

It’s definitely a very primitive sort of dollhouse, simply made out of a box.

I’ve kept this one and am using it in my potting shed so hold clay pots and such.

In 2023 I paid just $5 for this dollhouse, also at the Nokomis neighborhood garage sales.  Seems like Nokomis is a great neighborhood for finding dollhouses!

I spruced this one up a bit more by replacing broken shingles, having Ken create a replacement shutter for the lower window, and then giving it a paint job.

In early 2024 I found this dollhouse … doll barn? … while out thrifting.

I gave this one a makeover with some paint.

Then I added some fun details like some barn lights, a couple of stencils …

and that fun weathervane.

Those are just the dollhouses that I did bring home, there were others at garage sales that I’ve passed by.

I guess all of those previous projects helped me gear up to tackle my own dollhouse renovation.

And now that I know I can do fiddly things, if I see another dollhouse at a bargain price this coming summer I’ll snatch it up to become next year’s winter project.

How about you?  How do you keep busy over the winter?  Or maybe where you live you don’t need to have something to occupy your time while waiting for spring to arrive.  Leave a comment and let me know!

We’ve become an Amazon Prime society, conditioned to expect that anything we order online should be here within a couple of days, right?

I’m finding that shipping times are all over the place when it comes to dollhouse items.  I will say that miniaturecrush.com delivers my orders with Amazon-like speed.  They do have a small advantage in that they are located in Savage, MN which is just a little over half an hour away.  But they also get their orders into the mail a.s.a.p.

Then there are smaller, more custom orders like the mirror I ordered for the bathroom.

I ordered it from Emily Grace Minis (via Etsy).  It took 12 days to arrive, which I know is perfectly acceptable, but it felt like 12 weeks!  It was totally worth the wait though.  It’s perfect in my dollhouse bathroom.

As I waited, I was working away on a few other furnishings for the dollhouse bathroom starting with this little cupboard that was shipped to me promptly from Miniature Crush.

After removing those little gold knobs from the drawer and taping off the plexiglass, I scuff sanded the piece to prep it for paint.

I had to chuckle when I noticed that there were measurement notes written inside the drawer area.

Just like I often find on full-sized furniture!

Next I painted the inside of the cupboard in Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door and the outside in Drop Cloth, and added a topcoat of their Big Mama’s Butta.

Then I lined the drawer with another of the Tim Holtz Worn Wallpaper Scraps.

I also decided to swap out those original round gold knobs on the drawer for some of the same cup pulls that I used on the sideboard in the dining room (they are also from Miniature Crush).

But this time I added a little of Dixie Belle’s Gilding Wax in Gold to them.  As you’ll soon realize, I decided to go with gold finishes throughout the bathroom.

I also ordered a new toilet online, along with a handful of smaller items for the bathroom from Factory Direct Craft.  That order took even longer to arrive than the mirror, but I did finally get them.

A few of the mini’s that I ordered from Factory Direct Craft went into this cupboard including some t.p., a little jar of q tips (because I had to have q tips, right?), and a box of first aid supplies.

Which brings me to the toilet.

Comically enough, this is the most expensive item I’ve purchased for my dollhouse to date at $67.50.  Ridiculous, I know.  But I searched high and low online for a realistic looking toilet in a style that I liked and this was the best option I found.

But even at that price, I didn’t love it when it arrived looking like this …

(photo from Factory Direct Craft website)

I felt it was a bit blah.  The silver piping and handle looked like painted plastic, and the rest was just too white.  Also, FYI, the Factory Direct Craft website claims this item is made of porcelain and it definitely is not.  It’s plastic (possibly 3D printed??).  But I figured I could work with it.

I painted the toilet seat black using Dixie Belle’s Midnight Sky, then I painted the pipe and the handle in their Bronze Patina Paint.  I added just a little of the green activation spray from the Patina Paint line to the pipe to give it some realistic looking corrosion.

I purchased some gloss spray clear coat to add a little shine and make the toilet look more like porcelain, but I’m going to have to wait for a little warmer weather to add that (I don’t like to use spray paint inside the house in winter).

Next up, the sink.

You may remember this dresser that I painted up back in June 2022.

Well, I decided it would be the perfect base for a bathroom sink.  It was much easier to accomplish this in miniature since it doesn’t actually have to have plumbing 😉

I found a flat bottomed sink at Miniature Crush and then just added it to the top of the dresser.

Then I used a little more of that Gold wax to make the faucet gold rather than the silver that it came in.

Now, you may have noticed that my bathroom doesn’t have a tub or shower.  The thing is, I really wanted to use that little cupboard in the room, and there wasn’t space for both that and a tub.  Plus, more importantly, I couldn’t find a tub that I liked that wasn’t even more expensive than that toilet!

So I decided that since this is my dollhouse, I can do whatever I want.

And in this case, that means no tub or shower.  However, my friend opK gave me this little metal tub a while back, so I painted the outside of it in Drop Cloth and added a re.design with prima knob transfer to it.  I also painted the inside in Dixie Belle’s Copper Patina Paint, but you can’t really see that while it’s hanging up.

I hung it from a teeny tiny hook that I also added Gold gilding wax to.  I added a gold hook to the bathroom door as well.

The hooks are from Miniature Crush, and I glued them in place with super glue.  I wasn’t sure how well they would hold, but so far so good.

Unfortunately, the wall sconces on either side of the mirror don’t actually light up.

The would be much cooler if they did.  But no, they are just made out of plastic and I have them attached to the wall with some tacky wax.  So maybe at some point I’ll swap them out for something else, but for now they are good enough.

And with that, I’m calling the bathroom finished.

Here’s a look back at the ‘before’.

And here is the ‘after’ …

What do you think?  Leave a comment and let me know.

As I like to remind myself all the time, never say never.

I’m pretty sure that I’ve sworn that I will never, ever wallpaper again.  Yet here I am.  Wallpapering.

To be fair though, this time I’m wallpapering in miniature.  First it was the hallway, and now it’s the bathroom.

I found this fabulous mini toile wallpaper at Miniature Crush.  I actually ordered enough of it to wallpaper the main bedroom of the dollhouse, but as you’ve seen, I didn’t actually use it in that room.

On the bright side, ordering too much wallpaper in miniature doesn’t break the bank like it would if it was full sized.  This stuff is only $3.75 per sheet.

To prep for the wallpaper, I first painted the walls, trim and wainscoting in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth to create a blank canvas.

For my first wallpapering attempt, I think I did pretty good.  I’ll admit, I didn’t bother to line up the pattern at the corners.  That was pure laziness on my part, and truth be told I regret it.  It wouldn’t have taken much more effort to line that up, and I certainly had plenty of paper.

I also left a tiny gap in one corner.  Drat!

But, keep in mind, these are close up photos of a very small space.  In real life these flaws aren’t nearly as noticeable.  And once I get the bathroom ‘furnished’ I don’t think they’ll matter at all.

Next up I needed to do something about the floor.  Unfortunately it had been damaged and needed to be replaced.

I did find a very inexpensive flooring option at Hobby Lobby.

That bright white really made the Drop Cloth on the wainscoting look way too creamy though.  And you know me, I’m not a fan of bright whites, I prefer a more subtle white.  So I ordered another option to see if I liked it better.

This flooring is from itsybitsymini.com.  It’s a peel and stick style ‘wallpaper’ with a matte finish.  Therefore it is completely flat (not embossed like the Hobby Lobby flooring), which I think is a bit less realistic looking.  None the less, I prefer the look of this one over the Hobby Lobby floor.

Even with this new flooring,  the Drop Cloth on the wainscoting was still a bit too warm.  So I got out Dixie Belle’s Saltwater Silk paint and painted a test swatch on the wainscoting, but it was way too bright of a white for me.  Then I got out the Fluff from the chalk paint line, still too bright.  Finally, I pulled out the Endless Shore from the Silk paint line, and I decided that was just right.  It’s really just a tiny bit brighter than Drop Cloth, but that was just what I needed.

By the way, I’ve written a blog post comparing the Dixie Belle chalk style whites …

and also another comparing the Silk line whites  …

so check those out if you are wondering how all of these shades of white measure up.

Once I had the paint color and the flooring figured out, I decided that I needed a little something in the area between the wallpaper and the ceiling.  The original bathroom had a wallpaper border there, but I decided to do something a little bit more unique this time around.

I dug through my transfer stash and pulled out the Cosette transfer from I.O.D.

You may remember that I’ve only used the inner circle of text from this transfer (I used it on that Christmas toolbox).

So I still had those lines of text from both the top and bottom of the transfer.  And the 2nd line from the top was just about a perfect fit for the border area of my dollhouse bathroom.

And I absolutely love it there.  It works beautifully with my toile wallpaper and my French Country vibe.

And that brings me to the radiator.  A while back I mentioned that I want to paint the radiator in the q branch (a.k.a. my home office) gold.  Naturally, that will have to wait for summer because I can’t paint it while it’s hot.  But how about a gold radiator for the dollhouse?  That I can do now.

The radiator is plastic, and honestly a little cheap looking up close.  The white plastic had really yellowed over time.

So I gave it a good scrub with hot water and Dawn dish soap.  Once dry I taped off the silver and black piping, and then gave it a quick spray with Rust-Oleum gold spray paint.

Oh my goodness, isn’t that a 100% improvement?

I love it!  It definitely no longer looks plastic.

So, now that I have all of the ‘bones’ in place, next up is furnishing the bathroom and I’ll be sharing that on Friday, so be sure to stay tuned!

In the meantime, what do you think so far?  Leave a comment and let me know.

A while back I shared some dollhouse furniture photos where I used a Gulliver’s Travels book as the background.

I’ve always loved the look of that book’s pages with the title in that large font at the top.  And obviously it’s the perfect choice for the background in pictures of miniatures.

The cover of the book itself is quite beat up and not good for much in the way of either display or to use for staging photos.

Markings inside indicate that this book once belonged to Concordia College …

and also to Harding High School.

It’s actually quite difficult to find pages in the book that don’t have sections underlined or notes in the margins.

In other words, this book was definitely very well used.  I’m pretty sure it has little monetary value, so I don’t feel bad about dismantling it.

One of my readers (hello Monica!) made the suggestion that I use some of those book pages as wallpaper in the dollhouse, but I have to say that I was already thinking along those lines myself.  I just wasn’t sure exactly which room to use them in.

But ultimately I chose the 2nd floor hallway.

I will admit that my application of the somewhat fragile book pages to the walls leaves a little bit to be desired in neatness, but I think it makes up for it in charm.

I cut the pages to fit as well as I could and then applied them using Mod Podge as ‘wallpaper paste’.  I did not add more Mod Podge over the top of the paper like you would if you were decoupaging.  I just used it on the back.

I’ve added a small rug from The Modern Dollhouse to the hallway …

As well as a chair that I painted up.

This is painted in a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Coffee Bean, followed by a dry brushed coat of their Burlap.  I also painted the seat cushion with a wash of Burlap (about 50/50 paint and water).  Then I added a re.design with prima knob transfer of a horse to the seat back.

And that brings me to my tiny books.

I happened across a downloadable file for creating some aged looking books (on Etsy, here), so I decided to try making some.

Once the file was purchased and printed out, I cut out all of the various bits.

To turn these into books I simply cut some heavy cardstock to size, then glued together stacks of the cardstock that would be thick enough to fill the book covers.

Then, I just glued the covers over the stack of cardstock.

That works great for books that you plan to just stack up, or put in a bookcase with the spines showing.

But I also wanted to create some books that would lie open somewhere.

For those, rather than gluing all of the layers of cardstock together, I glued some of the printed inner pages to the inside so the book could be left open.

Initially I thought I would called these finished at this point, but then I decided to add some of Dixie Belle’s Gold Gilding Wax to the edges of the ‘pages’.

To be honest, that’s probably a detail too small to be noticed by most.  But it only took a minute to do, and I already had the Gold wax out for something else that day, so why not?

I have a wall of bookcases to fill in the tower room of my dollhouse, so I think there will be quite a bit more bookmaking in my future.

In the meantime, what do you think of my book page wallpaper and my lilliputian books?  Leave a comment and let me know.

Now that the shiplap is in place, it’s time to furnish the main bedroom.

I’ve mentioned before that my in-laws had misplaced most of the dollhouse’s original contents.  But there was one piece of furniture still in the house, the bed from this room.

And that’s kind of cool because I still like this simple four poster canopy bed (most of the other original furniture is no longer my style).

The bedding however had gone missing.

But that’s OK because I purchased that sewing machine a few months back just so that I could create bedding and such for the dollhouse.

Well, as it turns out, I needn’t have bothered with a sewing machine.  Pretty much all of the tutorials for creating dollhouse bedding that I’ve found just use glue rather than a needle and thread.  Who knew?

I’ve also learned that the common kitchen sponge works well for creating a miniature mattress from watching YouTube videos.

So when I was in the grocery store the other day I picked up a pack of 4 for $1.99.  I didn’t notice that they had curved edges until I got them home.  But that’s OK, they were easy to cut and fit to a piece of cardboard that I was using as the base for my mattress.

After gluing the sponges to the cardboard with Tite Bond Quick and Thick, I then simply cut a piece of fabric with an inch or so extra around all four sides.  I wrapped that extra fabric around and glued it on the bottom using hot glue.

Speaking of fabric, I had a couple of remnants that I wanted to use on this bed.  I’d found a very small piece of brown and cream ticking at Hobby Lobby for .97, and I found some interesting horse hunt toile fabric while thrifting a while back for $2.

So I cut a piece of each of those fabrics to size, glued three edges together with the right side of the fabric facing in, and once the glue was dry I turned it right-side out.  Then I gave it a quick press with the iron to flatten it out a bit, and also folded in the remaining seam and gave it a quick shot with the iron.  Then I just glued that shut.

At this point I will say that I think I achieved a neater looking finish when I actually sewed the seams for the bedding on my previous project v. the glued seams on this one, mainly in the corners.  But technically it did work to glue them.

I placed the coverlet on the bed, folding the top edge over by about an inch so that the ticking striped underside was visible.

I then used hot glue to attach the bedding to each side of the bed itself.

I made a couple of pillows for the bed, also just using glue.  One is just simply made out of the ticking fabric, but for the 2nd one I used a scrap of drop cloth that I stamped using one of the I.O.D. Ephemeral Type stamps.

That one was a bit of an experiment.  I was just playing around trying to figure out how I could incorporate some of those stamps into dollhouse items.  I stamped the drop cloth, rolled it around a piece of foam, glued the edges without turning them in, and then trimmed the glued edges with pinking shears.  Easy peasy.

And that’s the bed done.

Next up, I ordered this armoire from Miniature Crush.

It opens up to reveal shelves.

After giving it a light sanding to smooth out any rough spots, I started by painting the interior in Dixie Belle’s Cottage Door.

Then I lined the back with more of Tim Holtz’ Worn Wallpaper Scraps.

I cut some small bits of fabric from an old piece of bark cloth and an old floral apron that I had in my stash.  Then I just folded them and dabbed some hot glue in each layer to make them lie somewhat flat.

Now, I’m aware that the pink interior doesn’t really work with the overall neutral color scheme in this room, but for the most part this armoire will just sit in place with the doors closed.  So I enjoyed adding a little pop of color inside.  Maybe it’s my secret little homage to the original pink color of the room.

Next up I painted the exterior of the armoire in Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.  It was originally meant to be an undercoat, because I then put two coats of Drop Cloth over it.

But in the end, I didn’t love the Drop Cloth, so I went back over that with the Dried Sage.

After sanding to distress, I added two bees from one of re.design with prima’s knob transfers to the doors.

After sealing the piece with some of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta, I used a small brush to apply some of the Dixie Belle Earth to the corners of each panel.

This is a powder pigment that you can use to add subtle shading to your painted pieces.

A little goes a long way, especially with miniatures.

But that bit of shading adds a lot of dimension to miniature pieces.

One last quick painting project for this room (for now) was the radiator.

My dad put a few plastic radiators into the dollhouse here and there, although not in every room.  This one was originally in the hallway, but I have another plan for that spot so I moved it into the main bedroom.

But first I painted it with Dixie Belle’s Bronze Patina Paint.  To give it a super realistic look, I dabbed just a tiny bit of the green activating spray onto the bleed valves.

And with that I’m calling the main bedroom ‘furnished for now’.

I salvaged a discarded vintage alarm clock face from my friend opK to hang over the fireplace.

By the way, normally that fireplace insert lights up and looks like it has glowing embers.  Unfortunately, I am now unable to get any of the electrical to work in the dollhouse.  Mr. Q suspects there is a short somewhere, but to fix that would require ripping out floors and/or ceilings to get to the wires, and that’s not going to happen.

So all of the lights are out for now, I’ll save that problem for another day.

The armoire is in place.

I moved the trunk, or blanket chest, from its temporary position in the dining room to the foot of the bed.

I also moved the dress form that I painted up a few months back into this room.

You’ll notice that I don’t have any bedside tables yet.  I have a plan to try and make a stack of miniature suitcases to use on at least one side of the bed, but that project will be a bit down the road.

I also have some battery operated bedside reading lights on order.

I definitely need some artwork for the walls too, but that’s the sort of thing that I can work on over time.

But for now, what do you think of the mostly completed room no. 2 of my dollhouse reno?  Leave a comment and let me know.

I have to be honest, I thought there was a pretty good possibility that I’d get started on my dollhouse renovation and realize that working in miniature was just too fiddly for me.

And then the dollhouse would become one of those projects that gets shoved aside and never finished.

I think that’s partly why I gave it away in the first place.

But I’m beginning to realize that I can do fiddly things, so I decided to tackle adding some shiplap to the dollhouse.

I started by ordering some wood strips from Miniature Crush.  After they arrived, I gave them all a light sanding with 220 grit paper followed by two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

When creating a faux shiplap wall you intentionally leave a tiny bit of space between each board, you don’t butt them up tightly together.  So you need to be sure that the edges of the boards are painted because it looks obvious if they aren’t.  Therefore, it’s easier to paint the boards before you install them.

Another important step before installing faux shiplap is to paint the wall first.  Because again, it might show through those tiny gaps in the planks of wood.  Especially if your wall has a color on it, or in this case, some floral wallpaper.

That brings me back to the ‘before’ photo of the dollhouse’s main bedroom, which is where I’m putting the shiplap.

Phew!  I really loved some horrible shades of mauve in the 90’s.

Yep, I definitely needed to cover that up first.  So I gave the walls, trim and ceiling two coats of Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth.

Since I was only going to shiplap one wall, I decided I needed a little bit of contrast between the color on the other walls, the shiplap and all of the trim, so I added just a bit of Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage to some Drop Cloth to darken it up a bit and then added that on just the walls that would remain bare.

Then it was time to install the shiplap so I got out my tiny step ladder and my tiny hammers and got to work.

LOL, OK, the actual tool I used was one of these.

This is called a multi angle miter shear cutter, and it worked beautifully for cutting my shiplap.  I didn’t have to cut any fancy angles, just straight cuts.  But down the road I may need it for some angles.  You can find one of these for less than $20 on Amazon, FYI.

I also didn’t really use a tiny hammer and nails, I just used some Titebond Quick and Thick glue to attach my boards to the wall.

I shiplapped (not a real verb, but it works here) the back wall as well as the fireplace surround.

OK, I have to admit that the corner near the bottom is a bit wonky.  But that’s far more noticeable in this photo than it is in person.  Plus, to do this ‘right’, I should have removed the base board, added the shiplap, and then replaced the baseboard over it.  But ain’t nobody got time for that.

Plus, I’m a beginner.  Everything doesn’t have to be perfect, right?

Also, I should note that you can buy 1:12 scale shiplap paneling in sheets, but I think it would be more difficult to cut a full sheet of ‘paneling’ to fit an existing wall.  Whereas these strips were quite easy to cut using my new tool.  In addition, I think shiplap looks more legit when you have staggered seams like I’ve created on the back wall (although in real life you’re supposed to caulk those seams).

What do you think of my fiddly shiplap job?

Not too bad?

I want to encourage any of you who are thinking about tackling your own dollhouse renovation to consider starting with a shiplap wall or two.  It was fairly easy and a real confidence boost when you realize that you can do fiddly things after all!

Be sure to check back on Wednesday for the full reveal of the main bedroom.

In my ongoing search for all things dollhouse related, I’ve come across some really amazing artisans that I think are just too good not to share with you guys here.  I know some of you are as mesmerized by miniatures as I am, so you may want to check these out.

First up is Chris Toledo Miniatures.

Does that just leave you speechless or what?  Not only is his detail absolutely amazing, but I love his vintage style.

Here’s one of his bathrooms.

Click this link to see his full gallery, it’s amazing.

Next up, Craig Labenz.

The detail in his work is amazing.

You can check out more of it here.

He also offers classes that come with a kit for making specific items.  I don’t think I’m anywhere near ready to attempt something like that, but I’ll keep it in the back of my mind.

This next one is a YouTube channel called Min Makes.

Unfortunately there are only three videos (of 3 different rooms) available so far.

The videos show everything in that room being handmade.  Every single one of those butterflies was cut out by hand.  That’s definitely way more patience than I have, I struggled with cutting out three Shiny Brite boxes.

Speaking of YouTube videos, another channel I have been watching is hitsuji no ie. from Japan.

There is no voice over on this channel, background music plays as he/she is building.  But you’d be surprised just how much you can learn from just watching someone.  I’ve put several techniques from these videos to use already.

Lavender Belle Miniatures is another one that I stumbled upon.

She got her start renovating old dollhouses.  Hey, if she can start there maybe I can too?

Check out her Instagram page to see more examples of her work.

Unfortunately it looks like she took a break from miniatures in 2022 and hasn’t returned.

Finally, there is Mulvany & Rogers.

They’ve been creating miniatures for 30 years.

Honestly, their work goes beyond anything I could ever aspire to.

It’s not always dramatic and/or gilded, but even their more ‘plain’ rooms are stunning.

The details are so precise that you wouldn’t even guess this was miniature if I didn’t tell you.

Except when they give you clues …

Like a real sized garlic bulb in the kitchen.

Funny, Chris Toledo used that same prop in one of his kitchen room photos.

I wonder who started that trend?  I may have to copy it myself as well.

Although that would imply that I think my rooms are indistinguishable from the full sized versions in photos, and that’s definitely not the case.  So maybe I won’t copy that idea after all.

Either way, I certainly feel massively inspired after checking out these amazing artists and I hope you enjoy them as well!