Category: mini’s

So far you’ve seen my dollhouse dining room table and chairs, and the rug I purchased for the room.

And you’ve also seen the sideboard that I painted up more recently.

As well as the extra two chairs for either side of the sideboard.

And that brings me to the room itself.

Here is how it looked before I gave the house to my in-laws.

My tastes have definitely changed.  I would count burgundy as one of my least favorite colors these days, but I sure used a lot of it in this room.  And that reddish stained furniture, ugh.

Here’s how the room looked when I got the dollhouse back from my in-laws, complete with some spooky cobwebs on the chandelier (and for those of you who don’t know this story, check out my post that explains it here).

As I mentioned, they had misplaced the box with all of the house’s contents.  There are a few items I wish I had, but for the most part I’m OK with starting over with furnishings.

I had originally planned to provide a little drama in the dining room with dark grey walls, and in fact I’d even painted the first coat on one wall back in September.

That would have been a striking look.  It would have set off the white paneling and trim work beautifully.

But then I ordered the I.O.D. Gloria paint inlay.  And now you’re probably wondering what in the world a Christmas themed paint inlay would have to do with a dollhouse and that’s a fair question.

Although some of the designs in the Gloria inlay are overtly Christmas-y, many of them are not.  And they are absolutely gorgeous.

As soon as I saw that flute playing cherub I thought it would make the perfect mural for the wall in the dollhouse dining room.

Unfortunately it was too big.

But then I saw this page …

And that Seal Engravers transfer on the bottom right was the perfect size for my wall.

I was a little nervous about the application process, but it worked out beautifully.  I just used my normal technique to apply it (for more detail on how to apply a paint inlay check out this how-to post).

Talk about drama!

Next up I painted all of the ‘woodwork’ and the ceiling in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth to give me a blank canvas.  Ultimately I then decided to paint just part of the ceiling in a pale blue green (much like my own ceilings).

Let me tell you, that was a tricky process.  First of all, I have the vision of a 61 year old.  Secondly, it has been incredibly dreary here over the past several weeks, so lighting wasn’t ideal.  Lastly, I was painting the ceiling in place, so craning my head around to try and get in there to both see it and paint it was challenging.

I ended up having to use a hand mirror to see what I was doing.

That other item in the photo is a light, which I turned off to take the photo.  But it did help to blast a spot light onto the ceiling while I was painting.  As for painting while looking in a mirror … well … I’m going to have to get a lot more practice before that works well.  I was constantly moving my brush in the wrong direction.

But ultimately I got the ceiling painted.

That color is a mix of about 25% Dixie Belle’s Tide Pool and 75% Endless Shore.

I am finding that colors look a lot darker in these small dollhouse rooms than they do on larger objects.  So even with 75% warm white added to it, this Tide Pool looks darker than I expected it to.  Full disclosure, I did paint it first with a 50/50 mix, and then went back over it with the 25/75 and decided to call it good.

My ceiling paint job is definitely less detailed than the original, but my dad had the advantage of painting it as he was putting it together.  He didn’t have to use a mirror 😉

For one last touch, I applied Dixie Belle’s Gold gilding wax to the plaster medallion around the chandelier.

That brings me to the electrical.  I have to admit, I have no idea how I’m going to tackle that.  I know nothing about wiring, and thus I have no idea how to replace any of the hard-wired light fixtures throughout the house like this chandelier.  Not to mention that of course the wiring was done as the house was being built, so I can’t really get to most of it.

None of the lights on the first floor are currently working, including this dining room chandelier, but most of the lights on the upper two floors are still working.  So do I replace the dining room chandelier with a more attractive, but non-functioning version?  Do I attempt to fix the wiring somehow, and re-wire a new light?  That’s a problem for another day.

**Update:  since I originally took the photos for this post, handyman/neighbor Ken came over and he suggested I play around with the fuse box.

Yes, the dollhouse has a fuse box!

And as it turned out, one of those tiny 8 switches on the upper right side was flipped down.  So we flipped it back up and voila!

The lights on the first floor are on.  For the most part anyway, there are a couple of burnt out bulbs.

So, to recap, one wall in the dining room has the paint inlay, sideboard and two chairs.

On the opposite wall I’ve hung a trio of military panoramic photos that I purchased from The Curated Farmhouse on Etsy.

I’ve placed the trunk below them, but I’ll be on the lookout for something else for that spot that feels more ‘dining room’ to me.  This trunk is most likely going to end up in the principle bedroom.

The rug, dining table and chairs are in place.

So for now I’m calling the dining room ‘done’.

Down the road I’d like to find small details to add to the room, like a nice floral centerpiece for the table, and maybe some dishes, etc.  At some point I need to deal with both the front foyer and the stairwell that are visible behind this room.

But for the most part, one room down, eight to go.  Plus that stairwell and foyer, plus the exterior.

I don’t want to rush things though.  I’m having way too much fun with this project!  Also, I’m sure that over time I’ll be adding things, and taking things away.  Much like with any sort of decorating, things can continually be evolving and you’re never really ‘done’, right?

Be sure to leave a comment and let me know what you think of the new and improved dining room.

Billy Joel says you have to get it right the first time, that’s the main thing.  But I beg to differ.  Sometimes it takes several tries before I get it right.

Such was the case with this 1:12 scale trunk.

Now, what I should have done is take photos of each attempt so that I could share them with you, but I didn’t do that.  Drat!

But I can tell you that I initially painted this trunk in Dixie Belle’s Drop Cloth, which was a bit boring.  But it was intended to work as a bed side table in the guest room of the dollhouse, and both the bed and the armoire already have a lot of detail to them.

But when I put the trunk in the room, it was both too plain, and too ‘matchy’ since both the bed and the armoire are also painted in Drop Cloth.

So then I thought it might be fun to decoupage one of the Tim Holtz Worn Wallpaper Scraps around the outside of the trunk.  So I picked one out, and used Mod Podge to apply it.  And then I put the trunk back in the room, and realized that the floral wallpaper was too much.  It overpowered the more subtle transfers on the bed and armoire.

So I used warm water to help me scrape that paper back off the trunk, and then I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Sawmill Gravy.  I thought maybe that would be enough of a color difference to work next to the Drop Cloth pieces.

That would have worked OK, but it didn’t wow me.

So that’s when I decided that maybe the trunk just wasn’t going to work in that room, and I should just do whatever I wanted with it not knowing where it would end up.

So I painted it in Dixie Belle’s Dried Sage.  Then I used my super skinny tape to mask off some grain sack stripes that I painted in Drop Cloth.  Once everything was dry, I sanded to distress and then added one of the re.design with prima knob transfers.

I finished off the outside with some of Dixie Belle’s Big Mama’s Butta.

As for the inside, I left that painted in the Sawmill Gravy, and I used one of those Worn Wallpaper Scraps to line the bottom.

Sweet.  But probably no one will ever actually see the inside of the trunk.

While I had my paint out, I also painted up two more chairs for the dining room.  I decided that I wanted two extra chairs to sit on either side of the sideboard, as well as four chairs for around the table.

In case you don’t remember, here is what the original set of 4 dining room chairs look like.

Unfortunately, I used up the last of that particular re.design with prima knob transfer on that set.

But I decided that I could paint up two more chairs in the same colors and style (here are the full details on that project), and then add a different knob transfer and they would still work.

I have to confess, I got a bit sloppy with those grain sack stripes this time around.

But that’s OK, that transfer helps disguise them a bit.  And these chairs will be tucked under the table for the most part.

Speaking of which, on Friday I’m going to share the reveal of the full dining room makeover!  So be sure to check back!

I needed a sideboard for the dining room of my dollhouse, so I did a bit of searching online.  I wanted something that would fit in with my French country cottage style.

So many of the sideboard/buffet pieces out there have more of a Victorian vibe.

But eventually I decided on this one from Miniature Crush.

It came with drawer pulls in that classic Colonial style that I don’t really love.

If you’ve followed me for long, you know that I used to take these off full sized furniture too.  They just aren’t my favorite look.

To help make the sideboard look a bit more cottage-y, I ordered some cup pulls to use on the drawers instead.

OK, they are really teeny tiny and I struggled to get a good photo of them.  Just hang on for a minute and you’ll see them in place.

I first gave the piece a light sanding with some 220 grit sandpaper to smooth out some of the edges.  I’m finding that most of these unfinished dollhouse pieces have some rough spots.

Next I gave it two quick coats of Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road.

Once the paint was dry, I lightly sanded the edges to distress them.  Then I used some super glue to attach the new cup pulls.

I then mixed some of Dixie Belle’s brown wax with some of their Big Mama’s Butta to make the wax more spreadable and applied that as my top coat.  There are two ways I like to use the brown wax; I either add it after first applying a coat of clear wax, or I mix it with the Butta like I did here.  Otherwise brown wax over a chalk style paint can sometimes appear a bit heavy handed.

I do like the way the brown wax both deepens and warms up the color of the Gravel Road.

I cut some liners for the drawers with some Worn Wallpaper Scraps by Tim Holtz (purchased at Hobby Lobby).

For the most part I tried to keep this piece fairly simple.

You’ll understand why when you see it in place in the dollhouse dining room, and that post is coming up soon.

Now that I’ve worked with these pulls, I’m thinking about going back and changing out the hardware on some of my other pieces.  I may just have to order a few more of them.

Meanwhile, what do you think of the sideboard?  Leave a comment and let me know.

You may have noticed that I have a bit of a thing for vintage linens.

Especially when they feature incredible workmanship like this …

But aside from using beautiful pillow cases for their original function, I rarely come up with a good use for other vintage linens.

However, earlier this fall I came across some vintage hand towels at a garage sale and it occurred to me that they would be perfect for creating some custom bedding for my dollhouse project.

And at $1 each, they were a bargain.

I brought them home and gave them a good soak in OxyClean, and then I hung them on the line to dry in the sun.  That one on the top has some rust stains that didn’t come out, but otherwise they all cleaned up beautifully.

Before I got started on creating my miniature bedding, I had to deal with the bed itself.

I purchased this unfinished bed from The Modern Dollhouse.  It will go in the same room as the armoire that I shared back in October.

So I used the same technique to paint the bed; a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Secret Path, followed by two coats of Drop Cloth.  Then, after sanding to distress the edges and reveal some of the base color, I added more of the re.design with prima Vintage Labels II Middy transfers to the foot board.

I also added just a little section of the transfer to the headboard as well.

All that remained was to turn those pretty vintage linens into some form of miniature bedding.

At first I was going to just sew up some seams by hand, but then I decided maybe it’s time to learn a new skill.  I guess it’s not entirely a new skill, my mom did teach me to sew on a sewing machine when I was young.  She even helped me sew a wardrobe appropriate for an office job when I was in my early 20’s and didn’t have much money to spend on new clothes.

But I haven’t sewn on a machine in decades, and I also didn’t own one.  So I popped onto Amazon and picked out what looked like the most basic sewing machine they had.  I didn’t need anything fancy, I just want to sew a straight seam.

I had to watch a YouTube video to learn how to thread the machine.  Then I practically had to use a magnifying glass to thread the needle, but I eventually got it.  Now don’t ask me for a recommendation on this machine, I’ve only used it to sew a handful of straight lines so far.  I’ll definitely have to use it a bit more before giving an opinion.

After a bit of practice with some fabric scraps, I was ready to sew the duvet for my dollhouse bed.  Honestly, this was super basic.  I just cut out the section of the linen towel that I wanted on the bed, then cut another piece of the towel in the same size for the back.  I sewed three sides together with the right sides of the fabric facing each other, then turned it right side out.  I ran a quick iron over it to press the seams down a bit.

Then I stuffed it with a single layer of batting to make it look like a puffy duvet.

I cut the edge off a separate linen napkin to create the folded over edge of a sheet.

Rather than sew that, I just used hot glue to hold the raw ends in place after tucking them under my duvet.

I did sew up two sides of the little pillow case though, making it out of a folded over piece of scrap.  The pretty edging on the open end is the original edging from the linen towel.

I stuffed it with some batting cut up into small pieces.

I ran a bead of hot glue down both sides of the bed to keep the duvet folded down over the sides.

Not terrible for my first foray into miniature bedding, right?

I’d love to have a full sized version of that duvet on my own bed, wouldn’t that be gorgeous?

If I could do one thing over, I think I would go back and tea dye the linen.  The white is a little bright for my taste, especially next to the Dixie Belle Drop Cloth.  But that’s just one of those perfectionist-y details that matter to me and probably absolutely no one else.

With that, I think I have all the furniture I’m going to need for the ‘guest room’ of my dollhouse.  Next up I have an idea for a wall treatment in that room.  However, I’ve been holding off on bringing the dollhouse inside to work on it.  It’s going to take up a lot of space, and it’s not super portable.  For that reason I was thinking I’d wait until after the Christmas decorations are down before bringing it in the house.  But I’m itching to get started, so I may scrap that idea and just get going on it.  We’ll see.

In the meantime, how do you like my vintage linen duvet?  And do any of you have any sewing tips for me?  If so, I’m all ears!

An empty corner in the guest room of my dollhouse sent me scrolling through Etsy looking for something to put in that spot.  I started with chairs, and there were a few chairs out there with potential.  But ultimately the idea of adding a dress form to that corner popped into my head.

I started searching on Etsy and came across a miniature dress form that had been given a copper verdigris patina all over and thought “I can do that”.  In fact, I bet I can go one step further and create a miniature version of my full size dress form, Collette.

So I kept searching and ended up finding a pair of miniature dress forms for $10.

They are made of plastic, and require just a little bit of assembly with some superglue.

Once assembled I gave mine a quick coat of Dixie Belle’s Bonding Boss.  Since they are made out of a rather slick plastic, I wanted to hedge my bets on adhesion.

Once that dried I started on the base and the ‘cage’ at the bottom of the dress form.  Unfortunately my full-sized dress form doesn’t have a cage, I wish it did.  I think they are really cool.  The mini dress form has one, so I decided to give it a patina so that it would look like metal.

I started with a coat of the Dixie Belle Iron patina paint.  Then I added some dabs of the Bronze.  While the paint was still wet, I dabbed on some of the Green Spray.  I just kept playing around with those three products until I got the look that I wanted.

You can find a full tutorial on using the Patina Paint here.

Next I pulled out Dixie Belle paint in a color called Putty.  I’ve had this particular jar in my cupboard for a while, and it had been opened and used before (most recently on this dresser).  This chalk style paint will thicken up a little over time, but it’s easy to just add a little water to thin it back out again.  In this case I really didn’t want any big ol’ brush strokes, so I watered my paint down a little and applied it to the body of the dress form.

Once I had the Putty on I felt like it was a little bit one dimensional, so I went through my cupboard and found Dixie Belle’s Burlap.  Once again I watered it down a little, and then blended it with the Putty to create the perfect color.

Once that dried, I pulled out my re.design with prima knob transfers again (these are coming in so handy for miniature work!).  I found the perfect one to use on the dress form from the French Maison set.

Once the transfer was in place, I used clear wax over the body of the dress form.

I was going to call it good at that point, but I felt like it needed just a bit more dimension.  So I used a small brush to apply some of the Dixie Dirt in a brown color called Earth.

That’s an older photo, and clearly that brush was too big for this project.  I used a very small brush, and I applied the dirt to the crease down the center of the dress form body, and also around some of the edges.  It added the perfect touch of age.

I had so much fun creating these dress forms!

Since I’ve named both of my full-size dress forms, Collette and Lula, I decided I should go ahead and name the mini’s as well.  In honor of my recent trip to Disneyland, and one of my favorite attractions, the Enchanted Tiki Room, I’ve named them Suzette and Mimi (let’s all sing like the birdies sing, if you know, you know).

In case it wasn’t already apparent, I did paint both of the forms exactly the same.

Obviously I don’t need two identical dress forms for myself.  So I’m going to keep Suzette, but stash Mimi away and include her in my blogiversary giveaway next month.  Be sure to stay tuned for that!

But in the meantime, how do you like the dress forms?  And have you tried any of the Dixie Belle patina paints yet?  They continue to be one of my favorite mediums to play around with, on both miniature and full-sized items.  Leave a comment and let me know what you think.

Thank you to Dixie Belle Paint Co for providing their products used on the dress forms.

Although I got sidetracked with the dining room set …

my original plan for the dollhouse interior makeover was to start with the guest room.  I thought this small room would be a good way to get my feet wet.

In its previous incarnation, this room was the ‘kid’s room’.  It was frilly, pink and baby blue.  It was all a bit much, and definitely not my style anymore.

I ordered a fabulous unfinished armoire from The Modern Dollhouse to get started (FYI:  if you are looking for this exact piece, I purchased it from them via Etsy.  I couldn’t find it on their own website).

I purposely ordered this armoire because I wanted to put one of the re.design with prima Vintage Labels II Middy Transfers on it.

One quick note about this transfer set.  The prima website describes the color as “soft, warm grey”, and you can see in the photo above that the color looks kind of like a pale reddish-brown in their photo.

But as you can see on this pumpkin that I decorated last year …

they are definitely more of a lavender.

But that’s perfect for this armoire.

To get started I painted it inside and out with one of Dixie Belle’s Cottage Collection colors called Secret Path.

This is definitely one of those ‘never say never’ moments for me.  When I first saw this color on the Dixie Belle website I thought nope, that color is not for me.  The website photos kinda make this color look like a sickly mauve (at least to me anyway).

Sorry Dixie Belle, but your photo just isn’t doing this color any favors.  But I think everyone struggles with getting the color right in photos.

I ended up ordering Secret Path anyway (albeit in the smallest size jar) and I’m so glad that I did because it is a much prettier color in real life.  It’s also the perfect match for the Vintage Labels II.

So, after painting the entire armoire in Secret Path, I went back over the exterior with two coats of Drop Cloth.  It’s a bit difficult to see, but I then sanded the edges of the armoire to distress it back to that base color.

Maybe that level of detail is overkill for dollhouse furniture, but I can’t really help myself.

After clearing away the sanding dust, I applied the transfer to the front of the armoire.

It was perfect!  How sweet is that?

Next up, I’m working on a bed to match.

So be sure to stay tuned for that.

But in the meantime, how do you like the armoire?  And what do you think of Secret Path?  I’m not much of a purple girl, but I do love it paired with that transfer!

Tackling my dollhouse renovation is definitely going to require learning some new skills.

One of the first things I’ve learned is to pay attention when ordering from vendors on Etsy, because they might just be in Sweden!

Not that there’s anything wrong with that, it was just unexpected.

You see, the thing is, I had this clever idea that I would stage up a miniature room painting scene and then say that my dollhouse was ‘under construction’ while I was off on vacation.

I ordered a mini stepladder first.

That arrived very quickly.

But then I thought what I really needed to go with it was a can of paint, and maybe a paint tray and roller.  And I found just the thing on Etsy.

How adorable is that?

Now, I should have been clued in by the paint brand first.  If any of you have seen the Jeanne d’ Arc Living magazine, you may recognize the logo from their paint line.

So this is a Danish paint brand, and I did recognize it.  But it didn’t occur to me to question where it was coming from.

Next, I should have been clued in by the cost of the shipping, it was almost as much as the item itself.

But I still wasn’t paying attention.

It wasn’t until I started wondering why I hadn’t received it yet that I thought to check where it was coming from.

All of that being said, I did not get it in time for a blog post before I left town.  But even so, I ultimately received it pretty fast considering it came from Sweden.  I ordered it from Dear Josie Miniatures, in case you are wondering.  I would certainly order from her again, but next time I would make sure I wanted a few items and would order them all together to cut down on shipping costs per item.

Once I had everything on hand, I painted up the ladder.  I gave it a base coat of Dixie Belle’s Gravel Road, followed by two coats of Drop Cloth.  After sanding to distress the edges, I added a couple of tiny transfers next, some simple Tim Holtz numbers on the leg and another redesign with prima knob transfer on the top.

I also dressed up the paint can and roller by applying some Gravel Road to them.

The next skill I need to master is painting inside the lines on the dollhouse walls.

Seriously, have you ever seen such a sloppy paint job?  I’m definitely going to have to work on that.  I’m also going to have to figure out how in the world I’m going to get a brush inside that foyer (just beyond that arched opening) to paint the trim in there.  That’s going to be a tricky one.

And yet another skill I’ll be working on is getting good photos of the interior of the dollhouse.  I need to figure out the lighting, and the best f-stop and shutter speed.

I may not have gotten this post up before I left on vacation, but I guess it still applies.

The dollhouse is definitely going to be a work in progress for a while.  But it’s good to learn new things, and I’m quite excited about it.

So if any of you have some tips to share, be sure to leave a comment.  I’m all ears.