Fancy Pink Nursery for my French Dollhouse

 A beautiful French crib for the nursery in the dollhouse arrived.

One can make things, buy things and also rehab things for their dollhouse, and 

I do a combination of those things.  This crib is from the Bespaq miniature furniture 

company and they make very fine furniture and some is quite grand.

I wanted a royal and fancy feminine crib and so
 I hunted on eBay and Etsy until I found this sweet crib! 

I added the gingham bedskirt, which coordinates with the pink

gingham rug I made out of fabric on my ink jet printer. 
And baby got her own fireplace as well, which is really pretty,
but apparently I didn't take a good photo of it. Next time!

 Take a look at what I started with in this third floor space.

The aged walls were there, and next I painted the ceiling pink to go with

the pink bathroom, which is through the door in the next room.  I made 

the floral chest out of an unfinished wood bombe chest I already had.

Essentially its cutting out a paper print of a flower pattern that I found online.

First I painted the chest in a pink color close to the paper, then I used 

mod podge in matte finish to affix it to the wooden chest. 

The floors were covered in a paper print made to look like white painted wood planks.

The gingham rug layered on top of that, with the pretty crib sitting on the rug.

It all looked so cute together and I was quite pleased!  

 The walls were already made to look old. 

 I stamped a rose pattern in pink over the 

antiqued plaster walls to give it a faded hand painted look.

A cute little box with a vintage baby was a

 printable dollhouse accessory that I made. 

 Its the most darling room in my Petite Maison!

There will be more accessories to add to the nursery.

 I even have a fancy highchair, but that may go in the kitchen....

I hope you enjoyed seeing the latest addition to my French dollhouse.

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My dollhouse feature on The Enchanted Home and Weight loss update

Happy Friday everyone!

I am thrilled to be featured on a new series, The Style File,  at my friend Tina's incredible blog

The Enchanted Home!  She asks me some interesting questions about this dollhouse hobby

that I have been working on and you might be surprised to read what celebrity inspired me to begin

working in miniatures.  Lots of dollhouse pics that I have not posted on my blog here, so 

make sure you run over and check it out!

Also a quick update on my low carb weight loss journey. 

I am happy to report I am at 19 pound weight loss at this point, and I have 

integrated more carbs back into my diet.  Overall I just eliminate the white

stuff, potatoes, rice, pasta and bread, with the exception of the Fantini scali 

bread which I have mentioned before.  The white wine is also back, but on weekends

only or if out to dinner.  So if you think you can't eliminate certain things forever,

you don't have to....just do the hard work for several months and then you 

will be in the position to allow yourself some of the things you love.

This picture of me and Matthew Mead was taken two weeks ago when we

met at my lake cabin to check on it and to help Matthew pick up some of his 

photo shoot props.  Its still very wintery up at the lake in New Hampshire,

and it was actually kind of depressing going inside the cabin.  I will post

more about our intentions of rebuilding there and where we are in the process.

Anyway, this was the only pic I could find that shows my body so you can see I am 

looking more "trim" as my dad likes to say!  I have had many readers

share their own weight loss success stories, and it makes me so happy to 

have inspired them in anyway.  I know how much happier I feel every day going

into my closet to not fret over what will fit or what will not.  What will make me

look thinner, and what is not flattering.  So its a diet that has worked for me,

and I hear its working for many of you as well!!  Bravo!!

click here to go to The Enchanted Home 

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A FANCY French Dollhouse Kitchen

 It's already the first remodel, and I only began my dollhouse pursuit a few months ago.

The kitchen needed an upgrade, when I decided to move the cooker (thats what they

call the fancy European stoves) over between the countertops.

After I moved the cooker to the cabinet wall, I moved the bakers rack I made

over to the same wall, and hung it above one of the base cabinets.

 This was the layout before, a simple country kitchen for the servants. 

 Hahah. There is always a

running story behind every dollhouse, don't you know.

The before layout had the bakers rack over the cooker.

Which in real life would be FOOLISH because all the cooking grease and 

steam would go over all the copper pans and utensils. So I decided to 

make a European style fancy vent hood to go with the fancy cooker.

 It was built from balsa wood scraps and a piece of heavy paper for the curved part. 

Store bought miniature corbels were added to the bottom for that fancy old world flair. 

 I primed the wood with gesso and then I noticed after I sprayed it with the shiny green paint

I had used for the cooker, that there were splotchy shiny areas and the paper was mostly dull.

It occurred to me that anywhere the gesso had touched the paper, that was where the paint did its proper thing and had a glossy shine.  So I went back and primed the paper area of the hood with the gesso, and then sprayed again with the Krylon seafoam green paint.  

Then I applied "brass" strips to the hood using card stock that had been wrapped

in gold metallic paper and tacky glue.  They looked awesome!!

The thing was FANCY!!! It made the kitchen way more FANCY!

 But something wasn't fancy at all....

 The hanging light was NOT fancy. 

It was a simple country kitchen light fixture. It had to go.

Goodbye tiny copper lantern.

Hello big French chandelier! 

The kitchen also finally got a refrigerator and 

another bakers rack to hold more copper and our farm fresh eggs.

One more look at how amazing it looks from EVERY angle.

And....

The Kitchen Aid mixer got upgraded to the copper version like the one in 

my own tiny real life kitchen.  

You see that is the fun part. Making

things resemble your favorite parts of your home, and then adding 

FANCY things you WISH you had, but sadly DO NOT.

And while I tried to take a few quick pics with my FANCY camera,

a little hand snuck in while my eye was firmly resting on the camera.

As I snapped the pic, I heard her say in her little voice: 

"Broken"

I popped my head up and saw that she had yanked off the cabinet door.

You see the doors and drawers are false fronts and she is very intent on

opening and closing anything she can get her hands on.

I told her, "Grammy will fix it." 

And then quickly ushered Reeve right back to her own little dollhouse.

It is filled with colorful inexpensive vintage dollhouse parts I have been

finding with the help of my sister, Ellen. 

 It is everything a little girl would want.

Where she played happily for quite some time,

and only broke a few things.

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A miniature French harpsichord for my birthday

A miniature French harpsichord made from following plans in a miniature furniture making plan book, was how I spent my big 6-0 birthday.  That wasn't the original plan, but then hubs and I got sick with some kind of strange bug and my birthday plans were dashed.  It felt kind of odd not to have anything fun or exciting or special to do that day I woke up, so I decided, sick or not, I would make it memorable and do something I truly enjoy~so I looked through a book of plans and decided to make this elegant looking harpsichord for my dollhouse.  

 The plans are in a book called the Mott's Miniature Furniture Workshop,

and it has black and white schematic drawings of all kinds of furniture to make.

 The Mott's were a family that built miniatures in California, and they were the first people ever to have a miniature shop.  They put all their miniatures in a museum in the Knotts Berry Farm and it was there from 1958 until the 1990s.  Sadly they had to pull out, and all their miniatures were eventually sold off at a Beverly Hills auction. I myself went to Knotts Berry Farm in the late 60s as a child but have no recollection of going into the miniature museum there.  

 Anyway, this book has difficult and easy projects to build, 

and the author said this was not a difficult one, and because it was French,

 I decided to make it.  The other thing I liked was that it included the art work

 inside the book that is used for doing the decoupage on the tiny harpsichord 

to look like it is handpainted. It was a bit trying, but not terribly hard,

made from two pieces of wood and the rest mostly cardboard, and store bought legs.
I didn't follow it exactly, and some of the details I left out, thinking it was good enough.

After painting it with Annie Sloan Olive Chalk Paint, I pasted the appliqués on the piece.

After it dried, I applied some French gilding wax 

in Venetian Gold to the piece to jazz it up. 

 As with a real house, anytime you get a new piece of furniture you must make room for it.

So I did some rearranging but am not sure this is going to stay like it is now.  

 My pretty balloon shaped Porters chair used to sit by the window,  

and it looked quite nice there.  But since the harpsichord had no place to go,

 the chair got moved upstairs to the informal living room.  

The downstairs living room is the formal room, where 

visitors to the Maison are entertained.  

The upstairs living room is just for the family, just like they do in the White House, 

and I suppose all the palaces and fancy chateaus in France.

This informal living room is taking some time to get itself together.

Mostly because it is turning into a room with castoffs and bargains,

much like one could possibly have in real life.  These neat little vintage pieces

of miniature furniture have been finding me by way of antique shops and thrift

shops, and I can't pass them up.  For example the drop down desk.  It is 

a very nice dignified piece, as is the corner bookcase.  Still in a dark wood finish,

I have yet to decide if they will remain or get switched out when something better comes along.

 My sister Ellen has been finding lots of vintage miniatures at vintage shops for me!  

Its been unbelievable how lucky she has been running across such treasures.

Look at these handcrafted electrified chandeliers at $5 each!

 And then she found a bunch more for me....

and that is great because I am about to start making another dollhouse for baby Reeve.  

Reeve's dollhouse will be  a Marthas Vineyard gingerbread cottage that has furniture painted as if Peter Hunt, the Cape Cod artist, painted it all himself!

She loves my dollhouse, so its time for her to have her own sturdy little cottage

where her little hands can get busy rearranging the tiny things to her hearts content.

In the meantime I am making miniatures and making way for the recent

vintage finds in my Maison.  As usual, I find myself way 

more interested in the decorating part than the wood trim, flooring 

and all that carpentry stuff, that I still must do.

It will get done, but until then I will keep decorating of course.

And as far as my big 60th birthday goes, my kids had taken me and hubs

out to a lovely place, Eastern Standard in Boston the weekend before as we had planned to be away.

I am so thankful for that night, it was very special. 

Between that wonderful experience and crafting the 

harpsichord, I will remember turning 60 for sure!

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Decorating the Dollhouse

 My French Dollhouse, The Petite Maison, is a work in progress. 
The exterior is looking so much more French now!

This is the dollhouse how I found it at the consignment shop. 
It was nicely built from plywood, with the exterior painted, but not much else.
When I saw it, I thought the roofline looked very French, and I could modify the
house to give it that Frenchy look. I also knew I needed to replace the railing system
that was on the little roof deck area.  

( Inspiration: a real French Chateau)
Notice the roofline, which is similar to my dollhouse.

A big part is accessorizing the dollhouse interior to give it the French flavor

 with  rustic yet fancy, shabby and cottage, 

and of course luxe elements that I dream up in my head.

 The more I add to a room, the better it looks, yet dollhouse decorating (for me)

runs a fine line of being cluttered and too much if one overdoes it.

The salon (living room) is feeling quite nice now, with the lived in details

of a tote bag with magazines, some flowers on the table, a candelabra with pretty 

little shades that give the room extra dose of personality. 

 An old piece of lace, trimmed to be a mantel scarf over the marble,

some flowers and a vase, magazines on tabletops, these are the little

details that make a mini house a real looking home.

 This brass candelabra is a common one that many miniaturists buy, as it

is affordable. I darkened mine up to look tarnished, then I made some shades

to turn it into a lamp. This is the pattern I created to make shades. I add the glue to the tab

section when I attach it.  

Curling the shade pattern around a pencil helps to give it a rounded

dispostion which is helpful too. I cut up a gift bag that had pretty patterns and used the 

checkered part to make the gingham look I wanted. Then I stuffed a little piece of 

packing peanut foam inside the shade so it could sit on top of the candle and not fall.

 It looked so charming on the vintage bombe chest I found on Etsy.

 After I made the shades, I tried to make hatboxes using the same gift bag paper.

These little things are hard for me to make, and I imagine it will get easier.  

They add the old fashioned details I want for the bedrooms, and I will be making more.

 There is much to do, and the house is evolving.  I found some pieces at

a thrift shop, and added them to the "music room".  A very nice white 

overstuffed sofa, and some mahogany pieces, that will be customized to

fit my style.  I am obsessed with working on the house, and am getting much

pleasure creating and finding things for my Petite Maison.

Winter has finally arrived with an arctic blast and snow and ice....

The nice thing about dollhouse decorating is one can stay inside and 

survive the long winter quite happily!

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