The Doll House Do up # 7 trillion and 13

"It's time to light the lights, it's time to turn the music up, it's time to get things started on the dolly house show tonight"

Except no.

It's not finished and, the I'm a Giant Challenge deadline has been extended (probably to Feb 1st). 

Yes! Phew! etc. 

I bet your all making a collective "on no, more months of tedious updates" groan

YES! and here's the latest.

                     I'm too tired to make much commentry, so I'll just play some muzak in the background.

"Chestnuts roasting by an open fire"

"Jack frost nipping at your nose"

The oven door still needs a bit of work: recess the hinges so it looks less retarded, and paint the door more so it looks less like a dishwasher. Sink prised from a second hand dolly sink I chopped up. This 'little' project was labour intensive to say the least and I'm glad its over and I can just fanny around with little cute stuff now the hard works done!

"I know it's been said"

The bench is a self contained unit so Claud can play house and move it around.

Before

 

"Many times many ways"

Nearly after

"merry chritsmas, to youuuu"

Fridge-from rescued from landfill damaged dolly wardrobe thingy; in need of a door handle, shelves and food

"Jingle bells"

Yes, the bath finally dried. TFFT. Taps are from chopped up kitchen sink toy and a piece of bent wire; towel rack is a piece of wire and two of those screw-in ring thingys with which my nanna used to use to hang her net curtains.

Might paint them all gold, might not.

Toilet artwork to come...

Blind made from a one of those plastic tourist tat fans to come...

Towel curtesy of an op-shopped YSL facecloth.

"Jingle bells"

5 coats of paint and a coat of gloss. Each with a six hour drying period between. Zzzzzzzzzzz.

"Jingle all the way"

"oh what fun it is to ride"

I've decided I'll paint the doll house to match the mini doll house.

"A one horse open sleigh"

Bought some c.u.t.e mini books, but gonna have a go at making my own.

any suggestions for amusing author/titles welcomed

"Hey"

Finally got the lamp sussed. Now need bedside tables to sit it on. Claud's blocks might have to do unless I get some inspiration.

"Jingle Bells"

Mucking round with accessories and arrangements here. Less is defo more where the orange 'bookcase' is concerned. Might make my own now there's more time...

Insert applause and wolf whistles here.

Righto, I'm off on a birthday baking/cooking christmas dinner for a million at our place frenzy now so don't cry, but there won't be another doll house update until the new year.

So merry christmas from Roz, and merry christmas from me x

DIY doll house bookcase

AFTER

BEFORE

Daggy dolly house with do-up potential

                                      GETTING THERE

Hey Tiki!

AFTER

 Bookcase.

Another fine dolly-house marae do-up!

Neat bookshelves, where the books don't flop over all the time.

It is a happy day for my tidy loving heart.

Sharing my creative renovative space here

I'm a Giant Challenge- Doll House Do-Up #11 (The christmas special)

A week to go, a year's worth of doll housing to do!

You get the idea where I'm going from this photo. But it's going to take a while to get there. And a lot more glue. We will have shelves, cupboard doors that open, and a wee curtain to screen under the sink.

Little sticky velcro dots for burners. A chopped up bit of op-shopped randomness for dials.

and a hinged oven door that actually opens is the plan.

Another excuse for fimo food (turkey!)

I tracked down an actual doll-house shop in Christchurch this week, in someones garage. Sadly it was full of pretty naff Victorian stuff, though I quite liked this pottery vase and mini wooden spoons.

I went there looking for a fridge. The woman offered me a brown cupboard and while I ummed and ahhed and then politely declined I was thinking "that thing? Even I could make a better fridge than that thing!"

And the cool thing is, it's no idle boast now, I know I can, and I will!

(Just not right now. I have a year or so until Claud get this monster, and I have a birthday and Christmas to plan, and a small child who thinks they don't have to go nigh-nighs until it's dark ie 10.30pm most nights this week)

The quilt is also a work in progress. I might have finished it by now had I not mistaken the required size of 'yoyo'. The maker I got is way too small, but instead of buying another I've decided, in the interest of thrift to just persevere. So this too is going to take a long while. The wee size also demanded an ultra fine fabric, so I've used an opped silk shirt (red) and pillow case (white).

ps I know a yoyo is supposed to have a hole in the middle, and be round, but they're too tiny to be easily manipulated, so we will have, eventually, a quilt of puckered-up-monkey-bums iced-gems instead!

It's nothing if not unique this dolly house I tell you!

The only other real progress is in the bathroom

                                 Yes, still waiting for the modeling clay to dry. But I got a teeny tiny rubber duckie!

                    So yes, not a lot happened here. Thought I'd fob you off a Christmas special instead.
                   Just because the doll house is unfinished, we can't let the girls miss out on Christmas can we?

Christmas lunch anyone?

Tree and nativity? Check.

Warm hearth

With stylish Christmas/all year around deco above the mantel piece a mini version of Emily Henderson's awesome one!

Front door

and best of all?

Presents!

Merry Christmas Roz!

Ok, ok, I'll try and achieve something by the 15th, the challenge end date.

(And then I'll have a go at finishing it sometime in the 2012...)

See thee next week x

I'm a Giant Challenge Doll House Do-Up #10

Week 10. Only two weeks of the 'I'm a Giant' challenge to go. Must be nearly finished then?

Yeah. Just a few jobs to do...

1.Make bath taps.

2. Make pot plants.

3.Cut out multi-coloured terry towels.

(From retro 'Australian Home Decorating by Babette Hayes' manual I op-shopped this week)

4. Make towel rail for bathroom.

5.Make a blind for the bathroom.

6.Paint the sink taps.

7. Sand the bathroom ceiling and repaint.

8. Make a light shade for the bathroom.

9. Cut out and lay tiles.

10.Enamel paint the exterior of the house white.

11. Paint and decorate the outside of the front door.

12. Make curtains and curtain rail for white/red bedroom.

13. Make more round rugs-into a carpet of rugs.

14. Make a mattress. No two mattresses.

15. make two sets of sheets and pillows.

16. Make a yoyo quilt.

17.Make books for lounge bookshelves.

18.Make a dolly ipad

19.Posters and art for red/white bedroom.

20.Ball chandelier for red/white bedroom

(using these rescued from landfill balls, or pom poms if the ball thing goes pear shaped)

21.Make hall light from macrame beads.

22. Make kitchen lights (chrome egg cups too big)

23. Build a kitchen bench

24. Build a cooker

25. build a fridge

26. Cut and fit black wall paper in lounge.

27. Choose paper/paint for other wall in lounge.

28. Curtains and curtain rail in lounge.

29. Blind and rail in kitchen.

30. Make a mini wooden chopping board for kitchen.

31. Make mini fabric bunting for kitchen cabinet.

32. Make pom pom bunting on fishing wire with pom poms glued in place (more durable).

33. Desk/and or drinkies cabinet for lounge.

34. Coffee table for lounge.

35. Finish several cute craft cliche ideas.

36. Cut out leather 'animal skin' rug

37. Finish wallpapering the white/red bedroom

38. Get ideas to pull together washi papered, fairy story gone wrong bedroom

39. I could go on...

Hmmm.

I've prioritised the ones in red. That's still 20 tasks, in two weeks. So. Not. Going. To. Happen.

I need to prioritise the priority list

I'm to busy to prioritise the priority list!

I need a bubble bath in there, with a campari in hand and something louche and 70's on the record player to calm my self down.

Pleased with how this is working out, but shame about the giants fingerprint effect in the last piece of contact paper.

Bath is coming along, sort of.

40. Finish bath.

You wouldn't believe the amount of swearing that cheap-imitation-of fimo-white-bath-making-stuff induced (too dry to work as soon as it came out the packet-with-no-instructions).

And for all that it's supposed to be air-drying stuff but it ain't dried yet.

If it don't dry, and I can figure out what language the packaging is in, and have it translated, and find out where their head office is, and fly there, I'll fling this brick heavy soft bath through their front window. 

 Just saying it make me feel so much calmer.

Except it won't break their window cause it's too sodding soft. It'll just smear it.

Hardly worth the effort.

Think yourselves lucky who-ever-you-are crappy company! 

Mirror mirror on the wall,

who's the angriest doll-houser of all?

                                                              Bed has feet, floor has rugs.
                                                        Mucking about arranging things. Playing!
                                 Cool fun except all playing leads to a new need to 'make something else'.

41. Bedside table.

42. Shelving.

43. Clothes rail.

Have been faffing around with kitchen guff too

Faffing otherwise known as 'avoiding building a cooker, fridge, bench etc'

My first fimo-faff, ever! 

such an under-privileged upbringing, no dolly house and no fimo. maybe that's why doll-housing makes me angry? therapy!

(or maybe, susssh, I'm over this whole doll house thing?)

Anyway, it won't be my last fimo-faff. ACE stuff!

Nope, I didn't fimo-fashion these, although I'd be game to give it a try after my Bialetti success, if I had the time.

The shoddy paint job on the toaster and kettle is my handiwork though. Enamel paint must take days to dry. I picked those up after 24 hours expecting them to be dry but they wrinkled and took my fingerprints.

Enamel-paint-with-no-instructions-company watch out, your on my list too!

This stuff needs a home (aka bench top, cooker, fridge). I need to bite the bullet and just do it.

Here are the materials for my kitchen.

Here is the inspiration (tho mine will need to be Claud proof)

Which is this weeks mission (along with 14, 16 and 37)

Come and cheer me on for the finish line next week!

I'm a Giant Challenge-Doll House Do-Up #9

Slow as it is coming together (only a month left, and still no room complete!) frustration has given way to catharsis. I can't do a thing about my own earthquake damaged home: even moving around furniture is impossible as it's all now bolted to the walls; as we wait for the Earthquake commision to hand over our assessment to the building company (4 months since assessment, over a year since the first earthquake). However, playing decorator on a small scale is taking the edge off, like any addictive substances I suppose!

So while the combo of earthquake damage and too-busy-dollhousing-to-do-much-round-the-house mean my own house is in a decline, my doll house is my Dorian Grey, looking sprucer and cooler day by day!

I was fair despairing over the hall walls, but a rifle throught my paper stash came up trumps. Sepia with just a hint of cheer. Going for Resene double dutch white (a very pale lemon) on the ceiling. A ceiling with no cracks, feels soooo good. And, it means I have a room practically complete!

Hur-frikken-rah!

The door is a bit too rustic tho. Needs something. Gawd only knows what. I tried painting it brown and it looked cack so I rubbed it off.

Door mat is the 'grand central station' card from my Eames House of Cards.

Hall light shade makings (more macrame beads, of the long, thin variety) on the floor by "Roz's" uggies.

Yes Roz. Send me your email address Lakota.

                     It was tought choosing, but Lakota won the 'crack me up with this toy's story' contest

"Blythe's real name is Róisín, although she prefers to be known as Roz. She spent her early years touring America with her sisters as the youngest member of a Irish dancing troupe, but developed debilitating bunions and can now only wear Uggs. She broke off contact with her overbearing parents, and has the union jack cushion because she knows it would annoy them. She has an extremely popular make-up channel on YouTube, and has recently got into yarn-bombing."

Ball chair, ball wallpaper, ball lampshade in the making (not pictured, as as with macrame owl wall hanging and various other projects as they are not going too well and look cack).Wondering how far I can take the theme? The ball theme, not the cack makings thing theme, I'm wayyy way ahead there!

Anyhow, in the cute craft cliches corner this week...

Blanket pillows!

Made it and gaved it by Miriam at Make It-Give It.

Wonderful stuff, thank you hun!

Not keen on the black paint on the back wall there. Even though its matt, it looks shiny and shows off all every little scratch and ding on the wall from 40 years of use. I'm going to cut out some textured black paper to cover it, even though it takes FOREVER to get it right when every angle is slopping and every surface bumpy!

In the Op-shopped corner

A barbie sink, and a half roll of wood patterned contact ($1.50 for both). Will quite possibly make a sunken bath from white fimo surrounded by this wood veneer, using chopped up letter rack #2, copied inspired by this

Might put down some white tiles on the floor too, but probably not this century.

In the Before and After Corner

Shabby Victoriana chair with good bones.

 Sleek little number.

Ta for the chair Jen.

and in the Magical Mini Makings Corner

Before

Any guesses???

After

                                               You do know it's a flat screen telly, don't you?

                               Ok, thats enough corners for a square and enough dollhousing for a week.

                                                                                   Bye x

I'm a Giant challenge-Doll House Do-up #7

Doll Housing.

It's educational as well as fun.

The things doll housing has taught me this week.

I could never be a solvent sniffer.

I have developed a distinct aversion. I hold my breath whilst gluing and then race the bits outside to dry and have insects commit suicide on. Sometimes, when it all goes wrong (like when I cut myself with the scalpel at the same time as glueing my little finger to a piece of cardboard) I can hold my breath for a really. long. time.

Maybe it's the breath holding and not the glue that makes me feel sick and dizzy?

There are more glues out there for different purposes than there are sheep in NZ.

I now have 7 of my own. Small fry. Did you know there are whole aisles in hardware stores dedicated to glues? Must be nice for glue sniffers. Kind of like a deli. Well for ones with a well developed palette I suppose.

Colour does funny things in small spaces.

Like changing colour completely. Sometimes darker, some time lighter, never quite right or what you wanted. I wonder how it works? I mean there must be a science to it that, if I understood the rules, I could actually get the colour I wanted first time.

Anyway, speaking of colour. Want to see something cool?

Mad innit?!

It's just kids foam squares stuck together

With a couple of bits of balsa wood, chopped up BBQ skewers for feet, and amazing glue that won't let me pull the feet off no matter how hard I tug.

The foam squares I opp-ed of course, and I thought I'd cover them with my nice fabric initially.

Bit it was tricky, and messy looking, time consuming and the fabric look like stone wash denim on the small scale. Puzzling. It's a gorgeous dark teal when the whole piece is laid out on the floor. Gah!

So anyhow, as I'm pretty lazy, and pretty anti-stone wash denim, the multi-coloured sofa and chair won out of course.

It goes quite well with the shelving units I also op-ed (photographic slide holders in a previous life)

and the work in progress Lego masterpiece mantelpiece.

Not sure about the all the colour though. Colour is not my normal habitat.

Not sure how, or if, I can make it work with the wood floor and mid-century wood bits and bobs.

I suspect I need a rug or a 'wall treatment' (heh heh heh!) to 'pull it all together'.

And heyyyyyyy, progress is also apace on the ball chair.

After calling around all my mum-mates to see if anyone had a white ball in their ball pool (nope) I decided to go with red.

I finally figured out how to get a straighter edge, with my the help of my glamorous assistants:-

Ms Eye liner (it's rub off-able) and Miss Compass

I have had a bit of trouble lining it with felt neatly , but I have googled what I hope is a solution...

and all I can say is... watch out Weta Workshops!

That Breakfast at Tiffany's bed-ex letter rack is coming together nicely too, thanks to the welding skills of the local mechanic, and the wood workery skills of the grandad at the local hardware store (both free of charge thanks to Clauds cute poppet charm). And the hubby (ta love x)

It just needs feet, a mattress, sheets, a pillow and a quilt.

Hmmm. I'll be very surprised if this house is complete by Dec 15th. Good job Claudine's not getting it unitl she's 3, I'm think I'm going to need an extra year up my sleeve at this rate.

No further with the tulip kitchen table, tsk tsk! Straws are too bendy, and I can't find anything else suitable at the mo. Have my eyes peeled for a stemmed plastic drinking glass (great suggestion Ms Make Mine Mid Century, thanks!)

Oh look!

Heres one!

Just a little too teeny-tiny for table making opp-ed cocktail stirrers!

I so nearly didn't cut them up, they would have been great in my future drinkies cabinet, but as they were the  perfect size for my now doll house they got the chop.

As will this shortly

Future lampshade for red and white bedroom.

And to finish I wanted to ask for your help.

I mentioned early on that I want the dolly house to have that crafters look, in miniature, that I love.

I'm chuffed with how my mini knitted tea cosy turned out, and the mini-pennant bunting and pom pom bunting are beyone cute. But I'd like a little something crafty related in each room, so I'm compiling a little list of 'craft cliches' to choose, and make my finishing touches from.

So far, in addition to the above I have:-

granny square blanket

retro tea towels

patchwork quilt

embroidery hoop art

owl wall hanging

Please make a suggestion in the comments

(and do feel free to suggest how to make it too!!!)

Come on-what's screams 'cute craft cliche' decor to you???

There will be a (cute craft cliche) prize for my favorite suggestion, so make sure you link back to your blog or leave your email address

Thanks for looking at my glue intoxication induced madness and I hope to see you here next week :0)

Linking up with the I'm a Giant Challenge and Our Creative Spaces