Renovations Begin

The more I played around with the Storybook house, the toy store, I decided that I had to make it my own. Right now I am just playing around. I found such cute ones that others have painted and decorated, so I decided to renovate.

First, I took out all of the toys. There was a massive number of little bears of all sizes and kinds. Cute as they are, there are other toys. Some will go back and others will end up in the stash. I also removed the carpet. Don't we all. We move into a new home and one the first things we do is yank out the old, soiled, outdated carpeting. If it is an older home, we just might be lucky enough to find a beautiful hard wood floor underneath. Not so luck with this little house. I am wondering if I should make a wide planked floor out of wide craft sticks or look for other options. At any rate the floor will be wood. 

Cute as the teddy bear wallpaper is, I will be covering it with something else--don't know what yet. First I have to figure out how cut replacement wall covering to fit perfectly around the wood-work. I have begun by fitting computer paper on the wall. I press my fingers against the wood window frames to create cutting lines to make pattern. This pattern needs more fitting.

Next, I will cut out a card stock pattern of the the wall and place the wallpaper on that instead of gluing it to the wall--I think. I'll see how that works. I think it would be too hard to strip out the existing wall paper, so we will see how things goes. 

Any suggestions?

For the exterior, I may or may not paint the green trim. The house is stucco, so I will it as such. I might add a fence. Maybe I'll build a nicer one.

I will also add a climbing vine, a rose one, I think. The cottage seems to call for red roses. I've already build the trellis. A very easy DYI project. Potted plants and flowers will add much needed color to outside. 

Inside, I have rearranged and dug through my stash to find cute things and added some new things.

I was inspired to build a barn by the little metal barn that my husband had as a child I found this barn on Pinterest, printed it on computer paper--the one on the right--then I printed a larger one on card stock. I think I make a larger one and I have some cut little figures to add to it. 

The farm animals are from Hobby Lobby and come in a package. They are not meant to to fit with the barn--just farm toys and are not to scale.  

I ordered the display cabinet online, only to find that some things that I wanted to put in the class cabinet didn't fit. That's okay. I find plenty of cute things to put in it. 

I also assembled this little Dragonfly International Peter Rabbit 1:144 dollhouse. 

Cute. Easy. Fun

Look who dropped by see what's going on, Pinkie. She pops up everywhere. I am playing around with a reading nook for the little kids who visit. As I set up the house when I brought it home with all of the original bears and toys, it was just too cluttered, so I want to reduce the clutter and still have a store with a fun, cute inventory.

 

I also made build the rocking horse, another Dragonfly International. It wasn't the easiest to cut such small pieces and get them glued in place. The hardest was the dowels that hold everything together. I didn't paint anything, and I should have, especially the dowels. It is a good project if you are looking for a DYI pre-cut rocking horse. Just tedious, but mine looks well-used when it should be new. I actually made it for the attic for the Bellingham, so it may go back up there.

I am admiring another bloggers flowers that she is making for her Storybook. You must drop by and visit Jodi at My Miniature Maddness to see the impressive garden that she has created for her little house. I' not sure exactly how many individually hand crafted flowers she has created, but she will have an amazing cottage garden when she is finished. I don't have the patience or the know how--yet. 

So in the meantime, I will channel another blogger, Caroline at Cinderella Moments whose work I admire, too. She uses simple, easy items to create the most amazing houses and I'm going to get brave and add vines to this little house. 

As you can see, I have yet again revamped my blog layout. While I liked the previous layout, I never could get the opening photo to be a really attractive one and I missed my side bar. I've increased the font size, too. I hope it works.

Thanks for visiting.