Too Much?

Just like a real job, building a dollhouse from scratch gives life structure. Right now I have neither. I retired from teaching nearly six years ago, so I took up minis as a way to fill my time. Building from scratch is a process; renovation is "Let's see if this works" or "What should I do first or next?" Right now I am making or buying things for the toy store and spending a lot of time on Pinterest looking for ideas and on Ebay and Etsy only to  realize that I will have way too much for the the store. Here's what I have been up to this week:

First, I wanted a block puzzle for the toy store, inspired by a wooden tray of alphabet blocks that my children had as wee ones. My efforts receive bad a C-.

First I built a little box to hold the 12 blocks. Then I built another one because the first one was too small. I purchased the 3/8 inch blocks at Hobby Lobby, 18 to a bag. I found my images through Pinterest on a blog where the artist used a different method to cover the blocks.  I had made a puzzle for a family reunion using this method, so I thought that it work again. 

I sized the six images in Word to a 1.2 square, covered the block with Modge Podge, placed the image, and covered it with MP, let the MP dry then cut the blocks apart and they didn't fit in the box.

So I build a new box. A better one with mitered corners, and I painted it white. You can see the second box was a bit more roomy. I thought that it was too large, but decided not build another one because this time instead of using plain computer paper, I used glossy photo paper (5X7) because I thought that it would hold up better, would add some bulk, and the images were better quality printed on photo paper.

With the extra thickness, the Modge Podge didn't catch hold, so I added some white glue.

Finally I was able to make the first cut with good results.

But the good results got worse as I added images. As it turns out, the photo paper is too thick and sometimes I didn't wait long enough to let the Modge Podge set up. Over night would work better.

So here is the final product. The box is just a little over 1 inch, so it would be a little over a foot square.  I am thinking of making a new one using square wooden beads, if I can find them to make a smaller puzzle for little hands. 

As for the store, I continued fiddle with the wallpaper templates to get good patterns to cut the good wallpaper. As I looked for examples of toy store fronts, I stumbled upon the idea to add an English phone booth. I decided to find a printable one and build one, so I printed one out at 6 inches tall, and I liked the idea of a red phone booth to liven up the front of the store. I visited England in 2001 and again in 2006 and I believe my friend has a photo of me standing next to one. I just had to find phone booth.  Anyway, I decided that I just was not up building one, so I began to search my favorite online catalogs. 

I went straight away to Minimum World and began my search. I found this wall mounted mail box. I liked that idea.

And then I found this:

I love my phone booth. 

The Queen's men are on guard.

And I've been making books. I wanted children's classics but as I chose my library I got a little carried away printing my favorites.

The titles are hard to read: The Hobit, Huckleberry Finn, Wuthering Heights--not exactly children's reading.

I printed the first ones on computer paper and then on photo paper. The computer paper gives a more aged looked because of the way my printer prints, while the glossy photo paper lends a crisper image.

I glued them to wood and a painted the "pages" with gold craft paint.

I even bought some flickering lights for the store, though I wanted white lights

And  I added two dolls to my order, the baby doll and the little one a pink dress who is probably too large for the toy store.

I am always short of boys' toys so I added miniature airplane kits. These are really tiny. Thus ends all of my Minimum purchases delivered all the way from England.

I assembled the nice gift from Robin Betterley. The Teeny Secret Book is scale. I enjoyed and would like to do more of her books. 

I often go downstairs to clean or do work on my rental accounts, but I get so distracted. The Bellingham is not finished yet. I still need to finish the third floor. If you remember an earlier post where I detailed my Roy Rogers themed bedroom in the attic. I've been held up first by building Lily's house and then trying to figure out wall covering for a cowboy room.

In my Internet searches for wallpaper, I haven't found anything that I like yet, so I turned to scrap booking stash--what mess--but I did find one 12x12 sheet.

I really like this, but I only have one color. Then I realized that the master bedroom is also blue, but I guess that is okay. I was thinking red maybe but I can't come up with any paper. Today I found paper resembling denim that I might use. I think the bedding will be navy and red. We'll see. I could change my mind again.

I hit eBay pretty hard a few weeks ago and most items came from Asia and took a long time to get here. Love these purple bell flowers for the kitchen table.

I still have one or two more shipments to come from the US, I think, so they should arrive any day.

Now I pose this question to you: How much do you adhere to scale? The pink dutch oven and the rest of the kitchen accessories are 1:12, but cups and saucers are not. Would you use them?

Thanks for visiting. I enjoy reading your comments, so write something. Oh. I almost forgot, going a mini show Saturday in Denver, as long as the weather holds. Snow is predicted. This one is sponsored by the Denver Doll and Toy museum and while it called the Little Show, it is exactly that, a small show, but with local vendors and artists with a lot of really great minis. The plan is for Lily and her mom to with and we will meet sister Heather there and shop until we drop or run out of cash--which likely will happen before we drop.

On a sad note, the Denver Doll Museum has closed. It lost its lease on the house where it lived for so long and now is trying find a new place and to raise the money to move. Right now the museum artifacts are in storage as Denver real estate market goes crazy.

See you soon.