Ann's Dollhouse Dreams

 With the card making worshop now closed and a box of over 100 cards ready to ship to Cards for Soldiers in Michigan and time on my hands, I decided to do some Christmas decorating. In the family home, I begin decorating after Thanksgiving, usually the second week in December. It used to be out of necessity because I taught and I always had final essays to grade and semester grades to enter in the system.  I keep that same time schedule by begin the Christmas village. You can see last year's display here. I'm loath to rushing the season by putting up Christmas before Thanksgiving, as some have already done. 

With time on my hands and the temperatures hovering barely above freezing, I decided to dig out the Christmas decorating and begin, however. . . Miniature Land has it's own set of rules and timetable.

I decided to decorate the Blue Farmhouse Now Pink this year. It was my first major renovation project, so the house is special. I can now see things that could be redone since I have grown in skill and knowledge, but I'm going to leave it as is as a testimony to my growth and progression in my skills and knowledge.

Before the decorating could begin, I had to repair some electoral work. As you can see in this photo, the fireplace sconces and the logs don't light up, so I removed all the furniture and the flooring, which is not glued down for just that reason to reinstall the fireplace logs. the Sconces wiring goes through the wall to the hallway all on the other side. I removed the bookcase and used a small hammer to pound in the brads to make them more stable. Now they light up.

I took out the plastic shoebox that held all of the decorations and dumped them on the  table along with all the living room furniture. I couldn't help but think that this mess reflects what the real life living room and dinning room will soon look like. Art intimating life in miniature.

I began with the fireplace using the decorations  created for the Bellingham fireplace last year. The nutcrackers came from Hobby Lobby miniature holiday decorations.

The large, deep rooms are my favorite feature of this large, old house originally built from scratch rather than a kit. 

The kitchen/dinning has been set for Thanksgiving since last year, a reflection my grandmother's Thanksgiving feasts that were repeated for Christmas. I was 12 when she passed, and those holiday memories will are as vivid today as they were when I was little.

This meal was my first adventure in creating polymer clay food. Not bad for a novice, I'd say.

I replicated grandmother's china by grabbing the prints from Replacements.com, a website where you find replacement pieces for you favorite china. I printed the images on waterslide decals and was able to make the plates. The coffee cups were another story.

 

The second floor hallway is actually an odd room. Narrow but deep. I purchased a lot of dollhouse stuff from a junk dealer and loved this old fireplace converted to bookcase, so the upstairs hall is a reading room of sorts.

The third follow has the den or man cave or whatever. I'll add more to it. Maybe some lights to the tree. This fireplace works, too,--sort of--on a whim. I've always had problems with the electrical in this house, so while I added tape wiring to the third floor, it gave me so many problems that I didn't wire in any lights, using LED battery lights instead, except for the fireplace.

 

There is more to do more do, so more will photos will come later.

It's snowing, which will keep me inside, so I'll be in the mini studio all day. 

What will you be doing? 

Thanks for visiting.