Nothing Like a Good Night's Sleep

I think that my favorite room to decorate is a bedroom. My guest room is the Lady Bug room with an iron bed, vintage garden hats on the wall, and a lady bug patchwork quilt that I made some time ago--the only quilt that I will ever make. The room is red and white and I love it. I enjoy preparing it for company, washing the sheets with Clorox to get them bright and white, adding Downy Lavender and Vanilla fabric softener to make them sweet and soft, then ironing the pillow cases with lots of spray starch to make them crisp and fresh. I do cheat by ironing only the sheet cuff that will be turned down. I don't iron sheets, though I knew a lady who did. I never knew why.

A good night's sleep begins with a nicely made bed. My grandmother taught me long ago how to properly make a bed, unlike mom who did not make her bed, nor did she train me to make my bed each day. She wasn't a housekeeper; in fact, she admitted to hating housework. In all fairness she did work along side my dad and her father-in-law in the family egg and poultry business. She was a busy, hard working mother, who cooked fresh food, canned, sewed all of our clothing, seldom complaining about her heavy load in life. I, in order to get out of hard work outside, tended to the housework. At a very young age. I ironed, scrubbed floors, did dishes, and tended my baby sister.

Now I make beds for fun.

You might remember this bed in an earlier post that I made for the Ballet Studio, but decided not to use. This week I have been making bedding for the other two beds that I made from kits. I used my mistakes to dress this bed. For example, the fitted sheet is wrong side out because I sewed the corners on the wrong side. It was easier at the moment to cut a new sheet than it was to rip out the four corners. And the pink top stitching on the top sheet is not so perfect. But you won't tell, will you?

Grandma taught me how to make square or as she called them hospital corners for the flat sheets. Today we have fitted sheets, so of course I made fitted sheets for the dollhouse beds. I tried to make the mini bed as I would I my own bed, but we have to remember that much of the mini world is for show and real life does does not always work in miniature.

I searched Pinterest for How To's on mini sheets and found this great tutorial for all of the bedding; however, her patterns and instructions are sized for 18 inch doll beds. For my 1:12 scale, I looked up the standard sizes for sheets and pillow cases. The math is pretty simple: 1 inch=1 foot. Full sized sheets are 54x72, so my full sheet was 5 1/2x6 1/2 inches finished. I added at least 1/4 inch on each side and the bottom for the hem. But the top sheet needs to be longer if you want a nice fold-down at the top, so my top sheet pattern is 7 1/2x10 inches. I may make the next one even wider so that it will lay more naturally.

To make the fitted sheets, I traced around the mattress and added 1/2 an inch on all the way around for the hem. Visit Made: Pieces for Reese because she has a really good tutorial on how to sew the fitted sheet.

Following other dollhouse builders who say to save everything that might be used for a mini, I saved these packing materials from some UPS shipment.

This mattress is some sort of shipping packing, paper pouches filled shredded stuff, soft and fluffy. I trimmed down the packet, rounded the corners, and scotch taped the edges back together then taped the sheets to it, wrapping them around the mattress.

The finished bed. My dear blog friend at Cornish Cream in England sent me some (as she would say) bits and bobs of lace, ribbon, and the vintage crocheted pieces that I am thinking were dainty little coasters. I folded one up to make it look like grandma's crocheted afghan at the foot of the bed.

This is a bed that I built from a vintage XACTO kit. The mattress is piece of foam that was easy to measure and work with. Easier than the packing material. 

The pillow cases are so much fun to make. Cute 2 pieces of fabric 3 1/3x2 1/4 for each pillow case. Choose a light weight, thin batiste or cotton. Stitch on the sewing machine 1/8 inch seam. I stitch one side seam first, press it open, then add the lace on the wrong sides together then press it flat. Then I stitch the other two seam. This bit of lace is so special. 

In 2006 I toured England with a group of university English Education majors who were going to be teachers. Our favorite stop was Haworth, home of the Bronte sisters. I was searching for bits of lace that we could use on the christening gown for my first grand child. In an antique store just down the hill from the Rectory, I found an entire bolt of this edging, so I use it very sparingly. Such good memories of a fabulous English tour. 

I still have to make the little pillows which will be 2 3/4x 3 inches with a 1/8 seam. As a side note, the pillow cases are just a wee bit big to fit nicely on the bed, so I will probably cut the pillow case the same size and take a large seam next time. I finish all of the bedding pieces by ironing them with a coat of spray starch to give them a nice crisp, clean, fresh look--just like the bed in the guest room.

I adore this Tester bed purchased as a kit from Houseworks Ltd. It is a canopy bed; I followed the same principle to make the canopy as I did for the fitted sheet: traced around the top of the canopy then added inches until I thought I had the correct length. My friend is cleaning out her attic and she keeps sending me lace and stuff, so here I added one of the vintage lace trims that Patti sent me. Thank you, Patti Rose. Another note: I am finding that mattress sizes vary from bed style to bed style, so measure to make sure that your bed sheet will fit.

My daughter scored a dozen XACTO furniture kits at the thrift shop yesterday. (I'll share a photo next time). There is another Tester canopy bed, so I will be making more bedding. 

Meanwhile,  back in the kitchen I have made a set of rooster canisters. I have ordered some really cool items from Etsy shops, but I drew line when the cute little ceramic rooster canister sets were $12+ with shipping doubling the price. I decided to make my own. Dollhouse Miniature Furniture Tutorials: 1 inch minis has this fabulous tutorial, which, of course I tweeked--a lot.

While she uses card stock to make her canisters from scratch, I used the moisture absorbing plastic thingies that come in my prescriptions. 

Materials: Moisture absorbing thingy, an image, scrapbooking brads, paint, Modge-Podge.

Step 1: the canister may have a paper wrapping around it, so remove it. This one has the cautions  printed directly on it. I covered it with 3 layers or red craft paint to to get good coverage.

I was going for a vintage shabby chic worn-out look like the canisters my mom had. Her's were tin, white with red flowers and green leaves, chipped and dented, well aged. 

After  3 coats of white over the 3 coats red, I sand them with a light 180 grit sanding block. If I sanded too hard, all of the paint wore off, exposing the plastic underneath. I was okay with that.

This is a shot of the computer screen: Word document with image sized to fit the canister. Trial and error here, friends. I found the image tumbling upon printables in Pinterest. You can search Pinterest, finding a plethora of good images.

 

 I trimmed the red border from the image, but I do wish I had used a black fine tipped scrapbook pen to draw around the image once it was glued on the canister to give a little more definition, but I was afraid that the Modge-Podge would smear the black ink.

I worked with the little canisters on these t-pins so that I could hold on to them and then poke them in to work stir-foam so that they could dry. Once painted and sanded, the canisters are ready for the decal. I used Modge-Podge to glue the image on and then covered the entire canister with Modge-Podge, giving them a final buffing when the Modge-Podge had dried.

For lid handles, I used little brass scrapbooking brads from that stash of stuff, using two sizes. The little absorbing thingies had natural ridges that worked as lids. 1 inch minis tutorial  will show you how to make lids and handles for a different look than mine.

They look cute in this little Hobby Lobby hutch, though I am not sure that it will be in the dollhouse or not. For display purposed only. The canned foods? Printables. And another blog post.

Well, I certainly am having fun with dollhouse building and making. I  am not so good at it sometimes; I feel clumsy and awkward, but I am enjoying myself. And I love your visits to the blog and the comments that you leave. 

Until next time. Take time to play. 

Making The Bed

Hello Again. Christmas is well behind us with Easter just around the corner, so I am back to work on the Bellingham dollhouse. I took a long break to work on sewing 5 little prairie girl dresses for the 18 inch doll. Here is one. I adore this little doll. She is Target's Our  Generation doll. I found her at a local thrift store for $3.00. The 5 dresses are finished, but I have bonnets yet to make. My sewing machine  needed some repair, so while I wait for it to come, I am working on the dollhouse. Soon--not soon enough--it will be time to get out in the garden and get the spring gardening started.

Secret Project

Before I begin showing you the dollhouse, I want to share a secret project with you still in progress. I am a creating a room box for my seven year old grandson's birthday inspired by a jig saw puzzle that we have worked on together. I will show you the entire project when I have it finished. 

I needed a bed. I bought one, a cute little white twin-sized bed with '70s inspired pink floral bedding that was glued and and could not be removed, so I decided to make a bed.

Using bass wood that I had on hand and using a bed that I already had as my guide, I made this one. 

The next problem: How to find a mattress? The kits come with a foam mattress, but since this bed is homemade, I needed fabricate a mattress. I tend to save all sorts of things that I can convert to dollhouse minis, so this mattress is made from packing material. The image in college shows the packing material before and after I trimmed it down to fit the bed. It is stuffed with pulverized paper, making it fairly soft. 

Next I needed bedding, so I made a pair of sheets. I tend to want my miniatures to be just that, miniatures of the real thing, so these are sheets that I made. To make a fitted sheet, I followed these steps:

• Cut a piece of fabric 6x8 for a 5x7 mattress (use cotton or cotton polyester)
• Stitch 1/8-1/4 hem around
• Place the fabric on the mattress to form corner pockets. Pin
• Sew the pocket on the wrong side. Trim away excess fabric
• Press the seam open
• The fitted sheet will not have elastic as the real thing, but it it be on the bottom the mattress anyway.

Note: Don't sew? Use fabric glue

The top sheet is easier:

• Cut a piece of fabric 10 1/2 to 11x 9 inches--shorter if you don't want the wide hem/cuff at the top 
• Sew 1/4 inch around for hem
• Fold the top hem and stitch. Use a decorative stitch if you want

Please note that these sizes are approximate, depending on the size of mattress and how much over hang you want. I arrived at my size by going on line to look up the standard sizes for mattress Sleep Train. A standard full sized bed measures 60x80 or 5 ftx6.6ft. Convert that to the 1:12 scale and you come up with roughly a 5in.x7in. mattress (that's what my foam mattress measures). Decide how much hem and overhang/fullness you want and cut your material.

I like to make the kit furniture so that I can paint or finish it the way I want it. I hate taking the vintage dollhouse furniture that has such nice finishes, especially if it is in good condition and painting over it, so I make the kits. You can find them on http://houseworksltd.com.

Finally, I fitted the sheet to the mattress, but since it is paper and the edges were irregular, I had to glue the sheet in place. That's okay because it is going to be sealed up in a room box and not played with.

I surprised myself with this little bed. I have made other beds and I may eventually get good at it. Since it goes into a boy's room, it didn't have to have any fancy stuff.

The bed on left is made from a Houseworks.com kit. Easy to make. The bed on the right, mine

I like to make the kit furniture so that I can paint or finish it the way I want it. I hate taking the vintage dollhouse furniture that has such nice finishes, especially if it is in good condition and painting over it, so I make the kits. You can find them on Houseworks.com. I also made the pillow and pillow cases with some hand embroidery.  The lace is a piece of lace that I have had for ages. Making these little beds and dressing them can be a lot of fun.

The spread for the bed here is an old handkerchief. I have dozens of them, too, but then I don't want to cut them, but they are perfect and cut folded and glued in place. 

So here is the finished bed. I stained it with MinWax Wood Finish Early American 220. I wanted a Star Wars themed bed, but who can find miniature Star Wars bedding? So I used a fat quarter that I purchased at JoAnn in the quilting material department. It looks a little Star Wars, don't you think?

Intrigued yet? It is going to be very cute. Not all grandsons are open to dollhouse boxes are they?  But his little guy will love it. I will glue the bedding in place--which I do not do in the dollhouses. Everything will be glued in place because Mamma doesn't want him to play with it. She will, I know, save if for herself until he grows up and wants it for his college dorm room. Really, Grandma!

Oh and dig that old fashioned TV. I came in a box of stuff that bought from the Junk Man. I wondered what I would ever do with it. It has a very special place now.

The Bellingham

I found these little bottles on a wonderful website DBJ Miniatures, but when I went there the other day to order more, the site has closed down. I am so disappointed because it was a great website.

The kit came with eight bottles, the tops, and the labels. 

I used a glue stick to adhere the label and Locktite glue to glue the lid on. 

I would love to do more. I have found them on Etsy, but they are made and shipped from overseas. I'll keep looking to find some state side.

Sometimes I wonder if I am in over my head with this house. While I do like the MFD wood, it is heavy and hard to hold in place, so I have struggles. The blue painter's tape works fair at holding it in place. Right now I have the front and this part glued in place.

I have not yet glued the back roof in place because it has taken me a long while to figure how the pieces go together. Right now I am waiting on wallpaper and glue to be shipped to me. I have not yet decided exactly how I want to do the attic. I also have to decide if I want to light it.

My directions are an older version because I can't find the ones that came with the kit and there are slight variations. By looking a pictures of other Bellingham houses that I have found on Pinterest, I was able to figure out how the back roof goes together. 

I am also trying to figure out wallpaper. I know that many dollhouse builders use scrapbook paper, so I decided that since I want a more modern looking bathroom, I cut a test piece from my paper stash. This paper stack has a variety of embossed papers, all pearly white. I like the look very much, though this not the pattern that I will use. It is easy to cut and heavy.

So I think you are now caught up. I do need to take time to show you what I purchased from Norm's Dollhouse located in Denver. Today is their last day open, a very sad day for them I am sure. Norm and his wife opened the store 39 years ago. It has run its course and a mighty fine it run it was. Son David now builds the houses and will continue to do so and has a new website:Dave and Wendy Dollhouse where they will continue to sell miniatures on line and they have a Face Book page. 

I will return when I have more to share. Right now I need to get on with my day. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. If you visit, please do leave a comment. I love reading them. The blog is growing too, up to 13 now. Wow. Thanks so much for signing on. 

In the Mood

 After the first of the year, remember when I committed to finishing one room at a time on the Manchester? Weelll. I've cut the wallpaper for the living room located in the Real Good Toys addition, and I really like the way the room will look with that bold William Morris print, except the paper is printed on 8.5x 11" paper edge to edge landscape, which makes it wide enough to fit the wall, but not tall enough reach both to the ceiling and the top of the baseboard. I had decided not to add crown molding to this house because I hate making the mitering cuts for the ceiling corners. Now, however, because the printed wallpaper sheets are not tall enough to fit the 12" tall walls, I have to install crown molding, so I am procrastinating that miserable project. 

I decided then to make curtains for the room, which led to making prototype shades for the kitchen and bathroom, which led the bedspread for the bedroom, which brings me back to the crown molding. But first I have do some staining before I can go any further in finishing the living room.

I have such a hard time committing to finally stages in this house, like gluing in the floor in the  living room. I love how the floors, all finished except for staining, turned out. I used  very thin half inch wide flooring"boards" that came with the Duracraft San Franciscan that I assembled a while back. I really like this thin veneer-like flooring. It stained beautifully. I create the floors, I glued the wood planks  to Cricut's 1.5 mm chipboard, making a very nice, solid floor. 

  

One of the final projects for the living room--and the rest of the windows in the house--are the window treatments. I tried a cutting fabric and sewing a rod pocket to just gather fabric on a rod, but it just didn't hang right in the living room, so I decided to try my hand at making pleated curtains. 

A few Pinterest tutorials led me to believe that I could make the pleats, but all the methods seemed too tedious, like folding the creases in the fabric and pinning them in place and setting or stiffening the fabric with either hair spray or fabric stiffener. Others used narrow boards in between the folds to form the pleats and using fabric stiffener to set them. I didn't have appropriate lumber to create the boards to make those pleated curtains and that seemed to be a lot of work.

 I made my curtains using pinch pleats. My mother who made all of my clothes talked about pinch pleats, which I had totally forgotten about until the middle of the night last night as I pondered this morning's editing of the post.  It's a simple technique: just pinch the fabric between your fingers to make the folded pleats. 

I began with the simple basics: Spray laundry starch. I used to iron pillow cases for company and starched them to make them look crisp and pretty and table clothes, too. Back in the day--the '50s-- when I was a little tyke I did a lot ironing to get out doing farm work outside. Back then everything had be ironed after being washed in the wringer washing machine and line dried in the sunshine--all my little home sewn dresses, dad's shirts, mom's blouses. All cotton, no polyester wrinkle free blends. We didn't have spray starch back then, but I keep it on hand just incase I get the urge to iron a table cloth or something. 

I dug in my fabric inventory to find some scrap of cotton blend.

My practice curtains were made from a fine cotton batiste that I used to make American Girl doll undergarments.  The curtains actually turned out pretty fair except the frayed edges needed hems for a finished look. 

I used the widow frame to help determine the size of the curtain panels. In real life when I have made curtains, I followed my mom's advise: each panel should be 1.5 times the width of the window to get the amount of ruffling and fullness for the window. 

Once I had cut the fabric (still in the practice size--learning as I go), I ironed out the wrinkles and starched the fabric to get a very smooth, wrinkle free panel. The stiffened fabric would crease nicely and hold its shape.

For my first practice piece, I didn't measure my folds. I began by folding the right end of the panel then made the next fold the opposite direction, and so forth, working back and forth pinching the pleats into shape, hoping for 1/4 inch pleats. 

So for the next trial panel, I measured 1 cm intervals as guides for my folding, using magical disappearing ink. Actually my marker is specifically made for marking sewing projects. It lasts enough to make correct seams, but totally disappears without leaving behind tell-tale stains.  

I followed the same pinch folding process, making folds in alternate opposing directions. The end result looks like an accordion bellows.

Once I had all the folds made, I used a hot iron to press them into place

Here then is my second attempt to make pleated curtains. This one is just about the correct size for a pleated window shade, but it needs the edges seamed for a clean, finished look. 

Take a look, too, at the how the pleats lost shape on the curtain rod. I needed to correct that, too.

One of the great features of fabric is that it is very forgiving--as long as you don't make an error cutting it. So I started over with me practice piece by ironing out the pleats and ironing in 1/4 inch seam allowances. Once repeated, I had the perfect window shade instead of a curtain.

I'm leaving the window shade project here, because I haven't totally worked out how to finish it, so to summarize making the pleated curtain:

1.  Select a fine, light weight fabric that will hold its shape if you want pleated drapes, giving the room a more formal look.
2.  Cut fabric to size. For full window curtains, cut each panel wider 1 1/2 the raw width of the window, measuring from the outside of the frame. Then add 1/2 inch to allow for a 1/4 inch on each side seam.  Decide how long you want the curtain to hang: just below the window frame or perhaps to the floor. then add 1/4 inch for the bottom hem. For the top hem allow the rod pocket to be wide enough to hold the curtain rod.  The top hem will require at least 5/8 inch to make the rod pocket and to allow for a seam at the very top of the rod pocket if you want the curtain to  ruffle at the top of the gathered fabric on the rod. The curtain panel looks finished with top stitching just below the top of curtain panel. Unpleated curtains will gather nicely while the pleated curtains will hold their pleats.
3. Use spray starch to stiffen the fabric once you have cut the panels. Caution: starch tends to build up on the bottom the iron and burn on causing, causing brown stains on your fabric, so pick up a tube of iron cleaner to clean off the bottom of your iron. If your ironing board is stained as mine is, use a tea towel or a Terry cloth towel, or even a couple layers of paper towel to make a clean ironing surface to avoid staining you curtain fabric. 

Sew the hems and rod pocket. While I am quite comfortable sewing, some may not be. For simple hems some will use tacky glue or even fabric glue. Rod pockets may be more difficult to glue in place, so hand sewing, taking tiny stitches works, well, too. 

With the hems sewed in and the pleats made, I realized that pleated curtain panels aren't gathered on the rod because they don't hang right; instead, they are either hung with grommeted holes, as my downstairs curtains hang or with attached rings.

                            

I tried making grommeted holes in a piece of fabric using the Cricut Maker to evenly space the holes, and it worked well.  I had never cut fabric on the Maker and it cut those tiny .4cm hold perfectly, except the fabric frayed, and I didn't have grommets, so I dug in my jewelry findings for jump rings to sew on as curtain hooks.

I found these figure 8 jump rings (look for them at Fire Mountain Gems). Using very fine embroidery thread, I began sewing the rings in place.

Working on the wrong side of the curtain, I placed the ring with the center of the 8 on the edge of the curtain so that the top ring will be visible on the curtain rod. If you don't want it to show, move it down; tack in place with 3 or 4 stitches. Don't cut and tie off the thread; instead move on the the next pleat, leave a bit of slack in that long stitch. 

Make sure to attach the 8 ring on the pleat folded toward the outside or right side of the panel; otherwise the curtain won't hang right.

Another thing to keep in mind, make sure that the end pleats--the first and the last are folded toward the back of the curtain, so that the curtain will hang straight.

While I was still in the mood to sew and while I have the sewing machine set up, I decided to make the bedspread for the bedroom. I've made several beds from lumber on hand and dressed them, using quilter's fat quarters. I found this beautiful collection of fat quarters when I first started the Manchester and knew that I wanted the blue bird in the center of the bed spread. 

I'm going to skip all the steps I went through to make the bed covering because if I added all the photos I prepared for this post, there would be 48 pictures, so briefly:

I use a seamstress tape measure to measure the bed across the width from the floor on one side to the other other side to get the width, adding 1/2 an inch for 1/4 inch side seams.

The top and bottom will be measured from the headboard end of the mattress to the floor at the bottom of the bed depending on the length of the drop you want on the sides and bottom of the bed. The top of the spread will be measured from the top edge of the mattress, add seam 1/4 inch seam allowance.

I chose the bold rose print for the back of the spread, making it a reversible bedspread. I needed some sort of padding for the in-between layer to give the cover some body. Rummaging in my little dresser where I hide some some fabric, I found this very thin, paper fiber that my new lap top had been wrapped in. I saved it just for this sort of project. It won't add any bulk to the bed covering, which is important because I don't want a lot of thickness. Quilt batting would work, but would add bulk, so it really is a matter of preference.

To begin I placed the lining between the two wrong sides of the fabrics, wanting it to be inside, but that would have a bad mistake because when I turned the cover to the right side after seaming it, the lining would be on the exterior. So, the lining that you will use will be placed on the right side of either the top or the bottom piece.

When the wrong side are stitched together and then turned right side out, the lining will end up on the inside between the layers. Does that make sense?

Another unconventional material that I used for the mattress was to substitute 1/2 inch foam board for sponge foam for the mattress. It makes a firm foundation for bedding. I used a 220 grit sanding block to round the corners for the fitted sheet that I would make.

I softened the hard mattress with quilt batting just to give it some body. For a fluffier mattress, I've used wool fiberfill that I use to stuff my rag dolls.

With the bedspread made, I made a flat sheet, a fitted sheet, pillows, and pillow cases. I used the lace trim that I purchased in Haworth, England, home of the Bronte Sisters. At that time, there was a wonderful second hand store or antique store that had an entire bolt of this vintage edging. At the time, I was looking for English lace that we could add to the christening gown for a soon to be born granddaughter. I've used it only for special projects over the years and I decided that these little pillow cases were special.

You will find my tutorials on making fitted sheets here, along with the link to the original tutorial that taught me how to make bedding: "Nothing Like a Good Night's Sleep. It was the first bed that I made. 

I also learned a lot about dressing beds from Julie Warren's Youtube tutorial on how to make bedding. She does glue the sides of the bedding to sides of the bed to hold it in place. I'm thinking that I'll use a dot of double stick adhesive or Velcro to secure the bedding in place.

So now the big sewing project are done, butI still need 4 more sets of curtains for the remaining windows. I may opt for simple window shades. We'll see.

Now that the mood to sew has passed, I must discipline myself to get some wood trim stained to finish the living room so that I can move on to the dining room, which will require installing the stairs, window trim, staining and installing the floor and trimming the opening to the living room and installing the chandelier. We'll see how far I get this week.

Nathan is spending his spring break with us this week, so I won't get much done on these tasks. We decided to make a personalized a T-shirt on the Maker for him, using vinyl, so the Manchester projects will have to wait. My little grandson is growing up. He'll be 13 in two weeks and making T-shirts with granny won't be so much fun in the months to come. 

Thanks for stopping by.