Wednesday, August 28, 2013

House Warming

  We have finished the dollhouse!!!

    After long hours of sewing, glueing, painting, crocheting, gathering minuscule objects to fill the house with, and lots more glueing, it is finally completed!

   

Here's a before picture of the entire house.


The finished product.

Note: the scale of the house is 1/12, meaning 1ft = 1in.


We shall start the tour on the main floor. 


Welcome to the kitchen!




Chia seeds, Lemon Pepper, and Caraway seeds fill the tiny glass bottles above the stove.

Moving on to the Parlor…



Gwendolyn is very diligent at practicing.  :)


Man of the house.


Because of the angle of the wall in this room, the lovely family portrait Becca made, the stuffed pheasant, and the fireplace are all only visible from the window. That's why the picture is blurry along the side.

Shall we go upstairs?


There is actually some very nice little stairs tucked away in the back corner, and you can see the railing in the background of this picture.


That little glass jar is filled with bath salts.


Perfume bottles made from beads, little soaps, and fluffy towels fill the shelves.


Continuing, we enter the Master Bedroom.


I (Beth) made the bed frame with wood beads and wire. It is supposed to imitate the look of an old-fashioned spool bed. (you can google that to see pictures)






The little cameo on the dresser is from a clip on earring that was missing its match.

Now we will go to the last room, the nursery. (Also known as Gwendolyn and Robespierre's bedroom)




The bed canopy was made with a simple frame of cardboard covered in fabric.


Isn't the collection of toys neat? The book covers are copies of actual Victorian children's books.



Gwendolyn's reading nook.





Thank you for stopping by!






Sunday, August 25, 2013

A Long Awaited Event


  It is hot today. I mean, really hot.  It was hot yesterday and it's supposed to be hot for the rest of the week.  Our summer has been mild so far, but I guess this is the end of that.

  We bred Rosie + Simon exactly 32 days ago, and rabbits are almost always born on the 31st day, so yesterday we expected a litter of new baby bunnies, but were there any? 

  No. 

That has been the story all this year with rabbit breeding.  We've only had one successful litter with 6+ breedings.   We were starting to wonder if there was something wrong with our rabbits.
 
   But what did we come home to after church? In the heat of the day? Six baby bunnies! Six!! Our biggest litter yet, and just one day late. (why do we worry?)

   Hip, hip, hurray!!

Cozy rabbit nest



Look at those little pink feet! They are so cute!

Hopefully, they'll acclimate well to the 90 degree weather  :)


The proud mother



Saturday, August 24, 2013

The Dollhouse Family

              Work on the dollhouse has been going well!  

We have all the main furniture done, and all the walls are either painted or wallpapered.  Now we are just working on the finishing touches, adding things that make the house look "lived in" like curtains, rugs, pictures on the walls, and accessories to fill empty shelves and vacant tabletops.
    
  But who is going to live in this beautiful house once we're finished?  That took Becca and I quite a bit of figuring.
   
   Remember our small budget?  Well, finding a family that worked for our price range was a bit difficult.

  We had a couple criteria: They had to look victorian, they had to be movable (we didn't want a bunch a statues standing around the house, we wanted people who you could play with, to make them sit down, or do other things in the house), and they had to look nice.  :)

   So here's one of the options we found.

This is a lovely looking victorian family, don't you think?  They have realistic faces, they're posable, and they're made of resin so they should hold up well to being played with.

But the problem was the price.  At different sites, the price ranged from $80 - $100.  There goes our entire budget!

So, we decided to look at some other options...



Here was another family we found.  They weren't too bad (well, the children are a little strange), but we really wanted a baby since we had found a neat little cradle in an antique store.  This family was a reasonable price though, around $30,  so we kept them in mind.

Until we found this family.


Granted, they are dressed in modern clothes, but the description said they were removable.  They were porcelain, with bendable joints, they had nice faces, and the mother and daughter had beautiful hair. They were priced at $45, which was quite a bit less then what we had be seeing. So we decided to get them, and I (Beth) would make victorian clothes for them.

When they came in the mail, we found out that "removable clothes" meant that they were securely glued to their foam bodies… A scissor helped resolve that dilemma.  Once they were undressed, my tailoring and dressmaking job began.

Here's the result!



Meet the Jones family (oh yes, we named them all, just for fun).

Mr Benjamin Jones and his lovely wife, Eleanor. Their daughter, Gwendolyn, and their baby son, Robespierre.
 (That name is from an old radio show called "Baby Snooks".  Robespierre was the main character's little baby brother.  Plus, we thought he kind of looked like a Robespierre)

Gwendolyn: "I just hate standing still for family portraits!"


I made the mother's hair more suited to the time period by sewing it into a sort of bun on top of her head.  Becca crocheted a tiny little blanket for the baby. 

 Mr. Jones' clothes were pretty simple.  I kept his original pants, but took them in a bit on the sides so they weren't as baggy. He then has a shirt, vest, and bow tie (because bow ties are cool).  

Mrs. Jones' foam body had really no feminine shape, so I had to give her a corset, and a bustle.  Her dress has elbow length sleeves trimmed in lace, and the rest you can pretty much see in the picture. 

Gwendolyn's dress is pretty simple.  The sash around her middle gives her a more defined waist.  She also has a big hair bow, and bloomers and a little petticoat complete her undergarments. 

Becca: "Should we mention that Robespierre has a gimpy leg?"
Me: "No, they can't see it anyway"
Becca: "Ok"

There are only  a few things that would make the Jones family perfect. Like if the father had some sort of facial hair, because his face looks too boyish.  You know, a mustache, or some mutton chop side burns. Now that we've mentioned it, it would be nice if Robespierre's legs were the same size (there must have been a mishap in the factory), and Becca thinks Gwendolyn's eyebrows are a tad too orange.
But no one is perfect, right?

Well, now you have met the soon to be occupants of the dollhouse!  I think they'll be happy in their new home, not that they are able to object  :)

Pictures of the finished house will be coming soon! As soon as we finish it, of course.  :)




Saturday, August 17, 2013

Would you like a jelly cabinet?


Here it is! Isn't it lovely?
 Just the thing you need to store all your jellies and jams in, or at least that's what it was used for originally.

This jolly jelly cabinet, came home with us yesterday accompanied by three chairs, a vanity stool, a table, a wrought iron bed frame, a rolling metal cart, two sets of juice glasses and a box of miscellaneous items.

If you are wondering how that all fit in our van, take a look.



We found out, through a local newspaper, about an antique store that was going out of business. Everything was 50% off, so how could we pass it up?
That's where we found most of the pieces, like the jelly cabinet.


This vanity stool was in great condition, just missing one of it's little feet. We've already found some beautiful fabric to recover the seat with!  I think it had a cushion on the back rest, so I'll have to figure out something for that.


Wooden folding chairs: They are nice and stable, and will be so fun to paint.


Our mom actually bought this adorable twin bed, so it isn't for our little shop.  It will either go in our guest room, or Becca or I will buy it from her to keep for our bedroom. Isn't such a fun green color? I don't think we'll have to do anything with it, except find a box spring and mattress for it.




We think the foot board is missing something.  Probably a decorative piece to match the headboard. You can see the retro cart in this picture too. That also belongs to mom, and I'm not sure what her plans are for it yet.


This is a 1960's era dining table made by the Howell company.  Other then that, we don't know too much about it, except that it's very cute :) It has a few scuffs and wear marks, but we'll clean it up.


It has a leaf to expand table space (for when company comes over).


The tag on the bottom says the color is "Pink Bev".  Pretty cute, huh?


Becca's juice glass sets: The top one was made in the 50's and originally had six glasses. We'll have to be on the look out for more to complete this darling set. Then again, three is a magic number.  :)


This one is circa 1960, and only missing one cup. 


Here's a little retro ceramic turtle planter we found for only $3.00


We planted a little succulent in him, and he'll be a cute house plant! Doesn't he look happier with a purpose? 

 I think our first craft show booth will be nice and full. We are getting quite an inventory of furniture, and other little things.

Oh, and we made a sign for ourselves!


Our friend Mary came up with the mercantile part, and we just loved it! It says "old fashioned" without using the cliche term "vintage".
The rabbit silhouettes are our very own Sarah-Jane! Becca used a picture of her to make them, but half the work was done since she's already black.  :)
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