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.  :)

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