Jan. 6, 2008

I'm making my first dollhouse after years of wanting one. When I was about ten or eleven, in the early 60s, my family went to the Shelburne Museum in Vermont and I fell in love with their collection of dolls and dollhouses. My husband and I went to the museum a year ago and I got to look at their fabulous collection again.

While searching online I came across a number of dollhouse websites and was inspired. The real kicker was this dollhouse for Miss Nutkin. So charming, so playful.

My husband came up with an old wooden box we used for camping supplies for years, but now use something bigger and more squirrel-proof. He found this box in a garage from our first apartment. It held dynamite when new, how's that for provenance?

I have painted the box white and put in a floor so there are two rooms. The lower room will be the kitchen and the upper room the living room or parlor. This is the home of Santa and Mrs. Claus. The kitchen has red gingham wallpaper (scrapbooking paper) and will have many fimo made foods. I used scrapbooking paper for the floor, too.

I have made two stoves, one a rustic wood-burning stove, the other a black high backed coal burner. The back of the black stove is covered with Dutch tiles printed on the computer. I'm going to re-do the stove, sigh. I put the oven doors on wrong and have the warming oven doors just under the cooking surface and it looks dumb. Both stoves were made from cardboard. I will try to use wood next time.

A friend gave me a fireplace with mantle which I have been working on. I painted the brick surround off-white and tried to paint a fake marble look, which looks okay. Today I made the coal-burning insert, complete with red, yellow, and black tissue paper for the fire. I added some polyester batting for wisps of smoke. The fireplace will be in the parlor. Santa will sit in front of the fire reading his letters.

I bought a desk kit which I will try to make, my first kit! The desk will be bulging with letters and envelopes. I want to make a book of "good girls and boys", too.

Today I painted a hen and rooster to look like Staffordshire figurines for the mantlepiece. The figurines came from Red Rose tea. They look great! I found a mirror from a compact to place above the mantel, too. Just need to frame that.

My three cats love my dollhouse, too, especially Tonks. Her favorite place to stretch out is on the bureau in the kitchen where I keep the dollhouse. Along with chewing yarn from my knitting bag, she enjoys rearranging the furniture in the dollhouse.