Merry Christmas!

Baking day!

 Ever since my children were just barely able to reach the countertop we've been baking cut out sugar cookies at Christmas. It's one of my favorite traditions. My kids are now 19, 22, and 24 years old but we still have fun!

 

 Now, though, the girls do a lot of the work. K mixed up the sugar cookie dough and she and M cut all of the cookies out and baked them. We all helped with the decorating. Here are my son's creations:

M cut out and baked all of the gingerbread men after I made that dough.

 I had a lot of fun decorating them this year. We found cookie decorating frosting in bottles that look like glue bottles. Once we got the hang of using them, they were great to add creative details.

We also made chocolate no bake cookies, peanut butter cup bars, and Casey's saltine cookies. I'm gonna try not to think about the 2 1/2 pounds of butter we used making all of those wonderful treats, lol.

Merry Christmas from our house to yours!

Merry Christmas!

I am at work so this is just a quick note to wish everyone a blessed and Merry Christmas! I so appreciate all of the friends I've made in blogland. I have learned many new skills and I am constantly inspired by others' talents. Enjoy the holiday!

A shepherd with a lot of animals to watch over

My daughter and I had a fun afternoon looking through thrift and antique shops looking for animals for her nativity. We found the lambs and the calves that way. The donkey, ox and cow came from Tractor Supply. A doll I made many years ago that no longer had a home suddenly aged and went back in time to become a shepherd. ;) Daughter number 2's nativity is now complete.

More teapot ornaments

 I found several more tea sets this week. These three all started life as Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast. With a little work they turned into these pretty ornaments. These are the ones I will give to my sisters-in-law. I love the shape of the lid.

All three have tiny decorated silver trees inside. I left the wallpaper out this time since the back of the teapot is painted anyway. I like it better because the light can shine through the paint and light up the little tree.

I also found 2 more sets like my teapot ornament so I made a red one and a blue one for my tree. :)

I love thrift stores!

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 I had to pick up a prescription today in a nearby town that has both a Goodwill and a Salvation Army store. I had to make quick stops at both, ;). I found the rocking horse and fireplace frame to use in the elf house. The table and chairs are half scale and very detailed. I will find a home for them somewhere.

The best purchases were this stable and sheep. Last year I made a nativity set for my older daughter. This year middle gets her set. She liked this Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus that I made many years ago when I first started making dolls. They used to be mounted on a wooden plaque base. I freshened them up, repaired damages and repainted where necessary. Now they look quite at home in the stable. The sheep was a lucky find - a random nativity piece with no other pieces. He's very nicely scaled for this setting. I need to shop in a few more thrift stores and farm supply stores to find more animals, though. The cat on the barrel in the back was also added by me. Not pictured but now in the scene is a rustic pot back by the barrel. The animals need water, you know. :) The star is a polymer clay ornament I made several years ago. It covers a flaw at the peak of the stable.

Oh, and I also found a denim skirt and a sweater and some ornaments for the tree today. Not a bad haul for less than an hour between the two stores, lol.

I hope you are all having a wonderful week!

The promised teapot

 The back "wall" is papered with tiny green stripes and the floor is cork. There's just enough room for a tiny decorated tree. This one is silver and has a snowy skirt.

I used dark green enamel paint so it would stick to the teapot and have a bit of shine. The glitter was just for fun - and to help the dark green stand out against the tree. I will be looking for more of these sets. I want to make more ornaments!

Decking the halls

 I had to run to the local Family Dollar for dog food this morning. I can't seem to go in there without looking around and I ended up buying a large box of silver glass ball ornaments to play with. This blue and red ornament was made by decoupaging tissue paper shapes onto the ball. Then I sprinkled it with fairy dust - a very fine glitter.

 On this one I painted sections with silver glass paint. That gave a pretty matte finish to those sections that contrasts very nicely with the shiny silver.

 

 This one got stripes with chunky white glitter. I had a lot of fun just playing. I did several others but these three are my favorites.

I also found this tiny princess tea set at Family Dollar. The pieces are nicely scaled for dollhouse use. I just need to make them look much less pink and plastic, lol. The teapot is made to hold all the pieces. I had planned to paint it to look like a porcelain teapot to hang on the tree. Silly me - I didn't even think about putting a mini scene inside. It's a good thing my hubby did. ;) That's gonna be a project for tomorrow during the football games. I promise to show you the results tomorrow evening.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

It's Christmas around the house

 This is our living room tree. I get to decorate this one however I want. For the past several years I've used vintage and vintage style ornaments. Even the topper is a vintage replica. Under the tree I have a little village I started collecting last year. Almost all of the pieces have come from thrift stores. It's been fun to add to over this past year.

This is our family tree. We have Christmas morning in our master bedroom so that's where this tree is - it's also the largest room in the house so we can have a large tree. This is the first year for the blue lights and sparkly garland. The rest of the family love all blue, and since I get to choose the lights for the downstairs tree, we went with their favorite for this one. The new lights are blue LEDs. I must say that the blue is growing on me. The LED lights are really nice. I made the tree skirt many years ago. It has angels and stars appliqued on it.

We also have several nativities and my Santa collection spread throughout the house.  My middle child is living at home since graduating from college and she has a small tree decorated with chiffon butterflies and Tinkerbelle ornaments.

It's very festive here!

Santa's House featured!

Santa's House has been featured as the dollhouse of the month over at My Small Obsession! The link takes you to the website but Gaye also has a blog by the same name. Thank you very much, Gaye!

Finally, something new!

 A nasty virus found me the day after Thanksgiving. I've been down ever since. I haven't been able to decorate my house for Christmas yet but I was strong enough to give Harriet a hand with hers. I also made up a tray of craft supplies ('cause you can only spend so much time sleeping no matter how sick you are!) and pulled up pictures of Red Flyer sleds on my laptop and went to work. I think the resulting sled is really nice. I had originally propped a popsicle stick sled that I found in the round robin swap box against the porch wall. Even after some modifications, though, it still looked too fake. That's what led to this project.

 The living room looks quite festive for the holidays. The stockings are hung and there's even a stack of gifts under the tree table.

 The kitchen calendar has been turned to December and there's a lovely Christmas print cloth on the table. You can see that Harriet and Sandy have already been baking, too. There's a gingerbread house, fruitcake and Christmas cupcakes.

Welcome!

I have been very lax in welcoming new followers. Several of you have recently started following De-Lightful Minis and I am so glad to see you! There are 379 of you now! Wow! Once we hit 400 it will be time for an extra special giveaway.

I hope to start my newest project soon. Now that I am working 5 days/week there seems to be much less time for minis. :(  Thank you all for staying with me even during the long "dry" spells without minis. You are all the best and I've learned so much from following your blogs. Wishing all of you a wonderful week!

Everyone is home again

On Saturday, a friend and I brought the four dollhouses home from the library. It was quite an adventure! Once again, the two smaller houses rode in my Toyota. Theresa has a larger vehicle so I had planned for the larger houses to ride in the back. Unfortunately, her car isn't much taller than mine. One of the houses fit nicely behind the front passenger seat but the Petite Dreams had to lie flat on its back. We put it on a blanket with all of the stuff still inside the house and hoped for the best. I had some major resetting to do but nothing was damaged. My bedroom doesn't look quite so empty anymore now that the houses are back. Oh, and I am already scheduled for another library display next October. :)

Hello!

I haven't posted for awhile because hubby and I were away on a Caribbean cruise to celebrate our 30th anniversary. We had an amazing time and visited some beautiful places. This was the view from our cabin balcony. It was very difficult to come back to real life. ;)

A Few New Things

 Many of my new swap things now have homes. I love the new lamps. The knitting bag on the floor was a prize from Small World forum. The colors are so good in this room. The needlepoint pillow was a recent purchase.

 The leather topped dresser looks great in George's room. The base violin is a recent purchase

 Sandy put the laundry away and now she's finishing up the dishes for Harriet.

Harriet is putting her own laundry away today.

Chair Challenge

 The chair challenge photos have been posted on my mini forum so I can show you what I did. The idea was my husband's. The little boy has broken his mama's favorite vase playing soccer in the house so he's "doing time" in the chair in the corner. His faithful dog thinks it was partly his fault so he's "chairing the blame."

 If you look very closely you can see tears on the boy's face.

I revamped a Dollar Tree doll to make the little boy. He used to be a blonde, blue-eyed little girl, LOL.

Wait 'til you see what I got in return!

 Sandy got a couple of pretty new dresses and some movie magazines from Brenda. The Eiffel Tower went to George who used to travel around the world before the war.

 Gaye made canisters for the kitchen and pretty lamps and a doily for the living room. Sandy got some more magazines. Rosie made the milk basket, pecan pie and men's grooming supplies.

Sandy was the over achiever this time. ;) She made nightwear and dresses for the ladies. Boarder Sandy got the little pink nightie and robe. She also got the lovely green hat. The leather topped dresser and masks are in George's room. The cookie jar and cute little towels are in the kitchen.

Everyone got something and all of the new accessories add so much to the boarders' stories. I don't have enough room to display all of the dresses so I'm thinking of stringing a clothes line on the porch to show the others.

Special thanks to Brenda for the use of her photos.

Personalized Swap

 One of the groups I belong to recently held a "personalized swap." We each chose which of our dollhouses or projects that we wanted to receive items for. Brenda chose her seaside cottage. The residents are a retired sea captain, his wife and their young son. I tried to make a little something for everyone. Elsie got a bathing suit and a shell book. The captain got a sea chest filled with the tools of his trade. And the little boy got a sand castle with pail and shovel and a child's book about seashells.

 Gaye is redecorating a dollhouse her grandmother gave her. She's turning it into a girls' boarding school reminiscent of "The Facts of Life" television show from the 80s. She got two students in uniform and a spare uniform for another room.

 Rosie is working on a Christmas bakery. Gray and dark red are two of the colors she's using so I revamped the dining set I made for the library class (that didn't work out). I added Christmas patterned dishware and napkins, filled coffee cups and a Christmas pot with extra coffee. The plates hold a cake and cream dessert. The workboard is another cake in progress.

Sandy is making a Christmas house. The chair used to be a picture frame. I padded the area that used to hold the glass and upholstered over the resin chair with Christmas prints. The matching ottoman was a bottle lid of some sort. The side table was a small cake decorating pedestal and I added a Christmas shade to a real mini lamp.

This swap was so much fun! Knowing the recipients already have a home in mind for your projects really added a lot to the anticipation. I chose Harriet's boarding house. I will post photos soon of all the wonderful gifts I received. Harriet and her boarders were thrilled! ;)

Library Display

 Here we are stopped on the roadside making some adjustments. The San Franciscan and the Petite Dreams were too large for my RAV so they had to ride in the back of hubby's pickup. I had the Willowcrest and Victorian Cottage. I spent a long time yesterday waxing things in place before we put the plexiglass covers on so I had to make very few adjustments once we got the houses inside.

 Here I am at the end of the Victorian street. There were already people looking before we even got out of the library. :)

The Willowcrest pictures didn't come out very clearly but it and the wedding gazebo are on the bookcase directly behind this one.

The added bonus today was talking with one of the librarians who's also a miniaturist. We exchanged contact information so we can get together to see each other's collections and talk minis. Woo hoo!

And here are the other two...

I can't find photos of the fronts of these two so will get some when I pull the houses out to clean them. The one on the left is a RGT Victorian Cottage. The other is a Petite Dreams Victorian. It looks just like a reversed RGT Allison except it has very narrow doors. I had to make all but the front door from scratch.

These two houses are special to me because they mark the beginning of my renewed interest in minis after a 10 year break while the kids were young. Most of the furniture in these houses was made from scratch or revamped from purchased.

I only have a week!...

...to get  4 dollhouses ready for the National Dollhouse and Miniatures month display at the library. This year I am taking larger houses. Three are Victorian and I want to set them up as a street. The DuraCraft San Franciscan is one of the houses I am planning to take. I also plan to take the RGT Victorian Cottage and the Petite Dreams Victorian house. I can't find photos of those at the moment but I know both are featured somewhere on the blog. :)

 The Willowcrest is a contemporary Victorian but I want to take it and a photo scrapbook showing the renovations I did on this $7 garage sale find.

I plan to use this gazebo, too, to add to the street feeling. This will be the city park. I have so much yet to do. None of these houses have plexi covers yet and I need to finish the scrapbooks for the Willowcrest and the San Fran. Hopefully, these will be as popular with the library patrons as last year's display.