Am I the only one

...who makes the interior furnishings before finishing the building? I'm not sure why I work this way but I do. It's partially because I like making the furniture best and once that's done I'm more motivated to finish the house. I'm going to try to go back and forth on this house. I did get some of the painting done yesterday and I really like how the living room plaster turned out. Anyway, here are the finished kitchen pieces:

 I'm really pleased with how the kitchen cabinets and appliances turned out. Parts of two Michael's hutches, a block of balsa, cardboard, cardstock, beads, woodsies, and stickers got the project this far. Still needed: faucet, backsplash, and a second shelf for over the sink/range area.

 This is the baking hutch that I pulled from my zibbet shop. The yellow over red finish makes it perfect for this kitchen. I don't remember where the dog came from but he will be one of the residents here.

 I am just playing with layout possibilities here. I hope to make an "iron" headboard. I have fabrics chosen for the bed linens. I don't know if I will leave the rocking chair as is or distress it. Opinions?

 The bathroom is really rough at this point. The shelf unit will be finished and wall mounted for towels and other supplies. The tub will be painted and probably have wall mounted plumbing fixtures. I am tentatively planning to somehow use the wash stand as a sink but I think it is oversized so I'd have to cut it down. At this point, the toilet will be completely from scratch unless I stumble on one at a thrift store.

The nursery will keep this walllpaper. I have pink carpet for the floor. The baby needs some work. She's not very pretty, lol. I think lightening her hair will help. She was only $1 at the miniature shop in Holland, Michigan, we visited last month. I figured I could fix her up somehow.

I forgot how much fun it is!

 No change in the house tonight but I made big progress on furniture. The nightstand and armoire for the master bedroom - the wallpaper for that room is behind them. These took forever due to the multiple coats of paint I needed to get the effect I wanted.

 This wallpaper and border were already in the room. I really like them so I'm going to make this a baby girl's room. Her dresser turned out well, I think.

 The kitchen cupboards and appliances before painting - at this point they have a coat of gesso.

 The shelves on the counter next to the fridge will be mounted on the wall. The refrigerator is a paper covered block of balsa. The rest was made by bashing Michael's hutches.

 This is after the paint treatment for the cupboards. I still need to finish the appliances and countertops. The cabinets need knobs, too.

Farmhouse sink and range in the same unit. There's never quite enough space in a dollhouse kitchen but this works pretty well. I still need faucet, burners, and a finish of some sort on the stove. The kitchen is going to be primarily yellow with red and black accents. On the wall opposite the counter and appliances is going to be a baking day hutch from my zibbet shop. The window is a bay and I plan to have a small dining area there.

Rooms for sale!

I just listed three room boxes in my etsy shop. The doctor's office has been redone in a smaller, lighter box. I also listed a Christmas room and a nursery with a Heidi Ott baby.

The nursery is finished and listed

I had a lot of fun making tiny baby toys and supplies. There's also a plant on the shelf over the window. I'll put the personal photos of the buyer on that shelf, too. I can also put photos in the photo album on the top shelf of the hutch.
The little baby girl was hard to photograph. She has a scrunche up little face like she's crying.

You can see more photos on etsy at MiniDe's Miniature Dolls and More.

A new little nursery

I think I will list this in my etsy shop when I'm finished. I plan to offer to personalize it with photos and a little certificate with birth details. I just got the basics finished today. I still have all the little bits to make and a baby, too.
I'm happy with the finished hutch. It's a Michael's one with the doors removed. I replaced the wooden drawer pulls with flower beads. All I added to the hutch today were the two neatly folded receiving blankets. I've got lots of shelves to fill, including the one over the window.

Making that back wall was a challenge. I don't have a scroll saw. I have a hack saw and another small handsaw. Getting the curves cut was interesting. :)

A gift for a friend

My friend loves cows and will probably have them in the nursery. I found the border online. The wallpaper is scrapbook paper. I made the corner from 3 pieces of laminate samples leftover from when we were shopping for our new floor 8 years ago. The back side of the "room" is nicely finished without me having to do anything to it.
The baby in the bassinet was a hanging Christmas ornament. I cut off the ribbon hanger and made a wire frame for the bassinet. Then I added a longer skirt. I cut cows from the leftover border and glued them to the baby's blanket to make it a printed receiving blanket. The clay cow on the floor came out of a Noah's Ark display thing I used to have hanging in the dining room. The baby book and diapers were made from printies. I made the wipes, powder, lotion and diaper cream from Sculpey.
The pig is supposed to be a piggy bank. The photos are actually of my friend and her family. The plant on top of the shelf represents a welcome baby gift. The wooden blind is a sample.
The diaper pail was made from one of those canisters that come in pill bottles to keep moisture out.

They don't know if they're having a boy or girl so I tried to keep it gender neutral. The wallpaper is blue but has pink polka dots.

The updated nursery

The whole nursery with the recovered rocking chair and new blankets for the cradle.
The rocking chair up close. I found this yellow flannel with pink flowers in my fabric stash. I love how it brightens the dark chair.
This is the newborn I made for the cradle. She has blotchy newborn coloring and is anatomically correct - although I immediately glued a diaper on her, lol.

The promised pictures

Here's the promised pic of mini me in my new Christmas sweater from beepbeep of etsy. I actually had a sweater similar to this one in 1993. Isn't this one beautiful! I am so excited about it.
Another view of the living room.
Yet another view. That's mini hubby in the chair with his feet on the ottoman.
So I had kind of a rough day with some extended family stupidity. While I was in town I decided to cheer myself up with a visit to my favorite antique/consignment shop. I bought some beautiful vintage Christmas ornaments to add to my collection and I also bought this little rocking chair. It's plastic but the scale is nice for the nursery. I'm gonna leave it brown but add some pink print cushions.

And now for something different...

I posted photos a while ago of the nursery swaps I got in a Small World swap. Today I finally made a place to display everything. I started with a photo box I bought on sale at JoAnn Fabrics. I paid a little over $2 for it. Everything else was a swap item or I already had it on hand.
The tree stump table by Sandy Copeland needed some matching chairs so I made the little tree stump stools. They aren't as nice as Sandy's table but they fit the table theme. The wall shelf and changing table are two pieces of the same Michael's hutch. I added trim and a bottom shelf to the hutch top to make the shelf. The bottom got "carved" feet/trim made from pieces of wooden clothespins. The window is made from the doors of another hutch. I made the border at the ceiling by cutting elements from floral wallpaper
The curvy wood trim was cut from veneer strips with scrapbooking scissors. The baseboard is also from veneer strips. The carpet is just a piece of felt.

Meet Talia

I'm still waiting for inspiration on the doctor's office so yesterday I worked on a different project. I made this little baby, Talia, and decorated a hutch to match her crib. I also made the crib mobile. Talia is a full body sculpt and I sculpted sleeping eyes. She just popped her thumb out of her mouth.

Never throw anything away...

My daughter was on one of her cleaning frenzies (weeks on end of piling stuff up and then BOOM! the cleaning mood strikes, lol) and was throwing out a table top fountain that she no longer wanted. Luckily, I got to go through her rejects before they were out the door because the fountain base was the perfect size for a shallow room box. This nursery is the resulting room. It's a small project but it was so much fun! The floor is made from craft sticks. I had the wallpapers on hand but I wanted a border to divide the two. I scanned a section of the teddy bear paper into my computer and, using a card making program, designed a border using the individual elements of the wallpaper. I love how it turned out. The dresser and crib are pieces that I had finished for an earlier project and then didn't use. They fit perfectly in the shallow area. I made the shelf, diaper pail, bedding, diaper stacker and most of the other accessories from things I had on hand or printies from the internet. The baby is a Heidi Ott doll and she seems quite comfy in her little bed.