I got a dollhouse for Christmas!

A good friend found this house at a flea market over the summer and gave it to me this week for  Christmas. It obviously belonged to a little girl before me and was well loved. Because of that, the house needs some repair work done. I love the style, though.

 It looks like this room had the same zebra carpet as the room beside it. Um, that is gonna have to go. :-)

 The area under the stairs has been closed in and a door added.

 My friend include a bag of things she's collected that may have mini potential.

The attic room is L shaped.

And what are my plans for this house, you ask? Well, I am leaning towards an elf dormitory/house. The rooms are very large so it would be easy to fit in several beds in the second story rooms and a long table in the dining area. I will let this idea percolate in my brain for awhile so I can finish the French Country house. I will need to find a place to display Santa's house, the workshop, and the elf house all together. I think this will be a fun project!

Christmas greetings!

A Memory in Mini

 It's been so long since I had time to create anything in miniature. But now I'm on Christmas break so I did a few chores then got busy creating. First I had thought I'd make a wedding cake ornament for the newlyweds. While gathering my supplies I found this box my husband gave me. I forget what came inside it, but it made a perfect memory shadowbox.

 I put a wedding invitation on the back wall and made a "table" from cardstock. It's covered in burlap that was used as part of the wedding centerpieces. In addition to the cake, I made a mini version of my daughter's bouquet and the toasting glasses they used. Below is a close up of the mini cake. I made the actual cake topper, too. The mini was made with the tiniest of the pine cones we used for corsages and boutennieres. I made the cowboy hat from a hole punch out and a tiny bit of fun foam.

 Here's the real cake. I'm pleased with how well the mini version turned out.

Here you can see the real toasting glasses and a bit of the pinecone garland at the head table. I hope they like their mini memory. I certainly enjoyed making it. :-)

It's beginning to look alot like Christmas!

 I made this version of our family Advent banner for my daughter's new family. Their home is small so I made the new one a bit more compact than ours. I think I like the new angels and the fleece sheep better than ours. :-)

 This is the original one made by my mom and me twenty plus years ago. The pattern came from a women's magazine.

Here are the stockings for my son-in-law and new granddaughters. They are very similar to the ones I made for our family, except  that older ones are green.

It feels good to create something, even if it isn't mini. I hope to get back to the French Country house soon. I need some miniature inspiration.

Wishing you a blessing filled day, wherever you are!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I am feeling very blessed. We are just now home from a wonderful day with friends and family. I'm missing our newlyweds and granddaughters a bit but they will be here tomorrow. We got to spend time with some nephews that we don't see often. All of the cousins that are "home" have continued the party at one of our niece's home. They don't get much time together now that they are all young adults. It makes my heart smile that they make time for each other now. They're planning to watch a musical and have a boys against girls graham cracker gingerbread house competition. I can't wait to see those pics!

Oh, and speaking of the newlyweds, here are a few photos from the big day:

Not just like the real one...

...but it is made of fabric from my daughter's wedding dress. She's only 5'2" so the seamstress had to cut several inches off the bottom. That left some nice sized scraps for me to work with. Other than being strapless, the bodice of the mini dress is completely different from the real one. (No photos of the real one, though, until after the November 1 wedding.) The real skirt is made of the same fabrics I used - a sheath style underskirt in satin (the real one has two layers) and a layer of plain tulle and a top layer of the dotted tulle. Of course, the dot pattern is more subtle on the real one since I used the same fabric for the mini one. It will be a great way to remember her wedding day each time I look into the mini bridal shop. She is on her way home from her fiance's so I am keeping it out to show her. I will get the shop out and cleaned and then post a photo of the dress in the shop some time this week.

Wow! I made a mini and posted twice this weekend. Maybe there's hope for me, lol.

Have a wonderful and blessed week, wherever you are!

I'm still here!

We are now in the wedding homestretch - 2 weeks from today. The garden harvest is just about done. I'm hoping for some mini time after the wedding. One mini thing that may happen sooner is making a miniature wedding gown from the alteration scraps of my daughter's wedding dress. I have a mini gown made from bits of my honeymoon negligee set already in the mini bridal salon. I think I want to put some memento from each of my children's weddings in it, too. I don't think it will be all that long until we are planning daughter #1's wedding. My son isn't dating anyone so we have some time there. ;-)

If you are reading this post, thank you so much for hanging in there. I've kept up with all of your news and can't wait to get back to regular posting again.

See you after the wedding!