Merry Christmas!

 Merry Christmas! 

It's a merry Christmas in the Malibu Dollhouse!

With lots of boxes of decorations

(Don't knock over the tree, little kitty!) 

and delicious Christmas-decorated cupcakes and cakes (I made the tray from a printable given to me by  http://ketsiaelie.blogspot.com/

I started the Christmas spirit early in the month by making little gifts for the Big Apple Miniaturists Holiday gift bag. The red Christmas paper and labels are printables from either the Dollhouse Miniatures Magazine or American Miniaturist. I love those labels!

Then at the BAM club meeting, we made this little Christmas shelf from a Dragonfly kit (I actually got distracted talking to other club members so the shelf supports are supposed to be on top, but mine are on the bottom- that happens a lot at club meetings 😂😂):

And then the bakery started making Christmas cookies (one of my favorite traditions of the holiday):

The trays of uncooked cookies (so realistic looking) are from aMusingMiniatures on Etsy. I made the decorated cookies on the right.

The bakery put the Gingerbread houses in the window:

And here is my Christmas cookie tray purchased at last year's Chicago Miniature Show from a woman from Germany:

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

No Place like Gnome for the Holidays: Easy Tutorial to Make a Dollhouse Christmas Gnome

I saw this gnome tree on Pinterest in a real life house and I thought that it'd be fun to make in mini. Then my friend from http://ketsiaelie.blogspot.com/ had extra supplies and gave me the roping pine garland and I decided to try it!

And then Sheila from https://shenandoahandstuff.blogspot.com/ came up with a better title for my post!

You need; roping pine garland, an eraser nose (see the paper-mate sharpwriter now missing its eraser), tacky glue and red felt for the hat. And an egg carton (for shaping).

Measure enough garland as per below (using cut-out egg carton to figure out length and to shape it - but you won't actually glue it to the egg carton) and then cut it.

Cut three more pieces. Place three strands parallel and then glue the fourth strand on top. Shape it with your hands. Glue the eraser nose between the 3 parallel strands and the top strand.

Now make the little felt hat: cut out a triangle of red felt and glue the edges.

 Glue that on.


And you're done!! Easy-peasy.

Enjoy the weekend!

Christmas Cart

In my mini club, we are making vendor carts - it's a kit from Laser Creations. (www.lasercreationsminiatures.com).

Here is my finished cart.  Now I have to decide whether I am going to actually GLUE Christmas items to the cart. 

Have a great week!

Mini Book Talk

My friend Mathew Lansburgh published a book and now he's giving a mini book talk.

His book is all tabbed up with sections to read to you.  And then he's ready to sign a copy for you.

His book Outside is the Ocean won the Iowa Short Fiction Award and was a Finalist for Lambda Literary Fiction Award.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm very thankful for all my mini friends, who I've met in person or online.

The desserts are ready for Thanksgiving:

 

And the cranberry sauce and potatoes are being cooked (ordered from the Etsy store of KensingtonMiniatures):

Here's a close-up of the gingerbread cake as I was making it. It was my first time using liquid sculpey, so that was fun.

Unfortunately I couldn't find my turkey dinner (I hope I have some time in December to organize my minis, so I stop driving myself crazy looking for things), so I couldn't make the turkey dinner scene I initially planned.  But I was happy with my gingerbread cake.

So here are pictures of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade:

With Santa Claus's sled:

And now I can start making Xmas things for my dollhouse!

Making a rolling pin holder

Hello! I'm still alive -- I'm just mostly on Instagram. (I also changed jobs and have been really busy with that.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful summer!

I thought of a way to make a rolling pin holder for my bakery and wanted to share that with you.

I was looking on Pinterest for ideas on how to store the rolling pins (as I was getting quite a collection for my bakery)--as one does. And I saw this in real life, so then I was thinking of how to make it in miniature.

I used craft sticks, omniglue and paperclips (and paint).

I cut the paper clips so I had the curve part and a little more and then I glued those onto cut craft sticks. Before I glued it, I tested my rolling pin to make sure it would fit and marked the places. 

For one of them, I glued another piece of craft stick on it, but with the other, the rolling pin wouldn't have fit. You can paint it if you want.  I painted one of them. 

And that's it!

Enjoy! And I hope you have a great week! 

The Shelf Saga for my Shabby Chic Bakery

There's a bit of problem when you start to slightly improve at making miniatures: you realize all the things that need to be done and it takes much longer  :)

I needed a shelf in my bakery.  See in the picture below how it looks SO naked above the stove:

Plus I needed somewhere to put all the baking supplies I had bought. 

 I found a paint stirrer stick, painted it white, and I was going to glue it to the bakery wall.

But then I thought I really should put a dimensional glaze on my Dutch tile wallpaper so it looks more like real tiles.  It took me some time then to find where I had put the glaze.  (I almost bought another jar, but I kept looking.)  Three coats later, I was much happier with my Dutch tile wall.

I decided I should put lights under the shelf, and I would want to hide them with a lip, so I added a lip to the shelf.  I had to order the lights, though.

While waiting, I started looking at Pinterest (DANGER) and saw someone using Christmas ornament hooks to hang utensils, and I realized I definitely needed that! So I then added a rod (I made out of a toothpick between 2 wood stirrer sticks) and hung various Christmas ornament hooks from it (luckily I was doing this part of the project around Christmas - otherwise that would have been about 2 weeks while I got up the courage to rummage back through packed-away Christmas ornaments). 

 (I also got distracted with making various Christmas-related minis, like cookies and gingerbread houses.)

I drilled a small hole in my bakery wall and then decided to check the lights before I attached them to my shelf. I tried attaching a plug, but the connection wasn't good.  Then I ordered the 9V battery kit from Model Train (where you just twist the wires together), and it worked.

Here are my lights (may need more!):

(Yes, this is taken around Valentine's Day)

And so, about 2 months later, I glued the shelf in.  I'm so impressed with all of you and how quickly you work - and anyone who does the HBS contest :)

And now for the fun part:  finding all my bakery stuff and placing them on the shelf.

Although now I have realized I need another shelf for cookbooks and I want to make a rolling pin holder (also inspired by ideas on Pinterest).  

So stay tuned!

Have a great week!