Dollshouse dollshouse

This is the dollshouse dollshouse for the little girl's room (promise photos of the room shortly!), it was much more fun working in the little scale than I thought it was going to be.


Due to severe lack of forward planning I had to pull the roof off again to get a better shot of the bedroom. The book has paper pages and cotton thread bookmark - it measures about 3 mm x 2 mm.

More "real world" cottage kitchen

The solid fuel stove was what we cooked on almost exclusively when we lived in the cottage for a while. There is no full size electric stove but the microwave and little benchtop oven and elements are adequate backup and now that we are there only in the summer the stove isn't used very much at all. It's wonderful on a cold day tho!

This 'business end' of the kitchen is to the left of the stove...


The concrete floor is new, unfortunately we had to remove the red brick floor that was there previously due to a number of problems. Still undecided whether or not to leave it 'as is' or paint or cover it in some way. Doesn't show in the photo but it has a good rough 'rustic' swirly finish so it's quite ok as is for the moment at least.

1:16 Sitting room

All pieces except the black bag (Dolls House Emporium) are handmade from scratch (I'm a kit-free zone), the furniture in my mid-80s foray into miniatures, the books and photograph album since I've come back to the mini world in the last couple of years.

Am I really following myself???

I have no idea how I ended up in my own followers list - this whole blog thing is a bit of an adventure and I seem to have done something wrong! I'm too scared to delete myself in case the whole thing goes up in smoke! Oh well, at least if I keep following myself I'll never get lost :)

My unlucky lucky day

After a cloudy damp day yesterday the sunshine is back, great light to try the mini photos again AND I FINALLY worked out how to use the macro facility on the camera. Oh happy day! With rising spirits took some fairly good pics, put the photo card thingy in the laptop, proceeded to copy the pics to a storage file. Hmmm, nothing happening. OK, plan B: upload all the mini ones to my email. Looks good, a big file goes off into cyberspace. Open the email, only one pic there - very strange... took the photo card out of the laptop, put it back into the camera - ALL the photos on the card were GONE except one :( What to do now?? Two options really, sit down and cry about it or get another photo card and take some more photos. Decided on the second option so here are a couple with more to come.





All these pieces are 1:16 scale and were made with basswood using patterns from 'The Dolls' House DIY Book' by Venus and Martin Dodge. The dinner set on the dresser I bought at a show, the blue and white willow pattern plates are 'printies'. The brown 'stoneware' plates are actually light blue 'spatter' pattern like the little bowls but were painted with matte Humbrol. The bread, cheese and knife were all made from air drying clay and painted. The eggs in the bowl on the dresser are unpainted air drying clay. I was quite lucky to find a dinner set and red wine bottles that were small enough to 'work' with the smaller scale. I actually really like this scale but frustration at not being able to find enough accessories 'ready made' has pushed me to try 1:12 in my new projects.

"real world" cottage bedroom

The timetable for the redecoration of this bedroom became somewhat 'extended' when it was discovered that the whole ceiling had to be replaced - oh the joys of renovating!

"real world" Cottage Kitchen

The old stove is the real heart of the home in the winter, to the right is the bathroom...

Home sweet home

What a frustrating day! Every photo of the minis that I've 'tried' to take today has not turned out well so maybe time to post some photos of the cottage instead...

My header photo

This photo of my late mother was taken about 1918 outside the cottage where she, and her children, grew up. It is my mother I have to thank for her nurturing of my creative spirit in the many hours we spent together making scrapbooks, drawing, knitting, embroidering and just chatting about 'girl stuff'. Thanks mum.

Welcome to my blog!

I've been inspired by so many vintage decor and miniature blogs recently I thought it was about time I produced one of my own to share what's going on in my mini-world (although I must admit it's often not a great deal!), and also the (snail pace) real world renovation of our little much loved cottage in New Zealand (it's a slow job when we only get to go there for a few short weeks a year).

So please drop by from time to time, and leave me a note!