Doll's House Furniture

I promised some of you a look at the doll's house that my lovely husband made for my daughter for Christmas. The soft furnishings have all been hand made by me, and as yet the house has only had a basic finish but we are hoping to add to it as time goes by and my daughter's tastes change. You will find some photographs of the beautiful house here, go on have a quick look... I'll wait.

This is the attic room of the house, it has been decorated as a children's bedroom and play room, I think it is my daughter's favourite room so far. The pretty wall stickers were a chance find in a local pound shop, the bunting fits exactly into the space. My husband made all the furniture in a chunky but durable style to make sure that they survive vigorous toddler play, and again those handy stickers were added to the ends of the beds for cuteness. All the bedding was hand stitched, foam was covered with old candy stripe sheet material to make the mattress and the pillows and bench pad are made with checked gingham. The quilt covers have been made so that they are double sided in case she feels like a change, quite simply by sewing two squares of fabric together and stuffing them. One side is purple checked gingham and the reverse side from a different fabric, you may notice this on the bed with the doll in more clearly. The little rug was just a knitted square using very small needles and fuzzy wool so that the effect is that of a rag rug.

This is the lounge set again my husband went with a simple, chunky set for now and I made the sofa cushions in my daughter's favourite colour, the fabric is actually from one of her much loved t-shirts which was recently outgrown. The little cushions are crocheted in a matching colour by simply doing a ring then one further row twice and sewing the little circles together.  The flat screen TV was made using the case of an old mp3 player, glued on a wooden stand with a cartoon photograph, laminated and stuck inside. I am quite pleased with how this turned out because it looks very realistic.

As you know, the house was a Christmas present, so it only seemed right to add some seasonal decorations. The tree is made from a cone of green felt, glued onto a stick and in turn into a wooden base, then decorated with ribbon and sequins.

A wreath for the front door was also made by twisting and gluing an old branch from an artificial tree into a circle, adding a few tiny pine cones and ribbon to hang it with. That's it for now.... what do you think?

Happy New Year 2012

Not the sort of Happy New Year photograph you usually see... but this calendula photograph was taken in my herb bed this morning, nature's fireworks bursting through. Just a quick post to wish you all a Happy New year and to thank-you for reading.  We have been so busy here that I haven't had the time to write as much as I wanted to and many things went unfinished.  So will quickly update you on some of the things we have done.

As the children really enjoyed working with clay and making the Autumn leaf bowls we decided to buy a large bag from the art shop. Some of it was put to good use making tree decorations, the children used dough cutters to cut out their shapes and these were then painted and varnished.

I also made some and stamped words on them with our metal stamps before painting them with metallic purple paint. I stamped our names on some to use on the crackers and as gift labels but totally forgot to use them in all the excitement. As shown in previous posts we made some of the tree decorations, this is something we always do to create special memories for the children. We also made all of our Christmas cards, this year we kept most of them very simple due to time limitations.

 The children had a lot of fun making our chocolate Yule log and home made sweets, this year we made marshmallow snowmen, fruit and nut chocolate bark and marzipan snowballs. A lot of time was spent making things for the doll house that my husband made for our daughter, I was in charge of interior design, will try to remember to post pictures here soon. I am a little relieved to have a calmness return to the house now that the celebrations are over and the decorations have come down.

I have made a start on my 'sort of' new year's resolutions already, by making my own toothpaste. I never make huge resolutions that are so overwhelming you fail after a couple of weeks and end up feeling bad about yourself. I only make small achievable aims and when these have been completed will then make another goal and another, right throughout the year, this way there are lots of small successes. The feel good factor from this is better and when you look back on everything you have done it is quite like a big resolution anyway just taken in small steps and without any stress.

Hope you all have a wonderful 2012.