Dollshouse for the dollshouse!

I've started to work on the rooms in the attic of the French House - a bedroom and bathroom (although I'm thinking of turning that into a work room - we'll see!)

This beautiful dollshouse comes courtesy of Cynthia Howe - it was part on an on line tutorial for Madeleines nusery. It came in kit form, and was really easy to put together. Its probably the single most expensive item I have purchased for my house, but it as too beautiful to resist!

I have it sitting in the corner of the bedroom, and will post some more photo's of the bedroom later.

Furniture

I thought I would show a couple of pictures of the furniture that I have been working on lately. I make all my furniture from 1mm mount board, as I do not have access to any type of wood suitable for miniature making. Cardboard is cheap and easy to use, and once painted looks great! (Well I think so anyway!!)
The lilac velvet upholstered sofa will eventually form part of the master bedroom. The gold paint will fade over a few weeks, and become a lot softer, giving a very beautiful aged effect - it looks very bright now. It's made as usual from cardboard and a couple of beads, findings and some scrapbook embellishments. The rusty white chair is copied from the Lea Frisonis Flower Shop, and I made the little round cushion to make it a little bit more comfy.



This is the dreaded sofa! It was easy enough to make a cardboard frame, which I padded out with felt. Having been lulled into a false sense of ease, I figured, how difficult could it be to make a loose fitting cover, ala Rachel Ashwell? Mmmm, after several tries, and many metres of white muslim later, I was ready to bin the darn thing. My mistake was to think that it would be easy to use a sewing machine, so after switching to hand sewing, it worked. The cover below is only the first attempt, and I guess that I could get it looking much better if I tried it again, but quite honestly, I'll probably slit my wrists if I had to try again!!

The coffe table was inspired by Carolyn http://carolynslittlekitchen.blogspot.com/. I used an old white wire chair from a part works dollhouse series I did years ago (That's a story for another time!!) made the base and legs from card and beads a dab of paint, some rust, and voila!


This is my altime favourite piece. It was inspired by a real French Country Cupboard that was been sold at my favourite shop for the budget price of R35000.00! (about $4700.00) Like a spy, a took a couple of surreptitious photo's (the sales woman was VERY intimidating) glaring at me like a vulture as I exclaimed in delight and awe! I tried to reproduce the painted panels, but this was beyond my capabilities, so just used a copy and stuck it into the panels. The door and drawer open, and are lined with a beautiful French script scrappbooking paper. I still have to find the perfect door knobs and drawer pulls - my local bead shop has nothing to offer, but I did manage to find a tiny little key that will look perfect.


The cupboard as usual is made out of card, with many layers of paint and distressing and sanding in between to give it an aged look. I love it!!!

Slooooooww Progress

Well, it's certainly been a while since the last post, and to be honest, not much has been happening in my abscense! What with the FIFA World Cup and school holidays on our doorstep, there hasn't been much me time in the last couple of months. I've also come to a bit of a standstill on the French House - I'm stuck and can't make up my mind how to go about doing the exterior (I actually can't even decide on WHAT type of exterior look I'm going for!) As a result, alot of the interior decorating has had to take a back seat. I have however, not been entirely idle, and have managed to complete a couple of pieces of furniture for the sitting room. I'm hoping to complete this room as soon as I have made some decisions as to the outside look - not much to look at I know, but we'll get there...eventually!

I hated every minute I spent making the shabby white couch - I was going for a Rachel Ashwell look, but I couldn't get the look and feel quite right, and I had to start from scratch a couple of times, but I am pleased with the final result even though it's not exactly as I envisioned it. The lilac velvet settee will eventually go into the master bedroom, and will be replaced with a couple of old fashioned wicker ball and claw chairs, based on the chairs that are currently gracing my sitting room.

I will try and post more often - the problem is that I end up spending most of my time drooling over everyone elses beautiful blogs, and forgetting that I actually have one of my own!

Working on the Entrance Hall

I had a little bit of time over the weekend to do some work on the French House. I made the front door........

...and printed out the Wallpaper panels that I'm wanting to use - this is an image I've had for a while, and can't remember where I got it from - I originally kept it as I was hoping to paint a copy of it onto my lounge wall. I'm just having problems trying to figure out the best way to do the panelling bits around it. All I have is a couple of sheets of cardboard!

Progress!

Firstly, thank you to Claire and Joey for being my first 2 followers!! and secondly, I can't believe that its been so long since my last post, where does the time go?

I've been making slow progress on my French House - I feel that I should at least keep up with Claire! S0 (drum roll) I took all the pieces that had been lurking in the garage for the last year, and voila! put them all together and I now have 3 walls and a bottom. Not much I know, but this is supposed to be a lifelong project (haha!!). Below you can see the beginnings of the hall and kitchen. The kitchen floor is slate - made by smearing what we call polyfilla (that yucky stuff used to fill the holes one tends to bash into the walls when attempting to hang pictures) over a piece of 1mm thich cardboard. When it dried, I painted it using various shades of grey and white, and then cut it into 3cm x 1,5 cm tiles, and glued them down to another piece of 1mm card. Then grouted and aged a little. The photo doesn't show the subtle variations in texture that one can get from using the Polyfilla though.

The hall way is an almost exact replica of the hallway in Lea Frisonis book - I love that hallway so much that I had to try and copy it.

The dresser on the left still needs to be completed - I need to find someway of doing the handles and strap hinges, and it needs a door on the other side.

The above two pictures show 2 different views of the bottom floor - still stacks of work to do!