Invasion of the giant cat

I think Lil has been reading this blog and took my last post literally and is squatting in my dolls house.

At least she has floors now. Cork in the kitchen, floorboards in the lounge and hall and white carpet in the upstairs bedroom. There's even some furniture been moved in, kitchen setting and hutch in the kitchen and a bed head and wardrobe in the wallpapered bedroom. The whole place stillnes a like of paint. I think white, all white, everywhere with a red roof.

This whole dolls house caper is harder than I thought it would be. After my initial obsession settled down (by obsession I mean borrowing EVERY book on miniatures from the library and looking at everything and thinking"can i use this in the house?") I realised that making things that are so small is tricky and dangerous for the fingers.

I've also started hanging out in $2 shops. they have a treasure trove of fab things, especially in the scrapbooking areas. (eeew scrapbooking). Perfect little metal picture frames, the window frames in the photo above, even cute papers for wallpaper etc... I'm already planning the next reno because there's so many things I want to do.

Decisions, decisions

A few more decisions have been made about the house and its occupant, out of necessity. I was getting awfully confused as to what to try to put into, what style to do and what was just being ridiculous so I've set myself some guidelines.
The owner of the house is a stylish, environmentally conscious girl in her early thirties. She lives alone but has a boyfriend (who leaves traces of himself around the house). She has travelled a little and has collected trinkets along her travels. She loves textiles of all sorts and collects them. She likes to cook and entertain with good friends and good wine. She grows her own veg and fruit in her garden and loves animals.

I may have to tweak these as a go along but just getting them sorted has helped me heaps already. I was wanting to try to make some little toys, but why? This girl has no kids so they would look silly in her house.

I think I want to be this girl.

My next BIG project.

I have decided that my next crafty project will be a major reno on my derelict dolls house. At the moment only tiny stray cats and tiny homeless people would use it as a squat.

When I was a little girl a friend of my Dad's made if for me and it was just magnificent. It had a bright red roof (just visible on the fascia of the eaves)which will be returning, and the inside was beautifully decorated. My Mum wallpapered the rooms with offcuts, carpeted it and hung beautiful little broderie anglaise curtains in the upstairs bedrooms. She even hung tiny pictures on the walls. I had beautiful small scale furniture for all of the rooms

So how did it end up looking like the before shot on a home renovation show?..................Well it was loaned to a family member for her young daughter as I was beyond playing with it and she loved it too. Years later I asked for it to be returned ( as it was only ever a loan) and this is how it was returned to me. Mission brown roof and an all white interior.
So the time has came to revive it to its former glory. Well, sort of. Mum did originally decorate it in the seventies but a face lift is well over due.

The upsairs left room is going to be my starting point, it will be the bedroom. I've decided on a Japanese look in there. The back wall be "wallpapered" with the same beautiful Japanese paper the I used on the 2 Geisha girls on the right in my last post. The bed linen will be a pink silk that perfectly matches the pale shade in the background of the paper. And the drapes will be black silk. (the colours look terrible in the photo because I couldn't find good light).

Don't know what to do in the rest of the rooms yet but I have pretty much settled on a layout. The middle section upstairs will be a small bathrooom, the bottom right will be the kitchen and the bottom left will the the lounge. I'm still undecided as to the fate of upper right. Library/office? another bed room? Any suggestions?

I want to try to make everthing out of recycled materials as this is going to be a "green house" where possible. (I've already decided that it will have a water tank made out of corrugated cardboard) Any suggestions on this front will be greatly appreciated too.

I will update with photos as I finish each room. Maybe it will make it onto Absolutely Beautiful Things one day.

Geisha girls.

I have just finished making these little geisha fridge magnets and I am rather pleased with myself.

I found the pattern for them in a book called Wonder ways with washi by UHL, Robertta.

They were very quick and easy to do once all of the cutting was done.

I think many more will be joining them for tea very soon.

It's a cats life

I'm coming back in my next life as a cat. More specifically, a cat that lives with me. This is Lil. Not only does she get to spent her day sleeping she gets to sleep in the ironing rather than doing it.

Childrens book character stamps

I just found this set of stamps on the net and I have to have them.They were reliased last year by the USPS. Ebay gave me no joy so I will have to keep searching. The Americans do such great stamps. I love the annual LOVE stamp.I haven't bought stamps for so long and now I have a desperate desire to go and blow all my money on them. I may even have to restart my Australia Post stamp subscription so I can get all of therir releases. Might see if I can do the same thing at USPS.

You Tube - thing 20

This is an hysterical clip my step-daughter introduced me to a couple of months ago. I watched it about 4 times in a row and nearly wet my pants. I then introduced my co-workers to it. They ended up with the the catchy little tune in their heads for days.I was not very popular.

"It's a pipe bomb - YAY!"





I really like You Tube because people use it for so many different uses. My partner uses it to watch top class skiff racing so he can improve his own race performance and to learn how to rig his own skiff for ultimate speed. My step-kids use it for pure entertainment and educational purposes. My boyfriends son uses it to watche American basketball to improve his own game.
I do however find the amound to stuff on there a little daunting. Even just trying to find something for this exercise was difficult. What to choose? what search words to put in? I don't think it would matter what words you put in something will pop up.