Mandrake #1 Winner!

I've been very lucky recently! I won my first giveaway a few weeks back, and then just won my second!
I have gone through my entire life not winning anything, so this has come as such a nice surprise for me :)

The amazingly talented and detail oriented Tara from 19th Day Miniatures had a giveaway of three Mandrakes. The first winner got to choose which out of the three they wanted, and the second got to choose between the remaining two, and the third winner got the last one.

Well I was the last winner, and I would have been happy to receive ANY of them. BUT AS IT SO HAPPENS...I WANTED THE #1 MANDRAKE AND THAT'S WHAT I GOT!!!!!! Oh lucky lucky meeee!! *evil smile*

I personally liked the first one the best and would have picked it had I been the first winner. Woo to the HOO! I'm so happy with it. It's absolutely gorgeous, so incredibly detailed! I love how it has grains of sand/dirt embedded into the Mandrake's body so it genuinely looks like it came up out of the earth.

Isn't she amazing?! I named her Zola.

Thank you so much Tara!!

Bunkbeds: Check!

Finished up the girls bunkbed bedding!

You can't tell but you can actually tuck a dolly into the covers. It's like a pocket. So she can be slipped in like she's actually in bed, under the blankets.

Here they are in the girls' bedroom. I added legs to the bedside table as well. I really like how they turned out.



Slacking

I've been slacking on the girl's dollhouse.

I've read 6 books in the last 3 days. Tweaking out on novels.
I LOVE reading. It's my favorite.

All the books I read were great...EXCEPT "50 Shades of Grey"
OMG.
I read it only because everyone's been talking about it and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.
WELL! GIVE ME AN HOUR OF MY LIFE BACK.
It was terrible. Truly bad.
The writing was extremely poor, the story made me feel sick, and at the end I felt AWFUL. Seriously AWFUL. I wish I'd never read it and I don't understand why people enjoyed it. I, apparently, am not into S&M. Or abuse.

And last Wednesday I went to LA Times Rock/Style 2012 at the Hollywood Roosevelt and it was really really fun. There was a fashion show and the Pierces performed. It was free food and alcohol but I had to drive so I didn't drink a lot.... UNTIL THE VALET LOST MY CAR KEYS.

It was a mess. I had to be chauffeured (sp?) home, and then to work the next morning, then picked up from work and I drive a Toyota Prius, which has an electric key so they can't just be duplicated. I thought I was going to have to get my car towed to a dealership and all this nonsense, and the keys cost around $1000 to make. LUCKILY, the freaking valet FOUND my key in someone else's car, so I went and picked it up on Thursday, after work. But the whole fiasco was a headache and I was literally so tired from it all that I felt sick and slept all Saturday.

 I met Jack Nicholson! I have now touched 6 famous people: Jack Nicholson, Fat Joe, Lucy Liu, Matthew Broderick, Alexis Bledel, and Courtney Cox. 

Anyways, in terms of the dollhouse, this is what I have accomplished in the last few days:

The furniture, my mom got me when I first told her I was getting into dollhousing. It's simple children's furniture that I don't actually really want, so I asked her permission to give it to the girls and of course she said yes! So therein lies the perfect nursery furniture. :) The baby bottle was a surprise find at the dollar store. They had packs of 12 (for baby showers) in blue and pink for... you guessed it- $1.

The cupboard is $1 at Michael's. I repainted it. The trunk is also from Michael's and was super cheap. I took off the front latch and decorated with a coat of paint and Hello Kitty stickers. The swing is a Sylvanian Families plastic thingie, and the Hello Kitty is an eraser! The tree is a placecard holder, also under $1 at Michael's.

I made the bunkbeds from an Apple iPhone case! They came out pretty nice. I just need to add mattresses and bedding. I made the pillows but then got lazy. I really like the rug, it has these funky raised bumps on them. If I was a kid... (oh wait, I AM a big kid!) I would think this rug was awesome. Yes, yes, I think it's rad. I put candles on the (so far still unfinished) dresser (which I'm not even sure I'm going to use in this room) but it's obviously a no-no and fire hazard for small children. I just thought they looked cute, but wouldn't want to send the wrong idea to three impressionable girls. So I think they won't go in the finished room haha! I'm trying to mostly re-use and recycle items to make the furniture in this house, since it's a low-budget project. The bedsire table is a gift box. I'm going to add legs to it, because it's too low.

Say hello to the living room. The side table is a gift box that will get some wooden legs. The couches I made a long time ago as my first attemps at constructing furniture. I wasn't 100% satisfied with how they came out, but I'm sure the girls won't care! The rug is a fabric swatch from Joanne's that I've been using pieces of in different scenes and rooms.

I made this cute picture fram on Microsoft Word and scavenged photos of the girls from my co-worker's Facebook. I really like how it turned out!

TTFN!



My Mother's Minis

My mom has a dollhouse! And minis to go with it!

...I knew this... a long time ago. I guess I just wasn't into it then so I didn't pay much attention.
Now that I AM into it, my mom has become very excited to show me her minis.
Of course, they're not modern because she's old (hehe) and they are from her childhood dollhouse. But I have realized that I am not a one-niche-kind-of-woman, and I am actually interested in many different types of minis: Modern, Medieval, Harry Potter, Witchy/Wizardry, Antique, etc...

My blog subscriptions mirror my interests. And they are eclectic.

Last night my mom sent me some pictures of her minis, and they are really cool! A lot of them look amazing- especially the dolls! How detailed! How well made! They don't make them like THAT anymore!

So, I'm here to share. Without further ado: Introducing, my mother's minis!

Oooh I'm just in awe of the dolls.

 

I guess the table can angle up for some reason?

I think I saw this swing on someone else's blog? But I can't be sure. Maybe it's not the same one.

EEK I love the stove too! My mom said it's cast iron.

Her mini tea set is prettier than mine.

So is her piano.

Her box of accessories. The pie looks tasty. I haven't eaten yet today.

This is my mom!! She's going to be 62 in August but everyone says she looks much younger. She doesn't dye her hair! She only has a couple of grey hairs. I bought her that dress for Mother's Day :) I love her so much!!!! And I miss her. She lives in Massachusetts, where I grew up. She's so cute. That's my little sister's reflection in the window taking the picture. She cracks me up!

She didn't take a picture of the dollhouse. But it's pretty cool too. I'll ask her to take a pic later.
My mom has no idea where any of her items came from because they were mostly gifts she got when she was little. So if anyone has any idea of the history of any of the items pictured, please let me know! She said she'd love to know any information on them!

...I think she'll let me have them tee hee

Long Overdue

I feel so badly I almost didn't want to write this post, but I have to as it's totally deserved.

A VERY LONG TIME AGO, I purchased this wonderful chocolate chip cookie prep board that I just had to have. It was amazingly realistic and my first delve into taking a slight interest in miniature foods. The artist's blog is: http://ilovelittlethings.blogspot.com/ and her mini foods are so realistic!

Anyways, I am embarrassed that it took me this long to write a post about the truly spectacular things she sent me. My excuse is that I just got caught up in so many other tangents in the mini world and... ok I'm just indecently forgetful.

Back when I got my purchase, I was still so new to the mini world that I did not know that sometimes, lovely mini makers will include a special bonus gift in their package to you. So not only did I get my wonderful chocolate chip cookie prep board, she ALSO sent me some fried chicken, french fries, and a coke bottle! I originally thought that there had been some mistake and she sent it to me by accident or that I had accidentally ordered it as well... but after reading some more of the blogs I follow, I soon realized she had added it specially for me :)

I want to take the time to thank her SO much for the generosity and the incredible quality of her goods.
If anyone should need mini food- check out her blog here: http://ilovelittlethings.blogspot.com/

The recipe card is so teeny weeny! Everything looks even better and you can see the painstaking details more in real life.

I have not taken the fried chicken out of the package yet, because I was afraid more of the crispy part would fall off and I was saving it for a mini scene which I have yet to make- as I have yet to finish a kitchen or dining room... sigh. I get so distracted! Mini ADD.

Sorry it took me so long to post about this, and THANK YOU!

The Girls' House: Phase 1

I have put together the house for the girls!
It was much harder than I thought. I actually broke a sweat and let out a few muttered curse words.
For some reason, I'm an idiot, and even though I did a dry run,  I STILL managed to put in two of the divider pieces backwards. I wood glued them in so I couldn't take them out so I had to do a lot of sanding and pushing and pulling to get them to fit right...backwards.

But it came together. And now the FUN part begins! Decorating!
Except wallpapering this b*tch sucked. Big time. It's not perfectly square is the problem. I really should have tried to wallpaper it before I put it together. I think that would have been easier and in turn would have stopped me from putting in those dividers backwards. Oh well.

I only did two rooms. Don't judge me. I'm bad at wallpapering.


                                 This room is going to be the playroom. It leads out onto the deck.

This room gave me so much grief. Getting the paper up and over those "square" support beams was awful. And there's still an unsightly bump on the top left hand back side but there's just no fixing it now. I have to remind myself that this house is intended for 3 girls under the age of 8, so I doubt they'll notice or care.

I think I'm going to actually keep the square rug instead of the Hello Kitty shaped rug I was playing around with in here.

This will be the 2 older girls' room. I plan to make bunkbeds. The rug isn't going to be this white one, I just put it in because the floor looked so bare without a rug. But I want to do a neon green circular rug I think. It will match the neon green in the wallpaper (and I bought material for bedding) and kind of represent grass.

I haven't decided if I'm going to paint the outside of the house or not. I'm torn because I love the natural wood look, but does it look too unfinished if I don't paint it? Then I was thinking of doing chalkboard paint somwhere because that's really cool and then the kids can draw on it with chalk or those chalk markers. Hm... lots to think about. And I don't want to spend too much money on this project so I'm trying to recycle and find new uses for things. However, I did spend money on the "wallpaper" AKA scrapbook paper, rug, and bedding. But in total I think I spent no more than $10 so far. So that's good.

I'm also going to install a few light fixtures. I'm going to do it how Megan did it on her blog. She has a tutorial there so hopefully I can follow it and get it right. I've never attempted electrical so, *crosses fingers* I hope it's as easy as she says.

The House that Dad Built II

I've been so busy, what with Roo's Parent's Night and finding, transporting, and setting up our new dresser (HOORAY!) that I haven't had the time to get started on putting together the dollhouse kits my dad sent me! ...Ok, I also was slightly (read "very") intimidated by them.

Yeeks that's a lot of very big, heavy, confusing, and non-instruction bearing wood pieces.

My dad, not one for instructions (because he's such a genius he never needs them! I'm not kidding or being sarcastic. He once put together and installed a new dishwasher and Insinkerator for me without looking at the manual once) just sent me all the pieces and supposed I'd figure out what piece goes where by some alphabeticals and numerals. A goes to A, I get it... but I was seriously confused anyways.

I decided, to be safe, not to just glue it and screw it right off the bat. So I set it up (all the pieces fit together beautifully) as a dry run and just propped it against my coffee table.

Lookin' good!

I plan to do french doors in the bottom where that big door cut out is, and sliding glass doors on the top right that opens into the patio, as well as putting up railings of some sort or plexiglass around the sides of the patio so no mini people fall to their mini deaths.

I had to put in some furniture to test the scale for size!

Me likey! Instant hardwood flooring hehe

Of course, I need to paint and wallpaper and etc etc...

Nice, my kitchen pieces fit! Now I am so glad I made each counter piece individual so they can be moved around and put together like a puzzle to fit any sized space.

Well I had done all this last night, but when I came out in the morning, Roo (who wakes up earlier than me and gets dressed and watches T.V.) had set up "his" mini room the way HE likes it! He won't really play with the dollhouse while other people are around, but I know he likes it because he'll set up mini scenes and I can hear him playing with the little dolls and stuff when I'm in my room.

More things going on now than how I had it set up. I like it. It seems more like a realistic kids room with the bit of clutter. By nature, Roo is actually pretty neat for a kid. Unlike me- I'm a disaster slob.

When I asked him about it, Roo said that the boy in yellow was him, and the boy in blue was his, "little brother that I call poopie and beat him up." Wonderful. So happy for my future kids with a big brother like Roo. -.-

And we found a new dresser on Craigslist! THANK GOODNESS! No more ghetto livin'

From shabby,

To chic!

Now I want to make a dresser like this in mini! I really love it. In the picture it came out as brown, but in real life, it's a much softer looking almost grey color.