Happy Birthday, 8 Year Old!

 This handsome guy turned eight over the weekend! 

 

 He's becoming so smart and mature and wonderful!

 

We brought him sub sandwiches for lunch, and he wasn't a bit embarrassed to eat with us!  I'm holding on tight to these days, because I know the embarrassment is coming soon!

 

This year was all about the Legos.  Quite suddenly, all my kids have become obsessed with them, which is fine with me, because at least they're easy to store (we've got a color-coding system).

 

 I saw a few versions of this style of Lego cake on Pinterest, and I tried making my own. (Actually, the cake is a store bought one, but I "Lego-fied" it myself).  It's supposed to look like the cake is made from Legos with frosting on top- I think it sort of works, although the ones on Pinterest were much better!

 

 No complaints here though!

 

 Then we finished off the weekend by going to LEGOLAND, which was of course a big hit!

 

  Driving his own Lego car!

 

All in all, it was a fun birthday weekend with this awesome kid!  Happy Birthday, Riley!

 

One I Haven't Shown You Yet

 Well, yes, there's one here that I haven't shown you yet...  

 

I got this one a couple months ago from a sweet woman named Phyllis.  My husband was taking a road trip for work, so I checked out the Craigslistings on his route (I'm shameless, I know!), and found this lovely Keystone dollhouse!  He kindly agreed to pick it up for me, amidst much eye-rolling, I assure you...!

 

 It came to me looking like this.  A door which I was pretty sure wasn't original (although it is very nice),...

 

 ... and newer wallpapers covering the originals, unfortunately.  There were also wooden mouldings applied around doorframes and windows, which isn't characteristic of one of these houses.

 

 I promptly took the whole thing apart to begin my restoration.  Some of the walls had wallpaper on them, while some had been painted over.  I spent many hours trying to remove the newer additions, but didn't have a lot of luck.  Above you see my best efforts on the kitchen walls- the design is certainly visible, but a lot of masonite is showing through, and this looked good compared to the other rooms.  I finally decided I wasn't going to be able to salvage the original wall coverings, unfortunately. 

 

So my next step was to try and find photos of this style house in its original state, and duplicate the wall coverings as well as I could.

 

 I found photos of Florine's house (above), but as you can see, her roof is a little different than mine, and I could also tell that some of her wallpapers didn't match what I had uncovered in my house.  I emailed her to ask her about it, and she referred me to Glennda, whom she knew had another version of the house.

 

 Glennda was a real sweetheart, and sent me bunches of photos of her (then unassembled) house.  (If you click over to her blog, she has a photo of her now assembled house, and it is absolutely pristine- so bright and new!)

 

Between her photos, and what I was able to uncover myself, I chose scrapbook papers that looked closest.  Above you can see each piece of scrapbook paper behind the room which will be repapered.

 

 Here was Glennda's bathroom and kitchen.

 

And above is mine (sorry for the sideways photo- Blogger's having issues today...!)

 

And here's the finished inside of the house!  While I would have much preferred to have the original wall coverings, this is the next best thing, I guess.

 

Glennda also sent a photo of the original door-isn't it adorable??

 

If you remember, my original door was white with extra moulding on it.  I was able to remove some of the extra moulding, but not the outside pieces.  I just decided to paint the door blue and add a pink knob.  I think it works fairly well.

 

And here it is up on a piece of furniture in my front room.  Another dollhouse sneaking its way out of my studio because there's no more room!  I've already got some real cute furniture to go inside it-I'll give you a tour once it's all complete!

 

 

I've also been working on putting together and fixing up the dollhouse I showed you in my last post, so I'll show you the finished product soon!

Where I've Been!

Hi guys, sorry for the little bit of silence as of late, but I've got a good excuse!

 

I've been busy....

 

 ....seeing the Eiffel Tower,

 

 ....touring palaces,

 

....hanging out in catacombs with skeletons,

 

 ....viewing great works of art,

 

 ....doing a bit of shopping,

 

 ....and spending way too many hours on airplanes!

 

As you can see, Hubby and I went to Paris!  It was a trip to celebrate our 10th anniversary, which was earlier this year.  It was a wonderful trip, with so much eye candy!  But if you can believe it, we didn't buy one single souvenir for ourselves.  We even went to a huge French flea market, but there was just nothing there that was right.  I had grand dreams of finding an old European dollhouse, but no such luck.  I only saw one dollhouse (and it was wonderful!), but it was 1000 Euros, and a bit too large to carry!

 

 

 

However, I can't complain too much, because when I got home, this was waiting for me!  It's an old Rich dollhouse I won on Ebay, and I'm hoping to fix it up!  It's such a beautifully colored house- soft, pale green and peachy pink- I love it!

 

Anyway, I'm still getting back into the routine here, but I'll show you how things come out once I manage to work on it a bit.  Hope you're all having a nice beginning of the week!

Yellow Keystone Dollhouse Tour

 You know, I took photos of this house a couple days ago for a tour, only to look back at them and realize the house had no curtains!  So I whipped out a few yesterday, and retook photos today!

 

This may be my favorite house to date.  It just has such character!  I love the yellow, and love the garage!  Read here to see the story of how it came to be mine. 

 

 I'd like to introduce you to its inhabitants, the Golds (gold like their golden-yellow house).  There is Father Gold, Mother Gold, Twin Baby Boy, Twin Baby Girl, their three puppies, and of course, their maid.  Maid wasn't quite sure whether she was to be included in the photo, so she stood off to the side a bit.  As you can see Mother Gold is a little vertically challenged (her baby girl seems to be almost as big as she is!), but she manages just fine.

 

 Here is a shot of their whole house, so you can see how the rooms are situated.

 

 First we'll visit the kitchen, where Maid is busy cleaning up.

 

She still needs to clear away the morning's dishes, although they're so pretty, it would almost be nice if she left them out!

 

 She's so happy that the Golds bought her a pink mixer to bake with!  It makes working seem a little more fun!

 

 Next is the dining room. Mother Gold is getting the tea service ready to serve Mr. Gold.

 

 Once that's done, she'll need to run upstairs though, because she hears the babies crying!

 

 They can wait for one minute though, since Mr. Gold has been waiting for his tea for a while...

 

"I'm ready for my tea now, sweetheart!"  Looks like the puppies are ready for something, too!

 

 "Here it is, here it is, sweetums.  Would you like cream and sugar?"

 

 Now she must get upstairs to check on the twins!

 

 First to the master bedroom to check on Baby Girl.

 

 As you may guess, Baby Girl was actually quite the surprise when she was born, as the Golds were only expecting one baby.  So for now, she sleeps in a cradle in the master bedroom until they can figure out other arrangements.

 

 Looks like she has fallen back asleep, so now Mother can check on Baby Boy.

 

 Lucky boy, he gets the whole nursery to himself!

 

 At some point though, they're going to have squeeze another bed into the room for his sister!

 

 Okay, looks like Baby Boy has gone back down as well.

 

 And the final room is the bathroom, of course.  Father is washing his hands after having his tea.

 

 He wishes the mirror was a little higher over the sink- he practically has to stoop down to see himself!  

 

 "But I guess Mrs. Gold needs to see herself, too, and it's not worth a fight!" he decides.  That's a good husband, Mr. Gold!

 

And so there you have it!  A little tour of one of my favorite houses- hope you enjoyed it!  I'll add it to my other dollhouse tours over on the right sidebar.  I'm getting close to finished on a couple other houses, so I'll show you those soon, as well!