New Toys for the Twins

Yesterday, the twin girls in my 1906 dollhouse were lucky enough to receive two very special toys.  Maybe it was their birthday! 

 

 Red Sister got a beautiful rocking horse, and Blue Sister got a beautiful dollhouse!

 

The rocking horse came from the thrift store.  It was originally a carousel horse Christmas ornament, but I dismantled it and turned it into just a rocking horse.

 

The miniature dollhouse came from Ebay.  I've seen this style before but didn't pay a lot of attention to the dimensions when I purchased it.  It's a lot larger than I thought it would be, so this is the only house I have with a big enough nursery to accomodate it!  But it works well in here, because now each girl gets a special new toy!

 

Add that to the smaller dollhouses they already had on their dresser, and soon they'll have a collection as big as mine!!

 

"New" Scrapbooking Storage

As I've become more involved with doing Project Life albums for my boys (I'm still doing the more artistic journals for Avery until she turns five), my scrapbooking supplies have increased.  I've corraled them in different ways over the years (see my most recent system here), but a recent trip to an antique store brought me a wonderful new storage possibility!

 

 I'm sure you've seen these vintage quilted satin boxes before.  A little research online told me they were used to store gloves back when....  Well, guess what they're also perfect for?

 

 Scrapbooking doo-dads, and more importantly, Project Life cards!  They're the absolute perfect size to store the 3x4 cards that are used in Project Life.  And the little dividers are perfect for organizing little labels, journaling tags, etc.

 

 My adhesives and small tools now go in the cute vintage tin where the cards used to reside.

 

 And this little dolly found a place to watch all the fun!

 

 My "new" boxes make me happy every time I sit down to work now! 

 

If you're interested to do the same, I did a quick search on Ebay under "vintage satin glove organizer" or "glove organizer" and found some similar ones!

 

More Project Life on Flickr!

 

 

Hey guys, I uploaded the rest of Riley and Noah's Project Life journals over onto Flickr.  Blogger is giving me major problems right now, unfortunately.  So if you're interested to see the pages, check them out here.....

 

Some Belated Project Life Spreads

I realized it's been a LONG time since I posted any of my Project Life spreads, almost a year!  But I've been working steadily away at them-one each month for Riley and Noah.  I'm almost up-to-date with them, which is nice.  I honestly don't know how people do a spread a week-I'd never be able to do it! 

 

Since there are so many photos, I'll break them up into a couple separate posts.  Here are months May through July 2012.  If they're a little confusing to understand, some spreads actually have a 1/2 sheet inserted between the two pages- I do this if there's an extra-special event like a birthday or lost tooth!  So I took the photos as if you were flipping the page to show both back and front.

 

 

MAY- Riley

 

 

 

 

MAY - Noah

 

 

 

 

JUNE-Riley

 

 

 

 

JUNE-Noah

 

 

 

 

JULY-Riley

 

 

 

 

JULY-Noah

 

 

 

 

 

I'll continue in a few days with the next group of them!

 

Little Vintage Style & Fun with GIFs!

It's been a while since I've dressed Avery in vintage and taken photos, but Easter was the perfect time to do it.  I've been waiting for her to wear this adorable Polly Flinders dress, and it was worth the wait!  Isn't it gorgeous?

 

 Several photos I took were the perfect ones to try on a GIF.  I've never made one before, but it was easy enough, and Avery loves watching herself "dance"!

 

 Love the photo above-might need to hang that up somewhere!

 

 Silly girl!

 

More dancing!

 

Cutie!

 

 I knew the boys would want to get in on the GIF action, so I made one for each of them as well.   They'll be excited to see them when they get home from school today!

 

It was fun having the kids home for Spring Break- it's making me ready for summer!  Although I know two weeks into summer, I'll be ready for school to start again- ha!

 

 

P.S.  If any of you are interested, I'm selling some dollhouse items on Ebay right now- doing a little clearing out and earning funds for new ones!  This should link you to my seller page.

 

Happy Easter!

 

 

 

 

Just Some Cabinet Re-facing

 I've been working on the kitchen in my Rich tudor house.  (By the way, I just saw this same house sell on Ebay for over $500! Wow!).

 

Anyway, I purchased this kitchen set (not the table and chairs, but everything else) on Ebay.  There were photos of it, but it was hard to tell how poor the condition was until I got it in person.

 

 It's the same set that's in my 1906 house, and I love it in there, which is why I wanted another.

 

 Plus, this set came with additional cabinets and a broom closet.  But yikes!  As you can see, it has really been through the ringer- I'm not sure what happened to it over the years, but virtually all the paint was gone, in addition to several drawers.  It was pretty sad.

 

 So I finally decided to put in some time and refurbish it!  I scraped as much of the old stuff off as possible, and matched the paint color to my other set.  I cut balsa wood to fashion new drawers, and added knobs out of nailheads.  I have to say that it came out pretty well!  Much better than I had expected!

 

 

Only now, with all that off-white in there, it's looking a little blah.  I think I need some more color in there-maybe a new table or a tablecloth.  We'll see.  I'm almost done decorating this house, so it will probably be the next dollhouse tour I'll do! 

 

Hope you're all having a nice start to Spring. My kids are home for Spring Break right now, so hopefully it will be a fun week for us!

 

I've Jumped on the Globe Bandwagon...

 I've admired globe collections on others' blogs for some time now, but was hesitant to start my own.  I'm always kind of resistant to doing things that are too "popular" or "trendy".  But I just can't deny the fact that globes are really pretty, and look so nice and vintage-y when grouped together in a collection!

 

So I've given in to temptation and decided to go with it!  I'm such a follower- ha ha!  We're in the middle of re-doing our family room, and I think the globes will work nicely with the new decor.  I've found four nice ones so far.    As you can see, we have a ledge at the top of one wall where they fit perfectly.

 

 This one is my newest find.  I love the darker aqua color, and the fact that it sits on a wooden base.

 

 This one is probably my favorite- nice and aged, and really pretty colors!

 

 The other two are a bit newer, but they add a nice variety to the colors.

 

 It's actually a little difficult to display them because they're all so similar in size, so I've raised the back one with a block of wood.

 

I'd like a couple more in varying sizes to round out the collection, but I'm happy with how it looks so far!

 

 

And thank you for your excitement about the announcement from my last post!  As I said, I'm not sure how quickly things will happen (I'm having some printing problems with the smaller sizes, unfortunately), but I'm crossing my fingers things will turn out smoothly.  Marcia asked whether I've made any new paintings, and the answer is yes.  Both of them will be part of the first run of prints, so I'm excited to show them to you all once everything's ready!   I'll keep you all updated!