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!

 

 

 

Coming Soon...

 

Yes, I have finally taken the plunge and am going to start selling prints of my work!  To begin, I've chosen 12 of my favorite pieces which will be available in 8x10, 11x14, and 16x20 sizes.  I'm so excited about the 16x20's- they look so great! 

 

 

 I'm not sure when this whole venture will go live, because I still have a lot of work to do, but just wanted to give you all a heads up about the exciting upcoming news!!  I'll be sure to let you guys know first, as soon as things are ready!

 

 

Time With My Baby

These photos are a few months old, but I just ran across them and realized I never posted them!

 

I've just recently come to the "realization" that this is my last school year to have her home with me.  She goes to preschool two days a week, and then it is just the two of us the rest of the week while the boys are at school.

 

It's so easy to use my time with her to get things done (taking just one kid on an errand is so much easier than taking all three, right?), but I'm trying to remember that this time with her is precious.

 

Next year she'll be in preschool five days a week (in Florida, we have state-funded pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds), and it's just going to be me by myself every morning...

As much as I'll sort of love having all that time, I know I'm going to be really sad, and wish I had spent more quality time with her.  She and I are sort of a team these days, and I'll miss that!

 

But such is the life of a mother, right??

 

 

Avery's wearing a vintage Polly Flinders dress, with thrift store tights and thrift store shoes...

 

 

Let There Be Light!

 You may remember this blue-roof dollhouse as one I got at Christmas.   There were lightbulbs in this house, but the electrical cord was pretty rotten, so we removed it.

 

 Well, my hubby is a master Mr. Fix-It, and I now have working lights in the dollhouse!

 

 It's a little annoying that the cord comes out the front of the house like that, but that was the original design, so we left it that way.  I'll figure out a way to keep it mostly hidden.

 

It's my first house with lighting, so that's exciting!  Now I just need to finish decorating to take advantage of the full effect!

 

Rich (with Porch Benches) Dollhouse Tour

 This was the first Rich dollhouse I got, and it's finally ready for its grand tour!  I'm not sure if this model has a proper name, but I distinguish it as being the one with the cute porch benches!

 

 Let's meet our family, shall we?  Wait, kids, stop playing around on the benches, and stand for a proper portrait!

 

 There we go!  I think I'll call this family the Rich's, for obvious reason (they live in a Rich house!).  The parents have a sort of snooty vibe to them, with their fancy-schmancy clothes, and they're also much too tall to fit through their own doorway, but as a family, they're nice enough!  And isn't the baby cute?  You'll notice that she never gets up off her blankie, because she's been permanently attached to it, poor thing!

 

 The first room Mrs. Rich would like to show you is her kitchen.  She's a fan of the mis-matched look.  Her chairs don't match and neither do her curtains, but it's a friendly room anyway!

 

 For decor, she has added a beautiful green decorative plate on her refrigerator, and Mr. Rich insisted on adding the cardboard and plastic ship-in-a-bottle above the breakfast table.

 

 What a nice, cozy rug to stand on while doing dishes!

 

The front hallway is where Mrs. Rich spends a lot of her time.  Can you guess why?

 

 She loves to gab away on her phone while keeping watch on the baby in her playpen.

 

 If none of her friends are home to call, she may consider reading one of the books from the cupboard across the room.

 

 Mr. Rich, with his fancy sparkly shirt, likes to relax in the living room with his dog.

 

 Mrs. Rich gets on him about fixing the crack in the wall behind him, but he just ignores her!

 

Who wants to do work when there's a nice fire going in the fireplace?

 

 Mrs. Rich decides to leave the baby under Dad's supervision and comes up to relax on the chaise in her bathroom for a while.

 

She has tried to make this a pretty room with floral decals on her vanity chair and wastebasket, and matching floral curtains.

 

 It's so nice, she may just fall asleep in here!

 

 Onto the children's room.  They are each standing next to their respective beds to show you where they sleep.

 

 Sister has a nice pink bed, and Brother has a nice blue one with a little duck!

 

 They like to relax in their little upholstered chairs or play with toys on the rug.

 

 Mrs. Rich heard the baby crying from downstairs, so decided it was time for a nap in her crib.

 

She looks forward to Baby growing big enough to sleep in with the other children, so that there's not a crib blocking the view of her gorgeous bed!

 

Oh well...  Night-night, little baby!

 

 

And here's a view of the whole house.  I've really found that each house develops its own character.  I find this family the funnest so far of my families.  I just can't get it out of my mind that these parents have snooty personalities!  They just give me that vibe!

 

I hope you've enjoyed the tour!  I've updated my sidebar to include all the dollhouse tours so far, so if you've missed one, you can take a look!