The Vintage Dollhouse

I'm so sad this blog has sat still for so long.  I actually have a lot to share, but not a lot of time for documenting so I'll just do what I can, when I can.  I'm honestly not sure I can remember how to insert and re-size the pictures correctly but here goes.

This post is about a dollhouse I made over for my girl's Christmas present.  It's one of 2 dollhouses my dad made for my older sisters when they were little.  Of course, I didn't take a before picture, but just envision a dirty white old dollhouse, still charming but in need of love.

Most of the furniture was re-used from the old set.  A lot of it I painted and generally updated.  I used a "fat quarter" of darling Liberty of London printed fabric for the window treatments and bedding.  The prints are so cute and the scale was perfect.  I did buy a new kitchen set with appliances and a dinette set (do people still say that? dinette?)  Anyway...that purple chair/ottoman, side table and couch were handmade by my mom.  I never stop being impressed by her skills.  I spent a month updating this piece and my mom and dad spent a few weeks building/making/sewing everything pretty much from scratch (times two.)  Impressed.

The living room is my favorite.  Like I said, my mom made that couch, chair and ottoman.  I re-covered the couch in the liberty print and re-painted the fire place (which she also made, I think) with chalkboard paint.  The framed print is just a fabric scrap and I also made the matching drapes.  The rugs in the house are grasscloth cut to fit and trimmed in ribbon.  Yep, this family of orphans went custom.  The only "people" are 2 babies, one school-aged child and a teenager.  The mom and dad were headless.  Not a fun thing to see on Christmas morning so I left them out.

I wanted to paint a few of the back walls, besides the attic playroom which went pale coral pink, all the walls are currently white.  I planned to do the kitchen turquoise and the bathroom in the same bright coral pink from the front door and shutters.  The roof and chimneys were originally red but I re-painted them in the dark grey chalkboard paint.  I think I planned to draw on scalloped shingles but I forgot about that until just now while I was typing this.

Forgive some of the photography.  These rooms were super hard to shoot.  This room needs some paint on the wall,  but I love the color the little curtains and picture added.  The rug is made from Polly's old roman shades from her nursery.  This liberty fabric was my favorite from the group.

The navy curtains and bedding are original to the home, circa 1970 with a simple addition of some new liberty accents.  The bed is pretty messed-up, it has no legs.  I was going to try to use screws instead and paint them white but I ran out of time.  I should have painted the wardrobe a fun bright color but didn't work that out in the planning phase.  This is the second custom grasscloth rug.

This young lady is the oldest child in the house.  She's the responsible older sister.  She reads the paper and eats cake for breakfast.  How cute is that ruffled curtain?  I made that, and my mom made the chairs and upholstered them.

Ha, the scale is a bit off between the cradle and the twin beds.  The cradle is actually bigger than the beds.  Oh well.  The curtains in this room look a lot like Liberty but they are actually original.  I added the little orange ball-trim.  I always wanted an attic playroom as a kid.  Something about them just seemed magical to me, I don't know.  These kids got one and it's pretty cute, too.

Looking at these, I'm reminded of all the things I planned to do but didn't but I still think it turned out pretty cute.  I try hard not to over-parent when she plays with it.  I only cringe a little when she moves everything around, but I do always clean it up back to the way I like it when she's done.  Merry Christmas, Poll doll.  P.S. Happy March!

polaroid transfer

I really love the dreamy vintage look of polaroid transfer prints.  I ordered my Daylab 200 on Ebay years ago after taking a class at Paper Source in Evanston, Illinois, and have decided that it's time to pass on this piece of historical technology as I organize and prepare for a big neighborhood garage sale.  Since I knew the Daylab was leaving me, I decided to give it one last go and had fun making some prints from old family slides.  I kept a few and gave some as gifts to family members, truly one-of-a-kind gifts.  You can find polaroid transfers for sale on Etsy, but they are not always originals, sometimes they are prints of originals, which don't have the same luster as the real thing, in my opinion.  I also found this shop which will make a polaroid transfer print for you if you send in a slide, how cool.  

Come by the neighborhood garage sale on Saturday June 16th if you're interested, the set will be priced at $75 which is a steal from what I paid for the Daylab, the base, brayer and some watercolor paper.  If it doesn't go, I'll list to Etsy.

diy wrapped rope necklace

Several months ago, I became obsessed with a certain very expensive wrapped rope necklace.  I don't really feel right showing the particular brand I hacked because it is an original design, I didn't use all the same materials, so it's not an exact copy.  If you're crafty, the coveted necklace is somewhere in my pinterest, probably in the style section.  I actually waited to post this because I felt a bit bad about hacking it at first but then I saw a million other D.I.Y's, and some knock-off brands online so I didn't feel so bad.  The original necklaces are in the $200-$500 range, and I'll admit this is definitely a step down BUT, it was a super easy, fun, inexpensive and rewarding project.  I got the rope from the hardware store, and while I was there also found these brass "sleeves" used for plumbing projects.  There are different sizes of rope and sleeves so make sure you get 2 that work together, the sleeves should fit snugly just over the rope.

Picking out the embroidery thread was the hardest part, I stood at the craft store for probably an hour putting different colors together, putting some back, taking more, putting more back, taking more, it's really easy for me to second-guess myself but I am happy with the combo I came up with.    I made a necklace that can be worn long or shorter, so that I wouldn't have to make a clasp.  The first step is putting the brass sleeves on the rope and attaching the ends together.  I actually "burned" the ends of the rope then stuck them together using tinfoil to kindof smash it so I wouldn't burn my hands.  Where the melon color meets the white you can see a larger "bump" where the seam is (below.)  The next step would probably be planning for you type A's but I just went to town wrapping my necklace with the embroidery thread and switched colors as I pleased, tying knots under the brass sleeves.  I love the texture that the rope gave the necklace, that wasn't planned but was a happy accident.
Sorry, describing processes is not my forte but anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them in the comments section.  Let me know if you make one, I'd love to see!

doctored up old paintings and lauren moffatt

Did any of you check out the April issue of Lucky Magazine featuring clothing designer Lauren Moffatt's home? I received this magazine in the mail in March and I haven't stopped thinking about Miss Moffat's "doctored" paintings, aren't they darling?  She hit it on the mark with the colors and I love that she took something discarded and dated and made it fresh and so, so pretty.  I have a lot of oldish original painted art in my home but I already like it all for different reasons so I was scared to try this with anything I already owned.

I found this diamond in the rough at St. Vinnie's on Saturday.  I really liked the flowers, I think they're magnolias, but the black/red background was not doing it for me, and the leaves looked a little forest-y, so I decided to try my hand at customizing it to suit my tastes.  It was under $10 so if I flubbed it up, it would just go right back to St. Vinnies and I could call it a double donation.  I've been obsessing over the pinkish/orangish melon/coral color for the past year or so, and I've been wanting to incorporate it more into my home so I mixed up some acrylic paint and went to town.

It's definitely a step in the right direction but I'm not totally sure about it yet.  My husband is on board, he likes the color, but it might be a little too "crazy lady" I think I may need to tone it down. I also might make the leaves more chartreuse, since that color works better with the coral than this forest-y greenery.  This image from Martha Stewart might work as an inspiration.  I painted the entire black background white first before the coral, I was afraid of painting directly on the dark.  Even with those 2 steps, the whole project only took about an hour.  The different shades of coral are actually a happy accident, I kept running out of paint and each time I re-mixed it, a new and different shade appeared, but I like the depth it adds. 

Oh and by the way, I really love Lauren Moffatt's line.  Check out her presentation for Fashion Week, it's not a runway show but an installation of sorts called The Old School for Wayward Girls.  Look closely and you can see some of the paintings from Lauren's home hanging on the wall.  This video was made by Jeff Hendricks.  I was introduced to this brand in 2004 and have noticed over the last 8 years that her brand has a suuuuuuuper strong point of view, it's very vintage, pretty, detailed and feminine, with lots of muted colors and also bright colors paired with beiges and creams and pretty little prints, oh and lots of gold details like buttons and zippers.  If you're interested in her collection, you can find it on her website, and also a cutie-pie feature on her at home with her daughter Stella on the Glow here.

a son is born

If you haven't guessed it yet, my hiatus over the past few weeks is due to the birth of my boy, Tucker. He's perfectly healthy and we are so happy. We've been in adjustment mode so far and will probably continue in this gear for at least a few more weeks.

I'll be back with more frequent posts once the dust settles.

d.i.y. valentine

Funny, I was just thinking about this ole valentine and wondering where it went. I was organizing our dusty exercise equipment yesterday and saw it shoved in a corner. I gave this to my husband, before he was my husband, probably 7 or 8 years ago. It's a great idea for a thoughtful valentine that you can make yourself.

For the card itself, I printed on vellum and glued (probably Xyroned) the vellum onto zexy snakeskin/croc? decorative paper, then stuck that on a blank black card. Not sure why I had or used black, it seems an odd choice for me but anyway...

For the sentiments, I think what I did was just print all 50 on each piece of paper (I picked a textured white, a vellum and a red) then only used 17 or so little notes from each paper type, and tossed the rest. I'm sure I used a rotary cutter, too, I'm awful at cutting straight lines with scissors.

So, so easy and sweet, I think the hardest part was coming up with the 50 "things."

stenciling vs. wallpaper

I've been wanting to change up my dining room for a while now. I feel like I'm over the terra cotta color (I had it in my last house, and now this one for 3 years) but I hadn't really been able to come up with something better until I saw this episode of Pure Design on HGTV. Do you watch it? It's really the only design show on TV I like these days.

The images from the website were really small but I think you can see the overall feel of the room. It's wallpapered with this paper from Graham and Brown and the material on the chairs is either this or this from Robert Allen, a subtle ballet pink color. I love the metallic aspect of the wallpaper, but I'm not sure I could afford to buy and have the paper installed right now, so I'm considering getting the same effect with a stencil.

Images 1-6 The Stencil Library

1) I really like this simple bamboo pattern, but with my drapes, I think it might be too much faux bamboo.

2) This could be pretty, I would probably use only one color vs. 2 for the flower and make it more tone-on-tone.

3) A really interesting geometric that would be much more subtle with a subtle metallic. Again, I think this might fight too much with the drapes.

4) Raindrops. This could work.

5) Zexy crocodile. A tone on tone metallic would look really sleek, not sure I could pull this off, I don't exactly live in a loft downtown.

6) Oh how I love a rattan/cane pattern. Too fighty with the drapes though I think.

Here's another neat example by Jesse from Good Girl Gone Glad. Jesse didn't use metallic paint, she just upped the sheen of the pattern by using a higher gloss paint. It turned out really beautiful.

So, what do you think? Would you spend the time on this (I'm sure it is very labor intensive) or splurge on the paper and installation?

swimming in a sea of chevron

This weekend had me swimming in a sea of chevron. After 2 full days of nonstop: measuring, cutting, pinning, ironing, folding, sewing and eye-balling, Polly's drapes are finished. I hadn't planned on making drapes, in fact, I told someone not one week earlier that I would never make drapes again but once I pinned the fabric up in a flat-panel style, they just looked so plain. I thought a few tucks and pleats wouldn't be too much to handle. Of course they have lots of little mistakes that probably nobody will ever notice (except me) but the important part is that they are done and hanging up. The room is pretty much finished, I'm just waiting for the chair from my upholsterer.

Of all the things on my intentions list, it's really the one I was dreading the most. How am I doing with the other ones? Not awful, I've been answering the phone much, much more and it's great because now I don't have to return phone calls all the time, who knew that would be a bonus? The menu planning is going well. We don't always stick with the plan but it helps to have one most days. We finished painting the entryway last weekend, a year after construction on it was finished. All spending has been tracked since January 1st. As I thought, it's helping us realize the areas we need to work on...me: buying things for the kid(s) and house, and poor planning at the grocery store and Ryan: eating out and cash withdraws. I've also been using the supplies from my stash and listening to more music. We brought our computer speakers up from the basement and have been plugging the ipods/iphones in. The fact that it sounds better than a tinny laptop is helping. I haven't had the boy yet (that's a good thing) or printed pictures out. I can't say that I've worked on my photography much, or enjoyed the winter, it's been sooooo cold. Baby steps.

valentine's day decor...

...is ready for the season of love.

There's snow on the ground and love in the air.

valentine color story

Valentine's day is my favorite holiday for decorations. I'm certainly a fan of the actual day, but I'd be happy with some tulips and a sweet card, I'm low maintenance. It's not really the holiday I look forward to, it's the chance to liven and brighten things up a bit after the more, well, wintry colors of Christmas. I also enjoy giving gifts and cards more this time of year, it's less pressure, less expected and just sweeter, I don't know.

Last year, I used a lot of oranges and beiges mixed with pinks and reds for my Valentine cards and decorations. This year, I was inspired by the two images below from the current Lonny mag. Pink and turquoise are just lovely together, so perfect to combat the winter doldrums in Wisconsin. Again, consulting my 2011 intentions, I held back the urge to buy new pretty-pretties, and found more than I needed in my stash. I took a quick pic. (above) before everything turned into a big huge mess (not pictured.)

I made a "corsage" of sorts for my winter wreath and some mini heart-day banners for my feather trees, I've still got some cut-and-pasting to do so I'll wait 'till I'm done for show and tell.

a good mail day

The mail has been a bit of a bummer since the high season of holiday cards and catalogs ended. Last Friday was a fun little exception, with two surprises in my box.

The first was a sample pack from Hable Construction. Now, just to be clear, I ordered the samples, the surprise was that some of them came much larger than I expected.

I even had enough of the magenta to make this cute clock for my little girl's new room. The hands of the clock would be much better in white but I'm trying to use what I have on hand (it's one of my intentions for 2011.) Doesn't everyone have clock parts and embroidery hoops in various shapes and sizes laying around?

My second surprise was this new book by Bunny Williams: Scrapbook for Living. My friend Mary who works for her in New York sent it to me as a gift. It's even signed--too, too sweet.

There are so many sources of inspiration online that I visit regularly, but I so miss settling in with a good home decor mag in hand. I can't wait to dig in.

vintage apron to doll dress tutorial

One of my goals pre-holiday was to make some doll clothes for my girl's main Christmas present, her blabla doll: Trixie. I didn't want to do anything with elastic or buttons --nothing too challenging, and I despise working with patterns (my sewing skills are novice at best.) While I was looking through my bins of scrap material, I came across several vintage skirts I had purchased awhile back. They were so detailed and beautiful, I couldn't pass them up. With small patterns, I thought they would make perfect easy dresses for Miss Trixie.

The "body of the dress is the main part of the apron. With the blue, I used the "true" top of the apron and hemmed the bottom, since I liked the pleat at the top. The orange apron had a sweet ribbon detail at the bottom so I hemmed the top and used the true bottom.

Depending on your doll size and your apron style, the measurements and steps are going to be different. I did a lot of draping and pinning on the doll before I sewed anything. Each of the aprons had at least one pocket, which I removed and used for the "bib" part of the dress after I folded down the top corners and sewed them down to secure. The pocket for the blue went under the waistband, and I laid the pocket over the body of the orange one, since I knew I had to make a new waistband for that one.

I used the "ties" of the apron to make the straps and also the bow and waistband for the orange. The image above is the inside of the dresses.

Finally, I secured the dresses closed with one little tab of velcro for easy in/out. Each of these dresses took approximately 1/2 hour to complete.

For the entire image collection, visit my flickr set.