Wlydhare's Hollow

Crafty Fridays

I have decided to make an official day each week just for me, just for crafting, what ever tickles my fancy!

There is always a bit of a guilt factor for me when I craft just for fun. The little voice in the back of my head nags me. "Isn't there laundry to do?" "I saw a pile of ironing waiting to be done." "The living room floor really needs a vacuum." "You need to be working on the machine embroidery business!"

So, in order to find a balance, I have decided that I will focus the majority of the week on work and chores, but give myself a day off each week to just play.

One of my on-going projects is finishing the doll house which has been sitting in a corner of the craft room for..well for years. That was my New Year's resolution. I have managed to get the 1st floor done, and I am now working on the second. The silly thing seems like it should just go together in an afternoon but there is SO much painting if it is to be done right. Primer goes down on the wood, then a coat of paint, then sanding, then a coat of paint, then more sanding, then a final coat of paint. I know that seems like a lot, but in small scale, even little bits of roughness in the wood, takes away from the illusion of scale (and I am a bit of a perfectionist! My grandpa always said if you were going to do a job, to take the time and do it right.) Even the walls to be wallpapered should have at least one coat of paint to help the paper stick properly. (This is a trick, so if you want to change the wall paper later, it will actually come off and not be permanently stuck to the wood.)

Yeah! I don't have to paint where the singles will be going!

So the last two Friday's have had time devoted to the many coats of paint, with other crafting between drying and sanding times.

I am trying to also get some older projects finished before I jump into new ones. That is only sorta working, because the new projects call my name in the middle of the night. Do you have that problem?

The kitchen towel I started at the quilting show got finished, and surprisingly only took about an additional hour. After wards I thought, "Well why didn't I do this sooner? It was easy to complete!" I tried out doing machine applique for the first time for the majority of the towel, then did had embroidered blanket stitch around the tongue and fish bowl plant. Then I added little beads as bubbles for Mr. Fish, and embroidered a mouth and nose on Mr. Kitty., and finished things off with a couple eyes.

Then finally, I did a quick new project using a little pattern from Bird Brains which I also picked up at the quilt show. It wouldn't stop calling my name and I needed to make the voices stop. *grin*

How cute is that? See why I couldn't wait!

While I can't share this pattern for a little pin cushion, I can share a similar one from a vintage children's magazine called "Children's Activities." If I recall, this issue was somewhere in the 40s. If I was really diligent, I would go look up the exact issue, but that sounds like way too much hunting at the moment.

I did create a PDF file of this, which you can print and use for yourself. It should be easy enough to add leaves from green felt, if you want it to look a bit more like the one I made.

How do you make times for crafts? Do you have a special day? Do you have a place just for crafting? Please share, I would love to know.
   

The Dollhouse Resolution

There are a lot of balls to juggle, as of late. As I mentioned in my last blog, I am working on launching my machine embroidery business. I feel progress is good in that area. I have come up with a name, E' Bellish, ordered business cards, reserved URLs for a website and am filling out the small business applications for the city, while working on getting up to speed on the software I need to know.

Meanwhile, my brother-in-law, who has a little B&B in France is having problems with the company who has been providing info on his B&B, as well as setting up reservations. So he asked if I can make a website for his property. I have not designed a website from top-to-bottom in over 5 years, so I am suspecting I will be a bit rusty. Just to be clear, I am not complaining, I just need to share a bit of the chaos. *grin*

I have had to really cut back on my crafty stuff, which is really rough, but realistic if I am going to successfully launch E' Bellish. So Sunday I block as my day of relaxation and give myself permission to just play. Yesterday I chose to spend some quality time on my dollhouse, which I have talked about in past blogs.

Rewiring was done for the electrical and I was able to get the lights to work! Woohoo! So I re-wallpapered the kitchen and re-did the trim around the window in the kitchen.

Then I added the baseboard trim downstairs. Finally I was able to decorate with all the goodies I have been collecting for the last 10 years. Some of the items in the house were made by me. Many were made by very skilled artisans in the world of miniatures.

For instance, I assembled and upholstered the arm chair on the left, but the beautiful needlework on the footstool was done by my friend Jo Berbiglia. She used a single strand of silk floss and her work is amazing. The clock on the wall was made by a man in Spain, unfortunately, I can't recall his name, but his work is stunning. And the spinning wheel was made by another friend in our miniature group, named Al Cushman. By the way, please think good thoughts for him. He is elderly and is in the hospital for severe pneumonia.

In the kitchen, the sink was made by a pair of ladies who specialize in kitchen items. Their business is called Hammer and Smith. The stove is just regular dollhouse stock that you can find from most dollhouse shops. My favorite part is collecting all the details that turns it from a house to a home.

And I especially like vintage kitchen goodies. I can almost smell the cinnamon!  The table I also assembled and painted. The drawer really opens and closes.

I think it was Tasha Tudor, the artist and writer, who really got me into the joy and imagination a dollhouse can bring.

I want it to be a place I would want to live, with tea and sewing next to my comfy chair, the ticking of the family clock and the warm glow of a fireplace.

Well it is Monday now, and time to get back to responsibilities, work and chores. I hope you have enjoyed the little tour of the downstairs of my dollhouse and I wish you happiness and contentment till next we chat.
 

No Breaks This Week!

The recession has changed the career paths of many people, no news there, and our family has also been touched by the events of the last year.

A few months ago, I made a decision to try to make a living doing custom machine embroidery. I have always loved sewing and hand embroidery of every type, but it is very hard to make any money doing it, since the time and energy to embroider one kitchen towel exceeds any possible profit. My hope is that with machine embroidery I can create some wonderful, one-of-a-kind pieces, with labor and materials costs that will allow me to manage a profit. I also would like to use my creative skills to create my own line of designs, using what is called digitization software. For the geeks out there, that means creating a vector graphic of the design I wish to embroider, then assigning instructions for the machine on how to lay down the colors and what order to do the stitching in to make it look as professional as possible while keeping stretching, puckering and unwanted overlap from occurring.

So last week I spent four days attending a conference for professionals in the "decorative garment industry" learning all I could in classes, seminars and workshops. My poor little head is on the verge of exploding.

Meanwhile, I had to upgrade to a more robust computer to handle the digitizing software and so I have been busy setting that up and installing and learning my new embroidery software. Then last night, the CD/DVD drive just stopped working! Arghh! I had only had the machine 10 days! So I called Toshiba and the only solution is to send the computer back and be replaced. It will take 2-3 days for them to get the computer, then another 8-10 business days to build a new one, before they can send it back. *bummer*

So, to cheer myself up, I decided to work on my doll house, and get the electricity repaired in hopes of making my end-of-month deadline to finish the downstairs.

I carefully stripped all the wallpaper in the kitchen, with a mixture of water and vinegar.

I carefully repaired the wiring in the areas I had identified as having problems. Then, I went to test my work.

No joy. No only did my test light fail to light up, but the fuse immediately blew. *sigh* I replaced the fuse, tried again and that fuse went as well. Four fuses burned, nothing worked. I am so bummed. I will not make my end of month goal and now I have to order new wiring and pull out all the old stuff and start over with new wiring. Something in the old stuff is bad and shorting thing out the system and there is no way to isolate it at this point I am not getting any breaks this week!

I guess being discouraged makes successes all the sweeter! Speaking of success, I have been following Weight Watchers since early November. I have made it through Thanksgiving, my birthday, Christmas, New Years and way too many cravings and I have now lost a total of 18 lbs. Hmm, maybe it isn't all gray clouds and gloom! Find something to smile about! 

P.S. Any and all warm thoughts about my venture into a home business would be appreciated! I am scared to death and am not entirely sure I am sane! LOL!

Dolls and Discoveries

I found another estate sale I just had to go explore. It was a home where the woman had been an avid doll collector and maker. She had a kiln and about a zillion molds and hundreds of dolls I am getting into these estate sales, you never know what you might find.

The coolest thing I found was a copy of a doll I had been given to me at Christmas when I was 10 years old. My mother gave her too me, along with the book Hitty. Actually, I would not even remember the year, but my mother helpfully inscribed it with the date and occasion. I have actually tried to find a copy of the doll for years, with no luck.But there, at this sale, I found her again! Made a few years after mind, with a dress in a different print, but otherwise exactly my long lost doll and she only cost $3! It must have been my day!

In addition to Hitty, I also found several other dolls I couldn't pass by. Does this me one of those nutty ladies that have a house filled with nothing but dolls? I find that creepy, but I do treasure the dolls I own. How does that work out? I do avoid commercial dolls that are sold in pink aisles of Toys R Us. I like traditional and handmade, because there is artistry and love in the making, not just a "Made in China" stamped on a rubber butt.

That said, someone please put me down if I start to collecting crying clown dolls with music boxes, okay?

The little boy on the right is about 3-1/2 inches tall and all three are jointed so they can stand or sit. They were each only $1 - how can you pass up a deal like that?

As to my doll house, I have made progress, but I ran into a snag today. I was trying to test the electrical system and install little outlets and found most of the power did not work. I find "juice" near the the point the cord is plugged in, so that was good.

The light is a test probe. But unfortunately, as you might notice, I had to strip back the wallpaper to confirm I was properly hitting the connections. Now I have to strip the whole wall and re-paper it, which will not be a quick project since the glue is very efficient. After much fussing, I found out why I was no getting power in the rest of the house.

I realized when I had been putting in the wall paper, I had run the x-acto knife down the corner to clean it up. Duh! I cut through the wiring in the process. How brilliant is that?

However, I have installed the floor and the center wall and I am ready to put in baseboard once the electrical issues are resolved. So I have an order in for more electrical tape to "patch" my little boo-boo. I am still hoping to make my goal of finishing the downstairs by the end of the month. I hope this little snafu has not ruined that deadline.

I would love to hear about the projects you are working on! Please share!

Resolutions

In recent years, I had stopped doing any New Year's resolutions. I felt less guilty because I didn't have something to flake and fail over! However, this year I have picked a resolution for 2010 and I intend to see it through.

As some of my readers may know, I love miniatures, dolls and doll houses and have created my own miniatures since I was a child. Unfortunately, the sturdy doll house my father made me as a child, was stolen from my garage when I was in my 20s and I have not had a proper doll house since then. Don't get me wrong, I make minis: furniture, food, needlework, all sorts of goodies to go into a doll house, but all of that has been sitting in boxes, waiting for a home both literally and figuratively!

Way, way, way back in 2000 (ack, was that really 10 years ago??), on eBay I found an old never assembled doll house kit, which I bought with all sorts of visions and expectations.

 Doesn't the photo on the box look wonderful?

Full of enthusiasm, I began to assemble my dream home!

 
Then added layers and layers of primer, the old wood just soaked it up!

Wiring went on the inside so I could have lights, and then house color went on the outside. Even our cat Minux approved!

But then, the poor house sat. And sat. And sat; almost 9 years! It moved around the craft room. Stuff was stored inside the shell. Minux thought it made a grand place to sleep and soon there was cat fur everywhere! *Hangs head in shame*

My resolution is to actually work on it this year and FINISH it, so I have a wonderful house to enjoy and a place to put all my mini treasures.

I have now installed the front door, hung wallpaper downstairs, trimmed the inside doors and windows, built the wall to go between the living room and kitchen and cut some of the flooring to fit!

 Built a wall to go between the living room and kitchen and cut some of the flooring to fit!

My more immediate goal is to finish the downstairs by the end of January. What is your New Year's resolution?    

Knitting

So, armed with Knitting for Dummies, online video demonstrations and a stubborn streak, I have started my knitting adventure.

I am too anal for my own good sometimes though. I think I casted on 4 or 5 times before I was happy with the spacing and tension!

And then I practiced knitting, purling and increasing for a few hours and did even more ripping out, but eventually I got the hang of that as well.

I then learned to increase and went to change to another color and things started to go "pear shaped" as my British husband likes to say. Loops slipped and I didn't get them back on the needles correctly and then I knitted when I should have pearled. *Blah!* But it was all good practice and I decided to start over with a different yarn I like the colors on better and will use the mistakes I made as a learning experience!

Meanwhile, when not working on knitting, I decided to finish up a miniature room box which I stated a few years back. There were only a few things I had left to do, but I kept putting them off. So I finally got to work and finished it and the doll to go inside (she has been sitting around hairless for like 5 years!) Here is the finished result:

 

 

 

And what is the rest of the house doing while I work?

 

Minux

 

Milkyway

I'm So Excited!

I had the honor today of being featured over in the blog of Craft magazine!!

Click here to see my 15 minutes of fame at Craft!

Glitter Houses

Today, my 10 year old daughter and I worked on assembling some glitter houses from a Martha Stewart kit I found at Michaels. We had a lot of fun, and wil have more fun, as we add decorations and the all important glitter snow.

These little paper villages orignated in the Pennsylvania-Dutch part of the United States and were often laid out at the base of the Christmas tree. Great time and care was put into their arrangment and illumination, often with the centerpiece being the Bethlehem manger. In the evenings, it was the custom to visit and view these wonderful candle lit settings on Christmas Eve and often exchange gifts.

During the early to mid 20th century mass-produced villages, born of these origions, became popular displays, also known as putz, from the German verb putzen which means "to decorate". In many homes, more time and energy was put into setting up the putz than in decorating the family Christmas tree, growing more and more elaborate. Eventually trains were added as well. 

After World War II, the Japanese started to mass-produce cardboard houses, churches and other buildings. Often these building had holes in the back, to allow a light to be placed inside and illuminate the tiny colored cellophane windows. Being inexpensive, they became very popular. It is along the lines of these more 'modern' houses that I hope to recreate.

I found a wonderful website, with very nice instructions and patterns, so you can make your own as well, if you wish. Perhaps it is too late for this Christmas, but imagine what you could create for next year! Please check out this site: Building A Glitter-House for some wonderful ideas!

Merry Christmas!

Miniature Needlework

I have enjoyed all sorts of needlework since I was a child. I think my first project was a kid's kit I got when I was around 7, to embroidery very simple animals on kitchen towels. Counted cross stitch seemed to start to really get popular in the late 70s and I got into doing that as well. Crewel needlework was also big back then and I am glad to see that is getting popular again.

Anyhow, around the time I was about 11 or 12, and minis were still pretty big in the general hobby world, I sold my first minis, little pillows I made with tiny pillowcases that came off, and were embroidered on the edge with little flowers. I sold them to a local toy store that carried miniatures.

Anyhow, I never really stopped doing little needlework projects. I have made mini curtains, bedspreads, Christmas stockings, etc. In the last few years I have learned about a type of micro needlepoint called petipoint, which is worked on silk gauze. It looks very intricate and difficult, but I actually find it fairly easy and relaxing. Here are a few piece I have done recently:

This was my first piece and is 42 count. This picture is bigger than the actual finished piece, with is about 1-1/2" square.

Next, I tried a small tapestry for a Tudor room box I was working on.

And then I did another pillow from the series the squirrel was in, because I do love bunnies, as you might have noticed:

This is the same size as the squirrel, so you can get a better idea of the scale, using the edge of the dime beside it. I have not had time recently to work on a mini needlework project, but I am in the mood, so I think I will dig out the goodies to start something new.

Treasures in Boxes

I am in the midst of preparing to move to a new house and in the process I am going through a lot of old boxes which have been in storage for years and years and years. It is a dirty process, with lots of dust, lots of things heading to the trash bin and an occasional surprise like a nest of baby spiders

Most of these boxes have been untouched close to 10 years, so I really am not sure what to expect or what I might find. But among all the dirt and trash, I have also found some priceless treasures that I had either totally forgotten about or thought were lost to the ages.

Today I found a dirty blue pencil box from my childhood. At some point, in the 70s, I had put puffy stickers of a sort of Holly Hobbie looking girl with some kittens. I couldn't think of what might be in the box and so I was surprised and amazed to find a childhood set of dollhouse miniatures I had collected from odd places over the years. None of it in the traditional 1:12 scale, but they all sort of worked together. I had a little two room house, one room over the over that I put the furniture in for a tiny bear who lived there.

All my special treasures. Remember, one man's trash is another's treasure!

A bit more close up. There are so many great memories here. The tea pot was from a gum ball machine, the kitten was a gift, the doll in the cradle was from a trip to a neat toy store in Solvang, CA, and the shells I found at the beach.

This was from a neat toy store that carried Hello Kitty items, back when no one had any idea what or who it was! I think it was around 1979 or 1978. The drawer originally held mini colored pencils or something.

This was an unfinished hutch that I was given for Christmas. I was no expert at the time, so I used model car paint to decorate it. Not the best job, but I thought it was great at the time!

And this was a small, cast iron (no idea why they made it in cast iron!) ice box I found at Pic 'N' Save and bought with my allowance. The jello mold and tea cup on top came from a little mini setting someone bought me from Mexico. I was a naughty girl and pulled them off the items they were glued on so I can use them in my dollhouse.

And this I found tucked in one of the drawers of the hutch. A Christmas stocking I sewed from felt. I think I had a little fireplace that I had made from thin cardboard. I do recall this was to decorate my bear's house for Christmas, as well as the wreath you saw in the first picture.

It may look like a bunch of cheap little toys to most, but it was a box of delicious memories for me.