Dollhouse Miniature Mop

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

This week for the Tuesday video we are making a simple little mop for the dollhouse.

You only need a couple of things to make this- some kitchen string and a wooden skewer.

The skewer becomes our mop handle and I cut mine to 3 ¾” long. The string needs to be cut about the same length to make it easier to work with. I had a coaster sitting on on my table so I used that to wrap my string around to quickly measure it. My coaster is right around 4” across you can cut your string any length around that. It all gets trimmed later any way. You will need about 10 pieces of string this length.

Now add some glue to one end of your mop handle and lay the string on the handle lining the ends up with the end of the handle and laying against the handle.

Cut another piece of the string and separate off a couple of threads to coat with glue and use this to wrap the mop strings right at the area where they are glued. Allow this glue to dry. Save the rest of this piece of string you will need it later.

Once the glue is dried I like to comb through the sting a bit to separate it into smaller amounts. This is optional.

Now coat some more of the piece of string you cut earlier with some glue. Now turn all the strings on the mop around so it looks like a mop and wrap again with the glued string.

Now just give your mop a “haircut” and it is ready to display. If you want to make it look more “used” you can cut it at different lengths and stain the string with a bit of coffee to age it.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Beachside Bungalow Kitchen- 3” Base Cabinet

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

This week we are working on one of the kitchen cabinet kits I recently purchased. This one is the 3” wide base cabinet that has a spot to put either a sink or cook-top into.

The front has 2 fake drawers at the top just like a real cabinet would and it has 2 doors with shelves.

I do want to say again how much I love this set. I do wish there were more informative instructions in addition to the diagram but I still got this done easily. I did have to make one correction (I initially placed the fake drawer fronts upside down) It was an easy fix since I figured it out before the glue had time to set.

As with any kit I recommend you sit down with the instruction sheet, all the pieces included and a pencil. Go through each piece and figure out what every one of them are. Then with the pencil on the backside of the pieces label each one with its number. This will make putting the kit (any kit) so much easier.

Also dry fit every step before you put any glue on anything. Even if I don't show this step I always do it. You will prevent a lot of mistakes by simply dry fitting the parts.

The first construction step of this kit is to build the structure of the cabinet. This consists of the top, 2 sides, 3 shelves and the back brace piece. You do need to do all of these in one step to make sure they are all squared up and that everything fits. Off camera I checked it with my “Lego” block square and then used both tape and clamps to hold everything in place until the glue was dry. Don't rush this step if anything is off in this step the entire piece will be off.

The next piece we add is the filler piece that will hold the drawer fronts in place. This piece just gets glued in to fill the space. Allow the glue time to set up before going on but it doesn't have to be all the way dry if you are careful.

Now we add the drawer fronts, and the pieces that will frame the doors. Work carefully and make sure (again) that everything is in the correct location.

The last pieces to glue onto the cabinet are the pieces with the holes for the hinge pins. Be sure that you align the holes correctly and that they don't get glue in them.

The last construction step is to put the doors together. Each door has 5 pieces. Dry fit and check that you have the long pieces correct. There are 2 different long side pieces that look a lot alike. One has a nice square edge and the other one is slightly rounded and has the holes for the hinge pins. Be sure each door has one of each of these pieces.

That is as far as we a going to go on this piece this week. I am going to construct at least all the kits I already have before I start painting them. 

 

 

Next week we will do another base cabinet kit.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Dollhouse Miniature Bird's Nest

 

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This week for our shorter Tuesday video I thought it would be fun to create a bird's nest to place on the roof to the dollhouse. I haven't decided exactly where on the roof it will live so I just placed it temporarily behind the chimney. You could also place this in a tree or shrub in your dollhouse landscaping.

The one I made is a little on the large size but I wanted you to be able to see what I was doing. You can make yours any size you want. If you want to go really small use a finer size of jute twine and a smaller form. Other than size the process will be exactly the same as I show on the video today.

As I just said I am using some jute twine I got from Hobby Lobby but any twine of a similar color would be fine. You could probably just use tan/brown yarn if that is what you have.

Really all we are doing is coiling a piece of the twine to make a flat disc shape they forming it into a nest shape over the flat backed marble. 

 

 

 

 

For little bits of stuff I used some more of the twine as well as some little pieces of embroidery floss. I needed to completely restock my embroidery floss collection so I picked up a mixed bag of floss at Hobby Lobby a while back. It is Iris brand and here is a closer look at the colors along with their labels with the color numbers. Any brand will do in similar colors. 

This is just a fun project to add yet another detail to the outside of the dollhouse.

 

 

If you have some small (or big) projects you would like to see me tackle let me know what they are.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Beachside Bungalow Kitchen- The Dishwasher

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

This week I am beginning the job of tackling the kits I purchased for the kitchen of the Beachside Bungalow. I was most excited about the doing the dishwasher kit so that is what I decided to start with.

I love how well laid out these kits are and the identification sheet that is provided it so helpful. It takes the guess work out of figuring out which piece is which. You can lay all the pieces out on the full-size diagram and you then know for sure what each piece is.

Also the pieces of the kit are milled very nicely and the main body of the kit could almost stand alone without the glue. This meant the pieces when together very smoothly.

Once assembled it was time to start the finishing of the kit. The manufacturer of the kit recommends their clear finish but am using the same primer that I have been using throughout the dollhouse build. Being water-based it did raise the grain a bit more than I would have liked but some careful sanding took care of that issue.

I initially was going to paint the door with the same white trim paint I have been using in the dollhouse. But I wasn't happy with the finish on this piece. For the regular doors it will work alright but I wanted to have a perfectly smooth finish to replicate the metal door of a real dishwasher. So after the first coat and some sanding I switched to my regular white craft paint. And with enough thin coats it would have achieved the finish I was looking for. But, that would have been a lot of coats so I got to thinking and decided to try flooding the surface with paint and tilting the door to force a completely level/smooth finish.

I have been getting into acrylic pour painting in real size and I was inspired by that technique to get the smooth coat. I was so happy when it worked. I hadn't filmed when I was doing it because I was in the middle of a rather long phone conversation with my daughter at the time. But I do show you later in the video how this was done.

Once the white was dry, and this took a very long time since the paint was thicker than normal I was able to go on to the black part of the door. I wanted to top of the door panel to look like the plastic area on a lot of real dishwashers. I did the same “flood” technique on this area, then I used a brush to get the raised frame of the area.

Once the black paint dried it was time to add the “chrome” to the door. Off camera while the paint was drying I was trying out several ideas for this chrome. The one I was happiest with was using some silver nail polish. It gave the best, most “metal” like look the easiest.

I used some LA Colors polish which I love to use in crafting because it is easy to find and really cheap. It is also decent quality. Most of the time I only pay around $1 per bottle unless it is one of their special finishes.

I also used some black nail polish (also LA Colors brand) for some of the details on the control panel.

The finial step was to add a shiny clear coat to the flat panels of the dishwasher door. Remember this is supposed to look like it is metal. I decided to use gloss Mod Podge. I had it on hand and in thin coats it won't yellow the paint. I had actually thought about coating the door in white nail polish at one point but I was afraid it would turn yellow over time. Anyway, as long as you keep the Mod Podge in thin coats it will stay true to color and not get sticky. The only problem was I was getting brush strokes so I decided to visit the flooding technique again by thinning the Mod Podge with a bit of water so it would be thin enough to flow well and not build up to the point where it would turn yellow.

I love how this turned out. I hope you enjoyed it as well.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

August Mini Haul

 

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Today I have a short haul for you of the things I ordered this month to go into the Beachside Bungalow. These are all items to go into the kitchen.

I had intended to order just kits but somehow I ended up ordering 2 pre-assembled pieces and the rest the kits.

There are some more pieces I want to get but I had already went over my budget on these. Hopefully, I can get some more items next month. I do need to see how these fit in the space and what it looks like with them in place.

I am planning to do a galley style kitchen at the end of the open space by the window. I am going to add a breakfast bar on the side toward the rest of the room.

I also have a few things I want to use that were in older dollhouses.

 

 

For sure I am using the the bar stools, I love those although I am planning to paint them to both freshen them up and to fit this build.

The other two things I have that might go in are a stove and fridge. I am really torn by these two pieces. I have them so that would save me money but I really don't like them for this space. I am not going to make a decision about them until all the rest of the cabinets are finished so I can judge how everything works together in this house.

I am planning to start the assembly of the kits before this post goes live so you should see at least one of the kits being worked on next Sunday.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Building the Beachside Bungalow part 22

 

Watch the video here.

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This week on the Sunday video tutorial we put a couple of really short pieces of the baseboard molding in place. Oh, and yeah we put in the stairs and add a wall next to the stairs. I knew I wanted to leave the bottom floor to be one room but I have had this little surprise in mind all along. I didn't want to say anything until I tried it and made sure it would work.

As for assembling the stairs this kit has the stairs partially pre-assembled in two pieces that need to be glued together. The area for the glue is rather small and I wanted to be sure it would not only stay together but also I wanted to cover the seam where the two parts join.

 

I decided to cover and add extra strength by using some 140 lb cold press water color paper as the wallpaper for this piece. This paper is really sturdy and I am confident it will support the area even if the glue fails.

Now lets talk about stairs, more importantly my feelings on how stairs should be placed in the dollhouse. The stairs in dollhouses have always been a point of contention for me. The majority of dollhouse kits (if not all of them) the stairs are pointed to the back opening of the dollhouse. In a real house the stairs just don't go that way. In my opinion it is one of the things that makes the dollhouse not realistic to the viewer. If a child is going to play with the house I would probably put the steps in the way the plans call for. When children play with a dollhouse they do like to play with the dolls going up and down the steps. I want to look in the front door of my dollhouses and see the bottom of the steps, like in a real house.

No matter how you put in your steps you will have an interestingly shaped area under the steps. In some house builds I have left it open to the room and place furniture in the area. On my last dollhouse and this one I wanted to do something else. I add a wall to the open side, add a door and you will get to see what goes there in future videos.

Although I have been planning this area since the beginning of the build I wasn't completely sure how I was going to pull it off. I had been planning to use the extra unused wall that is provided for the lower level of the kit. I just wasn't sure how/if I was going to be able to use it or not. That is why I didn't say anything about my plan earlier. I did have a couple more ideas in mind if this didn't work.

I do still need to come up with a door for the opening, but that is a “future me's” problem. LOL I do have a couple of ideas for that too I just need to try a couple of things out to see what is going to work the best.

The stairs are glued into the house with tacky glue mainly because I didn't want to take any chances with wood glue running down my white walls and making a mess. Tacky glue is much more forgiving if it drips.

The wall piece I cut to be 7' wide and it was already the correct height. The area for above the door was cut from the same board, it is actually just part of the above the door area in the original wall as it came from the factory.

I did wrap the wallpaper around to cover edges on both the wall and the above door insert. Then I used the same sailboat patterned paper that covers the accent wall that is opposite from this new wall. I love how it looks, especially the view in through the door. 

I did install the baseboard molding in the little area at the bottom of the steps. I am going to wait until I add a door to our new area to add the molding to that wall.

As for the rest of the downstairs we are going to start work on the kitchen area of the dollhouse next.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Dollhouse Miniature Kite

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

After I made the wasp nest last week to tuck under the eaves of the dollhouse I decided I wanted to make a kite (or several) to put on the roof of the dollhouse. Just another little detail that helps the dollhouse tell its story.

This is a really easy and cheap project because the materials are so basic. We start with 2 plain round toothpicks. I cut one to 1 ½” long being sure to make a mark at the center point. I marked at ¾” from the end of the other toothpick at the same time. Then using some super glue I glued the two pieces together at the marks.

After this glue dried I added a bit of sewing thread to the joint to make it a lot stronger. This is a simple matter of adding a dot of white glue and wrapping the thread around and around the joint.

Next I separated the two plies of a two ply napkin and glued the kite frame to the back side of the pretty layer. I like to use a thin white glue for this since the paper is so thin. 

 

 

 

Once dry I folded the kite shape and cut off the excess paper leaving just enough to glue to the back to finish the edges. Then glue the edges down.

For a tail I just some embroidery thread but you can use anything you have.

You could add a string to the kite but I didn't this time, maybe next time.

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.

Building the Beachside Bungalow part 21

 

Watch the video here.

 

 

We start out by making sure the front door of the dollhouse is going to work properly. Many times by the time we are ready to install the door it can be too tight to open and close or so loose it won't stay shut. This is the time to fix both of those issues. 

Next step is to add the “glass” to the door, following the directions from the kit I used super glue for this.

Then after the door is working well and has the glass in place we can glue it into the opening in the dollhouse. Be sure to dry fit it before you put any glue onto the door. Once it is glued in place use some masking tape to hold it in place while the glue dries if you feel you need to. 

 

Once this glue is dry we can glue the interior molding in place and again be sure to dry fit. It is so important on this step to dry fit. I did have to slightly trim the sides just a bit. Without trimming it would have been just a tiny bit too tall to fit well. Be sure that the trim is in exactly the positions you want them to be in before you tape and leave it to dry.

The windows are another pretty easy step of the dollhouse once you have dry fit them to their places just glue them in and tape to hold until dry. I do suggest making sure this glue is dry before you add the “glass” to the window. I followed the instructions that came with the kit and used super glue to add the glass and it seems to be working just fine. Once the glass is in place we can add the interior trim. Since this was already glued together earlier in the project this was also a very easy step. 

As for the baseboard trim I only added that to the top floor. Not only am I short on time this week I have some things that I want to install on the lower floor before I add the baseboard trim and we will be starting some of those next time we work on the dollhouse. 

 

As always I do want to sincerely thank all of you for watching my videos and reading my blog posts. It means so much to me that you are supporting me in this way. If I could ask you all to do just a bit more by subscribing to the channel and liking the videos and leaving comments. Those help more than you can imagine. Also if you could pass the links on to your friends I would appreciate it so much.