The Alpine Chalet

I found this gorgeous dollhouse online from a shop in the UK – The Alpine by La Maison Dollshouses and Miniatures. Back in the day, I tried contacting them about the house numerous times by e-mail and telephone to no avail. Their website was also defunct, so I am guessing they went out of business.

There were no other photos showing the interior, but I figured it was a simple two story house with maybe one small room upstairs and a large open room downstairs. Looking at the structure, it seems pretty straightforward in design – a box with an angled roof line. So, I put it in the someday file but spent a little time mulling ideas.

My plan for the first floor included an efficiency kitchen with an eating area, a staircase and a living room with a large fireplace. The second floor would have a bedroom with a balcony. Where I could fit a modest bathroom was anyone’s guess. I might be able to split the loft area with the bed or find a corner for it on the first floor. That’s the drawback of open back dollhouses – something is always in the way.  :\

My initial thought is to make a small bathroom for the basics and put the big tub in the bedroom with a privacy screen (I stayed in a nice resort that did this and it looked very nice). It’s the angled roof that will determine a lot of this placement.

Update 2013: I bought the Greenleaf Dollhouses Spring Fling kit in hopes of making this house but didn’t end up building to completion for the contest.

I did a fair amount of work including a turnaround staircase.

I altered the kit, added siding, windows and a French door that would lead to the small balcony.

In keeping with the original inspiration, I started the long skinny chimney, but mine would be assembled in two pieces – one under the roof and one on top. I have the lower portion built, bricked with egg carton, painted and grouted. Here it is in progress, before the painting and grouting.

The Mackintosh light by the door came from The Dolls House Emporium. These are no longer made, which is a shame. The doorplate was brass, and the silver knob is from Sussex Crafts.

For the window, I printed an image of the Parker Poppy stained glass panel on transparency film after altering the image to fit the window opening.

The first floor will have a living area and kitchenette. The flooring is Houseworks Southern Pine sheet flooring and Greenleaf vinyl tiles for the kitchen area. I added cross beams that will actually serve as structural support for the upper floor.

This is the fireplace I built for the space; the inspiration was found on a decorating blog.

After a few rough sketches on the wall, here’s the final outline drawing I used to make my pattern pieces for the scroll saw.

It was cut from basswood and mounted on thick foam board.

I used my favorite IKEA stain, called “antique.” Well, the can was a little old and had bits of coagulated stain floating in it. I didn’t realize this until after I started to apply it, of course. By then, I had to just go with it and stain all of the pieces to match. Once dry, the ratty bits smoothed out with a light sanding but left darker spots as expected. This ended up being a happy accident since the basswood looked like knotty pine. Not a bad finish after all. (This fireplace was later altered and installed in my witchy cottage, Hocus Crocus.)

The upstairs had a bedroom and bathroom planned.

Eventually, I decided I didn’t like enough about the build and abandoned this structure. I removed the components and lights to save for later. I still want to make this house one day, but I would likely scratch build after making a full mockup from foam board.

Categories: Mt. Sydney Chalet
September 9, 2010 | 0 comments

Bishop Show – Aug 2010

The fall Bishop Show is being held at a hotel near me, and I went over there tonight.  I didn’t take photos at the show, but here are the items I bought.

The first is a Bespaq loveseat.  I love unusual items like this.

These are kits by Kari Bloom at Miniton Miniatures.  I bought two of the chairs to make the library table a dining table.  I also bought two of the end tables to make a set.

Categories: Miniature Shows and Shops
August 27, 2010 | 0 comments

Whooooo’s a cutie?!

One of my favorite animals is the owl, and I especially love the Burrowing Owl. I have a printout of an image of a Burrowing Owl chick on my wall at work. It makes me smile.  :D

I’ve been so inspired by the work of Anya Stone and Kerri Pajutee, two amazing artisans who make the most realistic miniature animals I’ve ever seen. I’ve wanted to make a Burrowing Owl for some time now, so I decided to just hop to it! Kerri has two great tutorials on CDHM: one for sculpting a bird and another on flocking and feathering. I used those as a basis to start my mini owl.

I decided to make an adult Burrowing Owl.

I was lucky to find a good photo of the back of the owl, too (see photos by Ecobirder).

I sculpted my bird using white polymer clay, though it got fairly dirty as I worked with black wire to make the legs and feet. The feet look a bit big, but it was the only wire I had and the flocking and feathering will add weight once applied. To get the bird to stand while baking, I tied some wire around the ceramic tile I use for baking clay.

After baking and cooling, I painted the whole piece with light tan acrylic paint. I also painted the eyes and beak before feathering. Caution: naked birdie below…

I bought two types of feathers, using the darker ones for the tail feathers and back and using the lighter ones for the breast. I used embroidery floss to make the flocking.  I cut all but the spotted and striped portions from the feathers. I followed Kerri Pajutee’s tutorial for placement for the most part but tried to use the natural patterns of my feathers to mimic those of the Burrowing Owl.

Here are some photos of my owl as the feathering progressed…

And, finished!  :D

I love him!!!!! I don’t think I did half bad my first time around if I do say so myself.

And, he looks right at home on Baslow Ranch!  :D

Categories: Animals and birds, Polymer clay
August 20, 2010 | 0 comments

Scratch built table lamps

One of the bigger challenges in decorating a dollhouse in a more contemporary style is the limited amount of contemporary lamps and other accessories on the market. There are some modern fixtures, but most are brass or old-fashioned. The table lamp selection can be pretty good, but I wanted to see if I could custom build my own lamps.

I had the bases all figured out just from looking at real life and miniature lamps. Stack beads, feed a wire through, etc. Even making shades from paper seemed simple enough, but it was attaching the shades to the bases that had me scratching my head.

Store bought mini lamps usually have a plastic disk holding the bottom of the lamp shade. I could use acrylic disks, but I would be limited by the pre-cut size of them. Then I happened upon the handmade lamps by M Carmen at Mini Shabby. She had used a jewelry finding to hold her shade in place, and it looked like a great idea! I left her a comment on her blog, and she was kind enough to send me the information on where she found them.

The site was Bindels Ornaments, and let me tell you, they have great items and ideas! They sell components and kits for lights and accessories in small scale. They even have pages showing you how they built bottles, lights, trays and candlesticks from jewelry findings. I bought both the three-prong and four-prong findings, but I found the four-prong worked best for this particular project.

I started with a wood bead base, three copper colored beads, a NovaLyte LED and some miscellaneous jewelry findings.

I first glued the three beads together, using a metal rod to keep them lined up as they dried. It’s not very stable, but it kept them from shifting around while working with them.

I glued the stack of three beads to the wood base. Again, the metal rod is only to keep things aligned and not glued inside the beads.

I had cut out a groove in the bottom to let the wire out the back and to keep the lamp bottom flat.

I fed a small black wood bead onto the LED wire and then fed the wire through the bead assembly.

The shade is made from a strip of heavy paper 1″ wide and 4″ long, the ends lapped and glued.

I formed a holder from a fancy head pin and glued it inside the short black bead under the LED.

Unlike how M Carmen made her shade, though, I cut off the four circles on the jewelry finding and used it to support the top of the shade, not the middle. Since the four-prong holder showed when the light was on, I glued a strip of black quilling paper around the top edge of the paper shade.

Here are the two lamps on either side of the master bed.

I love the way they turned out, and the LEDs provide great light not usually seen in miniature lamps.

I didn’t save any money making my own lamps since I used pricier LEDs and had to buy more materials than necessary just for two lamps, but I have unique fixtures in a more contemporary style than what’s available on the market.

Categories: Miniatures, The Newport
August 10, 2010 | 0 comments

Newport – master bedroom bed linens

In a previous post, I wrote about making the box spring for the Daisy House double bed kit I built. Tonight, I started dressing the bed. Using the same process as I had for the guest bed, I made a fitted sheet and flat sheet to cover the mattress. This time, I used the same fabric as I had for the box spring.

The pillows are made from white cotton sateen and filled with beads. Here they are uncovered.

The fitted sheet is glued in place, but the top sheet is only taped down. I am still deciding on bedding materials, so I need it to be removable for now.

I made the pillow cases a little larger this time around. I like the way they’re a little baggier than the one on the guest bed.

Anyone else feel suddenly sleepy? ;]

Categories: Furniture, The Newport
August 6, 2010 | 0 comments