SUNDAY? OOPS!

 Well that week shot round! It's been a busyish week. We have been working on a small project for the dolls.

I have this Bella Play Roche doll on a layaway. At the time she was issued you could buy separately this small dolls house, only a few were available. Naturally being me, I decided that I'd ask Paul to make me a similar house for my dolls.

So here is our version, more fisherman's cottage than old town house. We saved time and effort by using shop bought windows and door although we could not get wooden windows which we would have preferred.

It's amazing how quick someone moves in once it's done! This is the prototype and now Paul's going to make another couple.

I have also been working on my tapestry carpet for the big dolls house.

So after repeatedly having to undo stitches I caved and ordered a magnifying glass with light! So what with having to buy a new stand and now this, this carpet is turning out quite an expensive project! However I am enjoying doing it and so went off to look at finding a book so that I could make a a simpler one after this one, which is very fiddly.

And I have to give Amazon a little praise here, because I found a book and clicked on it to see more and it stated at the top that I had purchased this book back in 2004! So a quick look through my craft bookshelves and there it was! I do love that Amazon will tell you if you have already purchased a book and when, it's saved me more than once from rebuying a book I've read or own. I now wish I could just have this happen when I'm buying a magazine each month in the shops, to stop me buying the same one again! They are quite expensive to buy now.  I will need to have them delivered to save me money and landing up every few months or so with doubles!

On the doll front nothing much has happened, none gone none arrived. I've spent most of today stitching the tapestry, which if nothing else is probably saving money from not being on the internet .

Wishing you all a love healthy fun filled week ahead 

Dee

A SUNDAY IN FEBRUARY

 And the sun is shinning! So it's not quite as cold as it could be and that sun makes all the difference to how the day feels. It's almost spring like, I can hear plenty of the birds chatting, so I think they are probably feeling the same.

A day like today does make you feel that everything is lovely and it will soon be warm enough to stop noticing the dog pushing open the back door and taking himself off out into the garden. Unlike at present when a freezing cold breeze suddenly makes temperature drop!

We have had quite a quiet week, Paul's recovering well from his op and pottering around doing some bits and pieces for me, one of which I'll share later in the week.

Today is Lauren, my eldest, birthday and she is off for a few days in Wales later in the week! I just hope the weather holds and it stays dry for her.

I tried to start on making the dolls house rug this week only to find I needed a proper tapestry stand for my frame, so that arrived and was all set up and I started, only to find that age is making it hard to see clearly where the holes are and the light is not good enough, even with all the lights on! After having to wait until daylight, which only seemed to help for a short while and having to constantly be unthreading stitches, I finally sent for a magnifying glass with light that will attached to the tapestry stand. Hopefully this will solve the problem and I will be able to get on with the stitching but I have to say it's turning into an expensive project with all these add-ons!

They are doing a theme on re-rooted and re painted dolls on one of the Fb groups last week and I suddenly realised that Saffron, or Saffy as we call her, is re-rooted.

I have to confess , she is one of my keeper dolls. I just love the character her hairstyle gives her, very much like her sister Hattie, no messing with Saffy and she will turn her hand to helping with anything.

I have decided this will be Saffron's year and we will be following her adventures over the coming months. I've yet to tell the other children this, so wish me luck! Not they won't be getting up to their usual mischief, just that Saffy will be off on a few adventures hopefully.

On the doll front, I have sold two dolls. Which is helpful to my getting this laptop screen fixed. Plus no dolls have been acquired but still a couple waiting on their layaways.

The Chat n Snap dates, been announced a small trickle of attendee's are letting me know they are coming.

So it's all steadily ticking along.

I'm so pleased with the dolls house, I just had to share another photo of it and cannot quite believe a ling outstanding jobs been finished and with an added bonus of a loft!.

It makes me wonder if this could be the year that some outstanding jobs finally get done.... but maybe it's early days to be getting carried away!

I hope you all have a lovely happy healthy week ahead

Dee

IT'S FINISHED...

 Sort of! 

I decided to leave the backing on the dooe windows for the moment as I quite like that opaque look.

The stairs are in! It took Paul just a few minutes to make the missing steps once he set his mind to it and they were soon glued and dry and ready for next stage.

So after a discussion as to where it could go indoors, it landed up for a few minutes on my small bookcase in the back window until I explained that it would get swiped by the curtains across it each night so would slowly damage the front.

My suggestions of complete re organising the furniture in that part of the room, so it could go against a wall didn't go down well! So it's landed up back in the doll studio for now! I think it's just too nice to be hiden away in there but until the bedrooms been decorated and carpeted it will have to stay where it is.

Why is there never an empty corner when you need one?

I finally got to start adding some of the furniture and can see there will be a lot to do gradually over the coming months and years.

The beds all need bedding, something to add to my to do list along with the carpets.

For the minute I have put the fifties sofa in the childrens room, until I get a third bed and or a basement room.

It seems I sold off most of my dolls house furniture when I sold the house /shop when I moved, so it will be a nice job to slowly gather whats needed little by little.

I also removed the wooden flooring in this bedroom because when I stuck it down , I had a struggle with it and had to pull it back up and reposition it which meant it didn't then want to stick down properly at the edges, so I gave in and pulled it off and will either buy more or replace it with a carpet.

So the Sasha's and Gregors will be so happy it over and they can have some attention.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY

 

BE MY VALENTINE

I could give you roses

but they cost a bomb

I could give you chocolates

but that would be wrong

I could give you dinner

but that's just too dear

So I'll give you my heart

Just like last year

Valentine Owen

IT'S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN

 

"How come we've been left to bring all this stuff home? " Percy asks Erik " and where's it come from anyway?"

" It's for Mum's Chat n Snap post on the group , she asked me to organise getting it ready and moving it in place and I found you and Zak"

Zak comes round for where he's been waiting at the back of the cart " What's going on? are we moving this thing or not? "

" Yes yes    Sorry I was just speaking to Percy "

" Well don't please it's starting to get cold and I want to see about finishing my game of Cluedo with Toby and he's probably looked a my cards by now!" Zak grumbles as he goes back toward the rear of the cart.

" Come on Lucas let me help you down off the cart, so we can move it " He holds out his hands to grab Lucas.

Lucas just gives him a stare " Come on Lucas and Socks you are too heavy for us to pull the cart with you in it!"

"No!" says Lucas turning away so Erik cannot reach him " and no socks too!"

"Gruff" says socks wagging his tail thinking this is a great game.

Giving up with Lucas, Erik gets Percy to climb between the wooden shafts and then climbs in himself and calls "Get ready to push Zak 1 2 3 Push!! "

Lucas starts laughing and jumping about " Go go go!" he cries pointing them on their way 

After several minutes of pulling and pushing and moaning and groaning Erik calls "HALT!" and Percy gratefully drops the shafts and Zak stops trying to push.

"Again! " demands Lucas from his perch on the cart

"Woof!" agrees Socks

No one pays him any attention as the three boys decide that they need much more help to move it even maybe a horse! They start walking towards the house as they talk .

The sound of a door closing and then quiet... Lucas sits with Socks looking over towards the back door someone will come back.... he can wait... well he may just eat this little cake while he waits....

SUNDAY ALL DAY

 Sunday again, how time flies when you are having fun!

Well I don't know where the week went and I cannot even remember overly much of whats been happening but I'll give it a go.

My cheeky little granddaughter had her fifth birthday on Friday! Five already! She is growing up so fast, she started school last September and is really enjoying it. Today she was holding a party for most of her class mates! 

Her little brother Adam is now two years and three months old and is a right little chatterbox and now making sense and speaking clearer, which is wonderful as I can answer without having to ask his mum what he's said when we are face timing on the portal.

Paul is recovering more each day and almost back to normal, he's walking the dogs etc just not doing any long car driving at present. Which will hopefully mean, we will be able to get out and about more this spring and summer. 

The dolls house is nearly finished, it's had all it's outer coats of paint and today Paul finally put in one set of the stairs!

;

We lost over the years two of the steps to complete the second part of the stair case plus some of the banisters and the second handrail. So I sent for some replacements. However we still need the two steps that Paul will need to make and I have to say my workman ( Paul ) appears to have been avoiding these stairs all week, well almost all week! But hopefully, the new steps will be made this coming week and then the second case put in and it's built!

The room box is made up and decorated and is now in the doll studio.

I had to order a tapestry stand , so I can male up the dolls house carpet, my old stand I could not find the legs for but will no doubt appear as if by magic once I'm all set up on the new one.

On the doll front two have left and one's arrived!

Now I say two have left and one's arrived but one of the one's that left was a part exchange swap for the one that arrived and the other one that left help with the part exch.

It was a Roche Esme who left and actually went back to her previous owner, who'd swapped her first with me for my Roche Kitty. Now I have swapped her back for a Roche Lillian! The other doll who was a Sasha went back to her previous owner too! Mmm am I running a halfway house? does seem like it sometimes! 

I do have some dolls back up for sale as I need to get this laptop fixed sooner rather than later! Because the screen is slowly getting worse! So if I stop posting you know why.

So I wish you all a happy healthy week ahead.

Dee

KITCHEN DECISIONS

 Over on the Sasha group FB page they were taking about kitchens and food for the Sasha's. Naturally I was late getting a photo on.

It did involve a bit of a tidy up of the floor where I had put everything off the printers box shelf unit there in order to remove the box from the wall , where it was getting in the way of the dolls house.

But it has reminded me, that I have some chicken print wallpaper that needs to go in a dividing wall between the kitchen and Granny's shop and that the blue unit in the corner needs a replacement hinge for the top cupboard door!.So while all the dolls house work is going on this would be an ideal time to add them to the jobs to get done.

So I'm off to look for a suitable hinge and may need a trip out for some boarding for the wall!  A doll owners work is never done...

BOXING CLEVER ?

 So we needed some parts for the dolls house stairs since appears over the years a few piece got lost! While waiting for them to arrive I asked Paul to make up the box room.

Because I bought this off eBay as a kit, it was easy to put together just needed some wood glue in the groves and then taped up and left overnight to dry.

I had to order some skirting for the room, so went with a large scale and Paul suggested painting it blue to complement the wall paper I had.

Natural I used some of my stock of wallpaper..... not! Because I had seen this wallpaper on Esty and decided it was just perfect and too nice to pass by.

So Paul had fitted the skirting after painting it yesterday and while he started making the stairs up, now the other parts have arrived, I cut the wallpaper to size.

For some reason each piece of wallpaper had a white border round it , probably where it had been printed which made it a pain as I then had to remove the white sections trying to keep the lines nice and straight. Plus the wallpaper was not wide enough to cover the whole of the back wall so I had to cut a section to match the pattern! again trying to keep the lines straight!

I'd like to say I had help laying the carpet but he just cleaned up the off cuts. I did however use this piece of blue carpet that I bought along with most other things back in 2004. It was still lovely and sticky, unfortunately again not quite long enough to completely cover the floor but luckily the offcut on the depth was enough to fill the gap at the edge. With just what was left being held by the cleaner.

I've really pleased that the joint in the wallpaper worked well and also the carpet.

So once it's all nice and dry ( wallpaper) I will set it up in the studio, of course I had to have a little play with a few of my furniture pieces.

I see the wallpaper suiting a bedroom, so tried these items.

Of course a different mirror would be needed.

I also tried some living room furniture in the room but think it's more suited to a bedroom.

So The room box is complete just took three and a half years to take out the packed and a few days to make up.... but hey! That's another job off the list!

Today is Clara's fifth birthday! Five! where has the time gone! 

GETTING CLOSER

 The dolls house is getting closer to the finish line! 

A few days back, we had to remove the ceiling roses we had put in years back because they had a small metal hook in the centre, which now times moved on, we didn't need. However we could not just pull the very small hook off because it was embedded in the plaster, so ripped a hole across the first one we tried. So I asked Paul to remove the two ceiling roses in the downstairs rooms and went online and ordered two replacements, I also decided to get two smaller ones for the bedrooms.

These new ones, also have a hole in the centre perfect for adding in the light fitting. So yesterday Paul replaced all the ceiling roses, we left them overnight to dry and then today we fitted the lights.

I picked a nice fancy one for the main room.

The bedroom ones are smaller in size but have the hole for the light fitting.

A fancier oe for the main bedroom. Now these upstairs rooms will have to have lights with LED's that turn on and off on the light due to the fact I totally forgot in my eagerness to lay the flooring in that attic that there is now nowhere to lay the cable to the back of the house. 

Now the lights are in downstairs, I could fit the flooring, so that's all now done.

When I found all my old dolls house items, I also found a door knocker and a letter box. The letterbox was one that could operate, which would have meant cutting a hole in the front door but Paul reminded me that there was a nice brass knob shaped handle which was meant to go in the middle of the door where a letterbox would have been. So I opted to use the handle with the knocker.

So they have been fitted and while we were doing that we have also fitted the window perspex but have left the shaded covering on the inside to remove once it's all finished apart from in the attic as the perspex goes between the window and a frame behind to keep it in place.

The roof top and sides have had a coat of dark grey paint to match the front tiles. Now just the house sides need a coat or two of pale grey to match the front. Then it's just the stairs left to put in and a decent catch for the front to keep it in place!

So almost at the finishing line.... 

HOLLY BELLE WHAT A GIRL

 

Percy and Robin decided to read the comments on their blog post, there is some muttering going on.

"Is she the one who.. "

" Yes, blonde girl nicely dressed "

"Mmm "

" Hey look we could go over to the US!" says Robin

" Mmm " Percy says.

"But isn't Holly Belle that bossy one , who is always telling her brothers what they should and should not be doing? " queries Percy

" Well I wouldn't say she's bossy " Robin answers choosing his next words carefully " She is just someone who knows her own mind and likes to keep things organised and tidy "

" By telling her poor brothers what to do !" scoffs Percy 

"But Hattie tells us what to do " argues Robin

" No actually she doesn't she just gives us the look"

Both boys stop and remember Hattie's look, give a small shudder and then snap out of it.

" So thanks but no thanks, I'm not going anywhere near Holly Belle " states Percy firmly " we'd probably be stuck there for life while she finds us all manner of jobs that SHE thinks need doing!"

And with that Percy's off, he's seen enough. Robin looks a little sad " Holly Belle is just misunderstood " he says to himself " Who would want someone in the family, who is always on the ball and helping to make things happen "  Totally ignoring the fact that almost every one of his sisters, apart from Ginny and Claudia,  seem to have more than enough opinions to last a life time right here in his own house!

But I suppose the grass is always greener somewhere else. 

NB  

I have still not got laptop to repairers! am having to get some finds together first. But hopefully I'll be able to post a while longer before it gives up the ghost as they say!

ITS'S THE FIFTH SO DOLL PHOTO DAY

 So it's already the second month of the year and time for those photo's again.

You can see that finally Holly Belle is having some influence on the children at Gregoropolis! Time for drinks before dinner with their new drinks trolley, very respectable.

While over at Hildegard's the girls are fighting against the terrible weather, only to get outside for a few minutes at a time. But well wrapped up against whatever is heading their way again! They are impressed the Christmas tree is still alive and seems to be enjoying the elements!

Here in the village a certain young tot has decided to check out the sleeping arrangements in the dolls house, he's not very impressed with the size of the bed or the ceiling height! He's wondering just how he'll fit!

Thank you to all taking part, still time to get your photos added, just send them in.