I’m A Giant Challenge Guest Post: The Final Reveal - The Kitchen

Fri, 16 Dec 2011 20:37:24 -0800

My daughter, TC, will be participating in Emily Henderson’s I’m A Giant doll house decorating challenge. Since TC doesn’t have a blog of her own, I’m letting her guest blog in My Craft Closet.

The Final Reveal - The Kitchen

For the final post I am going to reveal the kitchen and do a little wrap up of all the rooms with a special surprise guest.

Last week I went to the 99 cent store (where nothing is ever 99 cents) and picked up some alphabet letters.
I love this kitchen, and wanted big letters like this on my wall:

Sorry, I’m not sure where I found this picture....if anyone knows, please leave me a note in the comments.

So I bought some alphabet letters for $5 and used the chalkboard paint to make them black. The best part is that they include one piece of punctuation. Can you see it in the pic below?

Is it a question mark? Or an exclamation point? No, it’s a semicolon. Supposedly the most useless punctuation. But I love a semicolon; I find them useful. I also painted the window frame black, after previously painting it white. I wanted to make it POP more. For the floor, I cut up a cork place mat I had lying around. I actually used the backside of it, I liked the chunky looking texture of it better than the front.

And now for the reveal:

The outside picture is from an actual photo of the East Village, and I think it makes the room. Just so you know, no New York apartments actually have windows that big though. At least not in my neighborhood. Or in my price range. But it looks nice here.

The cereal boxes on the fridge are Printies, all the kitchen cupcakes and baking items are Re-ment.

And now for the special guest appearance:

Oh, NO! She is not quite ready yet. Okay let’s see some more appropriate photos. Blythe loves to bake. Today it’s cupcakes:

She also loves to read with her cat...

...and lounging in the living room.

Also, I fixed up a little patio scene. Sometimes Blythe and her sister like to climb out the window and hang out on the roof. Illegally. They are such rebels.

They also have their old fashioned TV plugged in up there and like to watch re-runs.

The chairs are old ornaments from West Elm, and are obviously not the right scale (but neither is mini Blythe).

I hope you all enjoyed following along on the dollhouse challenge with me! Be sure to leave some comments and hopefully mommy will invite me back for more guest posting.

Happy Holidays! See you in the New Year!

I’m A Giant Challenge Guest Post: The Living Room

Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:13:06 -0800

My daughter, TC, will be participating in Emily Henderson’s I’m A Giant doll house decorating challenge. Since TC doesn’t have a blog of her own, I’m letting her guest blog in My Craft Closet.

The Living Room

Let’s talk about BF. He is one tricky boy. Although he claims to not be into this dollhouse thing, like, “I don’t care, dollhouses are dumb,” and other things like, “that’s weird and freaky,” he does care a lot about me. Look what he bought me:

It wasn’t a surprise, more like “you should order that.” So I did. Don’t have to tell me twice! The package arrived yesterday and it’s AH-MAZING. The kitchen is the last room I’m working on and the one I had the least stuff for. I will unveil that room last. He also went a little nuts and bought me 4, yes that’s right 4 mini Blythe dolls. One of them has a scooter and a cat with goggles and a helmet. Don’t believe me, here’s the picture. I’m not kidding, he picked this out on his own.

Did her eyes freak you out a little? Me too. Don’t look directly at her, best to look at the cat. In the goggles. And the sidecar.

In other news, I’m kind of a hoarder. I like to call myself a collector though. It sounds better. Also, I’m super organized and clean, so you won’t have to dig me out of a massive pile of National Geographic’s from the 1970’s, or worry that you’ll find my dead body - half eaten by cats - under a stack of fallen Madame Alexander Judy Garland dolls. My hoarding, er collections, will be organized alphabetically in Tupperware from the Container Store, labeled, photographed with Polaroids and P-Touched. If this sounds like way too much work for you, you should hire me. I’m super good at organizing...just see Mom’s sewing closet post.

Anyway, I collected a few Kaleidoscope by Bozart dollhouse furniture sets awhile back. They were being sold on Fab.com for an insanely low price. It was way before this dollhouse challenge, and when I saw them I was only thinking about saving them for “some day”. In other words, a collector’s excuse. Admitting it is half the battle, right?

If you don’t know about the Kaleidoscope dollhouse you can learn about it here.

If anyone ever finds one of these at a yard sale, buy it for me. I might organize your closets for free! Isn’t it dreamy?

So, I bought four sets from the online sale. I paid under $20 for each, and now I see them on eBay for about $60 a piece. Who loves a bargain? I do! Also, a wise investment. I bought the sofa set (Jasper Morrion), one of the arts sets, an accessories set (looks like Jonathan Adler) and one creepy family set (are there any normal looking dollhouse dolls?). I’m currently watching three of the dollhouses on eBay right now, but who am I kidding. I don’t have $500 to even place an opening bid.

Back to the task at hand. Living room. the Jasper Morrison sofa is a hug L-shape white leather beauty that barely fits in my living room, so I could only use the long part. I spent an entire day painting this room dark blue (it needed four coats to cover everything), and laying the hard wood floors. I also made a window frame.

It’s not exactly perfect. Cutting a 45 degree angle was surprisingly difficult, until we figured out how easy it was. Then, I felt like a total idiot and refuse to explain any of it further. I forgot to add the window film so it looks unfinished, but I actually don’t mind it for now. As a side note, please ignore my crappy baseboard painting; the blue paint was warring with the white paint. It was ugly. In the end it will be covered, so I’m not too worried.

Here is the finished, empty room.

Another minor issue was that I should have painted the living room floor brown before laying the flooring, because the floor boards are not perfect, you can see the white peeking through a bit. Guess what? I covered it with my Flor carpet sample. Solved.

Here is the finished room, all decorated and accessorized:

The art work on the wall is from the set I mentioned above, as is the coffee table. Here is a close-up of the
accessories:

The bookcase is Re-ment, as are the items on the shelves. The vases on top of the bookcase and the pillows on the sofa are also Bozart. All in all, I really like how this room came out. I’m bummed I didn’t get to use the Hallmark TV ornament BF brought me home a few weeks ago. It was an old fashioned TV/furniture unit with an image of The Andy Griffith show on it. So cool, right? I am considering an outdoor space...maybe I will use it there.

I can’t wait to show you the whole house together when I’m done. Only three days left!

I’ll reveal the kitchen later this week. Stay tuned.

I’m A Giant Challenge Guest Post: The Bedroom

Thu, 8 Dec 2011 21:56:10 -0800

My daughter, TC, will be participating in Emily Henderson’s I’m A Giant doll house decorating challenge. Since TC doesn’t have a blog of her own, I’m letting her guest blog in My Craft Closet.

The Final Reveal - The Kitchen

Today I ventured out in the 65 degree (it’s December!!!) New York weather to get some last minute supplies. With only two weeks left in the challenge, I decided to get things rolling around here. And by rolling I mean wrap it up already!

I was heading to the Flor store in Soho for some samples any way, so I thought I would see if I could score a sale or remnant piece for the bedroom. Just a quick note: if you haven’t shopped at Flor yet, you should. We have three different carpets from them, and have even moved with them. Made with 27” squares, you can pull them apart and re-assemble them in another room, or in a different shape anytime you want. They come in a million colors, textures and prints, and are actually pretty affordable. On top of all of this, Dianna Jefferies, my favorite salesperson in Soho, makes the purchase enjoyable. I can’t say enough about her, she is warm, funny, and always remembers me when I come in. After working in retail for more than fifteen years myself, I can say that I have rarely encountered a salesperson so good.

So, after chatting about carpets for our real bedroom, I told her about my little dollhouse project. And she gave me this:

Dianna let me go in the backroom (so exciting!) and look through the sale piles, and of course I picked the brightest tile I could find. I also brought home some samples for our bedroom, one of which I will also use in the dollhouse living room.

Down the street at CB2 I picked up the little red chair, as seen here and here. It’s a little bigger than 1:12 scale, but I love it and at $3.95 it’s a BARGAIN.

So, with my handy rotary knife, I cut the carpet to size...

...and it nicely covers that little gap between the floor and the wall. Remember that?

Ugly. Also, the room is not square, so it took a bit of finagling to make it look right, but it came out great.

I had planned on using a print of a brick wall behind the bed, but it didn’t look great with that green carpet, so I used a print of an Orla Kiely wallpaper. Much better. Originally, the bedroom was going to be all Zen and cool looking. But with that carpet and wallpaper, it’s more fun and colorful...which is more my style anyway. Also, it’s a dollhouse people. Shouldn’t it be more fun than a regular house?? I also whipped up some curtains from a scrap piece of fabric, and was planning on using them in the living room, but they seem to work better here.

My mother sent me a bed from an original Raggedy Ann & Andy dollhouse I had as a kid. It didn’t really look right for this. So, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I made a bed. I used the pieces of wood that were punched out of the windows, and painted them with chalkboard paint and upholstered the headboard. Yeah, that’s how I roll.

The bedspread is from an old cashmere sweater that moths snacked on, and I made the sheets and pillow cases. Damn I am crafty. It’s okay, you can say it.

So, here is the final product:

And a close up of the desk:

The desk is from the box of stuff mom sent me, and the tiny pink boxes and desk stuff is Re-ment. Do you see that paperclip holder on the desk? RE-ment is no joke. The art on the walls is Bozart.

It’s really coming together now. Next week, the living room.

I’m A Giant Challenge Guest Post: The Bathroom

Fri, 2 Dec 2011 09:28:59 -0800

My daughter, TC, will be participating in Emily Henderson’s I’m A Giant doll house decorating challenge. Since TC doesn’t have a blog of her own, I’m letting her guest blog in My Craft Closet.

The Bathroom

Do I start out trying to make things difficult? No. I don’t think so. But, I do have a bad habit of dreaming big. Like when I was all “maybe this shower curtain should have box pleats,” but I was only 50% sure that what I pictured was a box pleat was actually one. And, I sure that I had no idea how to make one.

Thanks to the helpful YouTube video, I more or less had it figured out. Sort of. BF claims I’m too easy going, which I happen to think is charming, but he says it leads to mistakes. Well, as my mother would tell you, mistakes are basically the only way I learn. And they have to be mine. At least I own them. That’s charming too right?

By your silence, I assume you agree.

So box pleats in real life are not the same as 1:12 scale. My brain refused to do that math, as in, I’ll wing it. (BF will not be happy-good thing he wants nothing to do with dollhouses!) I find this method of making-things-up-as-I-go, exciting. It does not make for a good tutorial though. Sorry in advance. Think of this post as a really funny Marmaduke cartoon. Just look at the pictures and shake you head, muttering “That silly dog, what has he gotten himself into this time.”

What I do know is these pleats should be really tiny. Like so tiny that I’m not even sure how to begin. Cross your fingers that I don’t burn myself AGAIN.
Here we go.....

Here are the supplies I used: scissors, white fabric, ruler, and a water soluble pencil. That silver bangle in the picture will be the shower curtain bar.

Here is what it looks like so far, and I only had to take it apart once and start over. I marked the fabric at 1/2” intervals (not 1.5” like in the video) and it looks about right. You do need a wide piece of fabric for this because it shrinks down in size a lot with all the folding. Like I said, this is not a tutorial, so if you need one please see the video, as I am figuring this out as I go.

I honestly have no idea now I will attach these to the silver bangle.

I am going for a look like this: (photo from Country Living)

I ended up gluing the fabric right to the bangle and then using some UHU tac to a attach it to the wall. If you don’t know about UHU tac (which is removable adhesive putty) you should. It can be used for many around the house, and for hanging everything to the wall in a dollhouse without glue.

The mirror came with a handbag, and I used velcro to hang it because it is too heavy for the putty. I made the shade in this room from a sushi making kit, which obviously I never used, or rather, do not plan on using any longer. All I had to do was shorten the width and use some string to tie it up.

The tiny bear rug is fake. No bears were killed to make that rug. I think a childhood neighbor made it for me. It’s both creepy and cool, and it is the only time you will see anything resembling a dead animal on this site.

Here is a better view of the toilet, which is hidden behind the stairs. Don’t ask why, that’s how this apartment was designed. It’s New York y’all, things get funky in the East Village.

See the little toilet paper rolls? Awesome right. The basket is a Re-Ment miniature as is the cat.

I know some of you may have questions for me, and in anticipation of them, I have provided the answers here:

Q: Did you make those tiny toilet paper rolls?
A: Yes, thanks for asking. I made them myself, with real TP.

Q: What’s a polar bear doing in New York?
A: The same thing it’s doing on an island in Hawaii.

Q: This room is amazing, will you design rooms in my house for me??
A: Show me the money.

Q: Were you watching a One Tree Hill marathon while you did this?
A: Yes, yes I was.