Today, I have not done anything to do with making miniatures, either from yeah or anything else.

It must be the first time since at least 2 or 3 weeks that I haven’t painted, struggled with or built something.

Why do I hear my non existent audience ask? Simple. I left the house at 7.45 am to day and now at 19.07 I am travelling back home. I have a splitting headache from lack of food and due to concentrating for over 6 hours. This is something which prior to retirement I would have done easily.

So for the sake of a charity I live, I have done my first day detox from making wee things.

I think I am going to tax myself with remaining dolls house free for the next couple of days. Can I do this? Will I suffer any side effects if I succeed?

Maybe now I can get the ironing finished, the walls of the new summerhouse painted and the baby blanket finished.

So I have a problem perhaps! 🤔

10.09.18

When I got into making little things, I had no idea there was an army of people out there who had begun this hobby before me.

I knew about Queen Mary’s doll house in London but that was just the work of talented cabinet makers. I don’t suppose she was picking up bits of rubbish to turn into lights or bowls.

Anyway, I just enjoy making things and decorating and my house doesn’t need any more make overing(not a word but it is now)

But what I also didn’t know is that it quickly becomes an obsession.

Dishes remain unwashed, until I have to, ironing piles up until I have nothing to wear. Washing gets done because I have a thing about clean clothes. I am both desperate to finish a project and disappointed when I do.

Luckily, I have discovered a whole world of people out there who are so supportive . If you put your photos up, they enthuse about your effort and even show how they do their clever bits.

Thank goodness that my obsession is shared by others and is an acceptable kind of normal. Maybe.

September 2018

Last evening I decided to try and make a plain chair for Santa to sit on at the drop lead table I made.

Sounds simple? Not.

Like a true newbie I watched a You Tube video of someone doing just that. This beautifully manicure pair of hands cut and stuck Terrie tint wee bit of wood together and Piff Paff Poof a miniature chair was made.

I assembled my coffee stirrers and my toothpicks and my new wood glue. I even had a chair I had bought for comparison. So I cut and stuck and the legs slid off and the seat curled and then the legs slid off again. After much chuntering (possible Scots word for bland cursing) I got 4 legs to stick.

Remembering to breathe, I went out to stop me constantly checking if they had stuck!

I returned and they had stuck! Unfortunately all my careful (obviously not so careful) measuring meant the front legs were too long. So again remembering to breathe and not curse, I decided to cut and restick them. But of course they didn’t want to come off , did they?

I wrestled them to the floor and cut a tiny bit off ( note the continued accuracy of my measuring skills). Once again the legs slid off continually despite my attempts to glue on pieces to keep them in place. Every time I got one piece in place another piece slid determinedly down and out of place.

By this time my finger and tweezers were gummed up with excess glue. Every time I tried to let go a piece it would stay on the top of my hand.

Eventually I beat the pieces into submission and have a chair!

A very valuable lesson has been learnt however about You Tube. The one they film is not their first attempt to do it, they are fantastic experts by the time they film it. And if you are good at something it looks so simple until you try.

So I love watching them but need to practice more .

Which one do you think I bought.

So easy. 😂😂😊

But of course

Can you spot what I have used to make some mini skateboards for my Santa’s workshop?

Yes, my obsession with making miniatures means I subject my hubby to torture. Imagine it, you need ice lolly sticks, so guess what you have to do to get them . Yes you guessed! You have to force fee him and yourself with the gorgeous silky dark chocolate ice lollies, just so you can shape and sand down the sticks.

Oh the harshness of this hobby, it is a hard task master demanding total obedience.

The fact that I now have all the boards I need does not explain the furtive hoarding of sticks.

Mabs 29 August 2018

I have discovered that it is common knowledge amongst those making their own miniatures, that everything has another use.

Every cap on toothpaste, water or mini sized container cannot be thrown away. It just might be useful, one day!

I have made baskets using the cup for washing liquid, by winding twine around it.

I have made mini skateboards from Magnum sticks: that was hard cod we had to eat the yummy ice lollies for the sticks. I would like to thank hubby for his contribution.

It does mean when I am shopping I am now more likely to be considering the packaging rather than the content. It is contagious too as poor hubby carefully checks if something might be useful! Or it might be I have yelled once too often when something is being tossed into the garbage.

There is nothing like the satisfaction of making rubbish look like something else in your dolls house!

I have read a warning though that if there is any evidence of a hoarding gene in the family, this might be a dangerous hobby.

I am off to make cushions for Santa’s throne/ chair. That was made using ice lolly sticks. Should be ironing Nah.

Mabs August 2018

To you these are the throw away tops of the dreaded plastic bottles of water, we are all trying to give up; in fact it is the top from someone else’s bottle. Not a stranger, I am not quite that obsessed yet!

You see, half the fun is to take something ordinary and turn it into something extraordinary but in dolls house scale.

This top is still talking to me, I know it can be something exciting but I am not sure yet what that can be. It looks like the blue light on a police car but much too big a scale for my 1/12 scale houses. Someone has suggested a Porta potty for camping, when you look at the open version. If I go for that it will have to be stored in the ‘sometime I will need this‘ drawer, joining countless small boxes from face cream that look like washing machines and tumble dryers and other bits and pieces waiting for their new identity.

I am thinking the white bit reminds me of oil lamps but that still isn’t right. I will have to wait for inspiration.The flip top interests me, hmm, maybe a top for a bin? Boring.

Anyone who makes dolls house furniture without a Kardashian sized bank balance will have such a stash somewhere in their house or shed or garage of things that look like trash but have potential.

Only today, family members were pounced on to give me their clear straws to help make oil lamps, not today, not tomorrow but one day. After all straws are disappearing and if I use them then they don’t end up in landfill. So as well as up-cycling and recycling my hobby is reducing landfill but I do it for fun.

Mabs Aug 2018

 

 

 

 

My first ever dolls house was a labour of love by my father. One year ,I was presented with an amazing huge dolls house. Everything about that house was made by him. It was two floors, with brick wallpaper on the outside walls and tiling paper on the roof. Every stick of furniture and every blanket was made by him, it must have taken months.

He had a ‘secret’ workshop where he did all his magic. We were never allowed in, to keep his work secret and I suspect so he had some separate space from us kids.

Only now, when I can’t ask I would like to know if he enjoyed this experience. His original motivation would have been to save money . Now I know you could not do what he did without enjoying the process.

Wasn’t I a lucky girl.

Do you want to know what happened to it? Do you think it sits in my loft, my garage or my bedroom? Nooooooo!

When they retired and moved house, it disappeared. I as a selfish 20 something forgot all about it. I never asked what happened to it and I can only assume they thought I didn’t want it.

Now with them both gone, I can only hope some wee girl got to play with it. I can’t stand the thought he might have broken it up. That’s too hard when I look at my efforts and know how I love my houses.

Thanks Dad

Mabs August 2018

I have rediscovered the joy of doing something for fun. You know what it is like, life gets full of ‘things you have to do, have to finish and fun gets forgotten.

Watch young children and they are lost in moment. They savour how a thing looks and how it feels, usually the adults are the ones concentrating on the finished article.

I have begun to furnish dolls houses with upcycled pre loved furniture and some I make myself.

It is a blast, to the point of me desperate to find time to do it.

At the suggestion of someone else I am embarking on a blog about it.

Blogging is way out of my comfort zone so fingers crossed.

August 2018 Mabs

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton