it's a small world........

So I have been doing a dolls house. Why? Miniature things have always fascinated me, and on a whim one day I ordered a dolls house kit, not having much of a clue how much work it involved......

I learnt as I went along. Who knew that it was best to paint walls and do floors before the house was put together. I used cheap laminate floor tiles from Poundland for the floor, carefully cut into 2cm wide strips, and then whitewashed after laying to give a limed oak look. The furniture was picked up from Ebay or online selling groups, I resprayed everything with antique white chalk paint......

The knitting was done on cocktail sticks with embroidery thread.......

I made some of the tiny bits out of Fimo clay

 The dining room is set up for dinner - you are staying for dinner aren't you? The 'silver' napkin rings are from a bracelet I picked up in a charity shop......

Still waiting for a little armchair for the study, but I made a cork notice board....

and made some pencils out of cocktail sticks.....and some tiny glasses out of wire and glossy accents....

The 'sitting room' furniture was a Ebay bargain, but I stripped it down and recovered it and made some tiny cushions. I 'painted' the blue art work on the wall. The copper vase was in a string of beads from Poundland

 I shrunk down some family photos and framed them......

I found making the bedding quite challenging - it's so tiny that the bedding just stuck out straight and didn't drape at all, but a quick Google taught me the trick of lining the layers with some kitchen foil so that you can manipulate the fabric...

All ready for breakfast in bed? The throw was made out of a Poundland dish cloth, I soaked it in glue and draped it how I wanted until it dried in the correct folds

 The bathroom is still a work in progress - I cut the towels out of baby washcloths......The floor was a free sample of tile wallpaper from a DIY store

So there you have it. What have I learnt?
1. I thought I had perfectly normal sized hands. In reality it seems that I have giant hands with sausages for fingers..
2. It seems I have a mild case of OCD - who knew that I could obsess about the size of a toilet roll
3. I have learnt that it is possible to spend huge sums of money on tiny things - some artisan dolls house furniture can cost more than the full sized article. Who knew! I hasten to add that mine has been done on a budget......
4. I find the idea of dolls in my dolls house quite creepy. The thought of tiny dolls sitting on chairs in the dark waiting for someone to open up the house and take a look is a bit odd for my vivid imagination. 
5, My aim was to build and decorate a house I could live in (if I was 5" tall), and I have done this - it looks cosy
6. One major design flaw really bothers me - there is no stairway or door into the bathroom. Since it is all imaginary, no real person will ever be caught short in desperate need of the loo, it shouldn't matter....but it niggles!
7. Will I ever do another one. ........NO! The bug is well and truly out of my system, but it is still ongoing and I am enjoying it, so I hope you enjoyed your tour of my new place xx

Three Cards - One Die - Spellblogger post for Spellbinders

I was sent the Floral Mandala die by Lene Lok for Spellbinders. I immediately made three cards. I have a firm favourite.....do you?

Firstly, I cut in black and stuck it onto a white base, then used Polychromos pencils to add colour. I added a few white dots as well to make it pop....

Next, I cut in white, added colour to the die cut with Distress Oxide inks sponged on, and placed it on to a black oval background

For the third card, I used some copper foil card and layered onto black and copper. I added a few copper sequins to this one.....

The good news is that the die so many of you have been waiting for - the Grand Arch 3D die that I used for this card....................

IS BACK IN STOCK - find it HERE at the Spellbinders store

I have a new hobby......time consuming, expensive and a bit bewildering. Pop by tomorrow when I will have more time to chat.....see you then x

Busy Bees for Daring Cardmakers

It's my turn to set the challenge over on Daring Cardmakers today. I chose a theme of Busy Bees.....

here is my card, I used a Spellbinders set called Honey Bee 

For my card, I cut the honeycomb twice, in black and yellow. Then I just filled some of the spaces with yellow - the bees are busy gathering pollen to fill those empty spaces! Three bees were cut in yellow, and white. I used yellow for the base bee, coloured in the antennae etc in black with a sharpie marker, and snipped off the white wings (which were given a coat of Wink of Stella clear glitter, which doesn't show in the photo). The bodies of the bees were glazed with glossy accents

Six of us went to the Escape Room last night. Have you ever been to one of these? Ours was Japanese themed, with a long spiel about some Samurai warrior who had lost his sword which we had to retrieve in one hour. Then we were locked in this tiny little room, about the size of your average public lavatory. I won't bore you with the details, it involved a mirror, a long rope and much bewilderment before we progressed into the next room. In total we went through four (or was it five) rooms, most of the time dashing around like headless chickens looking for clues. In the end, we managed to retrieve the sword with two minutes and eleven seconds to spare. We stumbled out, triumphant,  only to find a group of (smug) corporate types sitting there, who had escaped from their room in some ridiculous time, totally bursting our bubble! But we did it, hurrah!