A Crazy Week

Save me!

Just so you know what kind of person I really am...I often find myself doing really terrible things to my creations in the name of realism.  In order for such a tiny bear/ dog 's cloths to hang correctly, I had to do this to him.--I am truly sorry.  I once tried to needle felt a nativity--I stopped at jabbing the baby Jesus.  I just couldn't do it.
.

I think Pie might be a puppy.  Anyway he and Humble  are central to the Evalina stories.

     It has been a while since I have had any time to post.  We have been dealing with, the end of school, packing and sending off boys for a big camping trip, a visit from my mother and a pretty sick little girl.  Well, the boys are back, my mother has gone and our little girl has antibiotics. 

      I have not been idle all of this time, just unable to sit alone.  So I will spend some time catching up.

I have finished knitting the doily and hand towel for the wash stand.  I added a row of purple button -hole stitch to the edge to give the effect of a crocheted edge.  I love the colorful edgings  on vintage linens.  The doily is lavender.

This is a new Cassidy Creation kit awaiting pink bead knobs.

The bathroom of honeysuckle cottage is going to have a dressing room combined with the bathroom, .  It is still waiting for me to hang the wall paper.  The wall paper is above, under poor Pie.  I made the sink, and am trying to figure out a way to make a toilet and a tub.

      One of my original ideas for this blog was to have some projects for children, and to include my 7 year old daughter Annabelle as much as possible...she will out grow me soon enough.  We decided to make a beach house together.  It is meant to be a cottage, which I think should be both whimsical and elegant and of course diminutive.  So we have chosen some very beautiful wallpaper from Itsy Bitsy Mini,   http://dollhouse-miniature-wallpaper.com/shop/ , that will make the inside fun and pretty.   I will show you when it comes. 

      The inhabitants are Grandmother (who I've named Gwendolyn and Grandfather who is named Joseph after my father).   There are pictures of them in earlier posts.  The top floor will house their granddaughters who do not exist yet and have no names.  We do know that there are two of them  and there are no boys.  The girls will visit often.  The baby, who is their little sister, will stay home with Mommy.

     We chose pool blue, hydrangea green and cream for the exterior paint.  To my great surprise, pink is not Annabelle's favorite color; she likes teal, blue and green.  I like pink.  So the house will be a combination of those colors inside and out.  I am trying really hard to let Anna make decisions with me, instead of my taking over the whole project.  I do not want her to remember this summer as the summer that"Mommy wouldn't let me make the dollhouse the way I wanted it".  I would love some suggestions on projects that children can do.  She loves to make food and luckily there are a lot of Youtube videos for us to watch together.

This little shell collection is the reason that we decided to make a beach -house.  Isn't it great?  They are real.

We chose the  Laurel by Greencraft because of it's "ease" in assembly and the wrap around porch.  A beach house should have a lot of outdoor living space.  We will have double the foot print for it's base , so.that we can have a garden, lots of flowers and a patio.

I have decided to work with what we have, so that means a lot of prep work.  I have rubbed  a slurry of  wood putty into all of the trim pieces so that they won't splinter when I sand them.  I think the bay window will be the center piece of the tiny kitchen, so I am putting a lot of work into  it.  On the inside I have smeared a watery paste of paper clay and sanded it smooth-ish.

The doors and windows have been wood puttied, sanded and await their place on the house

These flowers are  from my garden and I think the colors will go nicely with the blue and green of the house .  I plan on using these colors for the window boxes plus lavender-pink and candy red.
I have been rambling on...this is what happens if I have too much time to sit alone.

Have a wonderful week,

A winner

Annabelle chooses a winner.

It is Susan of  

http://minicrochetmad.blogspot.com  ,  Bella-Mouse will go to Australia!

Bella-Mouse says goodbye to her friends.  They will miss her.

Happy Summer,

Thank you Degas

 Happy Mother's day From Posy Anna and Evalina Rose

Humble and Pie together at last

This week I made a new Pie.  Pie is Humble bear's side kick.  I had originally made Humble and Pie as a pair, but gave Pie to a friend.  Humble has been lonely, even with the friendship of Posy and Evalina.  Pie still needs clothes, and his ears are too big to be a bear...perhaps Pie will be a mouse.  Any way, he will have to wait to get dressed because I have decided to make a new bear and have her be my first GIVEAWAY on this blog.

     Please help me with advice about Giveaways...I am really new at this, but it looks like such fun.  I am now knitting a little white Mother Bear or Cat--depends on the ears.  She will have a pale pink silk coat and a bag, basket or pocket book, and I think a  white dress knit in a lace pattern.  Please tell me the best way to set up a giveaway!

     I finished my trellised rose.  It is meant to be like a David Austin rose that my mother has.  David Austin roses are old English roses and they bloom in large flushes of flowers that a tremendously fragrant. The multitude of roses became tedious to make, so I will stick to simple tea roses in the future.  My next floral project will be window boxes.  I am going to make every thing removable so that I can decorate for Christmas with seasonal greenery.

The roses are simple,  It is hard for me to get a more realistic rose at half scale.

Our resent vacation was to Washington DC, where I dragged my poor daughter through the National Gallery... assuring her all the time that some day she would appreciate it.  She loves to dance, and takes ballet, so the room full of Degas' sculptures was at least interesting to her.  To me, Degas' sculptures brought me to a major realization--real artist use armatures when they are sculpting figures.

She is my first standing project with an armature.  I hope she continues to stand.  I will add muscles and details in steps.  I plan on putting flowers in her hands and a  wreath of flowers in her hair.  I'm already in love with her and she looks like ET.

Happy Mother's Day,
Lucy