New Carpets

Its a sunny but cold day around here, so it is perfect for looking out the windows at my gardens and crafting inside! I've uploaded pictures of my two newest stitched dollhouse rugs. The pictures are not in proportion to each other since the round one is a smaller mat sized one and the other is a living room sized one. They are both pretty simple but cute I think. I found lots of stitchery patterns at the library that I am looking forward to working on, but due to copyright I can't show you the patterns but maybe I can share my finished projects some time. I promise I will get some of my patterns up for everyone soon. It is taking longer than I thought it would, but it will happen. I found a pattern for a tiger skin rug that I am itching to try so that is the next thing I am going to stitch. I am one of those people that needs to keep their hands busy while the tv is on, so cross stitch is perfect for that. If I get really ambitious I might tackle some of the plastic furniture I bought at Value Village. Have a great day everyone.

Kibbygirl

free I-magazines

A good resource on the web can be found on some miniature magazine websites. Three that I have found offer free copies of their magazines online. You can even download the projects and printables in PDF form. Later today I am off to the library to see if there are any miniature magazines available. I know from past experience that the library can be a great place to find some resource books for dollhouses, or books on stitchery that can be re purposed for your little home. If you are a painter you might find some "minni" projects there as well. My mother, who is an artist is considered getting in to painting in miniature. That would be pretty exciting if my dollhouse has some original 'objects-d-art'! There are plenty of images out there that can be used for art in your dollhouse but having something hand done and one of a kind would definitely add something special.

So, as always I will report back with all my library finds. I am hoping there will be many. The links to the I-mags are following this post as well. Have fun exploring, I know I will.

Kibbygirl

Dollhouse World

http://editions.pagesuite.co.uk//PageSuite3.aspx?page=1&scale=100&height=700&width=1000&editionid=62127&filekey=&path=_PSEDitions/Ashdown/NewsOnTheBlock/DHW_preview/

Dollhohouse Miniatures

http://editions.pagesuite.co.uk//PageSuite3.aspx?page=1&scale=100&height=700&width=1000&editionid=62222&filekey=&path=_PSEDitions/Ashdown/NewsOnTheBlock/DHM_preview/

American Miniaturisthttp://editions.pagesuite.co.uk//PageSuite3.aspx?page=1&scale=100&height=700&width=1000&editionid=62323&filekey=&path=_PSEDitions/Ashdown/NewsOnTheBlock/AM_preview/

You can also visit the main site for all three magazines at: http://www.dollshouseworld.com/amn_mag.asp

pond update

Good Afternoon, I thought I would update everyone on our pond adventures. We went on a couple of hikes to ponds and caught loads of frogs, tadpoles and pollywog's. Some of them we brought to our nabour who has a much bigger pond, but about 11 frogs have stayed with us! On the last trip out we even managed to find a turtle. Since he is a painted turtle my husband has decided to call him Picasso. He is so proud of himself for even knowing who that is. :) Next on our list is a snake then our little animal family will be complete. A couple of years ago we had a

several baby snakes, and one of them that I named Alice loved to cuddle. Really, its true. She would curl all around my hand and just rest there. I miss her but we had to let them go. We are all loving our little pond though. Its fun to watch the animals and with a small fountain it is so relaxing to sit and listen too. My husband has wanted one for years so now he is in heaven.

As for the real subject of my blog I will be back soon with some cool pictures and projects. See you then,

Kibbygirl

pictures

I don't know about everyone else but I had a crazy weekend. Crazy, but good. My sister in law, the youngest of my husbands family and only girl, got married on saturday. My poor son was, as always, the only kid there but even he had a great time. Part way through the reception he decided he wanted to give a speach. It was short and simple but it had his aunt crying and the rest of the guests cheering. I was such a proud mamma!

The pictures today are of some dollhouse pictures I have collected to eventually serve as art work in some of the rooms. All of these examples came from either magazines or from the sample bits of wallpaper I had. The frames themselves I bought at the dollar store in the scrapbooking section. The bear pictures were placed on pendants that are for jewelry making. The two posters in the last picture I want to use in the living room, or the bedroom and are from a magazine. I just glued them to some cardboard stock paper and added scrapbooking tape to the backs so that they can hang directly on the wall like posters. It is amazing the places you can find decorative bits for your dollhouse. Anywhere there are small pictures there are potential art works for your house. If you start looking at things with an eye for the miniature it will open up many new and exciting sources for inspiration and projects. Its fun to see what you can discover thinking outside the 'mini' box.

Kibbygirl

contest

I have been working on ideas and ways that I can be the best blogger I can be, so in the spirit of that and my self proclaimed status as frugalista extrodanaire I am having a contest starting june first. Through out the month of june I will randomly pick a winner from anyone who sends me an email with a coment on my blog. The lucky person will be sent a dollhouse item from my collection. At the beginning of the month I will post a picture of the selection the winner may choose from. Good luck to everyone.

While I was thinking about the contest I also thought it would be fun to host a dollhouse miniature freecycle type of thing. Just like the saying goes.. one persons junk is another persons treasure. Who among us frugal, resourcefull types can resist a good garage sale or thrift shop expedition? Well, why not an online version for anyone who enjoys dollhouse miniatures. The only difference is that this will be where we can share what we aren't using for free. Sound good? I was thinking that whenever someone has something they would like to share, they could send me a picture to post and then that item would be up for grabs. Anyone who would like to be the new owner could claim dibs and just give the person offering it the postage to send it.

By the way, the picture at the top of the post is a room set by oakridge hobbies. It looks like such a cosy, beautiful room that if it was full size I could love spending hours there. The site is a store that has some really cute things, so here is the link: http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.oakridgehobbies.com/media/catalog/category/dollhouse-miniatures.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.oakridgehobbies.com/index

Have a great night,
Kibbygirl

free printable paper ideas

I was going through some of my scrapbooking stuff today and as I was looking at the papers I realized they would work wonderfully for some of my dollhouse projects. Anything with a plain or tiny pattern is perfect for the walls or to make something like placemats, and lampshades. If you look around, and these days you dont need to look farther than the internet, you can find lots of great 'faux' patterned paper too. Things like brick, tile, wood and whatnot. I wrote awhile back about some of the great free things you can find on the net to print out for the dollhouse. There are quite a few sites that offer those and you can get some of the links on my site, but the scrapbooking got me thinking outside the box. There is an endless supply of free scrapbooking printables out there. Believe me I know... I had to cut myself off eventually after I had filled many cds with all the treasures I found! It could take me the rest of my life to use them all and there are new kits being posted by great artists all the time. As long as it is for your own personal use artists are giving their creations away to anyone who would like them. At the end of this post I will include links to several good sites to find scrapbook printables that will hopefully give you some good ideas. Shabby Princess for example, makes some really beautiful things. Check out her vintage florals in paticular. That is one of my favorite sets.

So, put your creative thinking caps on and get out there, metaphoriclly speaking, and be inspired!

http://crystallongbrake.blogspot.com/ http://www.shabbyprincess.com/downloads.asp http://ikeagoddess.blogspot.com/ http://digifree.blogspot.com/ http://flowerscrap.blogspot.com/ http://shelbellescraps.blogspot.com/

have a great night

Kibbygirl

some of my creations

It's a beautiful day here so I have enjoyed being out in the garden. I am not a big fan of the cold so I am thrilled the sun is out and the weather has warmed. I have finally downloaded some pictures of my stitchery so I can finally share them. I am working on two new ones as well. Hopefully they will turn out looking good. When I am done I will show them here, and I will get on making my designs available for you to use. If anyone has some they would like to share, drop me a line and I will put them up as well. I want to make this a great place for freebies we can all use. Anything that can help keep this hobby going as inexpensively as possible has got to be a good thing! In fact if anyone has any requests or ideas for things you would like me to look into, let me know that too.

Well, I hope everyone else is enjoying the day.

Kibbygirl

Off topic turtle hunt

Today's post is not dollhouse related but I had to share this with everyone. My husband finally has a small pond on our property. He has wanted one for a very long time and he has had a lot of fun playing with the fountain and stocking it with some fish, frogs, toads and turtles. My husband, son and I love going for hikes and looking for whatever creatures we can find, and now we have somewhere to bring a few of them. One thing the boys have wanted for a long time is a turtle. We have a small one that was given to us, but the boys are on a quest right now and are searching some of the many ponds in the area for another one. My step dad got into it too and built them an improvised turtle trap. He used things he found around the house and made an awesome contraption to bring down to one of the ponds. The pictures are of my husband and step dad trying to get it in. That was yesterday and so far no turtles yet but it has been raining pretty hard all day. The boys did find a couple of toads a few days ago and they actually laid eggs in our pond! I can't wait to see all the tadpoles from that. There is nothing like studying nature up close and personal.

free dollhouse plans

Since I have been busy "helping" put my new dollhouse together I thought I would search for a few free dollhouse plans for everyone. Even though I am in the process of building one now, seeing other designs gives me ideas about what I would like to do with mine. The other reason is that my goal with this blog is to give everyone else who loves dollhouses cheap, unique and free ideas for creating their own. So, since I don't have much to show you in terms of my own projects tonight I figured I could find some other free stuff for you. If you are talented enough to build your own dollhouse, this site has some free designs and instructions for you. http://www.letsbuildadollhouse.com/ This site has a really easy sofa and chair that you can make with cardboard and fabric. http://www.letsbuildadollhouse.com/lbdhbuild%20a%20sofa.htm. That's all for now so have a great night.

Kibbygirl

Not too much dollhouse related stuff going on today. My son was out of underwear and we we just about out of food so my day has mostly been a blur of laundry and shopping. It was so nice outside today though, so I did manage to sit out and work a bit on my newest rug. This one is mostly purples and golds. My goal in the next little while is to get up a gallery of my stitched carpets for all of you to see. I have created some of my own designs so I will put those up as well. That way anyone interested in making one of their own can use them. If any of my readers want to submit something they have designed I would be thrilled to post them too. I always enjoy discovering new designs and seeing what other people have done. If you are just starting out and what to try something small this site: http://miniatures.about.com/od/dollhouseneedlework/tp/minineedlepat.htm?nl=1 has some information on stitching for dollhouses as well as a few pillow patterns you can cross stitch. If you really want to get creative you can pick out any small elements from other cross stitch patterns you have and use that for a cushion, or wall hanging, or whatever. Supplies are pretty affordable, especially if you can find them at a thrift store or dollar store, and you use such a small amount for a pillow that it is not painful to experiment and make mistakes as you figure out what you are doing! So go ahead and have fun, and don't forget to show me what you are creating.

Kibbygirl

my dollhouse

Hello readers,

Remember that lost puppy dog face I wrote about last week? Well, today I have proof that it works! My step-dad has been helping me put together my new dollhouse, and it is starting to come together. I have no problem telling you all that he is the brains of the operation but I do get to decorate and that is always fun. So far we ( as in he ) has the pieces cut and sanded and ready to go. We decided to paint and paper the walls before we assemble the house so I pulled out all the pieces of sample wallpaper that I had laying around, because.. doesn't everyone have bits of sample wallpaper lying around the house? Actually, a year or two ago I had asked at a local paint and wallpaper store if they had any old wallpaper books I could have for some other crafts I was doing. As you may have guessed by now I am not big on throwing things out and I love to find ways to repurpose what I have. So jump forward to present day and I have lots of pages of wallpaper to choose from for my dollhouse. Of course lot of the prints won't work for this sort of project but there are some simple and tiny patterns that work well. There were also some checkered patterns that would make great floor tile, and even some marble look paper that I am thinking of using for kitchen, or bathroom counter tops. As I get to those things I will post some pictures of my efforts.

In the meantime here are a couple of sites that have mini pattern wallpapers that you can print out.

http://adacasitas.blogspot.com/ http://www.customdollhouse.com/printable1.htm http://68.80.192.32:8090/dh/Printables13.html

my newest treasures

Hello everyone,

I am going to make this a quick post today, but I just had to share some pictures of my latest finds. I wrote before about some of the interesting places you can find miniatures or items to create them. I recently went on a thrift shop hunt and came away with quite a few cool finds. I don't normally get this lucky but I found a bag of toy items that had quite a few of these plastic dollhouse furnature peices. They are not the most stylish items but I am going to try to work with them. In fact the pictures kind of look like a miniature garage sale. :) I am going to attempt to use stuffing and fabric on the chairs and couches. Stay tuned to see if I can manage it or if I just make a mess. Either way I will post my results. If it is a dissaster at least you will all know what not to do! Not a bad haul for $2 anyway.

Have a great day,

Kibbygirl

Miniature Scales

Good morning,

I have some quiet time to myself after getting my son off to school so I thought I would share a bit about dollhouse miniature scales. There are different scales or sizes to use for your items depending on exactly what type of project you are working on. The most common scale used for dollhouse miniatures is 1:12. This means that one inch equals one foot in real life dimensions. If you have bought a dollhouse pre-made or make one from a kit the seller or the box should be able to tell you which scale works for that house. Of course, if you are brave enough, and handy enough, you can use any scale you like. The other most common ones are 1/2" and 1/4" scales. It is a good idea to figure out which scale you are working with so that nothing in your house looks out of proportion. I have to confess though, I am not really a perfectionist myself so I will definitely use things that are close to the scale I am using. Its a good thing considering I like to re purpose little treasures I find and create my own interesting items! Still, even I try to keep an idea of the scale I am using in mind.

As always the web is a great place to find information on dollhouse miniature scales. I came across a site that had great explanations and information about scale that you can check out. http://www.the-art-of-dollhouse-miniatures.com. He includes a calculator on his site that he created to help people either determine what size they need or to encourage creating projects. He has created and shared some of his patterns as well. There are quite a few pieces of furniture you can make with his designs. Again, this is if you are handy! Ok, you don't have to be a rocket scientist, but I am going by my own level of skill which is limited. If you are like me though, hopefully you at least know someone you can talk into working with you. My step dad is the one I go to with my puppy dog face, and if I am lucky I can hand him a sheet of instructions and the materials and go do some gardening! In fact I think I will take a break and head out there now. Have a great day,

Kibbygirl