Keep Calm and Make Miniatures

Hello and happy new year! The title of this blog post is my new mantra for 2013. I've had a lot stressful things going on in my life and I don't handle stress very well. For the last few months I have really been trying to focus on making miniatures instead of focusing on stuff in my life that makes me crazy. Keep calm and make miniatures!

Ok, moving on. I have a lot to share so I'm going to get to it. First, The Dollhouse of the Month, I'm going to temporarily stop The Dollhouse of the Month. Quite a few people that participated in The Dollhouse of the Month had their photos hosted at Webshots. As you may or may not know, Webshots shut down their site and because of this the photos that were posted on my site that were hosted by them, are missing. I don't quite know what I'm doing about this yet or when I will start it back up but for now I have a mess of missing photos to clean up. I also have to figure out what to do about the fact that about half of the Dollhouse's of the Month no longer have pictures. It will take quite a bit of time to contact every person and find out if they are willing to send me all those missing pics, if they even still have them.  I really like having The Dollhouse of the Month section and I will get it back up and running again, as soon as I can.

If you have been to my website recently you may have noticed a few changes. The menu has been expanded and there are more drop down buttons on the menu. I added a search bar at the top near the menu so you can search my site from any page. I moved all of my social networking icons to the top near the menu also.

I made some printable wine and liquor labels for the bar in O'Leary's Irish Pub, you can find them here. I have added to new projects donated by ElaineMinis.Com.

  

I completed Carrol Elf's Christmas Cottage, you can view photos of it here.

I updated my progress on my Monster High Dollhouse, (there hasn't been much lately) you can read about it here. I added a link to a very cool DIY Three Ring Binder "Dollhouse" Tutorial, created by Kendra of the blog, Southern Disposition. She has also included tutorials for furnishing each room.

 

I will be moving my Monster High information from My Small Obsession to it's own Monster High Doll/1:6 scale website. The Monster High Dolls are very popular and I don't want to dominate My Small Obsession with the Monster High stuff. I will be launching the new site soon so stay tuned!

Here is a sneek peek of my progress on O'Learys Pub.

 

My other blog, Creating Dollhouse Miniatures is celebrating an anniversary this month! I started the blog in January 2008 and my first post was two videos of my mother's dollhouses. Five years later there are more than 750 videos and 869 Followers! I will be hosting a giveaway over at Creating Dollhouse Miniatures sometime this month, more on that later.

Welcome to my new followers here! Thank you to all of you that have stuck it out and hung in there with all of my off and on posting to this blog. I will be having another follower giveaway for this blog soon and I will be holding a giveaway on the Monster High website, after it's launched.

If you haven't already, please "Like"  & "Follow" on Facebook and Twitter, for all the latest updates to my websites and blogs. 

Here's to a bright new year, and a fond farewell to old. Here's to things yet to come, and memories that we hold. 

Remember......Keep Calm and Make Miniatures!

"Gimme a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby." ~ Greta Garbo

I have been making liquor bottles, drinking glasses and other odds and ends for O'Leary's Pub. I've been taking lots of pictures so I can do another bottle tutorial. My first bottle tutorial can be found here.

I made all of the bottles, except the red one that has the Acient Age label, from pens that I purchased at the dollar store. I was able to get several diffferent shapes for both bottles and glasses. I also used clear push pins for the bottle necks, I found some at the dollar store that have a thinner "neck" than other push pins. I made the glasses from cut pieces of pens, mini plastic baby bottles (dollar store) and straws. I cut the labels from ads, they are much clearer than prinites.

A peek at the back of the bar.

That's all for now. I'll be back later to announce the winner of the Follower Giveaway!

Update on O'Leary's Pub

I managed to squeeze in a little time over last weekend to work on the pub's kitchen and bath.

The wall paper in the kitchen is from Jennifer's Free Dollhouse Printables. I printed out the wallpaper on cardstock and then ran it back through and printed a distressed layer on top. The pattern and instructions can be found here; Creating the Effect of Age on Paper.  The stairs to the 3rd floor will be behind the wall with the sink. I have to rebuild them, I didn't plan on them being behind a wall originally and they don't sit flush against one wall.

After I finished putting up the wallpaper and trim, I realized I missed a couple of places that need to be trimmed out and the paint I used, I custom mixed. I hope I can match it, or at least fake it well enough that a mismatch won't be noticable. There is going to be a door between the kitchen and bath and I intentionally haven't cut the doorway yet. I trimmed that wall all the way to the edge, unintentionally. Ooops! Hopefully I won't mess up the wall when I fix the trim.

These cabinets will hang in the kitchen, the are the top parts of Michael's hutches. I aged them, made the plate rack and added some trim to the front bottom of the other cabinet. I got the idea for the plate rack from the tutorial, "Let's Make a Dollhouse Plate Shelf".

For the "rust stains" in the tub and sink, I used "Rust Ready-to-Use Wash" by The Detailer, from Hobby Builders Supply.

I made a pot of Irish stew for Séamus. I looked up pictures on the interenet of traditional Irish stews and then I "winged" it with polymer clay. My pot of stew contains, carrots, potatoes, spring onions, lamb and cabbage.

That's all for now, I'm hoping to spend more time on it this weekend.

The Necessary Room

Just a quick update on O'Leary's Pub. I finished most of the bathroom, I still have to install the dividing wall between the kitchen and bath but I'm out of foam core board. I used tissue paper on the walls for a plaster look and the paint is several washes of my own mix using ivory and straw colored paint. After the walls dried, I sparingly brushed  a little burnt umber chalk over the walls to give them age.

I found a fabulous article by Pat and Noel Thomas about how to make a CHRYSNBON® bathroom kit
look like porcelain instead of plastic. I would love to scan the article and share it but I don't know how legal that is. If any of you know about the legalities of scanning and posting articles from magazines, please let me know. I did scan a picture though....hopefully I don't get into any trouble. I couldn't resist sharing.

Bathroom by Pat and Noel Thomas using a CHRYSNBON® bathroom kit.

O'Leary's Irish Pub

Three years ago on Valentine Day, my husband surprised me with the 333 Franklin Street Dollhouse by Real Good Toys. He woke me up with a cup of coffee and a dollhouse. Is there a better way to wake up?

My original plans were to create an apartment building, but the rooms are an odd size and I couldn't figure out how to make it work. After much thought, I decided to go with a bar on the bottom floor with living quarters above. I put the building together at least a year and half ago and have spent the rest of the time thinking.

O'Leary's is set in New York City in the 1940's. The building and bar have been around since the late 1800's and the owner is an Irish immigrant named Séamus O'Leary.

I'm far from finished but here is a sneak peak at some of my progress.

First floor pub.

A closer look at the bar. I made the bar and everything on it except the beer tap, vodka bottle and the ashtray.

Second floor kitchen and bath. I made the stove and fridge, most everything else was made from a kit. The entance to the living quarters is at the back of the building, the door "enters" into the kitchen. The first floor stairs took up to much space so I left them out. I used a false door on the back wall of the second floor to give the illusion that the entrance is in the back.

Third floor living/bedroom. I made the chair, my MIL made the afgan on the bed and the desk is from a swap.

That's all I got for now on the pub. I have been working on it and have made more progress but still need to download and edit photos.

I see I have 150 followers now...wow! They snuck up on me. Since I haven't properly welcomed all of my new followers, I'm going to have a drawing to show my appreciation. I'll post the rules and a picture of the prize tomorrow.

Until tomorrow..........