Dollhouse

Dollhouse: Season 1 Episode #1-An Introduction to My Childhood Dollhouse

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I am so excited to be sharing with you the first blog post solely about my latest project-renovating my childhood dollhouse!

I shared a bit about this project when I first mentioned it and have been working on it slowly for a bit now and filming the whole process. It has been so much fun and I truly enjoying the process. If you love doll houses and miniatures an would like to subscribe to this series alone you can do that by clicking “subscribe me” on the right hand side of the blog and clicking “categories.” From there you will see “dollhouse” as a choice and if you only check that box you will only receive an email when I post new content to that category. I have also set up a new YouTube channel focusing just on the dollhouse project and you can find that here. I will of course be including the updates in my newsletter so if you are subscribed to that you will know when I post new content.

My plan is to share weekly updates on the project so I do hope you enjoy them!

In this week’s post I am introducing you to my dollhouse. Below is a video you can watch that shows the dollhouse and where I chat a bit about my plans.

The history of this dollhouse is that it was made for me by a friend of the family when I was young. I don’t remember receiving it actually but I know I have had it since I was around 6 or 7 years old. The dollhouse was well loved and used.

When I was about 12 I decided that I wanted to spruce it up and make it a more “adult” dollhouse. I saved my money and purchased furniture, added some wallpaper to make another bedroom and even put together my first piece of furniture that I made from a furniture kit. The kit was something my mother had been given (I believe) but never put together. When I embarked on my decorating journey she gave it to me to put together. The kit was this one here and I still have the finished piece. I am planning on updating it to fit the look of the house but including it in some way.

Once I finished my spruce up the dollhouse sat for many years until my children started playing with it. The shoe boxes that held all the furniture came out and they were played with once more.  My son added stickers to the roof and quite a few pieces were broken but the dollhouse was still loved and played with.

When my mother passed away the dollhouse came home with us and initially my son had it in his room until he decided to make way for other things. It sat in the attic while I enjoyed hours of miniature artists videos on YouTube and Patreon.

Finally, I was inspired to bring the dollhouse down and give it a complete renovations. New roof, door, windows, flooring, wallpaper-the entire house is going to be made brand new. I knew I wanted to share the journey-maybe to inspire others to delve into this beautiful hobby-but also to document the journey for myself. Even if you don’t have a dollhouse you may, like I do, enjoy watching others make theirs.

The dollhouse needs a lot of work but I am seeing this as a slow project, a hobby that will give me space to create, to think and most importantly to image the goings on of this tiny little world I am building.  I hope you enjoy the journey.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming (Dollhouse) Dilettante

Gardening, Books & Dollhouses

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Happy Thursday!

I am sitting in my studio after having spent some time today in the garden! Oh it feels so good to be out in the sunshine! I planted my lettuce seeds and cleared out 2 beds and had a nice long sit, petting the dogs, and thinking about what my plans are for the garden this year.

I am really excited that after 20+ years of wanting we are finally purchasing privacy trees for the back border of our yard. This is something I have always wanted to do but at first our yard was already full of trees that cast it in full shade so growing anything like evergreens wasn’t going to work. Sadly most of those trees died, the upside is that our backyard is now full sun-yay! I have also been able to replace almost all of the trees we have lost and just put them in more appropriate spots.

The other thing I did was had a good swing on the swing set. Last year my husband built one for the kids and I had requested that he build it sturdy enough so that I could also use it as swings were my favorite as a child. I have to ask the last time you were on a swing set? Can I just say that I forgot how amazing it feels! I told my husband that from now on whenever we are grumbly we should just come out and swing for 5 minutes and suddenly all is right with the world. Really it was pretty awesome.

In other, more blog-focused news I will be hosting my first in-person class this June! I am so excited and really can’t wait to get everything pulled together. I already have lists and ideas and I am planning a goody bag-including a brand new art journal-for each participant. It’s going to be so much fun! I will be sure to keep you updated and I do plan on offering an online version of the class so be sure to keep an eye out for that.

With the gorgeous weather today my husband was kind enough to help me transport my dollhouse to the studio. Originally I was excited to work on it at home but other than the very first steps I just haven’t been able to find the time. I spent this past week designing a digital planner so I could plot out my studio time with my current projects. I was able to use it to carve out time each week to work on the dollhouse and the content creation that goes along with it.

If you read this post you know I am dipping my toe into the world of miniatures and I have begun my first project-renovating my childhood dollhouse. I have quite a bit of footage filmed and wanted to see how I was going to do with it before deciding if it was content I was prepared to create and share on a regular basis. I feel ready now and I am going to spend the rest of April filming some videos and then launch a separate YouTube channel just for the dollhouse.

I will keep the same format here which is writing a blog post and sharing the YouTube video. I’ll create a separate link that takes your right to the dollhouse content and all the appropriate videos but I didn’t want the videos on YouTube to be under my art journaling channel. I really thought it would be confusing for subscribers and probably make some algorithm somewhere cranky. I have designated Sundays as my dollhouse day to share all things miniature. Currently I post content here on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday so I thought adding Sundays would help you know what to expect and when here on the blog.

That brings me to another thought-my podcast. I have loved making podcasts in the past but lately I have been struggling to find topics to share about. I have some ideas and things I might do-including taking a step back all-together but I would love to hear your thoughts. Do you listen to the podcasts? If so what would you like me to talk about? For now, I am going to take the rest of April off and see what comes up for May.

Lastly I did want to give you a Book Club update. I finished 1 mini book this week-“A Christmas Tartan” by Paige Shelton (affiliate link). It was really good-her Scottish Bookshop Mysteries (affiliate link) are one of my favorites. I am currently reading the next book, “Lost Books and Old Bones” (affiliate link) along with “Emerald Isle” (affiliate link) Stacy Justice Mysteries Book #5 by Barbara Annino. I started this book last year and then just stopped reading on my kindle for a bit. I am hoping to finish both of these books this week along with the audio book I am currently listening to which is “The Secret Adversary” by Agatha Christie.  I mentioned in the last book club update that I am working on The Agatha Christie Mystery Challenge and I really enjoy listening to them in my studio. They are so well produced. If you are interested in the version I am listening to it’s on Audible here (affiliate link).

So that is the news for me! It’s funny I didn’t know how much I would have to share with you this week but it turns out it’s been quite a bit! I would love to hear what you are up to so please do share a comment below. If you share about your reading adventures on your own blog you can join my link part (see below) and we can all come and see what you have been reading. One day I hope to host a virtual book club-does that sound fun? Let me know!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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Slow Moving Projects & Dollhouse Renovations

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Happy Thursday everyone!

 

 

If you listened to my podcast this week you know that I have been working out the content I want to share here on the blog. I love sharing my videos but I have been thinking how I really want to keep true to the blogging part of the blog and share the written stories with you.

Kym, at Dancing at the Edge has a series called “Museum of Me” where she shares bits each week about herself and her life. I reached out to join in the fun and I think it will be a really nice addition here on the blog. A way to share, in written form, a bit about myself and what’s going on behind the videos and creativity. So here goes!

February was a very slow moving month for me. We had a few colds run through the house so for about 2 weeks someone wasn’t feeling great. I also was feeling really tired so I decided to really and truly rest. I curled up in my favorite chair, usually with a kiddo in my lap and would doze a bit and delve into videos over on Patreon.

I have mentioned before how creativity helps me with anxiety. When I was watching videos I remembered how working on little detailed projects bring me a sense of calm and peace. Hand stitching, or slow stitching, is one activity that really restores my sense of peace and calm. One of my favorite content creators and artists is Julie Warren. She creates the most beautiful dollhouse pieces, from scratch. Right now on her Patreon she is building a 1940’s dolls house and it is just so much fun to watch!

I have been following Julie for years and I have been thinking recently how I would love to completely restore and furnish my childhood doll house. While curled up in my chair I decided to re-watch a series she did where she renovated an old dollhouse and turned it into a shop. I am brand new to the world of miniature making and really had no idea where to begin with my old doll house.

Julie has thoroughly inspired me and my mind has been running around with ways to renovate this little bit of my childhood. My husband was working in our attic doing some de-cluttering and brought the old dollhouse downstairs for me. It’s windows are broken, wood from the roof broke off years ago and my children, who also played with the dollhouse when it was at my mother’s house, have added their own additions in the form of stickers on the roof.

It definitely needs some love and restoration.

I normally tend to be a dig in and get messy whip the paint around type of creator. Often times, alright most times, I’m impatient when making something and I just can’t wait to see it all done. It’s the rush to get something done that leads to so much of the anxiousness that can swirl through me at times. Our world moves so quickly and we are all used to everything happening now, right now! Trying to keep up feels exhausting and even if I am not trying to keep up I still feel that energy of needing to move quickly. My mind feverishly trying to work out how it’s all going to work out. Small, handmade projects slow my brain down as I focus on the details that are right in front of me. One little stitch here, another there and eventually they work together to complete a projects. Slowly, gently without the need to rush through anything or know how it’s all going to come together. The beautiful part is that the more I practice this with my little slow projects, the more it starts to flow over into how I approach and perceive everything else in my life. It’s a practice, it’s work, but the peace and calm of living in the moments is worth it.

I am excited to begin my slow dollhouse project.

I started by staring at it quite a lot. I look at it this way and that way. I tilt my head in here and there. I peak over there and over here. I took lots of photos, some you see here, and I chatted with my husband about ideas. One of the things that always bothered me, even as a child, was my dollhouse had no stairs so I have decided to try to add and build a set of stairs. As this is a new skill-set for me I am going to be doing lots of research and my very handy husband offered some ideas on how to best achieve this.

I was also trying to come up with a theme and decided to just decorate it as my dream cottage. The place I would decorate if I didn’t share a home with another person who might object to everything being white and pink. So yes, the outside of the house is going to be a soft pink with white trim and the inside is going to be, I think, a shabby chic combinations of pinks, whites and lavender.

There will also be a craft room in the attic which needs stairs as well. I have decided to try and build a pull down type attic stair so that should be fun to figure out.

I am also going to be changing the facade of the house. It has a very Dutch feeling to it right now and I am going to revamp the dollhouse to look a bit more like a Cape Cod style house. I hope to add shingles to the roof and maybe windows that open out. All details that will come together.

I have mentioned in my podcast that I am just over 1 month into a 6-month “no spend” challenge. Beyond food and necessities I am personally not spending any money. I want to live more simply, slowly and I want to need less things, less stuff. We have been working to clean out our home and buying more things to manage and to fill up our space feels really counter-intuitive.

I can talk more about my no spend challenge in a future post but for now, I had to think about how I could start on a project without buying anything.

Turns out it was really fun to do!

I am going to start out by removing things. Taking off the pieces I don’t want to keep, removing carpeting and wallpaper. Taking out the broken plastic windows. We have primer already that I can use to prep the outside. I have some wood that might be enough to get me started on building stairs.

There is lots that I can do with what I have.

I am also planning on documenting the journey of my dollhouse. I do hope this is going to be the start of a lifelong love of miniature making but if not, it will be so much fun to have a record of all I have done.

I am planning on sharing the journey as well. I think I would give it it’s own home here on the blog, a page you can click over to if you are also interested in miniatures and dollhouses. It would definitely be a separate video channel so as not to confuse things. Let me know your thoughts I would love to hear.

So that is my share for the Museum of Me. It feels so nice to slow down and connect with you all in this slow, written format. Something you need to seek out to read, not just delivered to you by an algorithm. I hope you know how much it means to me that you have sought out my little blog to read along and I hope you have enjoyed your stay and come back to visit me again.

Until next time!

-Michele, aka The Dreaming (Dollhouse) Dilettante

Sharing this post as part of Kym’s Museum of Me Blog Series.
You can read Kym’s blog here.