Barbie Dreams Across The Generations

Hello Friends!

Just quickly popping in to say that Russ and I are okay - we just got hit with the nasty RSV bug and have been isolating at home for the entire month trying to get better. We are on the mend now, but this virus really takes its time exiting! We are hoping to attend family festivities to celebrate Christmas together, masked just in case, this weekend. I hope all of you have managed to escape the "Tripledemic" this year!

Bohemian Townhouse 1974

I wanted to share a fun article by The New York Times called "A Six Decade Tour Of Barbie's Dreamhouses". Most of us who love minis have intersected at some point in our lives with the world of Barbie. The amazing photos of the Dreamhouses in the article bring back such fond memories. They may even trigger a little longing for the ones we never got to play with! I was the proud owner of the Bohemian Townhouse, a hand me down from my neighbor friend across the street when she got the Dream House. That elevator was so cool and fun to play with! And the furniture (I had the blow up sofa and loveseat), were so neat!

Barbie Dream House 1979

To those of you with grandkids who love Barbies and can play with them and their modern structures - I am so jealous!!! Enjoy them! For those, like me, who can only reminisce, enjoy the article!

I want to wish each of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and joy in all the things you celebrate. We made it through another tough year, and in spite of the hardships, have so much to be grateful for! I'll see you all in the New Year to share and inspire creativity in this miniature passion that we all love so much!

xo xo,

Jodi

A Treehouse? A Fairy House? A Storybook Fairy Treehouse?

Yes!!! All those things! And any other style or genre that seems to fit the bill. All I know for sure right now is that this will be the home for a couple rebellious and adventurous little girls that seem to find rejection and trouble in their worlds. They need a fun, safe place to call their very own and a real, true friend to adventure with. This will be a home where the porridge, chairs and beds are made just for them and weird tea parties with strange creatures are encouraged. Beheadings definitely are not! Meet Goldie and Alice and their new home, the Linfield Fairy Treehouse...

Goldie Locks and Alice Wonderland

They are very excited to make your acquaintance and would love it if you could recommend a good dressmaker!

Now that we have the inhabitants to build for, let's talk about the structure...

Since I only have a folder full of inspirational photos as a general guide to the features I'd like to include in their home, I thought it best to work on each of the four main walls in the Linfield kit, one at a time. But I kind of do have to sort of follow the instructions, so it might get challenging quickly.

These homes have features I'd like to attempt to incorporate

Going by the instructions, I needed to construct the base floor first. Already, by step 2, I was deviating from them. I guess that makes me a rebel, so I'm the perfect builder for these girls! I want to incorporate a tree trunk type base for the house, so having a 3-1/2" tall foundation was not going to work. I replaced the kit's foundation pieces for 3/4" basswood strip, and will end up with more of a deck floor incorporated into the tree base. I installed the kit's wood flooring strips as haphazardly as I could with a hot glue gun. The messiest techniques could become the best character features for this treehouse!

Punching pieces, picking splinters from my fingers...

Lots of gaps, just like a treehouse should have!

This floor will need supports once I know where the trunk will fit.

Next, I wanted to start on the wall with the staircase. I always knew that I would create a protruding stairwell for this house. It would take up too much room space if I left it in the center of the house. But the new stairwell would have to fit in architecturally with the treehouse feel. I had the perfect little Carlson's kit to help me.

The gazebo kit is designed to be built in two halves, so if I stacked the halves, I'd have an almost instant staircase tower. Using and rearranging some of the kit's trim pieces in dry fit was promising. I just had to cut the short sections off one of the halves to end up at a good height for the Linfield kit's wall. The opening in the left wall is almost the perfect width for the tower - I'll just need to make the opening taller. The pop out window that is supposed to fit the opening can now be relocated to the right side wall. I am hoping that it will become a bed niche for one of the girls. 

I'll need to cut a slightly wider and much taller wall opening.

Just a little too tall...

Now I had to come up with some stairs and see if it was going to work with only half a stair tower. By stacking three 3/16" foam core pieces it created a good step height. I was only able to fit six steps and still have a roomy landing, so the girls will have a custom ladder to climb the last four inches to the second floor. Fun! I'm still considering ideas for a finish on the stairs. 

Fairytale steps!

Now that I knew the stair tower was going to work I needed to come up with wall ideas. I turned to my trusty Maker and chipboard/kraft board. I decided to make small porthole windows where the stairs winded up, but then open the second section up with windows common in fairytales. The top section of the tower just needed small windows with a fun shape.

First section tower wall/window panels

Second section tower wall/windows

Third tower wall/windows.

By stacking layers of chipboard and kraft board, I created walls for the inside, walls for the outside, and will sandwich the 1/16" Lexan window panes in between. But first, a dry fit to see if they were going to fit and look the way they looked in my mind. You can see in this dry fit photo how I was able to use some of the gazebo kit's trim pieces to create a raised base for the tower. Now the stairs and first floor will meet perfectly.

I envisioned that the tower would look like a tree trunk and that the panels were carved from it. That would mean a lighter color inner wood was exposed and the detail trim would actually be bark. So I painted the base colors before assembly to see if it looked right.

This is the color board for the project, though the girls have something more colorful in mind for their pop out features. More on that later...

Before going any further, a dry fit with the base colors... I love it!

And with the stairs... I think this is going to work!

Now to create some texture! Using layers of regular wood glue, applied with a needle tipped bottle, I created "bark". It shrinks quite a bit after it is dry, so I applied about three layers. I was really hoping this was going to come out the way it looked in my mind.

And then the tower itself needed "bark"...

And paint...

And dry brushed highlight colors, then finished with dirty water washes on top...

Now it was time to assemble the windows. I only have so many clamps, so this was a patient process...

Once one window panel sandwich was dry I could assemble and clamp the next, then sand and fit the previous one into the tower...

And I just love the whimsical look and texture that was achieved with simple chipboard/kraft board, wood glue and paint!

Finally, the panes were finished and installed! 

This "by the seat of your pants" thing is really very fun and the girls are loving the progress! Hopefully, I'll be back next week with the stair tower finished and attached to the left wall. Maybe the girls can even test out the stairs! 🤞 

xo xo,

Jodi

When Your Dollhouse Kit Talks To You...

I've had the Linfield dollhouse kit in my stash for a really long time. My ideas for what to do with it have evolved and changed vastly over the years. Every so often I'd hear it whispering to me, tempting me away from whatever project that had me tangled. Usually, my good sense and all the "shoulds" pushed the thoughts away. But this time, it's like an itch that compels me to scratch it. What's my big idea for it now? I'll save the bulk of the ideas for another post, but for now I'll give you a tiny hint about why I might abandon (or share time with) the Willowcrest for a little while in favor of this pursuit.

When I first acquired the kit I wanted the Linfield to become a sweet and heavily detailed Victorian in the style of Robin Carey's New Gothic Victorian. This dollhouse makes my heart swoon, but how many Victorian dollhouses can a person do before they need a different challenge?

At one point I had also considered ideas on how I could turn the kit into a southwestern style adobe house. Totally nutty, right? I even posted about it and made up a diagram. While looking for that post, I was intrigued to notice that the last time the kit was talking to me, it was around Thanksgiving, too. There must be some connection to this time of year and the Linfield calling to me. It probably realizes that the calendar is about to flip to a new year again, and it sees I'm not getting any younger!!! "Pssst! Hey lady! Did you forget about me?".

I actually opened up the kit box that time, just to see what I could see. It was intimidating. While I have finished one Dura-Craft kit before, it was one of the simpler ones. I know fellow enthusiasts with horror stories about these kits, and have read about many of them being abandoned when a builder got stuck and stumped. So, I chickened out, returned everything back into the box and put it back on the shelf. The assembly video is helpful for the basics, and it looks like I have a complete kit, so that's encouraging.

In analyzing why on Earth my mind is craving a whole new adventure, all I can come up with is structure. Rather, too much structure. You see, my last several projects have been measured, planned and precise ad nauseam. I miss my early days of miniatures where everything was a new discovery, I never had a plan because I didn't know what I didn't know. Things came together either by luck or, sometimes, like they had a life force all their own. When something went terribly wrong, I actually enjoyed the challenge of finding solutions. I suppose I want to let the mysterious creative force use my hands to work through me, no real plan, and just see what happens. With what I have in mind, there will be plenty of opportunity for ad lib.

If I'm honest, there is no good reason for me to start on yet another dollhouse project (except that Miss Linfield will be so excited to finally have her chance!). And yet, the feeling that I have to start creating NOW is almost a compulsion, an obsession. I may live to regret the whole endeavor, but right now, I am excited to begin. I have learned that it's important to harness excitement when it comes, and to ride the creative wave. Hopefully, I'll be back soon with something interesting to share...

xo xo,

Jodi