Using the same method as with the patio floor tiles in my previous blog post ‘How to Create Patio Floor Tiles’ I used a Granite textured Fimo clay to create larger tiles for the kitchen/bathroom (I havent decided which it is going to be yet).
The tiles were somewhat darker than the clay once cooked.
All that is left to do now is add the polyfilla!
One of the very last items I bought for my childhood dollhouse was a working fireplace but unfortunately it was never actually used. The wires for the light didn’t arrive with a plug on the end and at the age of 10 this was a complete no go… I was planning on figuring it out this time around, although 12 years later I was still as clueless with this sort of thing. Luckily, I stumbled upon this image whilst browsing through websites for outside lanterns! I wish information like this was sent with the items and not assumed as a given fact but oh well!
(Image from: http://www.dollshouseparade.net)
Sure enough it is literally a case of removing the pins, inserting the wire and replacing them. It finally works!
I have taken this success as a sign that I am now a fantastically talented electrician and therefore am intending to jump from this to converting an old broken chandelier into 3 jar lights which I have seen elsewhere and love. A big jump to say the least! *Fingers crossed*
I started by dismantling the original chandelier which consisted of 5 individual metal arms which all connected up at the base. I sacrificed the first arm in an attempt to work out how the new lights would need to be wired in order to work and not cause a fire! The second sadly broke when I tried to remove the outer metal casing. Thankfully the final 3 removals were a success! It would have been ideal to leave behind the wire casing on all 3 but this was not essential (I hope). I bet you can guess which one I did last anyway, practice does make perfect!
Next I needed to find some jars which I didnt mind sacrificing to make the casing around the the bulbs. I used 3 kitchen jars from my old dollhouse. As I have yet to install a kitchen in this house I figured it wouldn’t be too much of a problem…for now anyway!
Now comes the tricky bit!
It would have been easier to wire the 3 lights seperately with 3 seperate plugs, however given that my house has 10 rooms which will all (eventually) have lighting, this wouldn’t be practical. Therefore, I decided to connect them all together in a triangle formation with one wire connecting them to the ceiling. One wire would be required to connect together the wires leaving each blub and a seperate wire used to connect the base of each light together. Let the soldering commence!
Ta-dah! It works!
Now it was necessary to ensure that the two sets of wires never meet, the reason why keeping the original wire casing on would have been advantagous! I used a sealant glue to cover the wires leaving the bulbs, protecting them from the wire above.
Finally I glued the jars into place and waited for them to dry.
Now all that’s left to do is cover the wires and install the finished light!
Today’s challenge.
I almost have no idea where to begin with this room it’s so large. Two floors but the upper overlooks the lower with a balcony. I know that I want to hang a chandelier as this room would be perfect and i’ve secretly always wanted one however I cant afford to invest in that just yet and I’m not sure how else to dress this room.
I’ve considered the possibility of wallpapering and painting, or a little of both. Potentially varnishing the staircase to enhance the burnt wood shading effect from the laser cutter. Tiling or carpeting the upper and lower floors, or both. I just cant decided what to do or where to start. Even google is unable to provide inspiration for such a huge dollhouse room.
And so for now, as I do with all my rooms when I’m lacking inspiration and just want to do something I’ve painted it cream…
Inspiration welcome… urgently!
This is one room which my previous house was too small for. I decided to make it another of the attic rooms, leaving the larger rooms for areas such as the kitchen and bathroom. I think making a room for children has a lot of potential. Bright colours, creative shapes and exciting objects.
I decided to begin this room from the floor upwards. I had some small scraps of paper (craft paper for card making not wallpaper) which I decided to base the floor around. I didnt have enough of one particular design to cover the whole floor in one particular pattern and so decided to go with a patchwork effect. Initially my idea was to tear different sized pieces for the flooring like a scrap book however this didnt look particularly effective and I felt the need to tidy the pieces up which defeated the initial purpose. I then settled for cutting retangle and square shapes instead.
Each piece was then carefully laid into place and stuck down with a glue. Luckily I had enough of each colour piece and the shapes I created covered the flooring nicely without too many skinny pieces near the edge or crazy overhangs. Once the floor had been completely laid down I coated it in a final layer of PVA to give it a sheen effect similar to that of a vinyl.
I decided to paint all the walls white for fear any patterns or colours would detract from the flooring I had just created. Particularly as the attic rooms are fairly small once furniture has been inserted. Again I only used item to decorate which were left over from my previous house. I globe light is a particular favourite of mine and I’m sure it will get moved from room to room as I go along before I find it a permantent home. The baby’s dress and the blankets were all hand-crocheted which are a lovely finishing touch.
I made the hanging mobiles on the cieling from laser-cut star shapes I found in one of my craft drawers. Colouring them in with a permanent marker pen gave then a metallic sheen which I think add nicely to the feel of the room.
Looking through the window.
I used the free wallpaper samples again for this room on the flooring and one of the walls. I was slightly worried that the flower pattern for the wall would be too big as it was intended for an actual house however I carefully positioned it so the biggest flower would be cut out for the doorway and I think the result is very good. I pained the remaining walls a magnolia colour and installed a ceiling light left over from my previous dollhouse. The fireplace also contains a working red flickering light however is still to be installed. This room was smaller than the lounge in my previous house for a lot of the furniture, particularly the sofa, seem too big and so I will probably get a new one at some stage. Until then I decided to try some other options, such as a dressing room.
(Bit of a poor quality photo)
I decided to start my interior decorating with a Craft Room in the Attic. I used the free wallpaper I got from the DIY stores last weekend for one of the sloping walls and for the flooring. The remaining walls are still to be painted a white/cream colour. I decorated the rest of the room with objects I had left over from my previous house, the sewing machine is my favourite!
There are all sorts of methods for creating floor tiles/tile effect flooring in a dollhouse. From patterned paper to paint and stencils to moulds and miniature tiles. Each with their own level of difficulty, expense and realism.
I set myself the challenge this time around of using miniature tiles and grout for the flooring of the patio, large lounge/ballroom area and tiles for the roof (eventually). However after looking around various sites online at pre-made tiles or DIY moulds and casting powder I was a bit disappointed to find that pretty much every method I could find was out of my price range.
I then found an article online with a stone flooring made from kitchen counter samples. This got me thinking about possible methods for making my own tiles.
To avoid buying expensive moulds I knew that the material used to make the tiles would need to be fairly firm, such as a clay. I found a range of FIMO effect ovenbake clays which were available in a range of stone effects including Quartz, Marble and Granite. Even the non-stone range clays were very details in appearance and could have passed for tile/slab material.
For my first attempt I decided to create a crazy pavement style patio floor with small, and given my lack of mould potentially irregularly shaped tiles, in an opal green shade for the front of the house. The clay was initially quite tricky to knead however given a bit of persistence I managed to roll the clay into a shape a couple of milimetres thick. I would recommend using a rolling pin for this to ensure universal thickness however as I did not have one to hand some of my tiles are fractionally taller than others. Although I dont think you can tell! I then cut the clay into approximately 0.5cm strips and slided each tile about 1cm long. After cutting each tile and then shaped the edged slightly to tidy them up.
As you can imagine this one by one process was quite time consuming!
Time for the oven!
I was terrified at this point that the tiles would curl or burn or something equally disasterous which would ruin all my hard work. 30 Minutes seems like an incredible long time for such tiny tiles to be in a hot oven, so in my paranoier I was checking them about every 5… nothing much changed!
Once removed the tiles looks pretty much the same as they had when they entered. A few had gains some faint black streaking however this added to the effect in my opinion and I’m not convinced you would be able to tell had you not just spent the last however many hours staring at the clay… Finally, I glazed the tiles with PVA to add a faint sheen.
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Following this I cut out a template of the area to be tiled. This would then make the base which the individual tiles would be glued on to. This allowed me to ensure each piece was in the desired place and avoid the fiddly wall sections which would be in the way should I apply the tiles directly the base. I also needed to cut out individual pieces for the edges of the base which were oddly shaped or too small for the regular tiles I had created.
When all the tiles had been glued into place I fitted the template into the area and applied the Polyfilla between the cracks, wiping away and excess from the tops of the tiles. I also applied Polyfilla to the edge of the template cementing the tiles into place on the base.
The finished result!
I have not yet managed to finish painting the outside and the windows of my house, a never ending task I fear, but I’m too excited by the possibilities of other aspects of my dollhouse so I’ll come back to those bits a bit later!
For my previous dollhouse I bought, or was bought as christmas and birthday gifts, ‘official’ dollhouse wallpaper however I found this to be quite limiting. Firstly, the patterns are printed simply onto paper, no textures are available unlike wallpapers for houses today. Secondly, the patterns offered are generally traditional or extremely modern, which I dont feel would work with the theme of my house. And finally, there’s the expense to consider.
Therefore this time I have decided to do things a little differently!
I have seen a lot of ideas which suggest the possibility of using free samples from DIY stores for flooring, roof tiles and other aspects of the dollhouse. The difficulty of these is often size discrepancies between textures and prints for an actual house compared to a miniature version. However if carefully selected, there are some smaller scale patterns and styles which would work without looking too overpowering.
So here it is, today’s successful free sample haul! Exciting!
Some of you may have noticed that in the first photo, where I showed my newly assembled house, one of the large roof sections was missing. Unfortunately it had accidentally not been sent in the original package however I’m glad to say that it arrived safely today!
Even better than this, the seller sent me a miniature house by way of apology which I had great fun assembling this morning!
The first section has been completed…
In hindsight it would have been sensible to paint each piece before assembling the house, although I was too excited to consider this when the house first arrived.
I am finding difficulties in reaching some of the less accessible areas; tight corners, window edges and sections which at first glance are obscured by their positioning such as the back of the balconies. It is also difficult to achieve a clean line between the window frames and the connecting wall.
That said, with the few pieces I have painted prior to inserting these obscuring pieces, such as the porch roof, I have found that the thickness of the added paint on the hinges was too great to slot the roof on afterwards. The excess paint needed to be filed off before the piece would fit. Given that filing is not an exact art, I found touch up was then needed once the piece was fitted and therefore the problems were presented as before.
Little Dollhouse 