Christmas House

I am interested in displaying one of my houses with a Christmas theme. Does anyone have ideas? I would welcome your experiences.

Beatrix Potter Dollhouse post

is on today ! Go here to visit :)

BFF Laura

When my best friend moved to the other side of the world I made this mini-house for her. I included everything I could think of that made us a so close. Within these 4 inches I made party lights, grandmothers beaded flower, twigs from her new yard, our picnic table and our (booze) coffee cup. I was lucky enough to speak to her on the phone as she opened each part of my gift. We laughed and cried together. Thousands of miles between us slipped away.

Miniature Dollhouse Fairs and Shows 2008

I’ve only been able to find shows scheduled up to October for 2008 but I’m sure there are more out there.

• Jan. 4–5: Orlando, FL; Orlando Miniatures Show & Sale. Link
• Jan. 11–12: Schaumburg, IL; Three Blind Mice Miniature Show. Link
• Jan. 12: South Daytona, FL; Dollhouse and Miniatures Flea Market. Link
• Jan. 13: Sarasota, FL; Sarasota Festival of Miniatures. Link
• Jan. 25–26: Anaheim, CA; Tom Bishop's Southern California Miniatures Show & Sale. Link
• Feb. 2–3: Orlando, FL; Orlando Festival of Miniatures. Link
• Feb. 2–3: San Diego, CA; San Diego Miniature Crafters "Nostalgia in Miniatures" Show and Sale. Email: davnbuff@cox.net
• Feb. 8–9: Ft. Lauderdale, FL; 30th Annual South Florida Dollhouse Miniatures Show & Sale. Link
• Feb. 9: Culver City, CA; 22nd Annual Miniatures West Show and Sale. Link
• Feb. 15–16: Norcross, GA; Tom Bishop's 26th Annual Atlanta Miniatures Show. Link
• Feb. 23–24: Phoenix, AZ; Small World Miniature Club 30th Annual Dollhouse Miniature Show & Sale. Link
• April 3–5: Schaumburg, IL; Independent Miniature Artisans Chicago Show & Sale. Link
• April 4–5: Schaumburg, IL; Tom Bishop's Chicago International Wholesale Trade Show. Link
• April 4–6: Schaumburg, IL; Chicago International Dollshouse & Miniatures Show & Sale. Link
• April 5: Victoria, B.C.; Show and Sale. Email: shirl.rose@shaw.ca
• April 18–20: London, Ontario; 2008 Ontario Miniatures Gathering. Link
• April 19–20: Boise, ID; 28th Annual Mini Les Bois Miniature Show and Sale. Email minigalb@aol.com
• April 25–27: Chesterfield, MO; Gateway Miniature Fair Show & Sale. Link
• May 9–10: Toledo, OH; Three Blind Mice Miniature Show. Link
• May 10: Kingston, Ontario, Canada; MEKA Bi Annual Miniature Show. Link
• May 31–June 1: Sturbridge, MA; Sturbridge Miniatures Festival. Link
• June 6–7: Schaumburg, IL; Three Blind Mice Annual Miniature Show. Link
• June 14–15: Tokyo, Japan; International Doll's House Miniatures Show. Link
• July 12: Anaheim, CA; Southern California Summertime Miniatures Show. Link
• July 18–19: Burlingame, CA; San Francisco Bay Area Miniatures Show. Link
• August 9–10: Dayton, OH; 29th Annual Three Blind Mice Miniature Show. Link
• Sept. 6: Oak Ridge, TN; Three Blind Mice Miniature Show. Link
• Sept. 7: Baltimore, MD; Maryland Miniatures Festival. Link
• Oct. 4: St. Louis, MO; Gateway Miniature Fair Show. Link
• Oct. 4–5: Birmingham, UK; Autumn Miniatura International Dolls' House Show. Link
• Oct. 10–12, Chesterfield, MO: Gateway Miniature Fair Show & Sale. Link
• Oct. 19, McLean, Virginia: Washington DC Metro Area Tysons Corner Fall Festival 25th Anniversary Show. Link
• Oct. 25–26, Portland, OR: Northwest Dollhouse & Miniature Show & Sale. Email: PatBennett@NWMiniatureShow.com

Miniature Dollhouse Fairs and Shows 2007

I attended the Tucson Miniature Society Show this past Saturday and thoroughly enjoyed all the amazing dollhouse creations, some shopping, and garnering ideas for the next round of Club Little House (no, I’ve no idea when or if Amy will do this—but just in case…).



This started me wondering what other miniature shows are out there. So I’ve been researching and thought I’d share my findings with you—both U.S. and international. I’m going to post the schedule in two separate posts. This one is for the balance of 2007.

• Nov. and Dec.: UK; there are too many UK Miniature Fairs for these two months for me to list them all, so here is the link to the whole list

• Nov. 3: Goshen, IN; Showcase of Miniatures. Email: pamela@ligtel.com


• Nov. 3–4: Cherry Hill, NJ; Philadelphia Miniaturia 2007. Link


• Nov. 4: Bowmanville, Ontario, Canada; Small Wonders Miniature Club 10th Annual Show & Sale. Link


• Nov. 10–11: Madrid, Spain; Tom Bishop's Dolls House Miniatures Fair. Link


• Nov. 17: Largo, FL; 29th Annual Tampa Bay Miniature Enthusiasts Dollhouse & Miniatures Show & Sale. Link


• Nov. 18: London; Tom Bishop's Dolls House Miniatures Fair. Link


• Nov. 18: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Dollhouse and Miniatures Show and Sale. Email: georginawood@msn.com


• Dec. 8–9: Louisville, KY; 1st Annual Three Blind Mice Show. Link

Beatrix Potter's dollhouse

Just wanted to let anyone interested know that on Nov. 9th - National Best Selling Author Susan Wittig Albert, who just released the 4th in the Beatrix Potter Mystery series- The Tale of Hawthorn House -will be doing a guest post on fairibees blog, the post will be about Beatrix Potter's Dollhouse !!!!
There will be a link on that post to enter a drawing for a copy of Tale of Hawthorn House. I can tell you it is a wonderful series :) Hope you can stop by to visit that day :)

You can click here to get to my blog - Susan , will be posting a picture of Beatrix's dollhouse on the guest post -that she took at Hill Top Farm !

Amish treasure

Lookie Lookie! I just bought this great set of Amish cast iron dollhouse furniture and family. Am I lucky or what? Along with my club little house treasures my houses are being joyfully filled with lovelies. Thanks again to my club sisters.

Lucky, Lucky You!!

Ohh all you lucky things...you're parcels of little's do look so wonderful.
I am also waiting for my package, but mine does have a very, very long way to travel.
I'm getting so excited now as it must be almost here, then I can join in with the Ohh's, Ahh's and the Wow's!!
Happy unwrapping you all and have fun in "Little World".

Thank You Thank You Thank You !!!!

At long last the parcel arrived today - my husband even emailed me at work to let me know. Then I had to work late and so just got home and opened it up now. Thank you Daisy, Amy P., Jennifer, Karen G., Keri, Anita, Crystal, Amy W., Amy Powers, Francie, Lisa and Bonni!!! Your gifts arrived and they are so special and so appreciated. I love each and every one of the littles.
Karen

My favorite thing

This gift from Crystal was a gift I covet. Thank you Crystal. Anyone else who received it would agree that it was fab.

Waiting is Interminable

Is there anyone else who has not got their Club Little House delivery??? Everything looks so lovely. Patience is a virtue they say but it is hard to wait and wait and wait. Well it sure will be great to get the package. I'm so impressed by what you talented women have created. Softie and I continue to wait and listen for the postal carrier.

I found this little treasure for a dollar. It helped while some time away. I am looking for a doll family. Have people had good experience purchasing on ebay?

Thank you!

I finally opened my box on Sunday, and found so many treasures. What a talented group! I've posted about my loot here, here, and here. Doesn't Saucy's ironing board, and Heather's backpack, and Corrine's message board look perfect in front of the store? And how about Amy's mail and Rosanna's pink bubblegum machine near the door of the diner:















Thank you, all!

Junie Moon’s Club Little House Rug Tutorial

I’ve had some emails asking how I made the Club Little House rug and thought I’d share it with the other CLH members, too. How wonderful that you're enjoying the little rug in your dollhouse.



Materials

• Printable cotton fabric (craft stores or office supply--not the iron-on kind if you're going to embroider as it's too thick then


• Wool (not crafting) felt from your local fabric store


• Embroidery floss


• A copy of the logo saved to your hard drive

Instructions

Since I had to make multiple rugs and printable fabric isn’t cheap, I wanted to get more than one logo graphic on each sheet of printable fabric. So I copied the logo into a Word document and adjusted to get the size I wanted, then copied that initial design and pasted into the same Word document as many times as would fit on one page. Print—I used my HP color DeskJet printer.

NOTE: Printable fabric isn’t cheap so think about other things you want to print on the fabric page as you’re probably only going to want to print one of the rugs. Maybe make another rug of a different design or a patch for a purse or clothing. I always try to conserve my printable fabric efforts.

After you have your printed product, you need to treat the fabric which is super easy. My package said to rinse the printed fabric under cool water for a bit. Don’t wring it out or anything; instead, let as much water as possible drip off and then iron it dry (being careful not to burn your fabric).

After it was dry, I embroidered the text bits. Then I cut out the rug, leaving some white space around it. I cut out a piece of felt fabric the same size and pinned the two together but you could also baste. I took a pair of scissors and cut around each one of the little scallops on the edge of the logo design—this kept both the rug top and backing the same. I tried using my scallop scissors but the rug design didn’t match the scale of the scallops on the scissors. And, if you closely look at the edge of the logon the right side, you’ll see it is different from the rest of the design.

Now we come to a choice you can make that I wish I’d thought about when doing 24 of these rugs and my eyeballs were threatening to divorce me. I hand-stitched a simple blanket stitch around each rug to bind the two pieces together. If I’d thought about it, I would have used my sewing machine and tried a satin stitch—but I am not sure how that will work with all the little tiny scallop edgings and I just have a basic sewing machine.

And you’re done—that’s it!

Other Rugs You Can Make

Here is a photo of a different rug I made for my dollhouse dining room using the basic same technique as above. However, I printed this design on printable canvas instead of cotton printable fabric because I wanted a semblance of woven texture. I did satin-stitch the edges on this rug.

This slightly out-of-focus picture gives you an idea of the rug texture.

I hope all this helps those of you wanting to make rugs for your dollhouse.

Club Little house goodies

I posted my Club Little house Goodies on my blog- Thank-you , Thank-you for all the best littles !! Also have a drawing !

Little House Inspiration

Our family went to the Washington State Fair in Puyallup yesterday. I couldn't help but post pictures of a couple of darling dollhouses displayed. There was lots of inspiration to be found there!

club little house members...

Now that nearly everyone has their packages, the fun really begins. Feel free to post pictures of the littles you received in place in their new little homes. Later this week, I will post a separate post per item to share with the world what each of you made. If you have a story you'd like to tell or a description, please email me with it {amy@inspireco.com}

Thank you everyone for all the magic that went into each little thing you made. You all are amazing!

Dollhouse Stained Glass Windows is the name of this book that I bought Saturday at our local "Friends of the Library" book sale. I paid a whopping $.25 for it. I can't wait to play with it. The directions say to use colored pencils to color in the windows. I'm envisioning pink in the girl's bedroom. I love these sales. You never know what you might find.

bundles of littles are on their way!

Due to arrive Friday, Sept. 21
Mo B.
Heather Rou.
Due to arrive Thursday, Sept. 20:
Claire
Chel
Tammy
Kerry
Anita
Cindy
Michelle
June
Heidi
Due to arrive Wednesday, Sept. 19:
Amy W.
Teresa
Crystal W.
Due to arrive Tuesday, Sept. 18:
Heather B.
Francie
Lisa
Heather M.
Corinne
Melissa
Chelle
Susan
Jenna
Due to arrive Monday, Sept. 17:
Heather Row.
Arrived Saturday:
Mrs. Pilkington x
Gina x
Shar x
Keri x
Crystal T. x
Amy P. x
Bonni x
Maggie x
Arrived Friday:
Jennifer x
Emmy x
Karen G. x
Lorraine x
Pam x

If you're not on this list, your package is being shipped via U.S. Mail.

DAISY! I've been trying to get in touch with no luck. Please email me your shipping address.

Ready or Not...

(Although I'm certain the answer is READY!)

It looks like your packages will start going out tomorrow!!!! How exciting is that??!

Pam, Pat, Lorraine and I worked hard all day...but we sure had some great fun! Here are some snapshots to capture the magnitude and madness of it all...

Thanks so much Pam, Pat, and Lorraine for all your help. You made it so much fun and so much easier! As a special thank you, I'll send you the recipe for the cheese lava. ha ha! (If Pam or Lorraine have a good picture of the cheese lava maybe they'll post it with an explanation...)

Is anyone else feeling anxious?

I cannot hardly wait to get my package of littles. I thank you, Amy, for inviting me to join. You are doing the work of a hundred strong men. (Five strong women). I want to see and learn about each submittal. I hope we have some pictures from the members afterwards. You are a great group.

Pirate house

This is my pirate house. I have restarted this project in anticipation of my littles. It has a rope ladder and hammock. The bottom floor has one wall that is plexiglass. My pirate girl likes to see the ocean when she is on land. The ceiling is painted with the constellations. Another thing my pirate likes.

The Impending Treasure Trove

Things are getting spruced up at my dollhouse is readiness for the arrival of Club Little House's new treasure trove. I've made curtains for the little girl's room as well as a matching bed skirt and comforter. Everything has been dusted and polished. The table is cleaned off for the celebratory tea party. Have you done anything new with your dollhouse and would you be willing to share your ideas?

hip hip hooray!

All the littles have arrived!

They are really all so wonderful...I can't wait for you all to see just how wonderful. I'm shooting to get your packages out to you next week. What a celebration it'll be! I love Saucy's idea of a tea party!

update

There was another little Club Little House emergency. One of our members' homes suffered a flood and her contribution was ruined. Needless to say she's had other things on her mind. I hope she's able to get things back to normal as well as she can.

Meanwhile, Susan, who was the second volunteer for the last emergency, has stepped in to save the day. She's shipping her 12 littles out today to arrive to me later this week.

Kerry's are due to arrive any day and with that, all submissions will be here finally.

I have to do something next swap to prevent drop-outs. We had 2 emergency last minute drop-outs and about 6 others. Maybe the thing to do is to put the responsibility on the member who cannot fulfill the commitment to find a replacement. Or I just need to collect a list of back ups at the time of sign up. I have to do something or else I think I could drive myself absolutely crazy. Let me know your thoughts, please.

I have a couple of elves (Pam and Lorraine) coming to help bundle up all of the member packages. Before that, I have just a little bit of administrative stuff to do to make that go a bit smoother.

If you live in the DC metro area and would like to join in to help, let me know.

Amy's Father

Amy has posted this on her blog about her father:

I'm heading southward today to be with my father. He's in the hospital after being very ill for 2 weeks.
Will you say a prayer for him to be back on his feet soon?

a little business...

I'm still waiting for submissions to arrive from:

Paula
Kerry
Rosanna
Karen C.

Please make sure they arrive to me by Wednesday of this week at the very latest.PLEASE Send them today! Or better yet, yesterday!

And will you email to let me know when you've sent them with tracking numbers? Thanks!

Would you like some more?

Check out this link to find out what kind of dessert you are I am a smore!! my favourite
http://www.blogthings.com/whatdessertareyoumostlikequiz/

Pink Bee/ sneak peak

Last night while trying to come up with a way to show those who wanted a peek at my CLH littles and not showing it to those who didn't -I came up with a wonderful new idea for my blogging. So if you want a peek click here for the info :)

sneak peeks!

I don't know about any of you, but I am loving the sneak peeks! But I respect that some people are more patient than I am so I have posted photos on my blog for those of you who want a little peek! I love a good suprise but sometimes it's just too much to wait!!

CLH for our boys?

Totally acknowledging that Amy has full veto power on all CLH ideas and suggestions, I'd love to know if other CLH contributors have sons who are enjoying the swapping as much as their daughters? My 7-year-old son has loved both the swaps and watching me make things for the swaps and in the interest of nurturing his creative/gentle spirit as much as my daughter's, I'm wondering if there would be any interest in a "boys in mind" CLH swap?

I'm seeing miniature dart boards, baseball cards, furniture and cooking supplies in darker colors, boys' books and magazines, animals galore, (maybe a miniature aquarium?), mini mini legos, board games, etc. All stuff that girls would like too...but more boy focused.

Again, it doesn't mean it will happen, but I'm curious if there's interest?

xo corinne

ROSANNA: my pink littles from Italy

I don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone who wants to be surprised so look away.

I'm so happy and lucky to have 24 swap partners in Amy's most amazing swap! I am sending both the little dollhouses and candy machine for each of my partners to get.

This was a lot of fun and I can't wait for you to get them. They should arrive at Amy's door any day now.

Love and hugs to all of you,
Rosanna from Italy
(rosanna.db@alice.it)

Yikes!

One of the members who I hadn't heard from just emailed to say she wouldn't be able to send in her littles due to a series of family emergencies. I pray everything will be okay in her world and that all will settle down soon.

In the meantime, we have a little problem...I know this is terribly late notice but would any of you like to submit another dozen littles, thus participating in 2 rounds of the 4? You wouldn't need to send the same things but you most certainly can, if that's easier for you.

The catch is that I'd need them to arrive to me by the end of next week, at the latest.

Any takers?

UPDATE:
Sweet Miss June has saved the day! I've heard from all of the members and we are all set.

To those who have outstanding submissions, please try to get them to me by next week at the latest. Thanks!

you guys rock!

Oh my glory be! You people are a little crazy. Crazy good! I can't believe how fabulous the littles are that you've sent my way. They are AMAZING. And so are you!

I just organized the littles that have arrived. I checked and rechecked.

Here's who I've received items from as of today, August 4:

Mo
Tammy
Sharolyn
Cindy
Anita
Bonni
June
Lorraine
Corrine
Heidi
Teresa
Amy W.
Crystal T.
Jennifer H.
Chelle J.
Crystal W.
Chel
Emmy
Maggie
Anne
Mrs P.
Francie
Lisa S.
Jenna Z.
Michelle W.
Sasha
Heather R.
Heather M.
Daisy
Heather B.
Karen G.
Gina
Pam
Claire
Heather R.
Melissa

I've heard from the following so I know they are on their way:

Rosanna
Keri Tate
Karen C.
Amy P. (but not me!)
Paula
Kerry

I'm contacting the few who I haven't heard from just to be sure. Hopefully they are busy making littles. I'm trying not to worry.

Okay...so that's the update. Thanks everyone! I'm so excited for you to see all the wonderful littles!

chelle's packages

My packages, sent off yesterday. If you look closely, you'll see a slight spoiler.

saucy's little parcels

I promised to post a photo of my little packages all wrapped up, and here they are. We've been working on my dollhouse around here lately. Have a look here.

fairiebees

Here is what my packaging and tag look like -a hint to what's inside :) Finishing up today for the mail tomorrow. :)

I NEED

one of the littles that Saucy sent. I had to sneak a peek at them and now I'm afraid that I'll be devastated if I don't get one. Amy, will you be taking special requests? With pretty-please and sugar on it?

Anne

club little house report...

Lots of bundles of littles have arrived already...it's all very exciting!

Here's whose packages I've received so far:

-June
-My sister Jennifer
-Heather Blaire
-Lorraine
-Anne Green
-Karen Gill
-Michelle White
-Amy Wilson
-Maggie Thacker
-Emmy Thacker
-Heather McClure
-Heidi Dicou

I'll update this list often. If your package was sent a while ago (over a week), please let me know.

Please comment to this post to let us know the status of your littles project.

Anne: My Packages ....

These little boxes were sent to Amy last week.

my package....

is winging its way to Amy as we speak!

GINA: Inspiration can be anywhere

Everyone that loves miniatures, doesn't necessarily have a dollhouse. Miniature worlds can be anywhere. So with just about 2 weeks left to get all the little packages in, I thought I would give a little inspiration that might spark the imagination.





Here is some wonderful inspiration. And what about this little miniature village! Click on the close ups of these little houses because they are just amazing. A review about a miniature food book, which is always good to know. And this wonderful site with tutorials. And then Here was a lot of links for doll houses and miniatures but it did have a lot of advertisements or pop-ups.

reminder

Email Amy to get the address for sending your package.

Shopping For Our Doll Houses...

I had so much fun at a doll house store today! It's all on my blog - http://michellemwhite.typepad.com/

MICHELLE: My Favorite Doll Books

I am truly obsessed with dolls and dollhouses! These are some of my favorite books and authors. No one is better than Rumer Godden for doll books: "The Fairy Doll", "Miss Happiness and Miss Flower", "Little Plum", "The Doll's House" and "The Story of Holly and Ivy". Ann M. Martin: "The Doll People" and "The Meanest Doll in the World". Rebecca Caudill: "The Best Loved Doll". Jacqueline Hickey: "A Doll for Great-Grandmothe. Rachel Field: "Hitty, Her First 100 Years". I'm sure I'm forgetting some...if anyone has any doll books they love - please share them!!!

MICHELLE: Meet Allie...

This is our doll Allie and her house. My three daughters and I were given Allie and her house from a dear neighbor we lived next to in Norfolk, Virginia. Our neighbor, Allie, had no one to leave her dollhouse to, and when we moved home to San Diego she gave it to us so that she knew it would be passed into a loving family! How blessed are we?!? Allie's house needs a little redecorating, so I thought Club Little House would be a wonderful adventure.

A question for CLH members...

Hello, dolls! Last week, the first submission arrived (from early bird June!) Oh, is it ever wonderful!

I started thinking about doing things differently for this go 'round. In previous rounds, I only ever had as many as two groups going at once. Previously, everyone sent in 12 items, including one for themselves. And I divided groups up into two groups, depending on when their goodies arrived.

This time we have 4 groups. I thought I might like to mix it up. Since we have 4 groups going I think I can work it so that you won't get your own item back. Also, working this way, everyone will probably get a different mix of 12 little things. It'll be a bit more complicated but I think it would be better this way.

What do you think?