DIY Candle Holders

Hello and welcome back

Today's post light be a little shorter than usual, since I only made a couple of candle holders so far

I spend a lot of time on PINTEREST and of course I come around many DIY tips and tutorials for all sorts of dollhouse items

So with just a few jewellery findings, metal beads and a little paint (+ Fimo to make the candles), I tried to make a couple of candle holders

what do you think ??

I really feel like making more ..... so stay tuned

See ya

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DIY Bathroom Decorations

Hi there

Since this blog is supposed to be mainly about DIY items for our dollhouses and other miniature scenes, let's talk a bit about decorating the bathroom

A while ago, I found a pattern for a cute little basket in a magazine, 

unfortunately I don't remember which one 😳😳😳 hm, I'm getting old

If I find it again, I will make a copy of course, lol ..... but I still have the pattern. 

All sorts of patterns can easily be found on the Internet, especially Pinterest

I'm using the POCKETMAGS app on my tablet, because I don't wanna buy all these magazines, after a few years, they take a lot of space around the house 

and the online version is much easier to handle :-)

I think it was in a digital issue of THE DOLLS' HOUSE MAGAZINE ... but I'm not sure.

Anyway, the baskets turned out really cute and I'm using them to decorate my bathrooms, filled with towels or other bathroom items, like my DIY bottles

By the way, towels are made out of old wash cloths ... haha, very easy

Just cut out to the size you want them and use a little no-fringe glue for the borders

I used the same pattern for this next one ... the round one is simply made out of one of these little wood boxes you find in almost every hobby store, using the same painting and sanding technique to get the old shabby look (take a look at the post about DIY Boxes)

And another one made with of of these little wooden boxes, just didn't use the lid here once it was finished, you can fill them with toilet paper or any other item you might need in your bathroom. These cute litte baskets can be a welcome option when your bathroom is too small to fit in a shelf

I took a piece of an old chess game, cut off the top, used a small round piece of wood (you can by these in packages of 50 or more at Amazon and most other hobby stores) glued both together, painted it and added one of my DIY bowls, which I simply filled with a few sea shells painted with gold glitter 

Here's another idea ... :-) have fun

Oh, and by the way, these little shelfs here are made out of match boxes,

a very fun project found on PINTEREST.com

I'll be posting more ideas to decorate your dollhouse bathromm .... soon :-)

Have fun and let your imagination go wild

Hope you liked these little creations

Stay tuned

See ya

👀👀👀

DIY Bathroom Shelves

Hello my mini friends
and welcome back to my blog

I'm not one of those bloggers who post something every day and I guess every hobby miniaturist knows why : because it is simply impossible to make something new each day and take time to take pictures and post these ..... at least, if you want your mini work to be accurate and nice, you should never be in a hurry

Today's post is gonna be about bathroom shelves.
When I start a new dollhouse, before buying or making new furniture, I always take a look around in my stash to see what I've got there first ... because I never throw anything away, usually it's worth to take a look

Here are a couple of ideas to turn either old furniture or unfinished pieces (available at most dollhouse stores, they usually call it naked, unpainted furniture, bare essentials) into cute little shabby looking bathroom shelfs

This one was an old piece I found in my own stash, it was painted in a awfully dark wood color. My regular followers know already that I'm crazy about bright colors, all my dolhouses and other miniature projects are always very colorful, as you probably remember.

First I removed the doors and then started sanding ... and sanding ... and sanding ... a lot. If you wanna have the shabby look, make sure to leave a bit of the wood stain on your piece.

After that I used a light blue (my own mix) and went over the entire piece with a slightly bigger brush than usual, making sure that here and there, some of the old wood still looks through.
Once dry, I sanded again and repeated these 2 steps 2 times.

Once everything is dry and sanded, take a bit of wood dye - not too dark, (best is to use a piece of cloth here) --- and don't forget the gloves to protect your hands and nails --- and go over it.

To give it a bit of a glossy finish, I used a spray (not too glossy though, otherwise you don't get the old shabby look) ... fill it with whatever you want and you're done. I made all the items in this shelf myself, except of course for the tiny sea shells which I simply painted with some gold color.

I made a whole series of those black and white canisters or whatever you wanna call them, lol and I used them in different projects

Here's another one ... made more or less in the same way

Use your imagination to decorate your bathroom shelf with lots of DIY items, it's much more fun to make those instead of just buying them ... and it's of course much less expensive, because they are mostly made of everyday items you can find around the house

These 2 shelves are in the bathroom of my Grosvenor Hall, my absolute favorite Dollhouse ever. And the entire bathroom in that house is my favorite too. 

Just wanted to post these 2 pics to give you more ideas on how to fill those shelves of yours.

Of course, if you're not so much into DIY, you can of course buy all these little items to fill your shelves .... the result is just as good.

The bathroom in my Italian Tuscan villa is very small.

Therefore I just made these little wall shelves and added a few items I purchased

Have fun 

See ya ...

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GROSVENOR HALL : A view inside the rooms

Hello there

welcome back ..... I guess you came back to get a peek inside my Grosvenor Hall Dollhouse, haha

well, let's go for it then

There are many many DIY in this house, I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to show them all ...... but you'll find most of them in the DIY labeled posts here on my blog

Enjoy the tour and remember ... I'm always happy to read your comments :-)

Let's start with the attic, where Emma, the 19 year old daughter of the house, has her bedroom and her music room, where she can hang out with friends

(comments are below each picture)

This is a complete view of the attic, with a little hall in the middle and both 

Emma's rooms on the sides

This is her bedroom. As you can see, it's no different than other bedrooms of girls her age.

It's not completely messy, but not really 100 % cleaned up either, so I'd say there's nothing 

wrong here. Emma has a wonderful evening dress hanging on her wardrobe. 

Oh, and she does also have matching shoes

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On the other side, Emma has a second room that she can call her own, where she's hanging around with her friends. She plays both the piano and the guitar as you can see here.

She loves collecting perfume bottles too.

Emma's Mom is an interior decorator, but she also has her own line of furniture. In fact, she

started that little side-business by coincidence. A few years back, she sort of renewed and old shelf for one of her friends and since she was soooo crazy about it, she did a few more for other friends of the family and ever since, she had the opportunity to transform her hobby into a side job

Here, we see the parent's bedroom,  a very cozy room, especially the wallpaper gives a warm feeling

As you can see, the lady of the house, Stefanie, has lots of shoe boxes. The wardrobe and the small shelf in the back are some of Stefanie's creations

👻👻👻

The bedside table, with a flower I made myself, as well as the vintage vase.

I made the Channel perfume box from a printable

Daddy had a headache yesterday, that's why the pills are still standing on his bedside table

There's a newspaper (printables) and a box of tissues I made

This beautiful old chest is a family heirloom. It is filled with bedding covers

The pictures on the walls show landscapes of Provence, where Stefanie's from originally and where she goes to visit her family at least once a year.

Oh, I can't help it, but this is my absolute favorite room in the entire house

I wish I'd have a bathroom like that for real

It's the room that took me the longest to finish

Isn't it beautiful ?

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I had some white wicker furniture left over and these were just perfect to fill my bathroom

Here's a narrow high one, that I filled with all sorts of necessities, such as toilet paper, a first-aid kit, squeaky ducks, cotton balls etc

Since these beautiful old bathtubs are most beautiful as "stand alone" in the middle of the room, I made sort of an elevation because I wanted to raise it a bit. This elevation has beautiful spanish tiles on it

This little shelf stand at the head of the tub and is filled with nice soft bath towels.

I added a DIY bottle on top, containing bath soap and 2 glass jars with bath salts

Since this room was really big enough, I could play around with the furniture in order to find the best spot for each piece. Since the toilet has been placed in the left corner, I wanted to give it a little room for privacy ... you know what I mean, lol ... so I build this wall to seperate it from the rest of the room. I printed some of these beautiful posters showing old vintage bathtubs, added a few details after paiting and put some plants on top.

Here's another beautiful chair made of Resin (Chairs by Raine), which is the perfect finishing touch

for this bathroom

A cute little wall shelf to be used as a little house pharmacy f.ex.

Here are some more of my pictures with vintage bathrooms, tubs etc.

I found a few cute little baskets in a craft store I visited not so long ago and they are always usuful,

as you can see .... like this one here, with some toilet paper

Ok, let's move down one more floor ... where we have the 2 living rooms, the one on the left is more like a room to relax, with a nice fireplace and the one one the right is the TV room

This is the lavender room, where Michael's parents, who came to visit, enjoy a sandwich and a cup of  coffee. Grandpa is reading the paper and Grandma is knitting a sweater. Lilly, their dog, is always around of course

As you can see, I'm not afraid of colors. 

For this cozy little living room I mainly used lavender. 

I even made a matching blanket (crochet) for cold winter evenings, when Stefanie and Michael will

cuddle on the couch, enjoying a good book next to the fire, or a glass of wine maybe

Isn't that a beauty ..... made with Swarovski cristal beads

A few cute little details

And here we have the Turquoise room. There's a big sofa where the entire family can enjoy a movie together. Sam, their golden retriever, seems to enjoy it most when nobody else is around and when he's got the sofa all to himself

The black shelf is another of Stefanie's creations. The champagne is ready as you can see

This shelf with a glass front is being used as a "bar"

The beautiful swarovski miniatures are from my collection, I wanted to use a few of them in this dollhouse since they are the correct size. 

Here we have a bottle of wine in a bottle holder, with 2 wine glasses

Sam is happy ..... and the cats are playing around too on their scratching tree

Now we finally come to the ground floor with a big entrance door which I chose to paint in a bright red and where we have the kitchen on one side and the spacious dining room on the other

In the picture above, if you look close enough, you'll see a tiny set of keys hanging on the wall

In order to make it look as real as possible, I always add as much details as I can, like the wall phone, the purse hanging on the railing, etc.

Here's the kitchen and Ernestine is getting dinner ready. Emma's in Paris at the moment, that's why dinner will be for 4 only, Michael, Stefanie and her parents. Ernestine is an old family friend who simply loves to cook and she's helping out from time to time when Stefanie hasn't enough time to make everything on her own

A view of the kitchen. There's of course a huge american fridge; the island in the middle of the room has been made from scratch. 

And of course the fridge is well stocked :-) :-)

This beautiful stove was a nice addition to my kitchen

And last but not least, here's the dining room. 

Once I had finished the flooring and wallpapering, it was time to think about the colors for the furniture. How do you like the result ?

Dinner is ready .... Ernestine has surpassed herself again .... and did you see what else she'd made ?

Look into the kitchen .... wow 

The big double door gives a very elegant touch to this room, doesn't it

I had so much fun making this room

An elegant old fashioned coffee maker from Italy

Hm,  yummie yummie .... 

Stefanie is checking the buffet .... she looks satisfied, I think

How could she not be, Ernestine is a pro

And last but not least, let's take a look at the basement, where we have another very nice and spacious hall, the laundry, a bar, a pool room and Emma's room where she can study + a cute little hidden bathroom, which we can't see unfortunately

Let's get start with the hall in the basement .... in the front, you can see a dog bed where Sam is supposed to sleep, but he definitely seems to prefer the sofa

In the back, there's the door to the bathroom, but it's just so small, I couldn't take any pictures :-(

Next room is the bar, where the family can have parties with their friends, enjoy a drink or play chess or dart. The bar has been made entirely out of scratch

A closer look at the bar

... and the top of the counter

This picture was taken when Michael had a friend over last week

They love to spend time in that room, watching a game of playing chess

Michael, the barkeeper :-)

Wanna play darts ?

or Chees ?

On the opposite side there is a pool room ... a dream Michael always had and once the family had moved into this big house, there's was finally a room to make his dream come true

Michael and his friend John always enjoy playing pool

I used darker colors for this room, giving it a touch of elegance, but also to somehow highlight it from the rest of the house, because all the other rooms have brighter colors

At some point, I had made to many bottles and decorative items that I could fill several dollhouses, lol ... must by why you see them in all my houses, lol

Next up is .... Emma's study room

Yeah, you're right, she might be a little spoiled, I admit that. She has 3 entire rooms of her own in that house, wow, no that I've come to think about it

But why not, she's a good kid, studies hard and her parents never have any complaints when it comes to their daugther

This is a view of the entire room.

Emma chose the wallpaper herself, black and white, and of course the yellow carpet

That's why she asked her mom to use these same colors for the furniture

There's a book shelf and a computer, some more of her perfume bottle collection

She even has a cute little fish tank

This is her computer

and the shelf with the perfume bottles

Next up is .... the laundry room

Stefanie just loves every room in this house, even the laundry room, haha

She managed to make even that one look cozy, charming and nice

This is an old sink that has been in the basement when they bought the house and she wanted to keep it. Of course there was some plumbing work to do, new fixtures, etc, and part of the wall was tiled with marble.

When you gotta do the ironing in such a cozy atmosphere, it's not that bad after all

With the lights on, even the washing machine and the dryer are looking great

Even the vacuum cleaner has found it's place in here

All you need to do your laundry

Another cute wall shelf made out of scratch (some wood and printable tiles)

I hope you enjoyed the tour

Stay tuned

See ya

👀👀👀

**********

AND PLEASE PLEASE CHECK OUT THE MOVIE MY HUBBY MADE ....... it's really worth taking a few minutes to watch

thanks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzzOe5FEJZI