Month: February 2021

Here is a picture I took quite a while ago of the space for the master bedroom and the nursery in the Mouse House cabinet:

This area has been challenging. Initially I planned on putting the nursery in the loft that extends from the back wall. I pictured three cribs lined up in a row with cute Beatrix Potter prints on the walls. That would have left lots of room below for the master bedroom and all the items that might require (large bed, wardrobe, nightstands, etc.) However, after thinking about the reality of mice (and humans!), I realized I needed more space for the nursery and the “parents” would just have to make do!

After months of work deciding what to make and where it should go, here are photos of the space now:

As I’ve noted before, most of the wallpaper I’ve used throughout the house is scrapbook paper. That was my default choice, as dollhouse wallpaper sold in stores is limited and generally too traditional for me. Instead, I planned to print the wallpaper myself from patterns I found and liked on the internet, resizing it to scale, but after reading more about how to do it, I was wary of the quality of my printer ink and didn’t want to risk having it yellow or fade too prematurely. So, shopping I went, mostly to Scrappy Chic, a wonderful store near me. Of course, this was pre-pandemic!

The flowered paper I found for the master bedroom takes me right back to my childhood: here is a picture of my bedroom a few (!!) years ago and me taking one of the millions of naps I’ve had so far in my life:

There are several items to document in this blog. First of all, the bedding. I made all of it, including the quilts on the large bed as well as the one hanging over the crib (using bias tape and ribbon for the fabric strips) and the sheets and pillowcases (I used a vintage handkerchief for those).

I also made a shelf for the master bedroom loft out of a piece of molding and added books as well as a photograph of a mouse from the internet that I framed and covered in resin.

I formed hooks with wire and beads and installed it on the wall behind the boxes in front of the red laundry chute in the corner.

There are smaller boxes of diapers and more books stored on the bookcase shelves with folded clothes and bedding. There are also books and toys under the bed.

Moving “downstairs” I painted the crib and changing table, and constructed the diaper pail/trash can with a lid from a can of hairspray painted white with a black button lid and a tiny wood foot pedal. I made the nightlight with a broken globe that was just the right size to fit in a miniature lightbulb–with the broken part turned to the wall, no one will know that it’s missing a fragment of plastic! I also made the books and the prints with images on the web, sewed the mattresses and bedding for the cribs, and made a tiny sign for the laundry chute door..

And now for the surprise! I made the mobile above the crib with Shrinky Dink plastic, drawing stars and suns on the plastic and shrinking them in the oven. I then attached these little charms to a gear that fit perfectly on to a wind-up music box I had in my stash.

I cut a hole in the floor of the loft and inserted the music box, attached the gear on the ceiling side of the nursery, and hid the entire contraption with the large diaper and wipe boxes in the master bedroom.

SURPRISE!! I can lift the boxes, wind-up the music box, and the gear rotates the charms on the mobile as it plays “You Are My Sunshine”!

NOTE: I so want to include a video of this here, but I guess I have to “upgrade” my plan to put a video on this blog. Just sing as you read this and imagine the mobile turning slowly above the crib.

If we were not in the middle of this Covid-19 pandemic, I would try to figure out how to motorize this mobile electronically. I think it would be fairly easy, but I don’t want to go to the hobby/model stores and spend a lot of time with others learning how to do it. Maybe I’ll motorize my next house (!?!!)

I wrote about all of the books I’ve made for the Mouse House in a previous post, so now I’d like to share where the majority of them will be displayed: the library. Here’s a picture of the room fairly empty:

And here are pictures of the library as it looks now:

I am really happy with how this room is coming together. Stay tuned as I’m sure I’ll be tweaking it over the next few months!

It’s been snowy and cold and Andy has been completely bedridden due to back spasms. As he’s slept, I’ve finished several key items for the Mouse House and consequently completed four rooms in the last week. I have a lot to blog!

The playroom is a “short” room, tucked above the dining room and below the nursery.

I had already wallpapered the room with copies of miniature, vintage newspapers, in homage to an old abandoned house Andy and I explored years ago in the Appalachian Mountains. I was fascinated by the newspapers glued to the wall that helped prevent drafts so I used that idea here. The floor in the playroom is built with shims I found in our workshop. The maroon tube in the back is part of the laundry chute which extends five floors–from the master bedroom down to the laundry room.

Here is the playroom now:

The room includes children’s books I made as well as game boxes I printed from images on the internet. The playmat with the road and railroad tracks is also a picture I found and printed on fabric. With a great blast from the past, I made the hanging banner with Shrinky Dinks, the plastic sheets that can be drawn on and then shrunk in the oven. The toys were found at various garage sales, including the awesome Lincoln Log set that was part of a $5 bundle. Score!

My favorite part of the playroom is the television I made to light up when the power is on. Just like the rest of the Mouse House, there is no set time period, so I decided to make an old-fashioned tv just like the one we had when I was growing-up (except we didn’t get a color tv until I was in college)!).

I used various items around my studio to construct it, including plastic from a small container, a cardboard jewelry box, wood, snaps, wire and aluminum foil.

Essentially I made a box with a plastic window and inserted two more pieces of plastic behind that. I wanted the test pattern to be invisible when the power is off, so I put opaque plastic over the piece I colored to hide it as much as I could. The rear of the tv is the bottom of a cardboard box with a hole cut into it. When I put the television in the playroom, I wired a lightbulb and stuck that into the hole in the box so the tv lights up when the power is on.

Follow my blog and stay tuned–there are more rooms to come!

I have been as busy as ever building the Mouse House but because I tend to jump from room to room, I can’t share finished spaces as I have the last few posts.

A lot of my time has been focused on making books. I want them to be in every room so I need hundreds of them. Most of them have actual pages inside; some even have pictures and print. The process is tedious, but I like the realism.

Here are some samples:

A lot of artists make miniature books with a cover glued over a piece of wood or cardboard, but because I want real pages in most of mine, I developed a way to do several at once.

First I stack narrow strips of paper on top of strip of card stock. I then sew these pages together vertically down the middle of the stacked strips. Books that have thinner spines I use a straight stitch on my sewing machine while thicker spines get two stitching lines or a zig zag stitch down the middle.

Then I fold the strip vertically with the card stock on the outside:

The third step is to print out book covers from the internet. These can be hard to find as I want images with the front and back covers as well as the spine. Pinterest has been a helpful source, especially with vintage book covers. I resize these images, print them out on my Epson printer, and spray them with hairspray to set the ink. Then I cut them out and score the fold line along the spine.

Once I have several cut out covers, I glue them on the strip of cardstock/paper with the spine of the book on the stitching line:

Finally, I cut these apart and trim all of the edges to size. If it’s a vintage book, I frequently sand the edges of the spine and then “antique” them with a bit of diluted paint or scrapbooking stain.

I’ve made lots of children’s books:

And lots of books for the older reader as well:

I’ve finally made enough of them to fill the bookcase I built for the library; that room should be completed, soon!