Free printable! Ballet calendar for 2021

I have been busy this weekend crafting a calendar for The Island room.  I have a cork board in which I wanted to hang it from.  So I made one for the remaining months of this year.

However, upon finishing it, I thought to myself, "why not make one for the next year, since I am already in the mood?"  Well, said and done.  I made one of those that you can change the page each month, but even though it is fully finished and functional, I am not sure it will hang well, because even though it is 1:12 scale, the paper is still 12 times too thick, and it looks a bit stiff:

Even though I love the design, it does not hang very well...

 

So I changed the style, and made one whose pages you have to tear off each time the month changes.  It is very easy to make, and you can find instructions on how to make it in this post - even though it is a different design, the process is still the same.

Once you have finished glueing the pages together, you only have to glue them onto the base with the picture - you should glue the base onto a strong cardboard so it won't bulge, or you can print the base onto photo paper, which is stiffer.

You can hold it in place with double-sided tape or dollhouse wax.

The theme is ballet, which I think will not look out of place in any dollhouse, but I have included an empty base in case you want to use your own picture.  

Here is the free 2021 calendar.  I used for the design the Print a Calendar site.  You can make several types of life-size calendars for your needs, or you can have fun designing your own in Big Hugh Labs, even making a small calendar for a CD case!  I am warning you, once you have tried their stuff you'll keep coming back for more!

Have fun making your own calendar!  Feel free to share it, give it as a gift and pass the file onto anyone (links back are nice too), but please, do not sell your creations or the file.

One-hour project and free printable

Sometimes one just wants a simple and quick project that will give one a much faster gratification, instead of having to spend hours crafting with different media and then putting everything together.  I am happy to provide you with one of such projects!

Here is something fun that will look awesome in any modern setting, and that you can even customize if you wish: miniature notepads!  I have put these in my soap shop as home accessories.

They are very easy to do, and I am sharing with you the file with the sheets I used to create mine. I added some empty pages, so you can customize them to your heart's content - with your pet, your kids, a family photograph, pics of nature... The possibilities are endless!  And it can be an easy to do mini gift for a miniature collector friend, or family member :)

Here are the very simple instructions:

Download and print the free template.

Cut the little pages out.

Line them up and use a couple of clamps to hold them together.

Apply tiny amounts of PVC glue, or white glue, to the top of the pages.  This will make them hold together neatly.  Let them dry, and then apply a couple of more layers of glue, letting each one to get dry before applying the next one.

Close a ribbon clamp on the top as ornament - or you can skip this step, and they will look equally great!

As promised, here is the template with the pages.  As always, feel free to share it and pass along to anyone (link backs are nice too!), but do not sell the download or your finished creation.

Enjoy your crafting!

A shop sign for Kassandra's Magic Shoppe

This is a new adittion that did not come off as a surprise.  Kassandra had been saying she wanted a sign for quite a long time, but she could not find something she really liked it.

But apparently she just found something that was, as she put it, "very appropriate".

She says she finds it "very rustic, but charming".  I quite like it; in fact, the image with the apothecary bottles is very nice and crisp, and it can be seen quite well by potential customers, and so I told her.  She is delighted with her new addition for the shop.

The proud owner with the new shop sign

Kassandra's big renovation part 1 - Bedroom

Since we have just moved our big house, Kassandra thought it was the perfect moment to have some major renovations in hers.

She asked that I finally put wallpaper in her walls.  I bought the dollhouse already mounted (at the time I did not want to deal with the building up), and it came with a rather dull, standard beige with white flowers wallpaper.  I had been waiting years to find the perfect wallpaper for her, and since she knows I finally found it, she insisted it was time I redecorate the whole building.

To tell the truth, I was very anxious to not make any major mistakes that could ruin the whole appearance, but I found that putting up wallpaper is rather simple and fun, although time consuming.

First of all, I made several visits to Ana to buy different wallpapers sets.  Hers are the best wallpapers I have ever seen.  So different and out of the ordinary.  Really, Halloween papers are fun, but for people with inclinations and tastes like Kassandra's, those simply would not do.  Ana's wallpapers are regal, scrumptious and luscious. 

First, clearing out the space.  With our recent move it was easy, as everything was securely packed.  You can see the awful wallpaper the house had all these years, and the stains caused by the Blue Tack holding the pictures.

For the bedroom, I chose the Red Velvet Panel wallpaper.  It is just perfect.  Fancy that Ana called it the Count Dracula!  First I decided the layout, and modified the images so they would fit my walls height.  Then I took scrap paper and made patterns of the walls.  I printed the images in matte photographic paper and cut them using the patterns as guides.

In this pic, you can see that I made I mistake.  I cut the wallpaper from the top instead of from the bottom, so I lost the pretty golden design.  I had to reprint and cut again.  And then, for the dreaded moment of attaching the paper to the wall.  I knew I had several options, but I finally opted for using double-sided tape.

I was so nervous when glueing it down!  But I think it looks pretty nice.  Then I did the two side walls the same way.

Peeling the double-sided tape before glueing the paper

And the room is completed!  Or so I thought...

I absolutely loved it!  However, upon careful inspection, I noticed that the ceiling had the same terrible beige wallpaper - the rest of the ceilings are just unpainted wood - so I decided that the ceiling had to be wallpapered too.  For that, I wanted to resemble an antique paneled wood, and so I chose this wood panel wallpaper.  As with the other images, I adjusted the design to my measurements, and printed it.  The ceiling now looks imperial!

So gorgeous!

Now, I thought, it is finished!

But then I realized that I had not made the last wall, the one that opens up and closes the room.  Oh, the horror!

No matter, I printed two more sheets of the red panaled wallpaper, and got ready to finished it.  But unluckily for me, the sheets did not cover the whole wall!  They lacked about an inch, so I decided to add a decorative wooden trim at the bottom.  And lo and behold, now it was finished!

Kassandra is delighted with her new bedroom, and I am very happy she likes it!  She says she cannot wait for the rest of the house to be redone.  I understand her eagerness, but I need to buy some more double-sided tape first.  I spent a whole roll (5 meters) to do just the bedroom.

If you want to see all the renovations in the house, just click here.

Solstice decorations

December is here, and the holidays are around the corner!  Surely most of you are already getting your house ready with your preferred decorations.  

Yesterday, I found out that Kassandra also is, which was quite shocking.  I asked her if she would be celebrating Christmas or some other tradition.  She said that it is the use of her family to celebrate the December Solstice.  She specified that the longest night of the year was something worth celebrating for a vampire - unlike the Summer Solstice.

She has set up a lovely and tiny Winter tree in her parlor; but the most intriguing thing for me were the gift packages under it:

I found them very curious-looking, and asked if they also had the tradition, like humans, to exchange gifts.  "Of course!", she responded.  "It is the only moment in the year we get presents.  We do not celebrate human holidays, such as Valentine's Day, or birthdays.  Most vampires tend to forget what day of the year they were born.  I cerntainly do not know what day I was born.  I only know that it was Summer."

And then I asked about the original boxes she had used to wrap her presents.  "Oh, are they not delightful?  A very talented designer made them.  I do not like the overuse of shiny red, green and gold humans tend to use this time of year.  It all looks very fashion and stylish, but people have forgotten about the elegance and good taste we used in past times to wrap presents."

She proceeded to ask me to sit down to enjoy some spirits, and was talking about how difficult it would be for her to keep her daughter Perséfone from munching on the decorations.

Long postponed project finally done!

Today I did something that I have wanted to do for a long time.

Many months ago I purchased this canvas bag:

I loved the design the moment I saw it!  The colors, the insde, the straps... It only had one thing that I did not like: the featuring of the Converse logo in the middle.  For a time I thought I needed to buy some patches to cover it up, but quite never find what I was looking for.

But one day I came across this beauty:

I found it in Harlots & Angels on Etsy.  I have been an admirer of Jules Vernes since I was a teen, and "20,000 leagues under the sea" is my favorite book of his.  So I decided to join Nemo's crew and add this to my bag.  And lo and behold:

I absolutely love it!  It makes something quite extraordinary of an ordinary bag, and it is not too flamboyant for everyday use.

I wish I had the opportunity to use more of the marvelous pieces Harlots & Angels feature in their Steampunk section...

Free dollhouse printable moving and shipping boxes!

I have recently rented a small self-storage space, and I have been busy clasifying and packing things in boxes.  And of course, seeing all those neat and tidy-looking boxes, I wanted some in miniature too.

Since my vampire tenant does not plan to move anytime soon, I decided I would do some packages for her - either shipping parcels for her customers, or stuff that she bought and was sent to her.

I just finished them this morning.  I love how they turned out!

I printed the box design directly onto brown cardboard to mimic the color of real shipping boxes, and as real shipping boxes, I closed them up with clear tape and slapped some shipping labels on them.  Here they are in their final places:

I am still not sure if they are coming in or going out...

I am very happy to share with you the files for the boxes and some moving and shipping labels that you can affix to them if you want.  Bear in mind that I made them as the real thing, and you have to either close them with tape or use glue in the interior flaps; they do not have a lid that comes up, like decorating boxes.  Feel free to use them and pass them along to anyone (crediting the source or linking back here), but please do not sell them.

I hope you enjoy them!

Adding some greenies to the dollhouse

I have been wanting to add plants to the dollhouse for a looong time.  My dollhouse came from the shop with some reindeer moss and some artificial flowers already attached to the window sills:

The first pic I took a long time ago; the second is more recent.  But as you can see, the moss had taken a dusty, not good-looking appearance.  So I decided to remove everything from the windows and add some plants.

The moss was attached with something very similar to hot glue, so I just pulled off the moss and scraped the glue rests.  To my dismay, the glue had yellowed and stained the white paint of the window sills.  I decided to buy some glossy white paint and retouch everything.  As per my husband's advice, I bought a glossy white from Vallejo, which turned out it was EXACTLY the same shade of white.  I have spent all morning painting the sills, and now they look like new.  The windows were so awful stained in yellow I didn't even take pictures to show the before and after (sorry!).

It's been months since I have been searching online for just the perfect plants to start the window decorations.  The first additions were purchased 4 days ago, and yesterday they arrived all the way from Barcelona:

They are the best bonsais I have ever seen!  They are the babies of LugArt Petit, and I am so happy how well they look in the drawing room window.  If you are in need of a bonsai, LugArt Petit is the place to go!

My vampire tenant loves them.  She says that she appreciates very much the care and the art involved in producing bonsais.  Here is an interesting website to learn about them.

Naturally, she now demands more plants.  Thankfully, I acquired some time ago an Echeveria kit from The Miniature Garden, and I am in the process of making them.  Let's see how well the garden pot turns out...

Working for my mom

Every time my mother says "Could you make something for me?" I get excited. It gives me much satisfaction when she puts in her scenes something hand-crafted by me; specially because, being honest, many of my minis are far from perfect. The fact that my dollhouse has not a popular theme adds to the trouble, since I can not practice with "everyday" objects. Now that I am going to begin Mrs. Lovett Pie Shop I hope I can have the opportunity to craft more usual accessories. By the way, the room box arrived yesterday! I hope I can begin with it on the weekend...

Coming back to my mother's request, these are the last minis I have made for her - sorry, the pic is not very good:

I had just bought for her a gramophone for her parlor, and she was quick to ask for some records to put near it. They are just printables, and very easy to make. I used Jim's page as a template, but I designed my own covers - classical music instead of modern pop music.

The calendar was a freebie that I got with a purchase, and since I did not have a place for it, she asked for it. But she wanted a different pic and asked for this one, called "Kissing on VJ". She saw the statue of San Diego's harbor, and simply loved it.

The pillow is a replica in miniature of one that I have for sale in my shop; she has a dress form with a wedding dress near a bay window and wanted the pillow to place next to it. It was challenging to sew the mini-pillow because the fabric is baroque satin, and as you can see, it doesn't look too good. But I am fortunate that she doesn't care :)

This is her dollhouse; as you can see, the shoes are out of scale, but she doesn't mind. The room is supposed to be the home-shop of a seamstress; hence the mannequin.

This is the inside of the room. I have made for her many of the objects here: The contents of the grocery basket - which, by the way, you can buy here -; the knitting basket of the floor, behind the stove; a blue velvet pillow on the armchair; the appointment book and the inkwell of the table; and some of the contents of the cabinet - some you can see, some you can't - two button jars, some other books, and a sewing basket. I also re-sized for her the fashion posters of the wall.
She made the standing dress and the capelet that hangs in the ironing board, and she filled up the cabinet with different fabrics and trims.

Hope you have enjoyed this peeking into her dollhouse :)

New miniature books found

Perusing through Kate's blog entries, I found out about two miniature-making books.

I was aware of Sue Heaser's publications, but although I am familiar with Angie Scarr's name, I did not know she also had published books for making miniatures with polymer clay. For those of you who did not know either, here they are:

Miniature Food Masterclass: Materials and techniques for model-makers

Making Miniature Food and Market Stalls

I have ordered both, and I can't wait for them to arrive!

Mini bottles and apothecary cabinet

The bottles arrived today; 60 tiny glass bottles to fill up and label! Who can resist that? I had to sit down and finish the first apothecary cabinet. I am so happy how well it turned out! It will be up for sale in my shop tomorrow.

Three different kind of jars, and all of them feature reproductions of real vintage unmodified apothecary labels. And of course, a brass scale and a glass stirrer or pipette.

I made a couple of them for my own cabinet, but I have not taken a pic yet; too little changes to show it. I will wait for it to be complete before showing it again.

I am waiting for more packages with more glass goodies inside...

Sources of inspiration

Sometimes the Muse can strike from the most strange places...

It had been some time since I wanted to try and make a pharmacy/apothecary/laboratory supplies cabinet.

My husband is a scientist, and I can tell you, a messy table/bench is the last thing you need if you want your work to be successful; dirt can spoil many hours of work if you are dealing with cells, and a glass left in the wrong place can finish in the floor with all your precious DNA inside. So I am not very fond of cluttered furniture, not even when it is in miniature. That's why all my cabinets are so tidy - blame it on the hours that we had to spend in the lab when experiments don't come out OK. I figure that if tidiness is necessary in real scale, more so in the cabinet of a skilled witch or wizard. Think about the protocols that are described in magic books and that you have to follow to the last detail... Anyway, the idea of the mad scientist or Victorian chemist have been going around my head, but I was not sure about how to bring them to reality.

Yesterday I put on a CD that I had not listened to in a long time. It's from Attrition, and it's called "All mine enemys whispers". It is inspired by the story of Mary Ann Cotton, who was sentenced to death in 1873 for killing children with arsenic. Attrition's Martin Bowes is a descendant of the arresting officer, Police Sergeant Tom McCutcheon.

And then the vision stroke me! I saw a dark chemist in London, where this woman went to buy the poison; the unsuspected pharmacist who sold it to her; the neatness of the filled jars in the shelves...

Stabler-Leadbeater Apothecary, Alexandria

Right now I am on the hunt for different kinds of glass jars to fill the cabinets, and I am already working on the labels, which will be, of course, reproduction of real vintage pharmacy labels.

I hope to have a new line of apothecary cabinets, parallel to the magic cabinets. Science is as much part of my world as it is fantasy. How contradictory the human race can be... Will you come with me on my journey?

Dollhouse accesories from jewelry findings

I was doing some shopping at Michael's today and found some lovely jewelry findings that may work well in a dollhouse setting.

They belong to the Madame Delphine's collection. I saw some charms small enough that would look lovely on a dresser, as well as mirrors framed with delicate Victorian flowers that could belong on a bedroom or parlor. Here is a link to the collection.

If you have a chance go take a look before they are gone!

Bedrooms... My favorite room of any house

Even though many of us spend much of our free time in the living room - with friends, family, enjoying meals, football games, reading, listening to music, watching movies, doing crafts - I have always considered the bedroom the "sanctuary" of any home.

Think about it. It's the place when you go when you like to be alone with your thoughts. Or to write in your diary. Or to rest when you are sick. Or to cuddle with your other half. Only your most beloved people are allowed in this room. It's my favorite room to decorate, and the one that is the most true reflection of what I am. And this applies to my real-life house and my miniature house!

I was browsing through Etsy yesterday and I simply fell in love with Wightcrafts beds and furniture. I was fairly familiar with the Tudor housing style, but Leslie's designs are so well made and so affordable! I bought one of his Tudor beds immediately, and I can't wait for it to arrive. My dollhouse bedroom is going to have a make-over, and I am dying to begin with it!

Here is a sample of Leslie's work:


I understand that this kind of beds are not for everybody, though. So if you are looking for a Victorian style, or a more modern kind of bed, you can not miss out debsminis creations! Her beds are deliciously made, and her way of arranging the fabrics is simply outstanding. It's like somebody just tossed them aside! My all time favorite of hers is the Victorian sleigh bed:

From modern animal print sofas to luscious bed and bunks, she is certainly worth a visit! You can also check out her work on her web page. Everything is to die for!

A locket? No, a picture frame!

It's funny how sometimes everyday objects can find their way inside a dollhouse as decorative items.

When I found these book lockets from MousyBrown, I knew I had to have them. I actually used one of them to make a locket; I put a picture of Edgar Allan Poe on one side and a piece of parchment with the phrase "Shall be lifted... Nevermore" on the other. I was considering making a duplicate to sell it, when my mother suggested me to put it inside my dollhouse as picture frame.

Wow! What a neat idea! Actually, if you have watched "Sweeney Todd" by Tim Burton, there are a couple of scenes where Benjamin Barker is looking at a picture frame with this book-shape that has pictures of his wife and baby on it.

So, that's what I did. I removed the bail loop, and I chose a couple of pictures from the movie "Underworld: Rise of the Lycans". Lucian on one side and Sonja on the other. Hey, why are you surprised? I told you the occupant of my dollhouse was a vampire, didn't I?