Victorian Doll House {Part One}

Recipe for a a granddaughter's oooo's and ahhhhh's, as well as a grandmother's, wee girl's, and parents' delight begins with a grandmother's love and desire to build a sweet doll house for her granddaughter.

Add a mother-in-law and daughter-in-law sharing an online search session exploring Victorian doll houses and discovering the details we both enjoyed.

Mix in oodles and oodles of pieces to be cut, trimmed, sanded, and adhered.

Add walls, floors, and stairs.  Mix with great patience and a joyful heart.

Stir in a coating to seal the wood.

Layer on rooftops, the beginnings of a chimney, a bay window, and begin adding paint.

Add essential spices:  window frames, panes, and trim.

Coat with siding and gingerbread rooftops.

Lots of siding and gingerbread rooftops.

Let rest.

And don't forget to check on its progress! 

Come back soon to see what colors Grandma decided to surprise our Princess with, along with a few details!  My absolute favorite detail is what my MIL came up with to create the leading in the window panes.  Can you guess what she might have used??

1940s Vintage Handcrafted Passed On Family Goodness

Oh yikes!! A little over a month ago, I promised you vintage, 1940's, handmade, little girl, hand sewn, delightful, creative family goodness passed on. Apologies all around for my delay! Here she is!

My mother in law sewed this with her grandmother when she was a little girl, around the mid-'40s. Her grandmother was from Russia and sewing was what she did in her country throughout most of her life. And apparently, she continued sewing and shared her craft with her granddaughter, Hubby's Mom. I've always known that my mother in law did a lot of sewing as an adult, but I did not realize just how early she learned to combine needle, thread, and cloth. I hope you will be as delighted as I am at the wonderful handcrafted goodness this is!

From tip to toe, she is sewn. With every detail paid attention to, she comes to life. Her face is colorfully embroidered and you would not believe how many layers are under her dress! Even I was amazed as I was not aware of all of the layers, until I began photographing her and kept finding more!

Just look at those sweet socks!! And her felt black shoes, finished off with a blanket stitch and perfectly adorned with a simple little black bead (you may need to click on the pic, enlarge it, to see the detail).

A dainty little white button hides the snaps that close the dress in the back. Snaps. Actual snaps, hand sewn in. All of my daughter's dolls' clothes close with Velcro. She wasn't even sure what those little silver things were!

And oh my! What a delightful surprise when you open her dress! Darling eyelet lace with a soft blue satin ribbon weaved through it, tied off in a petite little bow in the front. Sigh.

Under her dress, a little petticoat, trimmed in lace. Look at those sewn fingers! Sigh.

And her full slip, topped with that oh so precious eyelet, threaded with sweet satin ribbon. Still sighing here........ You?

And lastly, bloomers finished in matching lace. Oh yes, multiple sighs for each and every hand crafted, hand loved layer.

When I see our daughter gingerly examining her doll that her grandmother and great-great grandmother hand made, I get those wonderful warm tingles in my heart. It is mighty sweet. And what is even better? She gets it. When she saw me putting these pics on my computer, she tenderly picked up her doll and said, "Mama, this is my first real doll." Now she has her Cabbage Patch doll (aka Dolly), her Fisher Price doll (aka Sally), her D.W. doll, and her Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that she gives rides in her doll stroller, sings songs to, and changes their clothes over and over again. But, she knew that this doll was different and somehow more special, making her, her 'first real doll.' What a treasure, both my Princess and her doll. Sigh.

Knitted Sweets & A Hippity Hop!

Time is a concept that always seems to amaze me! When I was a teenager, I remember thinking that ninety years old would probably approach faster than the next couple of years. When you are waiting for a certain time to come (like a sixteenth birthday or graduation back then) time passes so slowly. And then when you are either really busy or even simply trying to slow down time to cherrish treasured moments with a loved one, time just speeds on by! I know its a cliche, but that's what is on my mind this morning as I'm realizing May arrives on Friday!

Two sweet delights were waiting in my daughter's Easter basket from my Mom, her Grammie. Mom was excited to find a great way to use the smaller left over amounts of yarn from other various projects. And I am just tickled that the pink beads and two blingy buttons on the cupcakes are from my grandmother's collection. So now, I am watching my daughter have tea parties with her princesses using cupcakes made by her Grammie with treasures from her Great Grandma on them. It just warms my heart. The bears were not from my Grandma's collection, but are vintage. Aren't these just so sweet?!

Mom wanted to make sure that her grandson had something fun too. Knowing that he loves bunnies right now, she knitted one for him! She said the knitting was simply a square that is folded and tucked a bunch of different ways. Since I don't knit, it looked pretty amazing to me! :> Thank you for your hand crafted goodness! :>

Happy Birthday to You, Elise!

Easter was a religious holiday, a bunny hopping egg finding day, and a friend's birthday! I met Elise through the wonderful world of scrapbook retreats and she became my 'friendly Stampin' Up! gal' as well. She is a sweet woman who is incredibly artistically talented. I am inspired everytime I get to watch her work! And now that she has her own blog, I do not have to wait for the next retreat to see what crafty & artsy goodness she is up to! Lately, she has been playing with Tim Holtz's fun fragments and giving me all kinds of ideas. By the way.....that workshop that Tim is talking about on his blog?? That's where Elise is right now...today!!! How Awesome is that?!! I am So looking forward to seeing what she's learning from Tim, the man, today!!



Rummaging through my stamp collection with Elise's birthday card in mind, I wanted to pull stamps that she may have not seen before. She is a stamp-addict, like most of us in this stampy blogosphere, so she's seen a lot. Then I came accross Marilyn, by Stampsmith, and thought she would be perfect! Since this card was going in the mail, I didn't want it to be too lumpy and bumpy, so I kept my design fairly flat. Something that I really liked was that the ribbon points on the card fold flat in the envelope, but pops up a bit when taken out. On the inside of the card is a piece of PTI's vintage cream cardstock with a strip of Bitty Dot paper to coordinate with the front of the card. I'm horrible about remembering to decorate the insides of the cards, so I was really glad that I did this time! :>

Here's a little mailing TIP: If you have brads, bling, or bumps that do not make your envelope thicker than the 1/4" max, put clear packing tape on the back of the envelope so that the post office machines do not get caught on your embellishment and you do not have to put additional postage on it for hand proccessing! Someone from the Stamp Shack sent me a birthday card this way and I thought it was ingenious! I even went to the post office to ask about it and they said, yup, it will keep your postage down to a single first class stamp as long as you do not exceed the size or weight limits. Too cool! (oh yea.....Elise, apologies for the lint and whatnot that was on the first piece of tape I put down....I didn't realize the packing tape had been sitting out so long!! :>)


Supplies:
Cardstock: Vintage Cream, Dark Chocolate, Plum Pudding - PTI
Patterned Paper: Bitty Dot Basics - PTI
Stamps: Marilyn - Stampsmith
Ink: Close to Cocoa - SU
Ribbon: Sweet Blush Satin - PTI
Embellishments: Flowers - Prima; Light Pink Flower Rhinestones - KaiserCraft