.The dollhouse.

It feels like ages ago we were staying up late at night working on the dollhouse. We managed to get it "finished enough" for giving on Christmas, it was a big job though! I didn't realise that the painting would be such an enormous task. We used a regular interior wall paint with a sheen, the only reason we choose to use this particular paint is because it was reduced to $10 for a 2L tin - way cheaper than buying a $40 tin of enamel paint. It seems sturdy enough to withstand playing and we can always touch it up if needed. We ended up having to apply SIX coats of paint to the dollhouse though to get a nice, even coverage. It took forever! In hindsight (and if we ever build something like this again) we thought we should have painted the big MDF sheets BEFORE cutting and constructing then we would only have had to touch up bits and pieces instead of trying to get our little rollers into every crevice!

I say it is "finished enough"because it is done enough to start playing with, but I still want to get around to more decorating, maybe some floor coverings, fake windows and curtains, and of course furniture to finish it off some more. But I definitley need a break from it for awhile before I start getting crafty again!

The back walls were all covered with scrapbooking paper. I measured each wall then cut the paper slightly bigger and carefully trimmed little strips off each side until it fit perfectly. I found a decent layer of PVA glue painted to the back of the paper with a paint brush to work really well, then I quickly stuck it in place and rubbed it all over with a soft, dry cloth to get rid of any air bubbles until the glue took hold. Once the glue had dried I painted a layer of mod podge over the sheet of paper to give it a bit of extra protection also.

I added a few little decorations to some of the walls to give it a bit more detail.  This little bunting was made with triangles cut from washi tape. 

For this wall, I covered different sized buttons with fabric and stuck them to the wall using a raised double sided tape.

I found some wooden cut out shapes at the scrapbook shop and stuck them to these two walls with double sided tape.

 

 This "room" of the house has potential to be the pool/deck area. I want to eventually add a pool to the left-hand overhanging piece and make it look more like an outdoor area.

I spent HOURS rolling these felt balls from wool roving to make a mini freckle rug. The balls are tiny - about 1cm in diameter and I sewed them together with some strong thread. Lil helped me make some of them and she was so excited to see them made into a rug in the house.

I filled the house with some cute mini La-La-Loopsy figurines I found at Kmart before Christmas, as well as some of our wooden dolls. Tommy got the Peppa Pig figurines for Christmas and they have since taken up residence too! We wanted this to be Lil's big present from Santa, but didn't want the mystery guy to be given all of the credit for our hard work, so told her that we helped Santa out by making this one for him! That way, it will hopefully be more meaningful to her and she will treasure it for a long time.

So that's it all done for now! Feels good to have all of the hard work finished and now we can add little bits and pieces as time goes by to fill it up and give it a bit more character.