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An Accidental Collection: Doll House Books
Written on October 14, 2015 at 12:00 pm by MichelleFiled under: Musings with tags: miniatures
One of my favourite things about the Blythe community is when people share their photos of the dioramas, room boxes, and general ‘scenes’ with the cute miniature furniture, the tiny dishes and food stuffs, and the animals. A favourite, that I do not own, is a certain Re-Ment cat in a litter box – hilarious! This love of seeing photos of amazing doll room set-ups led me down a rabbit hole of looking at miniature blogs and into the fascinating world of traditional doll houses. The 1:12 world is a beautiful and detailed place, but it is also much too small for Blythe as she is defiant at 1:6 scale – playscale, just like her fellow doll Barbie.
That doesn’t, however, stop me from being terribly fascinated with the world of traditional doll houses and all there is to learn about doll houses and making miniatures. I personally own a fair bit of books on creating doll houses and the furnishings that go into them. Much like my love for sewing patterns/books for Blythe, these books often serve more as eye candy than as how-to guides as I don’t get to the point where I want to pull out a saw and a sheet of plywood to cobble together something that resembles a room box. These books are amazing, and I am always in awe of how detailed a miniature world can be.
So while I currently don’t have the time (or funds, or space) to put together miniatures and a house for my Blythes, I do have inspirational materials on my shelf that are really beautiful. The majority of books and other resources out there are primarily for 1:12 scale world, but I figured that things can be extrapolated and still used to make things from the playscale world as the instructions for how to put something together still applies. I feel that the dollhouse books pull together many of my interests together: dolls, miniatures, crafting/DIY-ing, and a love for good photography in good books.
This accidental collection does make me very happy though, mostly because it makes me thing that such things re potentially possible one of these days!
Do you have a doll house or a room box? How much of it (and it’s furnishings) did you create yourself?
I renovated a vintage dolls house for my daughter for her birthday a couple months ago – full repaint, new carpets/linoleum, a little wallpapering and a little bit of picture rail. I bought about 50% of the furniture (mostly second hand), passed on about 25% from my childhood dolls house and made the rest. I knitted blankets, cross stitched cath kidston rugs, made a shelving unit from napkin rings, a television from a miniature magnetic photo frame and a wood stained and glossy red kitchen table. The two things that made me proudest where the real wood floor balcony made from lolly/popsicle sticks and the ornate fireplace made from balsa wood and a hacked up photo frame with a battery tea light for the fire!
That sounds lovely, Nicola! Do you have photos to share? 🙂
I have a Barbie dollhouse from my childhood that I’m planning to take out of the closet and use it for my NeoBlythe. Then, about 3 or 4 years ago, I bought a kit to make a small house and it has the perfect size for my Petite and LPS Blythes. At that moment, I just built it and put little furniture inside, but did nothing else. Back in June, I decided it was time to embellish the dollhouse and the Internet has provided tons of great ideas. I’m halfway through the process of turning it into a proper miniature dollhouse.
I don’t have any dollhouse books, but now I want some! 🙂 My husband is actually making me a room box right now, but I haven’t decided on any of the finishes yet. Perhaps I will interlibrary loan some books for inspiration. 🙂
I don’t have any books about miniatures, but I have hundreds of reference photos on my computer 🙂 I love miniatures! Unfortunately I don’t have enough space for a dollhouse or even a room box. I only use backgrounds that can be stored flat (like walls and floors). I don’t have much furniture neither, but I acquired a nice collection of different props (most of them I made myself).
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stilettoqueen/albums/72157631204285342