A sneak peek at the Christmas dollhouses

Since I will be decorating a few of my dollhouses for Christmas, I thought I might as well create a village to display them.  But it's been so busy at work (December and January are the busiest months!) and at home with two of my sisters-in-law moving to new houses.  

I hope I will have more free time this weekend so I can finish decorating and putting in place all the miniature pieces.  Below are some pictures I have posted on my Instagram this week :)

Most items are from Sylvanian Families / Calico Critters, Li'l Woodzeez and Playmobil.
 

 

Initially, I had intended to use the Playmobil Christmas miniature and hide them in the Christmas Advent Tree Calendar so each day we can add one piece to the dollhouse.  Well it's didn't go as planned because my boy found the Playmobil toys in my closet (I should have hid them better LOL) and so I allowed him to open the boxes and we started decorating right away.  My boy spent about an hour on this project and we had a really good time. 

 

As you can see, the Christmas tree is so bare.  I bought Christmas ornaments from an online shop many months ago and stored them away until now.  When I opened the box last week, I realized I unfortunately ordered the wrong size so they are too big for my mini tree! 

 

I guess I'll have to create some of my own!  I don't mind so much though because it's so much fun to work on miniature stuff.  

 

I am sure they won't be as beautiful as the mini ornaments made by Wyrna (from the miniature blog A Fairy Tale Come True) which are available on her Etsy Shop.

 

I have asked Wyrna her permission to show some  pictures of her ornaments and Christmas bags and boxes!  Look how pretty they are!

 

 

 

I wish you all a fantastic weekend and I hope you will be able to stay safe and warm inside your home!

 

 







Decorating a Dollhouse for Christmas

I posted previously about the Wood Christmas Tree I will paint for this year's Advent Calendar.  The compartments of the tree are quite roomy so I will fill each one with a small piece of wrapped chocolate and also a Christmas-theme miniature to decorate a dollhouse!

 

You see, I have been planning to decorate some of my Sylvanian Families / Calico Critters dollhouses for Christmas and make it an interactive activity for the kids throughout the month of December.  By filling the Advent Calendar with miniature Christmas decorations, the children can decide each day where to put the new items in the dollhouse.

To fill the Advent Calendar, I opted for Playmobil Christmas toys.  I know Playmobil sells Advent Calendars too such as the Playmobil Advent Calendar Forest Winter Wonderland and the Playmobil Advent Calendar "Christmas Post Office" but neither really had the items I was looking for.

So I chose the two following Playmobil sets:
 

PLAYMOBIL Santa's Workshop Carrying Case Playset because it has nice furniture for Santa's workshop,  miniature toys, and a cute elf!

I love this playset because it comes with very cute miniature toys and one adorable elf!  I wished it had more elves but oh well, one would do.  The furniture is however the reason why I bought this set.  Having the shelf, table and chair will nicely complete Santa's workshop and give it just the right look.

AND

PLAYMOBIL Santa's Sleigh because I wanted a sleigh with two reindeers (there is one set with one reindeer only and I felt lonely for that reindeer LOL so I opted for the playset with 2 reindeers).

This playset contains a few toys and it has an angel too!  The sleigh is my favorite item though.  It is so beautiful and I just love how roomy it is!
 

 

I wished I could buy the gorgeous Playmobil Santa's Home but it's a little too small for my liking and I have so many dollhouses already so I might as well use them!



Photo Credit: Amazon.com

The big items such as the sleigh, reindeers, work table and chair, etc, will be placed in the dollhouses in advance but the small items will be hidden away in the Christmas Tree Advent Calendar!   

 

I am so excited about this project and I really can't wait to see my boy's reaction when he opens up each compartment!  He likes miniature a lot and I don't always set up my dollhouses on the big table so this will be a great occasion for him to play with them.

Speaking of miniature, don't forget you have until this Friday to enter my Christmas Miniature Giveaway!  Good luck to all :)

 

Turntable for Dollhouses

Do you remember when I mentioned the turntable/Lazy Susan used during the Lego Expo to display their dollhouses?  Well I thought about getting one for myself because I love to be able to see both the front and back of my dollhouses!  The front often has a very beautiful and elaborate design so it was a little sad to see it face the wall all the time.  And since I don't glue my miniature down, every time I move the house meant a million of tiny little things would cascade down the floor!

So that's why a turntable would come in handy to allow a smooth rotation of the dollhouse.  I looked around for an affordable option but I didn't find anything until I found a cheap $5 Lazy Susan on Amazon.  It's originally intended for the dining table or kitchen but I thought I might as well try it for my dollhouse.

I didn't want to splurge on an expensive model and I purposely bought a small kitchen model so that even if it didn't work out for my dollhouse, I could still use it for my little dining table or kitchen.  I bought the cheapest model: a 9-inch diameter Copco Non-Skid Cabinet Turntable for $5! Can't beat that price! 

 

 

 

Well it turned out (no pun intended!) that it worked perfectly for my dollhouse!!! I was so impressed by how sturdy it was and how smoothly it turned! 

 

It's a little high but it will eventually work out because I intend to use felt and cotton to create the ground.  If the house was too low, it would snag on the material when I turn it!

 

It fits my bigger dollhouse but not the Calico Cottage which is much smaller.  So for those smaller houses, I had to look for another type of turntable.  The regular Lazy Susan did not come in smaller size so I opted for a simple ball bearings turntable.

 

I found a very small model of 60mm aluminum bearing on Ebay for $5 (including shipping).  It was intended to use for glass turntables for jewelry display but it worked fine for the dollhouse.

This ball bearing model is a little too small for the dollhouse but it still works and turns smoothly.  It didn't feel wobbly but I will buy a larger size in order to have a more stable base.  The present model can be used for smaller buildings such as the Strawberry Shortcakes houses.

I am very happy with how it turned out (oh alright, pun intended :P) and I can't wait to start working on my village display!

Do you have a place to display your dollhouse(s) too?  Please let me know how you do it!  I would love to learn some tricks on how to make a better display! 

October Already!

October already!!! The weather is still very hot here but it's more manageable!  I still didn't feel brave enough to venture outside for a walk yet so I stayed home yesterday afternoon baking little salted caramel apple hand pies.

The recipe was easy and it tasted fantastic... but I was short on time and as soon as I finished baking, I had to feed baby and didn't take a picture of the pies.  When I finally had time, all the pies were gone.  I guess they were good enough ^_^

I never bake anything so this was something fun to experience.  You can find the recipe HERE.  I learned about it thanks to MijBil Creatures!  It's good I didn't take any pictures of my mini pies because they would look really sad compared to her beautiful pies LOL

After all that baking, I was tired tired tired (probably too much kneading that dough).  I went to bed and suddenly remembered the Miniature Takoyaki Giveaway Contest!  So I got up and cut out pieces of paper for each name, put them in a little bowl, picked one piece of paper...

The winner of the Takoyaki miniature is DANZEL from Silver Shoes and Rabbit Holes :)

This is the second time that Danzel wins one of my giveaway!!! Congrats Danzel :)

If you didn't win, you'll get another chance in October because I am planning another giveaway!  I am not sure yet what the prize will be.  I would like to ask you what you would prefer.

Which one of these items would you like to see in a giveaway?

1. miniature item for 1:12 dollhouse
2. clothes for Pullip/Dal/Licca dolls
3. clothes for Little Dal/Litte Blythe dolls
4. sleeping bag for Mini Lalaloopsy/Strawberry Shortcake dolls

Please let me know if you have another idea for me to include in my giveaway :)