My Dollhouse Not Completed

So the deadline for the, "I'm A Giant Challenge" is now here, TODAY. I am no where even close to being done. I started off strong with putting it together and the overall painting. I picked a bright sunny yellow for the exterior of the house with hot pink accents. When it was all painted I asked Cody what he thought and his response was,"It's so you!" I didn't want to paint the house pink because I figured that would to much pink. (Yes, even I think there can be to much pink sometimes!) There is plenty more pink in the inside and I have so much more decorating to do!Now is when I wish I would have just bought a smaller house! I don't know if the other people who did this challenge feel the same way I do, but it's much more work then I realized. My house is empty do to a lack of time and MONEY! I fell in love with some cool modern chairs online, but they were $38 each. My goal with my house was and still is to make a lot of things myself and hunt for things at antique shops. My living room is the closest to being finished....
I still need a coffee table, end table, rug and more pillows.Since I can't have all the Andy Warhol prints I want in my own home, I figured I could put them in my dollhouse. I would love to frame them out eventually. If you remember, I made the sofa myself. It's based off the Lounge Sofa sold at Crate & Barrel. I made the little pillows also.The other side of the room is looking cute. The vase I found at a thrift shop for around 50 cents. I used pink q-tips in the vase for decoration. The fireplace came unfinished and I painted it hot pink and white. The mirror is from Michaels, along with the small letters that spell out LOVE. I still need to paint the letters, I hadn't decided on a color yet. There is a hole in the ceiling where the stairs should be. I wanted more space in the room so decided to leave them out. The gray chair I made at the same time I made the couch. I have this white frame to glue to the mirror still...
My favorite and ONLY antique store find is this turquoise chair...I only paid $3.00 for it! This gray room is above the living room. I plan to make this room a small office/library with bookcases filled with cute little books. Now we'll move onto the Master Bedroom...Not much going on in here yet! I made a headboard out of cardboard and silver fabric that I paid 44 cents for at Hobby Lobby. I am not loving the hot pink bedding. It's basically just there so it looked like a bed for the picture. The third floor is empty with the exception of wallpaper in one room...The orange wallpapered room will house the bathroom once I find fixtures I like. Maybe I am to picky to decorate a dollhouse? lol Here is a close up of the kitchen...I did buy the kitchen set at Hobby Lobby with a 40% off coupon, making it around $20. I got the fridge, oven, sink cabinet, table and 2 chairs in the set. The unfinished cabinet is from Michaels and cost $1. All the little accessories are from Hobby Lobby...
I plan to paint this cabinet yellow!
You can see I have tons and TONS of work to do still. Cody and I go antiquing often, so sooner or later I will hit the jackpot. I did find a lot of furniture at The Brass Armadillo, but it was the wrong scale/size for my house. I do enjoy this new found hobby and plan to stick with it even if everyone else is done with their houses! I am doing this for me at my own pace because it's fun. I know sometime today Nicole from Making It Lovely with be posting her finished house. Emily Henderson hadn't posted anything on her blog yet, but I am sure she will.

UPDATE: Emily posted on her blog that she wants to extend the Dollhouse Challenge, because hardly anyone finished by the original deadline! She has extended it till February 2012. I still won't be finished. lol

Some NEW & OLD Stuff

So I have spent the last few days packing, packing and packing. Cody and I spent Sunday packing up all of my toy collection. Even though I had just set it up, it was good to be able to pack it in an organized way. It was all just throw together before. This time I was able to label each and every tote with exactly what was in it. I never had a chance to share the photo of my Hello Kitty stuff...
The Billy bookcase also held some Vinylmations, Teddy Bears and other things from my collection. I also had hung what I call,"My Smurf Shelf"...It has cute little openings that Smurfs fit into perfectly! We also hung a cheap shelf from Home Depot above the shelf for another place to put some cute toys. (We needed a special place for Cody's Vader Helmet!) Over the weekend I also added a few new things to my collection. I found this great Alice In Wonderland little golden book for only 53 cents...The Disney Store had the White Rabbit stuffed animal on sale for only $5.99! I was super excited to finally have him...
We also stopped at all the local thrift shops over the weekend. I found a cute little hexagon table that I plan to paint. Not sure what I am going to do with it yet, but for $10 it had to come home with me...
It reminds me of my childhood because my parents had one just like it when I was growing up. Last but not least, a photo of my dollhouse...My dollhouse project is at a stand still right now! It needs way more money then I can give it. lol I can't justify buying hundreds of dollars worth of stuff for it. I don't even have dining room chairs of my own right now!! For now I just look for stuff at thrift shops and antique stores hoping to get lucky. It will just be a slow process. There is no way I will have my decorated and done when everyone else is! Oh well. Soon I will move again and have REAL rooms to decorate! Woo-hoo!

Hope everyone is having a great week!
Jessie

My Dollhouse Update

The day I decided to go out to Hobby Lobby and buy my dollhouse, I thought for sure that I would come home and start putting it together right away. Once I started unpacking small piece after small piece and looking at the direction booklet, I realized very quickly that putting it together was NOT a one day project. (Not for me at least!!) I also have to be honest that I pretty much begged Cody to help me. He has been a HUGE help! Without him, there would be no dollhouse for me. The exterior of the house is so much work. Painting every little piece! Here is all the window trim painted white...
After I spent all this time doing this I read in the instructions that I was supposed to paint it AFTER I glued them all together. Oops. It's okay though, because I didn't paint the ends where the glue goes. Someday I will learn to read everything before always just doing it "my way"! lolThere is the house primed. This picture is actually a week old. The house is painted now and all the windows are going in today! This weekend Cody and I are attempting to knockout the whole exterior so I can finally start decorating!!!! I will post some exterior pictures sometime next week.

Make sure to check out the update Emily posted on her blog about the challenge. It is really fun to see what everyone else is coming up with while decorating their houses!

My Dollhouse Project

After thinking about it and thinking about it, I broke down and bought a dollhouse. I have always wanted to build and decorate one. I figured with the cold winter months approaching it would be a good project for me. I knew with the "I'm A Giant Challenge" going on, it would just make me want to do it even more. I headed to Hobby Lobby and purchased this house...
The Vermont Farmhouse Jr Dollhouse
It is not my first choice of course. If I could have any house it would be an ultra modern one. Most of the contemporary houses are very expensive though and I wasn't even sure if this was a project I would stick with. When I asked Cody about maybe just building one for me, he looked at me like I had two heads. We don't have the tools or space for that right now! Here is my favorite dollhouse I found on the web...
The Ultra Modern

It is sold out of course! It looks like a house I would live in! If I stick with this new found hobby, my next house will have to be a modern one. For now I focus on my cute little farmhouse. The first few days were spent painting everything with primer. (I still have tons of priming to do!) The house came with finished wood flooring...I decided to paint the floors white. I love painted white floors in real homes, so my dollhouse had to have white floors! I have no idea what I am doing since this whole dollhouse thing is new to me. I searched for hours online looking for inspiration. I found a website with a tutorial for building furniture out of cardboard. I decided to attempt it...
My couches are on the bigger size. I pretty much designed them with the Lounge Sofa from Crate & Barrel in mind. I purchased gray corduroy fabric from JoAnn's and spent about 3 hours trying to get the sofa right. The problem was I don't like to follow directions and I tried to do it my own way. The couch and chair I made turned out okay. I can definitely tell this was my first attempt. All I see are my mistakes...They are cute though and work for now. My goal is to make as much of the furniture as possible. Yes, I could buy all kinds of awesome stuff online. I rather make things myself then drop tons of cash. The selection of doll furniture is very limited where I live. I will have to purchase many things online, or make them myself. I decided on chevron painted walls in the living room because I have always wanted a "real life" room painted this way. Since I have been living in apartments for awhile now, it makes it hard for me to do all these crazy things I envision. This is why this dollhouse project is fun for me. It is a great creative outlet. I have a lot of work ahead of me. Here is all I have done right now...I have to paint all the trim and the outside of the house still. I may try to work on all that before I decorate anymore of the interior. I plan to paint the exterior of the house a cheery yellow color! Stay tuned...

I'm A Giant Challenge {dollhouse decorating}

Have you heard about the Dollhouse Decorating Challenge that Emily Henderson is hosting? I found out about the challenge on Nicole's blog Making it Lovely. I think it's a wonderful idea. Before I moved I had this cute perfect dollhouse, now I wish I would have kept it. Emily is encouraging everyone to get involved and spread the word!

Here are the design bloggers in the challenge:

Emily from Secrets from a Stylist

Morgan from The Brick House

Erin from Design for Mankind

Orlando from Hommemaker

Corbett from Girl Domestic

Jenny from Little Green Notebook

Nicole from Making it Lovely

Kirsten from Simply Grove
It is definitely going to be fun to see the end results! Emily had a really good point about how girls shouldn't have to grow up! We should be aloud to keep playing with dollhouses! I think it's a great design outlet and would make a really fun hobby! You can read Emily's full post about the challenge HERE.