Author: Charles

       Spool dollhouse furniture is very vintage indeed. It was most popular when threads were commonly wrapped, packaged and sold to ordinary folk who made their own clothes, quilted etc…         So little people have been recycling unwanted trash to outfit their dollhouses forever, it seems. But now, you have to purchase wooden spools to return to the craft; it is not expensive if you are patient to acquire these wooden parts through second-hand vendors.  Supply List:  a variety of wooden spools small, medium and large a wooden platform length cut to fit your sleeping doll […]

        Here are the craft instructions for the matchbox mouse bed displayed in Rosebud Cottage. It is very easy to make and every little mouse doll needs a cozy place to sleep. The matchbox is a larger size than most; it ordinarily holds 5000 wooden matches. Although our mouse came with a slipcase bed of her own, it was a little too large for her new home, so we made her a new bed to fit just right into her art studio… Beatrix mouse posed in her matchbox bedmade especially for her very own mousehouse! Supply List: one large matchbox […]

Once designed to organize dvds and cds,these dollhouse themed cabinets arefilled with furniture and dolls in ourdownstairs nursery.         When I first spied these tall, narrow cabinets, obviously intended for the storage of dvds and cds, the first thought to enter my head was… How awful for home decor but how extraordinary nice for doll play! And isn’t that often the case? Something that gets marketed for one thing that it doesn’t quite look right . . . can become a perfect fit in an alternative venue. I mean, this designer should have been employed by a […]

Illustrated spring and summer flower poem. Sleepy Dandelions by Harriet Putnam The dandelion childrenHave on their nightgownswhite.They left their yellow dressesIn cupboards for the night. And quite forgot this morningTo leave their dewy beds;So in their lacy nightgownsThey dream-the sleepy-heads!

       This eight inch, vintage, boy(?) doll dressed in Chinese folk costume has a head molded using layers of ground oyster shell (gofun) and wood pulp. He also has real human hair braided and attached into one whole in his head at the back.        The child’s costume is embroidered with Buddhist symbols: a red feather, incense burner, and yellow Bon hat. It’s coat was once brilliant blue and the pants red still… The doll’s shoes are in excellent condition given it’s age.        Doll artists in China made dolls using oyster shell and […]

The finished front and back of my eldest daughter’s dollhouse/art supply storage and display.The dollhouse sits on top of a rubber turntable to that it may be turned for the display of the dollhouse when the supplies are not needed. She keeps it on top of a waist height, cupboard in her room.          This dollhouse purchased from a thrift shop was transformed into a kind of shelving unit for my eldest daughter’s art supplies. A mouse named Beatrix, after one of her favorite artists/authors of children’s books, lives in the studio apartment above the supply shelf!       […]

 A Teeny-Tiny Story Once there was a teeny-tiny lady. She lived in a teeny-tiny house. One winter night the teeny-tiny lady had been asleep a teeny-tiny while. The Teeny-Tiny house for a minuscule lady and mouse. All at once she heard a teeny-tiny noise,”Tap, tap, tap! Tap, tap, tap!”At first she hid her teeny-tiny head.But she heard the teeny-tiny noise again,”Tap, tap, tap! Tap, tap, tap!”She jumped out of her teeny-tiny bed.She took the teeny-tiny candle in her teeny-tiny hand. Then she stole down the teeny-tiny stair.She looked under her teeny-tiny table.There was nothing under the table.She looked under her teeny-tiny […]