Latest Doll Almost Finished

Here are some pictures of my latest sculpt.  She hasn’t got a name yet, but she is loosely based on on the painting “The Slave Girl” by Leon Baskt.  You can see a picture of it here.  I changed the pose quite a bit, and she ended up being quite a bit more “developed” but I plan to keep the overall feel the same.

Barbie-Scale Cigar Box Kitchen Cabinet

After an excellent garage sale haul—I realized that the display case I’ve been storing my barbie dolls was at capacity.    So…I purloined the the bookcase from the den (it wasn’t really being used anyway) to set up a barbie display house. 
Starting with the kitchen…
The floors and wallpaper are easy—scrapbooking paper makes great wallpaper and flooring. 
I built a kitchen hutch/cabinet using a cigar box for the base and assorted small box lids (jewelry boxes work well) for shelves.
Primo del Rey boxes work well because they don’t have any metal hinges or beveled edges.  Superglue the lid into place so that it stands in place.  Glue the boxes to the back of the lid so that they are arrange like shelves.  Before painting it helps to spray the entire structure with primer,otherwise the pictures on the cigar box will bleed through.

After it dried, I painted it turquoise, and added glass mosaic tiles as a backsplash.  Cigar boxes are sometimes lined with thin sheets of cedar, this makes a great “butcher block” countertop.
For a final touch faux cabinet doors were painted, and the entire cabinet was painted with acrylic varnish.   I used jewelry closures and a brass tube to make the cabinet handles and a towel rack. 

And here’s the final product…
 

  

Winscolt House: Pre-renovation

Winscolt House, is as you can see not actually a dollhouse.  The house itself is a generic 6' tall bookcase.  I am not quite sure how I managed to get it into my car and up the flight of stairs into may apartment--but somehow I managed.

I admire the intricate dollhouses that actually, well, look like houses, but a bookcase affords so much more space and accessibility. (Incidentally,  for large dolls such as American Girl,  card tables make excellent two-story houses).  

As you can see, the primary occupants of Winscolt House, are not traditional dollhouse dolls.  Most of its occupants are vintage Dawn dolls (1970s fashion dolls by the Topper Co.) or contemporary clones.  

This summer, I decided Winscolt House needed a makeover.  So, I packed up the furniture and accessories and got started.
My primary goals were to (1) Add more rooms by eliminating the yard on the lowest floor (2) wire the house for electricity (3) Re-paper all the rooms (I use scrapbook paper since it's cheaper and has a greater variety than traditional dollhouse wall-paper).

So far, the renovations are progressing well--though as with life-size remodels, finishing within a reasonable time period is not likely to happen.