Great Big Fun with Little Things
A trip to the Great American Dollhouse Museum in Danville, Kentucky, with Ray and our oldest granddaughter last summer introduced her to a miniatures hobby she loves. To the joy of her Notty and Little, it is a hobby she does at our house. While we were enjoying the museum and dollhouse store as part of her 13th birthday grandparent trip, she and I formed dreams of how we could make miniature rooms ourselves. Now when she comes to visit, you are likely to find her on the floor of the playroom, exercising her artistic and creative skills. My contribution has been to comb through my craft supplies at home and keep my eyes open to finds while I am out and about in town or on a trip.
She has been hard at work lately redecorating two dollhouses and a room one of her younger brothers created a few months ago from a large tin that once held wedding cookies I got at Costco. He has found great joy in this hobby, too. While peeking in her dollhouse rooms recently, I realized that your children might enjoy this hobby, too, so I took some photos you might use to get your creative juices flowing.
When our firstborn was a baby, I purchased a three-shelf used bookshelf at a garage sale in Oxford, Mississippi. For the next few years, it stored our growing collection of Bible story books, Dr. Seuss, Richard Scarry, Little Golden Books, and more.
In the early 1980s, we bought Bethany a Fisher Price® dollhouse one Christmas. I remember well the challenge Ray and I had putting it together that Christmas Eve. We bought her the Fisher Price® fixtures for the bathroom and the appliances for the kitchen. Through the years, I bought one fancy bed as a special gift for Bethany, plus many $1 pieces of dollhouse furniture at Big Lots.
When our girls were teenagers, I got very ambitious and bought a large wooden dollhouse kit at a craft store with plans for it to be a mother and daughters project. I was much too ambitious. We glued a few pieces together before selling it a few years later at a garage sale.
My next dollhouse project was more doable. I repurposed the garage sale bookshelf. I wallpapered the inside “walls” and used a black marker to turn the shelves into “hardwood floors.” It became a three-story dollhouse that stood next door to Bethany’s dollhouse in our bedroom. My aunt gave me four or five pieces from her furniture from her childhood, and I continued to pick up odds and ends here and there. Our grandchildren, boys and girls alike, have had hours of fun with those dollhouses.
Several months ago, I moved them to the playroom. Lately they have been our granddaughter’s canvas for creativity. I am amazed at the miniature kits you can buy at craft stores. They supply a fun creative outlet, too, but I want to show you some examples of free and inexpensive ways to have fun with miniatures in hopes that they might inspire a new hobby in some more children and teens.
Here’s the bookshelf turned dollhouse. I bought the handmade family from a homeschooling teen many years ago at a homeschool conference.
When our granddaughter got interested in miniatures, I pulled out those six windows that had been languishing in my craft room. When she wanted something to glue behind them so they would look more like windows, I realized that we could make them very realistic. I printed photos I had taken outside our house on our printer. She glued pictures of the sky behind the windows for the top floor, distant views of the hayfield across the road behind the ones on the second floor, and close-up views (including one of our barn) on the first floor.
Below is an example of how she used atypical items. The British tea set was in my jewelry making supplies. It is supposed to make a necklace and earrings. The picture on the wall is a bookmark. The flower decoration on the front of the table is a button from one of my button jars. Our grandson put together the table and chair from kits a friend gave me when she learned what we were doing. I think she picked them up at a garage sale. See our barn and tree through the windows. This picture shows the wallpaper I put on the bookshelf years ago. It was from a wallpaper sample book a store gave me.
This bookshelf is the container from Hobby Lobby that once held either wooden hearts or snowflakes. The roses are a necklace I quit wearing long ago and put in my jewelry making supplies. The bunny on the top right shelf is a button. The wallpaper border at the top of the walls is actually washi tape our granddaughter added recently.
Through these top floor windows you can see a blue sky I once photographed. The white bed is the one we gave Bethany when she was little. The blue rug is a piece of scrapbooking paper. The flower above the bed is a part from an old necklace.
The picture on the wall above the couch is a plastic picture frame for photos. The round wooden table is a candleholder. The blue and white house hanging on the wall is a button. Our granddaughter uses museum putty to attach things to the walls of the dollhouses. It is completely removable for redecorating.
This picture frame is a Christmas ornament. The oil lamp is a perfume bottle I bought at a 5 and 10 cent store when I spent the weekend with my mother’s parents when I was a little girl.
This needlepoint rug is a coaster. Crocheted coasters work well, too. See the haybales through the windows?
This is Bethany’s dollhouse. Our granddaughter hung doll plates on the wall with museum putty.
The picture of Mr. Rogers is a mint tin.
And here’s our grandson’s cookie tin room, complete with a crocheted rug that was once intended as a coaster. Our granddaughter recently added a washi tape border. The flowers are ribbon roses from a fabric store. I probably moved them to Tennessee from Illinois back in 1993.
I could mention the art and design skills, the problem-solving skills, and the perseverance our granddaughter is learning from her new hobby, but sometimes it is okay to do things just for fun. Be sure to leave room for plenty of fun in your homeschool planning for the fall and your well-deserved break this summer.
A joyful heart is good medicine . . .
Proverbs 17:22a