I found Pleasant Company's trunk for Molly!
It was $20 and I found it in a pile of stuff in the garage (!) of my local thrift store.
It's a wonderful piece, but Molly is not my girl, so this trunk is going to live with a friend instead.
Mattel probably does not owns the rights, but I would 100% buy a bookmark or a Christmas ornament that looks like the PC logo plate on the trunk.
Just two more doll pictures from this week.
Kavi and Samantha!
I love classic birthday Samantha with her pink striped dress and teddy bear.
The dress Kavi is wearing photographed pink-ish, but is obviously orange. It's gorgeous on her!
I found a Molly wearing Addy's prototype dress at the Salvation Army, the one that never has anything good, that looks like the land of lost hopes.
The one in walking distance from my girlfriend's apartment, so I joked that we are going to have to start taking romantic walks to the thrift store to look for AG stuff.
Anyway, it took me a couple of months to take a picture.
I was absolutely thrilled!
I sill need to get a picture of Molly. She is all cleaned up, but she still has loose limbs.
I have had some amazing thrift store finds in my time, but this one is definitely one of my best.
It's a good thing that I decided to lay out the dollhouse to see how it would fit the space.
I seem to have accidentally ordered two different colors of wood floor effect contact paper and used both of them, without noticing.
OOPS.
I am glad that I caught this. I prefer the darker flooring color.
I was able to order another roll of contact paper in the right color.
Otherwise, this mistake would have really annoyed me.
This is a relatively easy fix, and I found it in good time.
I just wanted to share this in case anyone thought I was an infallible crafter. It's good to know that everyone makes mistakes, right?
I haven't put the dollhouse together yet. I still need to do the windows and curtains.
But I am impatient, so as I cleaned out space in my sewing room, I put together a mock up of what the dollhouse will look like on the first floor, and how the furniture will fit inside.
This is the carport. I want it to be a garden/ spot for toasting marshmallows.
I bought Blaire's garden on Facebook Marketplace for $30 for this purpose!
I have Kit's chicken somewhere, I should let her hang out with the silkie chicken.
I got the pots of lavender at the thrift store.
I am not going to put in the hot tub, so there won't be a second story over this space.
This is the parlor.
I customized the fireplace that came with the dollhouse kit. The couch is non-AG and came off Marketplace. Maybe someday it will get replaced with Rebecca's couch. The issue it has is that the back of it doesn't look very good, so it needs to be up against a wall.
The Turkish rug is a mouse pad!
The little vase on top of the fireplace came from the thrift store.
I wanted Rebecca's sideboard, but it looks like it won't fit. It's a good thing I didn't spend $200 on that on ebay.
Here is the library, which was formerly the kitchen.
I made almost all of the tiny books. The vase is from the thrift store. The Turkish rug is a mousepad.
I made one mistake. When I looked at the room dimensions, I thought that two of these bookcases would fit side by side. They won't. I must have mistaken the height of the room for the width of the room. So that's a little disappointing, but it's a cute cozy room.
I am looking forward to finishing the dollhouse!
There will be a lot more little knickknacks added to the decor when it is finished.
I am definitely hanging pictures on the walls as well! I haven't worked out HOW yet, but it will happen.
The front door of the dollhouse is set in a wall that is plain grey plastic.
I guess it has modern vibes, but I thought it was ugly.
It has a lot of gadgets, including the door, a working light, a doorbell, an alarm, a doggy door, etc.
All of this would make it really hard to wallpaper over.
So I decided to paint it instead.
On the inside, I painted the grout and the doorway antique white.
I was so worried that I was going to ruin the whole thing!
Then I painted the bricks a brick red, and the doggy door brown.
In some cases, several layers of paint were needed.
I didn't mind if a little grey showed through on the bricks, though. I felt that it added realism.
On the other side of the door, I painted the doorway and the house number black. I painted the doggy doorway and the box for the doorbell brown.
I left some of the grey on this side of the house. I felt that it was okay for a house exterior.
I also added varnish on top of the paint. The paint I used was acrylic and chipped very easily.
I am not going to lie, I am very proud of this.
It's not perfect, but it's a huge improvement over a dull grey hunk of plastic.
The other thing is, the paints that I used were paints from my grandfather.
He used them to make toys for his grandkids in the 90s. It made me feel close to him, and it helped me to remember him as a warm, doting grandfather.
I have been making more mini books for the dolls lately!
You can see that I am a big Agatha Christie fan. And she was so popular. Kit, Addy, Nanea, Maryellen... they could all read her books.
I am also a huge fan of Jessica Townsend's Nevermoor series. I can't say enough good things about it.
The Paddington book was inspired by a friend, and I have a mini to plush to go with it!
I SAID that I was going to work on curtains or windows in the dollhouse next.
Turned out that I was lying to myself.
I kept saying to myself that I could do the fireplace after the dollhouse was finished. But I couldn't resist.
I liked that the dollhouse came with a fireplace. It has a lovely fake fire effect.
However, it looked super plastic. I knew that I could improve it.
I started by painting the bricks antique white.
The brick pattern was embossed on the existing plastic. However, since everything was white, it wasn't very visible. The paint made it stand out and look more realistic.
Just that on its own was a huge improvement.
Then I painted the bricks a brick color. They were so small that some of them are a little uneven, but I am telling myself that this adds to the antique effect.
I painted the logs several layers of brown and green.
I painted the back wall behind the logs black and the box under the logs black.
Then I started adding marble contact paper.
I liked the idea of the storage spaces in the fireplace, but it just looked too modern. So I closed over the front with a sheet of plastic and marble contact paper.
We all need whimsy in our lives, however. Before I closed off the storage spaces for good, I added a scroll with my name and the date, a treasure map, and a rubber duck inside. It makes me happy.
Here is the fireplace for now. I would like to add marble columns to the front someday maybe.
I may also add some grey chalk behind the logs to look like ash on the back wall.
But for now, it looks great, and perfectly fitted for a Victorian dollhouse.
All of the walls in my dollhouse now have wallpaper!
This photo shows the two back walls and one side wall.
I think it's so pretty!
Next steps would be adding the stained glass windows, curtain rods and curtains.
Then I need to reorganize the room that I want to put the dollhouse in, and then I can start putting it together!
I can't wait!
Once the rooms are assembled, I am going to add crown molding. I was reading about details that make dollhouses seem more real, and crown molding was on the list. I found some peel and stick crown molding that is the same width as the original crown molding in the original dollhouse decorations (1.5 inches.)
I don't want to add that before the dollhouse is assembled, because I don't know exactly where the walls will be fitting together.
I'm also thinking about putting together an extra room for Samantha's ice cream parlor, hee hee. I could use corrugated plastic for the walls.
Today's thrift store find was a MLA doll wearing this cute AG dress.
This dress really makes me think about how AG quality has changed.
The dress was very dirty, but I have it soaking. Hopefully, it will clean off well!
I also bought the re-release of Addy's School Dress.
I was especially excited to get her special pin for winning the school spelling bee!
I am happy that American Girl is releasing its classic outfits again, and so is Addy.
This is Beforever Addy. It fits her very well.
I need to see how it fits my Pleasant Company Addy as well.
I was very happy that American Girl re-released Kirsten's school outfit.
It's just a classic. And, unlike everything else they sell now, it's not pink.
I am working on fixing up Molly.
She was soooo dirty, I could see that with my naked eye.
I scrubbed her with Magic Eraser so hard that the eraser disintegrated. Dirty water was coming off of her as well.
I brushed and re-braided her hair.
She had glitter up her nose, so I had to literally use a Q tip to pick her nose and get it out.
The Q tip also helped removing make up from around her eye.
I think she could probably use another going over with Magic Eraser, but she's a lot better.
Her hair is in pretty good shape. It's a little dry at the end.
I dressed her in some clothes that I sewed myself. She's wearing Maryellen's saddle shoes.
Her glasses were from a different thrift store. They are a little too big for her and won't stay on on their own. I was able to use barrettes to fasten the glasses to her hair and help them stay on.
Her legs are very loose and need new elastic.
She's a newer doll than I thought. She had the dress from 1993 on, so I assumed she was Pleasant Company. However, she doesn't have an artist's mark, she doesn't have squishy vinyl. Her head says Pleasant Company and she has a small body tag. So I am guessing that she is a transitional doll.
Anyway, Molly is feeling better and looks much more like herself now!
Ellie wishes everyone a happy Halloween!
I found this outfit new in box at the thrift store a few months ago. I was super excited!
I liked the outfit when it was released, but I thought that it was overpriced. And I got it for $7! So exciting!
(I won't blame you if you hate me for all my thrift store luck, I would be jealous of myself, too.)
Yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment in a town about 30 minutes away from me.
Several hours after the appointment, I had an ASL class in the same town.
I decided to not spend time and gas driving back and forth after my doctor's appointment.
Instead, I visited several of my favorite stores in this town.
Since I had plenty of time, I decided to stop by one thrift store that I never find anything at. I thought maybe I would find some small accessories to use in the doll house.
To my utter surprise, I found Wellie Wishers Emerson for $7 in among the kid's toys. She had her dress and boots and everything.
I was even more surprised when I found Molly in the collector dolls section. Molly was very dirty and had messy hair.
She was marked at $5.
And she was wearing Addy's prototype meet dress.
I knew what it was immediately. I have seen one in person before. One of my friends has it and showed it to me.
I couldn't believe it.
I circled the store several times to make sure that I hadn't missed anything, then I went to check out.
I still can't believe it.
I don't know how I have such good luck at the thrift store. Living in Wisconsin probably helps, since we had the MCM sale for many years.
Wow.
I thought for sure I would wake up and find that this was all a dream.
I saw in a group that the American Girl x KidKraft Luxury Dollhouse was being sold in Big Lots.
I haven't made many patterns by A Stitch in Time. The 1916 Summer dress is lovely.
I found this pattern to be relatively easy to sew. It is really beautifully engineered, so that everything matches up perfectly.
The opening on the back of the dress, for instance, end at exactly where the first ruffle starts.
It includes several possible variations on the skirt, sleeve, etc.
I loved this and will be making more variations of this pattern!
I made the Keepers Dolly Duds Nancy and Mary Jane pattern in full!
I used a version of the pattern to make Nanea's Christmas dress, but that didn't have all the scallops.
This version has the scallops!
I always feel when I make scallops that they could be more defined.
These aren't the best and aren't the worst.
But it's a pretty dress, and I am happy that I tried to make the pattern!
I love this fabric. So pretty!
My first doll dress of the year!
I made the Thimbles and Acorns Wrap Front Regency Dress pattern.
I'm so proud of myself!
I did have to read the instructions carefully on this one.
The sleeves are actually the easy part. They are straightforward sleeves, just long and with a wrist band and snap to create the bunching.
The top was the challenging part, but I got there!
It's so pretty! I love this fabric print.
Caroline is happy to have a new dress to wear (and to get out of the closet, let's be honest.)
I was very sick over Christmas. It feels so good to be up and doing things again!
I decided that Nanea needed a Christmas dress. I am surprised that AG hasn't made one for her.
I wanted to make a green one to go with her eyes.
I found a green plaid fat quarter with snowflakes in my stash. It was perfect!
I used the pattern Keepers Dolly Duds Nancy and Mary Jane pattern. I didn't add the scallops. They would have been lovely, but I wanted a simpler project. I will make them next time!
Oddly enough, tackling a simpler version of this pattern makes me more confident in tackling a more complicated version later.
I am very happy with the finished version. Nanea can match with the other dolls wearing a Christmas dress now!
I think this dress goes well especially with Molly's and Addy's Christmas dresses.
It is so dark this time of year. It makes it more challenging to take good pictures.
I found Pleasant Company's trunk for Molly! It was $20 and I found it in a pile of stuff in the garage (!) of my local thrift store. It...
