Dad's Dollhouse

Hi! I thought I'd share a little about what has led me to my interest in handcrafting cute small plushies. One of my inspirations has been my dad's dollhouse. When I was eight or nine years old, my dad took me aside and showed me some plans for a dollhouse that were published in the then-latest issue of Sunset magazine. He asked me what I thought about him building me the dollhouse for my birthday. Of course I was thrilled! A dollhouse of my own!

So my dad lovingly built me the dollhouse, and I picked out the color (I wanted wedgewood blue for the outside). Both my parents helped with paint, wallpaper, and carpet for the inside. The kitchen, livingroom, and master bedroom wallpapers were from the same rooms in our real house! And the attic wallpaper was from my grandparents' bedroom.

Mom took me to a miniatures shop, where I purchased my first dollhouse chair. It was a Victorian spring rocker with maroon velvet upholstery. I was hooked! After that, I dreamed about dollhouses, I read dollhouse books, visited dollhouse shops, and purchased furniture and other household items for my dollhouse whenever I had birthday or Christmas money.

My interest in dollhouses and miniatures kept on for several years, and even after I had moved on to other diversions, miniatures always had a special place in my heart. I kept Dad's dollhouse, with the miniatures inside, even when I thought I was beyond ever using it again. It moved with me several times--not easy, as it is very heavy, made from thick, solid wood.

Most recently, it was stored in my basement in a nook next to the laundry area. I had started making plushies and wanted a low-cost way to display them with props. Then suddenly it came to me: Dad's dollhouse! I'll pull out the miniatures and set up little vignettes (more here and more here) with them!

Now this is what I do. I make cute plushies from recycled soft wool and other fibers, I make vignettes for photographing them in my lightbox, and I blog about what I do. And I love it! :-) xoxo Jennifer

P.S. If it isn't obvious already, I really treasure this dollhouse, for so many reasons. First, because my dad lovingly made it for me by hand, and also because it is a family heirloom now, a solid record of places and people from my past. xoxo

Update: Check out Dad's Dollhouse: An Update for more recent pictures of the house.