A friend of mine-hi Jenn!-posted a picture on facebook the other day that made me to a little sleuthing. Her picture was of a hand written poster advertising soup peddling (with a drawing of a bike) in Toronto. Intrigued, I searched on google for soup delivery and found David Ansel’s website. He’s in Austin, TX, not Toronto, but he’d written a book and I love soup (obviously) and I raced out and bought it.
It’s great, really interesting story about an engineer who decided he didn’t enjoy the rat race, dropped out and did the one other thing he was good at to make a living: making soup. I’d be thrilled to have someone deliver soup to my hot little hands weekly.
I am looking forward to trying several of his (easier) recipes, the Chompy-Chomp Black Bean Soup, Bouktouf, Chao Tom, Caldo Verde, Mulligatawny, Ashkenazi Matzoh Ball…it all sounds good to me. Gazpacho? Yes please.
One day I’d like to visit Austin. It sounds like a fun city.
Does life get any better than getting yarn in the mail? For me, not really-especially after yesterday, the world’s shittiest day. Jana sent it to me, now I have to figure out what to do with it.
So gorgeous. Crochet season is actually winding up for me (especially now that I have a new obsession) so I have to decide on something good quickly!
I made some design decisions last night after perusing one of my favourite blogs*. One of the cheaper listings was so cute and so perfect, I will be decorating my dollhouse in a similar fashion. I like the simplicity of it all-it makes it so tidy and clean looking. I started working it out on paper last night, just to see how it would look:
That’s the second floor. There’s a window there now, but I think I will try to convert it to a door, filling in the old window with masonite and cutting a new door. Because I don’t have a proper Lundby door to replace it with, I have to get creative and I am thinking of doing a sliding ‘glass’ door. You know that corrugated plastic stuff? Use that for the door and make wood sliders to run it across. I think it should work and look cool. I will also be building a wooden ladder (painted black) for people to use to access the rooftop. This door leads to the kitchen. I know, most houses have kitchen and living room on the main floor and bedrooms upstairs, but this is not a traditional house by any means.
All walls will be painted with white primer that has sand in it for texture and the plastic edging will be painted black. Or maybe just covered in electrical tape.
This is the main floor. I think I might do a little trompe l’oeil and paint (or something) a door on the side of the house where the car port is. Car port! Ha, I know. It just seemed to me that if I was going to make the garage into the artist’s studio, and there was the over hang which I may add pillers to, but maybe not.
The whole thing will be put upon a wood canvas (like Shannon paints) with grass and a driveway and so on. I may skip the side door, however, and build a removable front also out of masonite.
We saw this sign today on our way to the dollhouse store*:
Presumably it’s in response to these new bus ads (which I have not seen in real life, sadly). I’d think that using stronger words would be more powerful. Probably? Why not get to the point and say “THERE IS NO GOD.” Or, for the church, “THERE IS A GOD.” Ah, those atheists, god bless ‘em**.
I also finally finished a project that I’d started months ago, based on these designs:
Cute, huh? Walking in High Park yesterday reminded me to scrounge up acorn caps to hot glue on them. Now I have to figure out what to do with them. I’d love to have one on a necklace, so that’s probably what I will attempt. Gotta search out nylon cord that’s around here somewhere.
* Nope, didn’t buy anything but I looked at everything. My house is 3/4 scale so I have to order everything online. Or make it myself.
** Ha ha! Get it?
We went to High Park and it’s clear that spring has sprung.
I love all birds. This fellow was very busy trying to drum up lunch.
Then we found a fort.
We also spent time in the zoo:
She was very proud of her beautiful feathers and wattle.
He wasn’t being manly, he was trying to eat the buds on the tree.
A junior Fallow Deer, she was very shy and nervous about everyone looking at her. But so pretty, and it made me wish even harder that we were living on our farm on Cape Breton Island.
I went to Dollarama today to pick up reno supplies. I spent $25 there, which is a LOT of stuff. Other than glue, sand paper, double side tape and that sort of stuff, the best score was 2 bamboo placemats. I removed their edging and trimmed them to fit and now I have a wood deck on the roof (and smaller patio) of my studio house!
As you can see, I also amused myself by crocheting shrubbery. Only about another 70 to go. I was also thinking about embroidering fabric to look like the garden, but I don’t know if I am that talented. Maybe I could just crochet that too. The babies are a little too big for the scale of the house, but the 2 cone trees look kind of cool to me.
I’ve also decorated (temporarily) the living room. I used Christmas wrapping paper on the walls and construction paper on the ceiling. I made a blind by folding paper and using a needle and thread to hold it in place. The paintings might look familiar-photos of the originals trimmed down. The “rug” is more paper. I’ve also been working on a beaded curtain, but I think that might be for the downstairs bathroom (the middle small room).
Again, to be clear, this is temporary. I will be painting the whole thing white, including the floor, and refinishing the whole shebang.
ps. Lots of dollhouse entries, I know. I will go back to thinking about other stuff soon enough.
Close ups
Roof:
Upstairs:
Family room:
Kitchen:
It looks like some helpful child tried to draw a rug upstairs. The good news is that it’s easy to find paper flooring for dollhouses. There’s a dollhouse store near work that I plan on visiting soon. Alternately I can just print out patterns here. Haven’t decided yet!
We went and picked it up this morning and I could not be happier. Well, ok, I could be happier, but I am super happy. I think I paid exactly the right amount for what I got.
Part 1:
As you can see there’s extensive water damage on the lower level. Or is it water? When I was trying to wash it there was a distinct smell of…pee. Hmm. There is also pen scribbling on the floors and roof. I hate that, why do kids want to wreck their toys? While I admit that I wrecked a bunch of my sister’s clothes when I was a teenager, I never, EVER wrote on my toys.
Part 2:
These are the 2 lower levels for the dollhouse I grew up playing with. My plan is to make them into a studio type space, complete with rooftop patio and garden. I originally thought I would just have them side by side, or maybe in an L shape configuration but now I think I like them layered, off set slightly. These are in better condition than the main house but are still quite damaged by water and previous renovations. There was paper on the lower half of the upper walls which I immediately removed. The roof will be covered in astroturf and gritty sand paper.
So, what needs to be done? I really almost don’t even know where to begin. I’m going to stop by the dollar store on my way home for sand paper, glue, low tack painter’s tape, balsa wood… The studio space will be designed for a young couple, maybe planning their first baby. Maybe they have a nice dog and are artists. The main house is for a family. A couple kids, pets. I have to think about their stories.
Good thing I am practically not working anymore. Lots of time to really put some effort into this project.
I’ve decided I want a dollhouse. I know. It’s a little weird. Hear me out:
My best friend Veronica had a dollhouse when we were growing up. It was a Lundby, and she probably got it in the late 70’s. Her dad was in charge of buying all the furniture and accoutrements so mostly it was full of antique-y looking stuff that Veronica hated. She wanted modern looking chairs, toilets with a flipper to flush, not a chain to pull. Her dollhouse people were hilarious, the infamous FB, so named because he was a Fat Boy. Her dog ate half his head and we still played with him. Yoda also spent time in her dollhouse.
Ideally, somehow-magically-Veronica’s original dollhouse will appear on my doorstep. Considering I haven’t seen her in 16 years and that we don’t have a doorbell, that’s unlikely. There’s a version of the same house on sale on Ebay, but it’s in America and the shipping is crazy.
That’s what it looks like in all it’s glory. The bottom 2 layers are add-ons. I just want to decorate and furnish it MY way. And maybe share it eventually.
With apologies to Ryan and Corrie.
Who can recognize this?
Too hard? Here’s another angle:
Now can you tell?
Living in a big city can be fun (you get to listen to people sing along with their ipods) but it can also be depressing. Especially when Queen St W has a Tim Horton’s.
