Mini Tribute to Mary Poppins

my birds fell over, not dead

 I love Mary Poppins! When I bought the Mary Poppins Doll, I immediately designed a room for her in the Painted Lady Dollhouse. Just like in the movie, I gave it the address "17 Cherry Tree Lane". I imagine this is where the wind blew her after she left Jane and Michael Banks. 

But it wasn't until I discovered the perfect "Bert" chimney sweep doll, that I was inspired to make the mini display of my favorite characters and scenes from the original movie. I thought that the wall outside the park would be a great backdrop for the dolls and scenes.

I love how his mouth is open like he is singing

I commissioned the same artist that made the "Chimney Sweep" doll, to make a "Bird Woman Doll". I purchased the pigeons on eBay.

The park bench and basket, I already had and I made the bags for the scene, Feed The Birds.

I made the "kites" from scrapbook paper, cloth covered floral wire and mini dowels, to represent the scene, Let's Go Fly A Kite.
The "chalk drawings", I drew with colored pencils to simulate the drawings on the pavement in that part of the movie.

The "landscape", I created using trees I purchased on sale from Michaels and a grass mat from HobbyLobby.

The "fenced wall", I used scraps of MDF, wood rectangles, doll bases and large finial caps. I had not planned to use the wall in front of the house and had made only half a wall to display on a small table but when I placed it there to dry, I liked how it looked in front of the house and create the extended wall.


I made a frame from wood strips to hold the plastic fence in place in the wall. Then I used black hammer texture spray paint on the fence and Venetian Gold metallic acrylic paint as accent. I sprayed the wall with a grey primer and stone texture spray paints.

scrap pieces for the base

rectangle, doll base, finial cap for the top

3 pieces: wall, pillar, sidewalk

rear view

side view

frame glued to fence

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dry fit without glue

 black hammer texture spray paint and gold metallic acrylic

Juanita's Dress Shop Room Box

I have still been working on miniatures but not posting. Lately, I have been doing more buying and mental designing rather than physically creating. I bought the room box from miniLand.ca this summer just because I liked it and put it away in the closet, until I was ready to do something with it. Over the past months, I discovered wonderful dresses at TheLittleHatter shop and I started to find other things I liked on eBay, Etsy, miniatures.com and I realized that I had the makings of a dress shop! Along with the hat shop I made, I can now completely outfit my miniature ladies!

My mom has a talent for sewing and I thought it would be nice to do a dress shop in her honor. She likes "bling" anything ornate is good with her, the more the better. She also loves jewelry and perfume. The color scheme and design details are inspired by my sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, Inc.

New Year's weekend, I was ready and this is the result..
Juanita's Dress Shop designs and makes custom one of a kind dresses for ladies and girls for all occasions (by appointment only) and she carries other exclusive items such as jewelry, perfumes, bath oils, purses, hair and beauty accessories for her upscale clientele.




I was going for a sophisticated shabby chic. I wanted age and wear but not country. I had not used the chalk paint before but I love it for miniature painting. The opaque coverage, I like the spread of the paint there is no build up like with regular acrylic, the finish is very smooth no brush strokes.
I decided to use the Michaels Craft Smart Multi Surface Premium Chalky Paint and Crackle Medium. I created the crackle texture using Multi Surface Premium Chalky Paint in ground cinnamon first layer, then Multi Surface Premium Acrylic in gold in final layer as a base. Then I used Multi Surface Premium Chalky Paint in "parchment" as the top coat over the crackle medium. I also used Art Deco's Dazzling Metallics "Venetian Gold" (Michaels), Folk Art's "Pearl White" and "Peridot" in metallic and Anita's "Princess Pink" and scrapbook paper by Recollections "Green Tiles" on the exterior with a gloss coat added to the exterior.

I painted used 3D stickers and wood appliqués to embellish the store's exterior and interior.

I already had the white glass front store counter and the mahogany display cabinet. But I customized mahogany cabinet by removing two doors in the middle and added a realistic plastic mirror sheet (JoAnn's) to the shelves.

I used the chalky white on the mirrored display cabinet and shelves I made for the shop.
I bought and made the dress pattern display and button display kits from miniatures.com. Fabric bolts from a kit (my mom is in the process of making those) will go the the area underneath the cabinet. I printed the other paper images from the internet and adjusted the sizes in Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator.

I bought the bottles and jewelry in two bundles on eBay (I just didn't have the patience required to make them myself). I added backs for support and to make the stands made from small box latch parts.