It's Halloween Party Time!!!

Candy Corn Punch!

Candy corns are my life-long favorite Halloween candy, but I do eat them year round:) Beverly who makes the amazing food at CuteinMiniature created this beautiful beverage set I'm going to use for the kid's Halloween party. I know it will be a hit with the kids and adults too. I wish I could taste a sip, it looks delicious!

Not So Scary Halloween Party

CuteinMiniature has done it again! When I saw these mini creations, I just knew I had to create a kid's Halloween party. I never went out trick-o-treating as a child and I have always wanted to host a Halloween party. I'm not a fan of horror movies or anything too gruesome but I like to dress in costumes and eat candy. So the Mid-town Bungalow Dollhouse is going to be the host spot for the neighborhood kids party and with that great porch...this is going to be so cool! So many ideas in my head, I hope I can get it done before Halloween:0

Midtown Bungalow Dollhouse Exterior Lighting

I was trying to completely finish the exterior before showing these pictures but I did a lot of work over fall break and decided to show more of my progress. Here is the original link to the first post of the Bungalow Dollhouse when I started. After that post it was knocked over and sat in pieces in a corner until now, everything you see now was done this past week. I did finish the interior lighting, stained all wood floors, cut all and installed some wallpaper, Aleene's Tacky spray is my new dollhouse favorite! I don't know why I didn't think to use it before, I had it all the time. I could have finished but I got tired and had to stop. The interior and finished exterior photos will come later. UPDATE: HEY I FINISHED THE EXTERIOR HERE IS THE LINK

On another note "the boot" came off Friday after a long 6 weeks of healing (just stretches everyday, no more cute shoes for life apparently) and now I have "mild" arthritis in my knee on the same leg (Bi-Flex) and my dad fixed the lights in the townhouse (wires too close together) so they are back working.

"Hey come on up and take a look"
 (I just love that tricycle ornament)

Still missing trim, window glass, roof unfinished

Blue sky  porch ceiling to fool the "bugs"

I added the wood on top and bottom of the railing
(I borrowed the ferns from the townhouse balcony)

I already had the porch furniture

another ornament

glass to the front door on the bench
(leg lamp ornament)

Midtown Bungalow Dollhouse Techniques

What started off with me cleaning up my craft room for fall break, turned into working on my bungalow. Its modeled after homes I've seen in the historic district in the midtown area. I tried to go for a semi-craftsman/70's style, after I found the Hallmark ornaments I just knew I had to use them in this house.

I hated the dead space in the bathroom so I decided to just hid it.

I bought the bathroom as a set but I made the shower surrounding the tub and the back wall out of foam board, wood, vinyl tile sheets spray painted, chair molding and the bottom half of a porch rail painted silver, plastic packaging.

originally this was suppose to be a closet

I am not that crazy about the shower head 

The shower "knob" is a part of a snap and a brad

I covered the fire place with tile patterned scrapbook paper.

I covered the ceiling with molding I bought from miniatures.com. I precut and stained before gluing to the ceiling with the house turned upside down.

 I used these wooden dollies on the kitchen ceiling.

The Classic Bungalow Dollhouse

I needed to order more lights to continue to work on the New Orleans Dollhouse, so it's on hold for now. While I wait on my lights, I began work on my Classic Bungalow Dollhouse. I decided to share some photos of my progress so far. I took my color inspiration from this photo in one of those free color pamphlets by Behr I picked up in Home Depot. I did not expect it to be so huge! It makes my Mountfield Dollhouse look like the servant quarters. But I do like that it gives the effect of a large house but without a lot of rooms to decorate. But it would be so awesome if it had more rooms and not open back with removable walls and had more authentic craftsman details:) 

It's dark under the porch and the extra light effected the colors

The design concept for this house is for an older retired couple, so I decided to go with one bedroom, bathroom and large hall upstairs. I am going for the craftsman style but it has been difficult to find things in this style. The exterior colors are sage green, elephant skin, artisan and vintage linen. I just bought the colors in sample and quart sizes. I am going to use dolomite texture sheet from HBS to simulate the stone on the pillars. I test fit the furniture for the living room, dinning area and kitchen and tested lights.

I discovered that the kit is very versatile. I adjusted the room size, and flipped the second floor so the stair hole is in the living room instead of the kitchen and made a staircase from leftover parts from other kits.

I redesigned the front door to look more like a craftsman style door. It was very easy to cut the oval panel out of the door and the acrylic insert was long enough to cover the door, but I decided to make a small window at the top and use some wood strips to cover most of the opening.

I like the paving of this one so, I added it to the porch

On another note, I ran across a great blog through Pinterest today called "Architecture of Tiny Distinction", which I apparently had joined already but didn't know it, building the same kit with most of the same ideas I had in mind for the interior. I don't know if it was ever finished but it was a beautiful start.