2011 Handmade Arcade review

This weekend we took an extra long drive up to Pittsburgh to check out Handmade Arcade. It was my first time at a cool craft show where I wasn't a vendor. How nice to have time to look around! My first purchase was at My Paper Crane. I have bought from her online shop and from Spoonflower but I never had time to spend at her booth when we were vending at the same shows so it was nice to be able to say hi.

How amazing are these little houses from The Oak Leaves? These will definitely be finding a home in the studio apartMac.

For the dollhouse we also bought this cute mushroom birdbath. I'm sure Tasha McKelvey calls it a ring holder but we have other plans. I wish I had bought more but I was a little overwhelmed by the cuteness.

I love everything that Renee Ruth had out there. It was so hard to choose but I'm happy with this. It's really amazing. Her papercuts are phenomenal. This is a bad photo.

This print by Kin Ship Press is too cool. Z picked it out for her room. It's perfect. And it was only $5.

I loved everything at Laura George but my budget wouldn't allow it. I had to settle on these cards. The beard will become part of the permanent holiday collection. I'm going to frame it and hang it on the wall. Next time I will plan to buy an original.

Finally, we picked out a few cards from Sloe Gin Fizz. Lots of cuteness. I like her style. These wellies will probably hang in Z's room too (once we figure out how to hang pictures without frames just in case we have another earthquake.

I also bought a funny shirt for my nephew but just in case he's reading I won't post it.

Overall, it sucked to have to pay so much for parking but with a toddler in tow, we weren't willing to park anywhere else. I was surprised that the things that bothered me as a vendor bothered me even more as a shopper: super loud music (I think we're there to buy stuff, not dance or see a concert) and food. While the food was really good, there wasn't much of a selection. I think craft shows should always have food so the shoppers stay longer. If you get hungry and leave to eat, there's a pretty good chance that you won't bother going back. I remember before that there were more local vendors. I am assuming that the venue wouldn't allow it.

The vendor selection, as usual, was pretty broad. I would like to have seen more kids clothes but I know (having been there) that it's a tough market.

Holidays

We have been in super craft mode around here. Since we don't have Thanksgiving at our house, we sorta pass that one over and head straight to Santa because Santa's got elves. Of course we are working hard on the yearly elf costume (see above: 2008, 2009, 2010).

I also recently discovered how addictive Pinterest can be and we've been gathering supplies to make lots of ornaments and decorations (email me if you need an invite). We already made a cute garland and some ornaments from tins (I'll post this as soon as we get a sunny day). Here's the board if you want to check it out.

The Christmas Tree Skirt Tutorial that I wrote up last year is still very popular. It's very easy -- just a few quick seams and I even uploaded a printable pattern.

I developed an easy mini (ornament-sized) stocking tutorial. I will share that soon. I made over 20 of these last year for Z's class to decorate. They were a huge hit.

Finally, I will be adding a week of posts to the Play Dollhouse Guide. If there is something you want to review or are interested in, please let me know. The info on the furniture and houses as far as scale goes has not changed. In fact, many of the sets I reviewed are still available. We play with ours all the time and the only thing that has broken is the refrigerator door.

The elf on the shelf will be coming to stay with us this week!

A new skirt

Santa will be bringing my assistant a special doll for Christmas. I know you're judging but I don't care. She's been asking for a girl (not a baby) with clothes and shoes and sunglasses and stuff. So it's this or American Girl. And yes, I've been taking her out of the box.

I used the Miseducated skirt pattern but since I don't like felt I added some 1/4" seam allowances and stitched it up. I cut out the center of the pattern to fussycut the Russian dolls.

If you want to do this, make sure you clip your corners and snip a little in the curves so it will turn. (See my flickr for detail).

Leave an inch or so open on one side, turn it inside out and press. Then topstitch that seam closed.

Add a snap to close it up.

I feel this skirt is a little short so next time I'll lengthen the pattern. And I'll make a wrap skirt sometime too. Just extend one of the short edges about an inch or so and add a little ribbon to tie it up. Oh yeah, I did some applique on an eBay shirt using the scraps of the skirt fabric to match. The shirt is too long for the skirt so I paired it with these dollar store jeans that need to be hemmed. I found loads of free Blythe dress patterns online and I'm really excited to start sewing.

I'm a Giant . billy balls and beads

My assistant and I went to our local bead shop to pick out some vases for the iMac studio apartment. We found these yellow resin beads to use on the mantle perhaps. The 3-year-old picked out the turkey for her dollhouse and it is having a lovely time, so I hear. The wooden bead has already been painted white and will probably become a shade of grey. We will fill it with the 1:12 scale billy balls we made. The white slate is the flooring I plan to use. It's a bit shiny in a plastic sort of way so I'll fill in the grout more and Frank Lloyd Wright it up after our Fallingwater inspiration.

These are the first run of billy balls. I think they are more 1:6 but they look great in the pink "vase" from the bead store. They now also live in the upstairs dollhouse with the turkey. Her house is play scale (Ryan's Room), so about the size of 1:12 but not actually to scale and very chunky for small hands. I think these look great on this 1:16 Petite Princess chest in this photo but the smaller ones are way more awesome.

Finally, I bought a few sets of the Kaleidoscope furniture for my birthday from Fab.com. This green flocked sofa and fuschia chair are actually quite large. I would say they are more like 1:10 but I'm not good with numbers. I have a Lundby and usually work with 1:16. I really don't care about scale (although you wouldn't know it from this post) but these are just too big for my purposes. I really want to keep the coffee table. But if someone wants to buy this (box, olive rug, and all but the coffee table), please let me know. It's actually quite heavy.

I think if you have a house that has tall ceilings or a more open floor plan, this would be great for you. I'm happy to take it out of the box again and measure it or photograph it next to familiar objects (don't you love all the diet coke cans on eBay?). Email me if you're interested: lemoncadet at gmail dot com.
I paid $29 for it. Make me an offer. If you're nice, I will throw in some handmade billy balls in the scale of your choice (or both).

Halloween!

 

Z said she wanted to be a purple ladybug for Halloween, "and you can make me some wings, mama!" I made the pattern by drawing a half circle. I traced a butter container for the spots. It has been a huge hit.

This photo is the best.

Vintage Arrow dollhouse furniture kit

A scored this awesome Arrow dollhouse furniture kit on eBay a few months ago. It was new in the box and even in the shrinkwrap (mostly). I had to throw out the paint as 35 years or so doesn't do it any favors.

I love the printed fabric. The upholstery should be easy. And if I don't want to use these colors, I could photocopy this and use it as a pattern. Underneath the fabric is the sheet of graphics showing through.

Really cool construction of the pieces; there is a lot of possibility there. I actually see this furniture (already completed) up for auction all the time. 

My favorite it this fireplace. I have a small collection of fireplaces (you need a warm home!). I haven't started any of this yet because I have to finish a few other projects first. I think I'm going to take a day off of work sometime and play around with this. It's really amazing.

Oliver + S . cape

I made this cape from the new Oliver + S Little Things to Sew a few weeks ago but my little one has been refusing to try it on. I bought gorgeous eggplant fine wale corduroy from JoAnn's and lined it with a Kona solid (kinda between mushroom and chartreuse). I wanted a linen look without the hassle of linen (and thought the Kona was on sale and it wasn't!).

As soon as I got the fabric home, my House Beautiful magazine arrived with a cover story in these same colors. I feel with the times.

Since Z is inbetween the two cape sizes from the book, I went with the larger one. It actually fits me (I'm 5'2") rather well so she'll get years of wear out of it. As you can see, it fits her fine but it's more Lord of the Rings than Little Red Riding Hood.

The pattern calls for 1/2" seam allowances and I hate that. It is so annoying to have all that extra fabric in there. But I had already cut the thing out before I read that so it was too late to adjust. 1cm or 3/8" is the only acceptable garment seam allowance in the world. And that's final. Doll clothes, quilting, sure, that's a different game but what a waste of fabric and what a waste of time when a pattern calls for massive seam allowances and then has you go and cut the extra off. Hello, who has this kind of time?

I also made sure to do a good clean job of stitching so this would be reversible. I sewed a button on both the inside and out but did it too tightly so I can't secure the loop. I need to fix that.