Paper Stars

I decided with some left over Xmas money, to get my Nina a new obitsu. I really disliked her 27cm hard bust obitsu because the waist joint would constantly come apart, which meant I always had to worry about her loosing the bottom half of her body if I took her anywhere or showed her to friends. Also I felt like downsizing to the 25cm so she could work better with the dollhouse. I did of course design the dollhouse to even fit Taeyang, but having Pullip at 25cm makes the ceilings higher for her, and the re-ment kitchen works better for her as well. Anyway in the pic above you can see the height difference between the two bodies.

The rest of this posting is going to be behind a cut as it will be pic intensive, but I have a short obitsu deflopping tutorial inside, so read on if interested

The new wig has arrived! It is a Luts “baby wave” mohair wig in carrot. At first when it had arrived I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to put it on actually as I had begun to grow fond of Frara’s stock wig. In the end I decided to go for it and I’m glad I did. I rather like the wig, and it’s soooo darned soft! Anyway I may do some more styling to it, but the natural looking everywhere curls are growing on me so we’ll see. I posted a few more new wig shots at my flickr which you can find here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsukiyonomiyu/ Or you can just click the flickr widget in the sidebar.

I realize that I haven’t named my Dal yet. I am keeping Nina and Sage’s names because I like them, but Frara, does nothing for me. It sounds like the Chinese restaurant servers in A Christmas Story singing Deck the Halls…”Fra ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra rah!” XD Anyway I was kind of thinking of something old fashioned sounding like Coralie, Edeline or maybe even Katherine, then she could be Corie, Edie, or Kitty respectively. Well, I shall have to give some more thought to it.

I added some new photos to flickr of a quickie photo shoot I did with the new dolls and Re-Ment I got for Xmas this year. To check out all of the photos, just visit my flickr page here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tsukiyonomiyu/

I took a few more pics after these ones but I haven’t had time to transfer them onto my computer yet. Maybe I can get around to posting those tomorrow though.

When I was over in JoAnns today I did some snooping through thier Xmas ornaments which were 70% off and I came across these mini gingerbread ornaments which were meant for the small trees. They also happen to be the perfect Pullip size, and after snipping off their little hoops for hanging, I figure they should be perfect for Pullip an Dal’s holiday cookie tray! Even better was the price which was under a dollar!

I though I would share with you a couple tips/techniques when dealing with wood flooring for your dollhouse. First of all there are lots of different types of wooden dollhouse flooring, but I am dealing with Hobby Lobby’s Mayberry Street pine wood flooring. This flooring does not come with any stains or lacquer on them. The unlacquered floor you can tell from the pic above is lighter and also duller than lacquered flooring. Now you can if you want, just install the unlacquered wood floor, but really it is going to be better to lacquer your floor. First of all the color becomes richer when you lacquer and also it helps to protect the wood…not that you should be getting heavy foot traffic in your dollhouse or anything, lol. Besides that it also adds a polished and realistic look to the house.

As for laquering your flooring, there are two ways you can go about it, you can use a brush on varnish, or use a spray lacquer. I decided to go with the spray since I already had some available, and I felt I could get more even coverage with the spray. As you can see from the pic above I used Krylon’s Triple Thick clear spray, and it took about two coats to get the coverage I wanted. I think it also did a nice job of bringing out the color of the wood as well.

When I was in Target the other day I picked up this pack of Liv accessories because I had been looking for a laptop, and also the little pink flats in this set were adorable. Liv accessories actually work quite well for Pullip, well except for the flats, which I will elaborate on below.

Besides the flats, In this set you also get a small silver laptop, lilac backpack, wristwatch, earrings and a pair of glasses. Obviously the glasses won’t work, and the earrings will only work if you pierced your Pullip’s ears. The wristwatch, backpack and laptop though work wonderfully as you can see by the pics above. The laptop has a liv sticker for the screen, but with some crafty editing I’m sure you can change that easily enough. Now onto the all important shoes!

You can tell from the picture that the Liv flats are way too big for the type 3 feet. I don’t know if the feet have changed on the type 4 as I don’t have a type 4 yet. For obitsu feet though it is a much better fit, though still a touch on the large side. I think if you want to use these flats for a photo-op, you’d be good, but not for dressing up and taking your Pullip out. I think though if you had your Pullip in some cute socks it might be just enough to make the fit snug. I wouldn’t count out Liv shoes entirely for Pullip, as I think boots and such would offer extra coverage that helps keep the feet inside the shoe.

Since ordering my Dal, I have been pouring over all of the doll wigs on various shopping sites. I wanted to find a redhead wig for my Frara that was more on the natural side of red. In the end, partially because there is a Luts Go happening on the Dolly Market forums, I decided to go with the carrot mohair wig in the pic. It was either going to be the mohair or one of their heat resistant wigs, because I think I’d like to move on to wigs that have more styling possibilities. I just hope this wig looks good on my Frara when it arrives, because I am now officially tapped out of Xmas money and I need to tighten up my purse strings so I won’t be able to buy any more wigs for a while.

Here is the link to the Dolly Market forum if anyone else is interested in participating in the Go:
http://forums.dollymarket.net/index.php
The more that join, the cheaper the shipping!

Here is another overall project shot of the house. It’s been a couple days though since these pics, so I have even more done now than the photo shows. As I think I said before, it’s all the small detail work now, trimming out the windows and the rooms.

I shot this pic of the finished living room with the flash. I wind up working on the house off and on all day and then take progress pics at night. Unfortunately taking pics at night isn’t the best of things. Anyway the flash made the aqua paint seem lighter than it actually is.

Here is the front door area. I wanted to have working doors on this house and also some windows you could open and close for photo ops, and well fun also! Some of the windows I am framing out though are not hinged. I am also not putting any type of fake glass in the windows, because I am just not that fond of it, however as you can see from my photos I have been adding the detail of wood sashes as it makes things look more charming.

I can’t remember what I’ve already discusses by way of working with hinges, so if I repeat myself forgive me…The doors are hinged using 1/2 inch hinges. These were attached with screws and are very sturdy so these doors can be played with, without any fear of them coming off. The windows on the other hand are only 1/4 inch thick wood so I’ve been having to make do with small 1:12 scale brass hinges. These are the type of hinges that you have to nail in with tiny brass nails, and not surprisingly they pull out easy. I’ll be frank, using the 1:12 scale hinges for playscale is sucky, because they are not durable enough and can’t handle the stress of the larger windows and the repeated usage. However because these hinges were all I could find to hinge my windows, I’ve been having to deal with them, and I can share a few tips with you.

My first tip for working with the 1:12 scale brass hinges is to start your nail hole with a straight pin. By starting the hole with a straight pin you create a channel to get it started and thusly it makes it easier to hammer those tiny blasted nails in. Secondly you’ll need to use a nail set to really get them in there good. My second tip, and probably unorthodox one, is that once you have your hinges in place, and you know that everything is functioning, you can very carefully put a dab of super glue over each nail to be sure to secure your hinges extra tight to the wood. You have to be careful though because if you accidentally get the glue in your hinges you will ruin it. I generally do one side at a time and prop it up so that if the glue starts to run, it will run away from the middle hinge part. I imagine there is a possibility that you could try to forgo the nails altogether and just superglue the hinges on, but I thought perhaps glue and nails might be sturdier. My final piece of advice is to inset your hinges. I inset my hinges by using a dremel to gently shave out a small patch of wood where my hinge will set. I also have a preference for H hinges as they cover a little more area, but you may have your own ideas of what you want to work with.

Well, that’s it for now. I’ll be sure to post more progress later even if it is a little late.

With Xmas money from relatives this year, I decided to order a new Dal Frara! She should arrive before Xmas so she can be wrapped and put under the tree. Actually to be honest the Xmas money comes from my grandmother, and since she just recently passed away, this will be my last gift from my grandmother. I think she would have liked my choice. I only wish she had lived long enough to see my dollhouse finished. Anyway…starting to get weepy….time to go be productive to get my mind off of it.

A couple days ago when I was looking at the Sunday ads I noticed a little bath gift set that was all contained in this little porcelain tub. I decided to go investigate it to see if it could work for Pullip, and as you can tell, I am pleased to tell you that yes it does! Pullip fits inside the tub as long as she has her knees up, which is good enough for me, and really the back is high enough that even her big head can rest against it as she reclines. Since Dal is shorter than Pullip I am wondering if it would work even better for her. Either way it was a nice find for $9.99, and it is porcelain, though the feet are not metal, they are just painted porcelain. I scored this item at my local CVS, so if you are in need of a dollhouse tub, you might go check it out!