new and old minis

I finally got one of those jewelry boxes that are shaped like sofas and just so happen to be playscale! I took it as an excuse to set up a scene! Olwenn and Plummery joined in! They were both already dressed but coincidentally I realized they're both wearing green boots.

Real quick:

Plummery's romper: Reve de Rui yearssss ago
Plummery's boots: Takara Eye Love Shoes White set
Plummery's strawberry bag: I made it!

Olwenn's sweater: gifted by Anne
Olwenn's dress: PrincessPiccolina yearssss ago
Olwenn's boots: Takara Knees and Toes Serene set

I loooove the color of Olwenn's sweater. Such a gorgeous yellow-toned green.

I like the greens in this jewelry box sofa, too. The pattern is, I guess, not especially attractive to me, or not my aesthetic, per se -- but I also think it'd be really great in a midcentury roombox or scene, with lots of wood tones, and gold or brass or amber accents! And I do like the colors!

That's what it looks like inside. It doesn't have any kind of closure so it flops open when you're just holding it, but still, I think it is such a fun piece. I'm glad I finally got one because I recall seeing these on Instagram over a year ago and really wanting one! Mine was $13, which is a pretty good price, imo, for a piece of doll furniture that looks this nice. Not just a hunk of plastic, but covered with fabric, and well.

I propped this Michael's shelf piece on top of ye olde Huset cube shelf for some height and had fun filling the shelves and cubbies.

Such a pleasing conglomeration to me! Although I still suck at setting up scenes.

Another couple of things I wanted to use in this scene:

Recently I spent a Barnes and Noble gift card and got this so-called "Teeny Tiny Turntable." They have a lot of small novelty type gifts of this size cluttered around the checkout area. I was in line buying a Calico Critters miniatures set (it's got miniature fruit and a little toaster and blender, heh) and decided to get this too, just hoping it'd be Blythe scale! Also I really want MGA's Miniverse Real Music Record Player but it's sold out, and I thought it might scratch the itch.

Well, in my opinion, it is not really properly scaled for any kind of doll, since it's just a novelty item and not a proper miniature. But I'd say it's more American Girl doll-sized. Like, it's pretty big, and the records for it would be about the right size for one of those chonky American Girl hands. Waaay too big for Blythe! And I think it pokes off this shelf a lot. But, hey. It doesn't look too bad...! Especially paired with these miniature speakers from Daiso!!! Honestly! I got these little black hunks of plastic today and I'm kinda tickled with how they make it look like a real little setup, even if the scale of everything is kinda iffy! Vintage turntables can be kinda big, can't they? :)

Decided to load down my little DIY dollar store coffee table, too.

Featuring the miniature knitting needles/project I made back in 2015!!!

The top of this table is vaguely coaster-sized, so it's making me think about finding some fun coasters to possibly use as tabletops...

I have to say, it's been gray as heck outside for the last few weeks. Every time I want to take pictures I am suffering for sunlight. I wish these pics were so much brighter -- as it is, I threw on a lot of vibrance/saturation layers, plus a warmth filter at a low opacity, and they still have an odd gray tone. Ah, photography.

Still, as always, arranging little miniatures is a form of play that does me good! Still really needing any source of fun I can get.

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dreams come true

This past week I have accomplished something major, for me! I sewed a slipcover for my IKEA Huset couch!!!

To me, the Huset... set... is iconic. So many doll collectors have it! Just looking at it transports me back in time, to a certain period on Flickr, admiring the roomboxes of those with collections that blew my mind.

As you can see, the couch comes with a slipcover in a very bubblegum shade of pink. Although I must note, the cover that came with mine doesn't fit nearly as well as the one in the product picture.

It used to be that there was at least one or two people selling covers for this specific doll couch on Etsy. Because of course! What an easy way to customize and have furniture that totally fits the look of a doll room! I bought a yellow gingham cover at some point. (You can see it in this dressup video with Mallow.) I could have sworn I had a second cover, but maybe not, as I cannot find a second one anywhere. But it's been many years since I last saw a Huset couch cover on Etsy, despite random searches over that time. Devastating!! I had always wanted to acquire many more covers!

However, debellespoupees on Etsy sells a Huset sofa cover pattern! I ambitiously bought this pattern a long while ago in the hopes of eventually being able to sew myself a new Huset slipcover. Like, this has been a long-held goal of mine. And many, many long years later, I have achieved this dream!

Although, not without immense mental pain and effort on my part, haha. My first attempt came together surprisingly well, in terms of construction, but I realized halfway through that I had cut the pattern pieces too small because I misunderstood the pattern instructions. I thought the seam allowance had been built in. (I tell you: I cannot sew, and the intricacies of construction do not come naturally to me. I lack the ability to envision a 3D shape and how every bit of it behaves and interacts as an end product.) It had not been built in, whoops! And I just misunderstood the wording of the pattern. So my first attempt ended up too small to fit the couch due to this error on my part.

I did my best, in my next attempt, to build in some seam allowance onto the pattern pieces. I did this with a ruler. But I'm an American so I didn't have a ruler with mm on it, when the pattern called for a 5 mm seam allowance. I said, "A quarter inch has gotta be close enough to 5 mm, right?" Well, maybe. But that allowance tacked onto every pattern piece combined with where exactly I was sewing my seams resulted in a cover that was far too large.

What a Goldilocks kind of problem, right? Going from a first attempt that was too small to a second attempt that was too big!

I attempted to save my hours of effort with this second cover by padding it out in additional places to give it some more structural integrity... I feel like you can see, between the first and second pictures above, that this idea did help ever so slightly! But also, I think it needs to be gathered on each side -- peep the sewing clips pinned there in the second picture.

I think if I were to make some bows or something and attach them there, gathering in the process, it could actually be cute, maybe! Who knows!

It's still wonky in its construction because everything I make is pretty wonky. It's literally asymmetrical, which is really irritating and something I can't really fix with padding. But I really like this fabric so I'd like to be able to rescue this too-large cover in some way.

This bright checked slipcover is attempt number three, and I'm pretty happy with this version! It is still a leeetle wonky, which is just down to me and my relative lack of skills. But it also is way better than my first two attempts, and I can't lie, I'm gagged that I pulled this off.

The fabric is from the craft section of Dollar Tree, which has fat quarters, though not a huge selection. It happens to be a fairly thick cotton (thicker than a quilting cotton) which added a tad more structure to this particular slipcover, so that's one reason I used it. It does seem a lot sturdier. I also just thought a checked pattern seemed suiting for a couch.

HONESTLY, even though the execution of the pattern is imperfect and the fabric wasn't my first or even second choice, I am so, so proud of myself. Just managing to complete this project and get something not-too-shabby in the end is, for me, a huge accomplishment. I think many people with sewing experience would find this pattern easy to understand and put together, but for me it was really challenging. Taking several swings at it, each attempt being hand-sewn and everything... whew. I really stuck with it. I must take pride in my mediocre sewing skills because I have truly slavishly raised them from subzero.

Another Dollar Tree thing: They had these mini wooden pallets and wooden craft cubes that I thought I could make into a coffee table-type thing! And dang!!! It's so cute! I wonder if I should attempt to stain/seal it, or if that would just be spending money for no good reason when it looks pretty cute as-is.

Other sofa cover notes:

• I added in yet another quarter inch of seam allowance along the bottom of each pattern piece because I wanted to be able to hem the cover. (I hemmed each piece individually, before joining; hence the hem doesn't line up exactly from one piece to another.) This wasn't in the pattern!
• I think the weight of the fabric actually does matter somewhat, for this. I found the thicker cotton behaved a lot better than the thinner cotton and it just seems like it will hold up better and not stretch or get super wrinkled. I guess you could use interfacing to add some structure if you really liked the pattern on a thinner fabric.
• I did not sew in the padding as the pattern instructed, either. I felt confounded by the mere idea. I actually saved the padding step for last, cut each bit down to shape directly to fit the exact area, and glued it in with Aileen's. I was pretty sparing and this seemed to work really well, although I can imagine sewing the padding in is much more secure and I might need to re-glue some spots in the future if the padding starts to come loose somewhere.
• I left off the little closure mechanism that goes beneath the cover -- at least, on the IKEA slip cover, there's a little strap with velcro on it that could help keep the cover in place. I didn't feel like it was necessary... although it admittedly intrigues me...

I think I will give this pattern yet another attempt, not only to see if I can improve even more in my construction of it, but to give myself a couple more options in terms of vibes. I have had dreams the last two nights in a row about sewing this pattern...

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Fey's modern life

WOW, I adore Fey. Dang, she's just so cute with her Licca body. It gives her such a whimsical air, with that head-tilt. And gosh. I just. FBLs...

I'm still just so sad the mold is not being produced any longer, even though that's been the case for a very long time now. I have seven FBL girls, and I think eighteen total were produced. That's quite a lot of FBLs and I sometimes wonder if I will ever get another. To me, their faces are so incredibly sweet. Any FBL would be very loved here at Chez Maidensuit.

ANYWAY, I made each little piece of this outfit, except the shoes, which came from thehandflower -- but those, I did paint! They were just plain blue but I painted the laces and rubber bits white myself! I crocheted the earband, sewed the crop top, and made the little skirt back in 2023 expressly for Fey! This fabric is so fun and odd. The background color is kind of a sickly pinky-beige (... a good descriptor for me tbh) but it has these great blue and mint shapes that are sort of 80s or early 90s! Kinda new wave-y or Pee Wee's Playhouse or something? The color palette's very Rocko's Modern Life, actually. It reminds me of a matching pink sweatshirt/stirrup-pant combo I had circa age 10 that had little geometric shapes on it.

FEY T_T Just look at that FACE! Like a couple of my other girls' hair (thinking of Gavin specifically) it has sort of yellowed with age, but I don't mind that it leans a skosh more green than blue these days. I think that is the case for a lot of brighter Takara hair.

I like this tiny corner of my back porch, by the way. The mossy patina and chipped paint and dirt and weeds and everything. I always love pictures taken here. It's in the background of the header pic up at the top of my blog.

By the way, Fey brought you a drink. She wants you to stay hydrated. And she wants you to know the Feytorade matches her shoes.

(The drink mini is from the Teeny Tinies! Gamer Essentials playset, which came with amazing junk food options.)

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miniature pillows (or, the care and feeding of my soul)

Yesterday I was feeling pretty heavy and discombobulated, after a few vexing days -- on top of Everything Happening In The World, you know. It has lately felt like life consists of little other than the endless grind of stuff I really don't want to do, but have to do anyway, and unpleasantness, and worry. I knew I needed to do something fun. Something for me and not for other people. So I decided to make some little pillows for my doll furniture. I'm in a miniatures phase right now and recently reacquainted myself with the other little cushions and crochet blankets I made in years past. I've only made a few cushions, actually!! I think three? So I decided I need to make scads more!

I found this floral fabric with a very small scale (so satisfying when you're working with doll stuff!!) in my stash and also remembered that last year my wonderful friend Anne sent me a whole little box full of really fun sewing/crafting notions! Miniature buttons in every imaginable color, lots of trims of various sorts, little silk flowers, jump rings -- even more than I can name off the top of my head. It was so exciting to bust out all these extra materials and find the ideal pom-pom trim!! The olive color matched the tiny leaves in this floral fabric PERFECTLY!

So, I intended to make a square pillow and a round pillow. Figuring out how to add the pompom trim to a pillow kind of blew my little dumb sewing mind. I began to sew it on but realized belatedly that once I turned the pillow right-side-out to stuff, the trim would be stuck on the inside of the pillow. Order of operations in sewing really matters and I have messed this up on many occasions in the past. So I ended up just finishing sewing on the trim to one of my circles of fabric and deciding it could be a little tablecloth of some sort!

It fits this little antique store wicker table pretty exactly! (For the circle shapes I was using, I literally traced around the bottom of a can of cranberry sauce. Use what you got!)

On the second go at the round pillow, I managed to figure out the method needed to sew the pompom trim between my two fabric circles. It was sort of tough when it came time to turn the pillow out properly and stuff it, because I had about an inch of pompom trim to tuck between the now right-side-out fabric layers and also I needed to try and fold the fabric layers in on themselves as well. It made for a very rough patch of visible stitching (in the picture below you can see it along the bottom of the pillow) because I don't really know stitches or techniques to better deal with this kind of thing. I think it is neither noticeable nor important, haha. These little pillows are just photography/video/setup props.

On the square pillow, I randomly decided to attach an applique I found in my stash. I got a bunch of these little miniature doily appliques from the Michael's dollar section ten years ago (at least) and I still have a few packets of them. I was going to pop a button in the middle of the pillow anyway, because I like that look, and decided to make the button the middle of the flower shape. Eeee!

I just had myself the best little time sewing yesterday. I kept thinking, "I am just having the time of my life right now!" It was such a profound balm to my sore and ragged soul.

I've mentioned this a couple of times, I feel like (here and there), but it is difficult to thrive amongst continuous news cycles and social media algorithms that bury you in bad news on the daily. That is by design, because scary and negative things get a lot of attention. More views, more clicks, more discussion. One way people try to protect themselves and deal with scary things is by knowing everything possible, to feel prepared and in-the-know about the latest horrific development in the news or in more random internet rabbitholes -- whatever. But then their algorithms get trained to feed them more of that stuff, until it feels like the entire world is a horror show consisting of nothing but awful people and conspiracies and the latest thing certain evil people said. I'm not strictly talking politics, although that's a huge part of it. But even seemingly positive things like staying self-educated with regards to health topics can get twisted by the algorithm into health fear-mongering and distrust in medical professionals, et cetera. Most people aren't being careful with what they digest online, or considering their sources.

I have a couple of family members sucked into this type of self-perpetuating engine. Constantly sucking down soul poison. I do care about the state of the world and about my fellow humans; I care about corruption and injustice and evil. And I will vote against them, and protest against them, and live my life according to the things I believe are good and right. But just don't want to think about and discuss the latest alarming development in an ongoing bad news cycle every single day. I just can't inject myself with soul-killing stuff on the daily. Maybe a lot of people are stronger than me and can do that without huge mental health ramifications. But I can't. I have to want to live in this world. I have to live in a brain, a body, that works against me and tells me enough bad things already. I have to use my limited time on this planet in a way that makes me glad to be here. If I'm not feeding my soul, if I am not nourishing it with the things it needs, then it is not just sitting around, stalling in neutral, unharmed. No. It is getting constantly worn down and damaged by outside forces and it will ultimately wither and die. I have to, I have to, take care of it. Or else what is the POINT of anything.

I am expressing this here instead of just dropping a fun little post with some pics and vamoosing because Cure Touch is entirely emblematic, to me, of my constant, consistent choice to try and center any joy I can for myself. I have needed it for that purpose since its inception. And I need to reiterate its purpose now. And my purpose. To myself, if almost no one else. For a long while now my about page has stated: "I believe creating and defining happiness for yourself, and in maintaining a healthy relationship with online content." I wrote that, I'm pretty sure, ten-plus years ago. Curating and being intentional with the online sphere has only become more vital. It has become harder, too.

And I am posting all this with this post because I am being so serious and for real when I say that making little pillows for my doll furniture was so good for my soul. It made me so happy. I was hurting for something like this activity.

I am going to make some more soon.

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strawberry springtime

Got a yen to do another little setup with some miniatures. Recently I dressed Fidelia and Beatrix in some duds from the Strawberry Shortcake fashion sets I blogged about here (and which I scored from Five Below). I really, really love this plaid dress with the double ribbons at its drop waist! I'm not sure that it's a drop waist on the doll for which it is meant, but on Beatrix, it sure is.

(Other outfit roundup deets: Fidelia's skirt is from PrettyBomb and she's wearing Didee Eureka's stock Mary Janes. Beatrix's sneakers are from thehandflower.)

Another Strawberry Shortcake thing I got from Five Below recently is this Teeny Tinies! Strawberry's Bake Shop Set. It was $5, of course, and came with 20 pieces, some of which I like and some of which I don't. But that's a great price for a handful of miniatures I do like. I'm kinda miniatures-crazy right now so I actually got three sets of Teeny Tinies! miniatures... Anyway, I used several items from this specific set here!

Most from the Strawberry's Bake Shop Set -- the cart and everything on top of the cart -- but the doughnuts on the lower tray, the teacups, and the pink lemonade bottle are craft store miniatures.

I got out one of my Michael's not-doll-furniture benches from a couple of years ago, some 1:6-ish scale cushions I hand-sewed eons ago, and this little bunny! Because of course! Easter!

I was pretty tickled just setting all this up and taking photos. But I decided to take some footage with my phone, too, and edit together a small reel or short or whatever you want to call it. Here 'tis:

Notes on this little video:

• I don't know how to edit videos on my phone. I must admit my ignorance here. I have abandoned social media several times since 2016 (due to mental health/feeling unable to cope with the state of the world at large), don't use TikTok at all, etc. I'm not a short form content girlie. So I kind of missed the boat on editing together content for platforms that have made strong moves towards it. Like, I do not know what app people are using to make their videos?!!?! iMovie? Capcut? What is the proper workflow for that? I only know how to use Adobe Premiere on my desktop computer. So I used that to edit this, uploaded it to the cloud, and used the Reels app on my phone just to put a slight lighting filter over the finished product, to try and get the virulent colors to be more true to life.
• Yes, the background music is me playing my Omnichord!!! Because I am really interested in using it for stuff like this. I just placed it on my desk where my keyboard is and aimed a mic at its speaker! So, you can hear not only the output, but you can actually hear me pressing the buttons. It sounds to me like a music box with that kind of clicking. And I am just playing through the first verse of "In the Golden Afternoon" from Disney's Alice in Wonderland on it. I'm really tickled this worked alright.

I'm spending so much of my time on band stuff -- pretty much since I joined it, last summer, my time's really been sucked away by it -- but lately I'm feeling a lot of desire to try and pack my own individual hobbies back onto my plate. I want to do doll stuff, I want to sew more little cushions and pillows for my doll furniture, I want to sew some little clothes!

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filling a miniature shelf (+ Gavin and Miette)

There are Blythes in this post. Can you believe it!

So I got this cute arched miniature shelf thingie at Michael's. It seems like every spring they have some accidentally-doll-sized something. In the past it's been chairs/benches. I cannot for the life of me find this small decor item anywhere on the Michael's website, and it was the very last one on the shelf at my local store. But I think it was part of the "Next Chapter" collection they had this winter/spring; it was in that area and is a similar color to other bigger shelving in the collection.

I've really been living for the possibility that there might be something that's accidentally Blythe-sized at craft stores this spring, so I was so happy to score this. It was 60% off, too, which really took the price down, from ~$15 to $6.

For the past many years now I have been slowly but regularly adding to my collection of miniatures, a few pieces at a time. I got a couple of spring miniatures from this year along with the shelf, and when I got home, I got the urge to style the shelf with some of my springy/floral/gardening-related minis!

Some things for you to espy:

• Top shelf: tiny snails!!!
• Middle shelf: I painted that little light blue mushroom back in 2010!
• Bottom shelf: The little turtle acting as a bookend!

Placing each item one at a time into this little shelf brought me incredible amounts of joy and satisfaction!!

But I couldn't leave it at just the little shelf. I had to dress a doll and add her to the scene. Not just one! But two!! And I added even more miniatures into the scene.

One: On Gavin, I put these teeny-weeny purple flower hair clips! Two: I bought these miniature pastel macarons forever ago. I set them on Miette's lap! Three: I also had these miniature shopping bags from circa the same miniatures collection (from Michael's) and had never even opened the package. This one that says "la petite bookshop" matched the lavender/lilac vibe. Of course anything French is right up Miette's alley! Four: I really wished I had a miniature dog or cat to place in the loveseat next to Gavin! The closest I could get was digging out this dog-printed cushion from Didee Eureeka's stock (!!!) but it simply looks like a pillow to me, and not a companion. Still, what fun to actually use that random bit of stock.

Other stuff in the scene: Some wicker furniture I scored a long time ago on Etsy (not sure when but they were in Lamb's dressup video in 2015!) and some stuff I crocheted over the years (a tiny ripple throw and a rainbow-shaped rug or throw, whichever) and tiny cushions I sewed (helping to support the dolls).

It's been so long since I've indulged in playing with my miniatures and doll furniture and setting up a scene. I'm not as good at this kind of thing as many doll photographers are, so I always have to remind myself that it's fun to do it for the love of play and not perfection. It does bother me that the rug and shelf aren't perfectly aligned, but I just gotta let it go, man. I really, really benefitted from playing around with this today!

I imagine that Miette and Gavin got dolled up in their springy frocks, went shopping (perhaps to "la petite bookshop" and/or to a bakery), and came home to gossip. Gavin kicked her shoes off.

Finally, I really try to cite where I attained all my dolly duds for any interested parties, but I got almost all of what Gavin and Miette are wearing secondhand. I'll make my finest attempt anyway.

Gavin's dress: I think sleepforever (I was gifted the dress last year and I already don't remember!)
Gavin's hot pink Mary Janes: eBay circa 2015 is my best guess
Miette's dress: secondhand in 2012 (it's one of my FAVORITES!)
Miette's petticoat: MINIJIJO in 2017
Miette's white strappy shoes: thehandflower

I have made a couple of posts about putting miniatures in little shelves before! Here and here! There's one item that's been in all three posts.

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springtime sittin' 2: still sittin'

Last March I posted about coincidentally-Blythe-scale decor furniture from Michael's -- and this year, they have more coincidentally-Blythe-scale tabletop decor furniture! Yay! Look at these!

As you can see, I got the yellow chair in the peacock-esque shape! It's giving vintage rattan, except of course... metal, not rattan. Fey looks so cute in it right now, in her TiredMomKnits dress! I'd really like to snag one of these other ones that looks like a birdcage, but the listing online says it's a couple of inches bigger than the one I got. I'd rather see it in person before getting it, and I didn't see them at my local Michael's.

They also have this dragonfly design, which I did see:

I love this color green for this little furniture! But I don't love the design of this one, I admit!

• chair link 1
• chair link 2
• chair link 3

Gotta say, I hope they'll continue this trend next spring too. It's so fun to get what functions as doll furniture for, like, less than ten bucks a pop.

Here's a little bonus pic of Fey's pullring and mushroom sleepy eyes charm! I believe she's had it for a good ten years now!

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springtime sittin'

STOP. This picture of Vesper!!! I'm in love. Vesper is very regal in style and this is the first dressup I've done with her where I thought it remotely began to approach suiting her elevated style. She's wearing Vinter Arden's dress and Dear Lele Girl's flower hair pin, and her own stock shoes. The hat looks like Very Vicky's, but in fact, it's one from the craft store that I doctored up with a lace bow!

But let's talk about this bench! Right now in their spring decor section, Michael's has these two miniature benches that are perfectly sized for Blythe!! They're supposed to be tabletop decor, I think. (They have a lot of miniature bathtubs right now too? For putting flowers or crystals in, or something.)

They are extremely cute, needless to say! It's actually rare I see stuff like this out in the wild. By "stuff like this" I mean miniature furniture that is the correct scale for Blythe. These aren't being sold in the miniatures section and aren't meant for dolls, I guess, but I think they're just about 1/6 scale by coincidence.

I not only took Vesper outside for a pic, but Wisp (I couldn't resist the green+brown color combination they've both got happening). It was quite chilly out despite the green spring grass, and windy to boot. Lots of stray hairs flying this way and that, and I quickly gave up before getting too many pics. But I'm pretty dang pleased with the cuteness this bench provided.

In personal news, I'm a month in on a dosage increase on one of my meds. I was on this dosage for a while and went back down a dosage again, but now I'm back up here, MG-wise. It's been messing with my sleep and my creativity. But your girl's out here tryin' her best.

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a little Christmas card

While I was editing pics of my styled IKEA bookcase, I took one of the pictures I took and edited it into a little Christmas card. It's cringe but I am cringe, and I am free.

But seriously, thank you to anyone who reads this blog. I have been enjoying posting here this year and I appreciate your eyeballs passing over my pictures and words and thoughts and feelings. Hope you have a happy holiday season, whatever you celebrate -- or don't celebrate.

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styling the IKEA Huset bookcase three ways

Okay, so I've been slowly collecting miniatures for years now. A couple of times I've been so lucky as to score furniture from thrift stores or eBay or Etsy, and I have even made some things. But mostly, my miniatures collection comes from the various craft stores that sell that kind of thing. Don't hate -- no ethical consumption under capitalism, et cetera!

I've been especially wanting to gather enough miniatures to believably fill in my IKEA Huset bookcase! Lately I've been putting stuff in it at random, loosely sticking to themes, and I decided to take pictures of some of my themed setups...

First is easiest: a kitchen display!

Jam jars; wooden dishes; pots and pans; ceramic teacups and saucers; a basket with a tiny pear and orange; books, including cookbooks and plant books; I am pretending the damask cube is one of those fabric drawer things. My favorite favorite favorite thing is the little gold scissors!!

Next idea: Christmas!

This one's pretty simple! I don't have much in the way of Christmas miniatures, because Christmas tends to be very primary in terms of colors. Red and green, of course, but also blue and yellow. Whereas I lean more pastel toned or earth toned or metallic. But these mini gifts are always everywhere in every miniatures section each year, so I have acquired a couple of packets on deep discount in the last few years. I got the mini bottle brush trees from the Target dollar spot a couple years back, and although they are large in scale for 1:12 or 1:16 scale, I think they still make for a super cute display!

Also in the shelf: a small scarf I knitted, all rolled up, and some miniature Christmas books. This gold mirror isn't Christmas-y per se, but I still think it works!

Finally: a cottagecore witch shelf!

I love this one!! I can imagine the owner of the items really clearly. I could have gone 100% witchy -- just spellbooks and spooky stuff -- or 100% cottagecore, with baskets and gardening supplies and herb books. But the rose quartz rabbit figurine, which I've had since childhood, inspired me to mash up the crystal boho white witch aesthetic with cottagecore! Bunnies, knitting, gardening, tiny mushrooms! I crocheted this rainbow rug from the same pattern from which I make rainbow pillows. I imagined it would go well with the yellow gingham sofa cover I have for the Huset sofa. But it looks sweet and soft here by this shelf, in my opinion!

I need you to know that this box holds a tiny but full deck of tarot cards!!! It's a bit hard to hold, so I put it in the lid of a small paper box I made years ago. I'd like to finagle a basket that's the perfect size for the deck. I'll probably need to get some twine and wrap a box to make a bespoke basket just for them...

Those are the three styles I messed around with today! Other ideas: craft/art room shelf (lots of knitting/yarn, an art set, maybe miniature paintings or drawings); bedroom shelf; shoe/bag collection shelf; an entire shelf of nothing but various mini mushrooms!

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crochet strawberry bags

Hello! Happy 2023. Thus far this year I've been crocheting a lot! Really in the mood for it. Mostly I've been crocheting on a ripple throw, but I spent yesterday making these strawberry bags and wanted to post about 'em!

Firstly, I followed this pattern to make all of these! And I made the pink one in worsted weight yarn for me to see if I could even follow the pattern in the first place. (I'm not great at this, as you might know!)

I used a pastel rose pink and a minty pastel green, plus some pearly white beads and a couple of chunkier beads in peachy colors. I really like the way the colors all look together! The bag's about the size of my fist and it'd be great for the following: D&D DICE!!!! And, I guess, lip balms and smaller things that tend to knock around in one's purse. But mostly it'd be a great dice bag!

As I was making the bag, I kept thinking I'd like to see how it looked if I used fingering weight/super fine yarn and a tiny crochet hook. Might it end up... dare I say... Blythe sized??

Heck yeah, heck yeah, heck yeah it did!

I made one in classic red and green with tiny white seed beads, and while looking up strawberries for reference, I saw the cute five-petaled flowers of the plant, and decided to put some of my beaded ring techniques to the test with some beads. Lord knows I have enough of 'em! So I used some pearly white and gold beads to create the flowers, and sewed them on to the "leaves." So cute!!! If I do say so myself!!!

I decided to take another go at the whole make. I tend to make lots of a thing, when I like it, and also it behooves me to practice following patterns and figuring out what techniques and looks I prefer.

I decided I wanted an alternate color scheme: wine red and gold. An antique~ spin on it in more sophisticated colors. I beaded this one with gold seed beads and used more off-white pearl beads and warmer gold beads for the flowers. I didn't think a plain strap very appealing on this one, so I wove in some brown yarn on the strap of this one. I like it a lot! It's not as instantly recognizable as a strawberry, but whatevs.

I think it makes for a cute slightly oversized Blythe bag (here it is on Klara, whompssssstt modesty I tried to preserve via Procreate, as she's currently naked). It makes me want to find a slightly smaller strawberry amigurumi pattern to follow, to see if I can kinda smash the two patterns together and create an even smaller strawberry bag. I'm sure many patterns are out there, but it's always kind of an act of particular gumption for me to even attempt to follow a new pattern.

Oh, and also, I lined the bigger one -- clumsily. Not sure how to line stuff. But I was just winging/experimenting, as I didn't have a pattern for lining.

In all, very pleased, I had a very good time making smol strawbrees. I do think I'll fiddle around with making even smaller strawberries and maybe finding other things to use for straps. Crocheted/knitted bag straps tend to stretch, and I don't know if I really want to line the straps too!

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miniature books

A random project I have been working on lately is making some more miniature books to plop into my dolls' Huset bookshelf. These two album-sized books are ones I particularly like!

I'm sure there are several ways to go about a DIY like this. Different ways to do the pages, or ways to make the books look super realistic. But I'm just kinda doing my own thing using leftover scrapbooking card stock and notebook papers of various types. Oh, and also washi tape!

I have a lot of paper pads and so many of them come with these ugly sheets with "live, laugh, love" types of things written on them. I have no use for them. I also have a lot of small scraps of card stock from other projects. They've been perfect to use for tiny book covers!

Also useful: binder clips, these ancient stickers that go on the edges of corners (they might be for scrapbooking? Embellishing the edges of pages or pictures? Not sure), and this tray to keep it all together while I assemble things. The miniature notebook dedicated some of its pages.

I have also collected some mini books from Michael's. These have a sort of farmhouse/cottagecore theme, which is perfect. Petaline and Plummery will love them, and they'll help fill out my bookshelf.

I've been very interested in acquiring more miniatures!

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