Baking Day

Since my dollhouse is still in the painting stage and thus unassembled, I've been making some more goodies for it. I didn't use tutorials this time, so these are all my own designs.

Firstly, a strawberry tart:

I used a mold for the cake base and then made the strawberries from Premo clay. The cream is white acrylic paint. 

Secondly, a cream cake:

This one is made of alternating round slices of white and brown Fimo clay, and the swirl on top is white clay as well. The berries are red Premo clay, and the cream whips are white acrylic paint. 

Thirdly, I made some bread and bread rolls. I really like how these came out!

I mixed white and brown Fimo until I had a nice pale brown "bread" color. Then I dabbed on some darker brown acrylic paint and glossed them (made the indent in the middle with a clay tool I had).

Miniatures can be made from almost anything. I can definitely attest to that: I found this champagne bottle cork on the ground recently:

I washed it and turned it into a little stool and a serving dish:

Can't wait what other treasures I'll find just by walking my dog! :-)

Apple pickin' at Green Gables

This past week I've made bushelfuls of apples for Green Gables. I found some Premo clay at Kädentaitomessut (local craft fair) last weekend, and I love it, much better than Fimo. I followed the tutorial here, and I'm pretty happy with the results. Marilla was rather thrilled by the apples as well, and she couldn't help snacking on a few as she was making a cake.

Anne also took a platter of apples to her room for a study snack:

After supplying Green Gables with all the apples they needed, I still had a whole bag left:

I did a bit of painting, too, but that didn't go too well. The paint I had bought was way too dark and too "army green" for Green Gables. 

The weird thing is that I had to paint all that before I realized I must stop. Luckily, I managed to get almost all of it off; the wood only has a few darker stains that refuse to come off. So, no real harm done there!

Next, I'll continue painting the white parts of the house, and I have a feeling Marilla will make some yummy cakes...

In the beginning, there was paint.

I got my dollhouse a week ago, but I haven't assembled it yet. It's pink and white in color, and since the colors of Green Gables are white and green, I must paint it. I've already started the process, and the parts look like this right now:

The parts clearly need two coats of paint; I've painted the smaller parts twice already and they are ready to go, but the bigger parts that have only been painted once still show some pink, as you can probably see. 


I've also started to prepare the parts with windows for painting:

I'm painting the windows and the ornamental corners in green, so I've covered everything else with masking tape (hence the pale yellow color). It took quite a while! 


I've also found my Anne doll! I bought Anne, Marilla and Matthew at the same time as I bought my dollhouse (from Minimaailma):

When I took a closer look at the dolls at home, I noticed the clothes and the hats had been glued onto the dolls - bummer! However, I managed to get the frilly hat off of Anne's head, and I tied her hair back with a silk ribbon. I also cut a few locks from the back and glued them onto the front to form a little fringe of sorts. It's looks pretty nice! She hasn't got any clothes yet, though, because I haven't found the right kind of fabrics.

The Matthew doll is fine; I only took off the red cravat. I'm not sure what I'll do with the Marilla doll, though, since that headpiece is really hard to get off without ruining the hair, and now that I look at her, she doesn't look stern enough. Maybe I'll keep her for a servant when I build my Longbourn from Austen's Pride & Prejudice. :-)

Welcome to Green Gables!

This blog chronicles my project of building Green Gables as a dollhouse. Green Gables, from the beloved children's book Anne of Green Gables, is a Victorian farmhouse on Canada's Prince Edward Island. It gets the name from its green windows and shutters. The Green Gables of the books was inspired by an actual farmhouse that belonged to author Lucy Maud Montgomery's relatives. She lived there herself and loved it. The house has been restored to "Anne"-time and is nowadays a tourist attraction. 

I've been an avid Anne fan since I was a kid, and when I thought about what my dollhouse would be like, Green Gables seemed like a natural choice. My all-time favourite character, though, is Emily from Emily of New Moon (also by L.M.M), and I might well build New Moon next. I hope you enjoy following my project. Thanks for reading! :-)