Sunday

JUNE: Beach Dollhouse Adventures

What a thrill to be able to join in this new Club Little House venture! We are all here because we share a love and fascination for the tiny 1/12-scale treasures that we buy, make, or share to fashion little vignettes of tiny worlds we construct for ourselves.

In reading about the history of dollhouses (Wikipedia), I was amazed to discover that “Today's doll's house traces its history directly back about four hundred years to the ‘baby houses’ of Europe.” It’s fascinating to think that we’re adding to the dollhouse story and maybe our dollhouses will, over time, delight others long after we’re gone.


My dollhouse is a beach house—a gift from my loving parents and sister when my husband and I married. It is constructed on stilts so it doesn’t get washed out to sea during hurricanes. The whole thing is constructed on a platform which sits on a lazy-susan so I can turn it around to play with it. My dad made a mixture of sand from our home beach with glue he adhered to the platform to emulate the house actually being on a beach near the water’s edge.


The little things I have so far amaze me. There is a golf club set ready to go on the front porch, a tiny IRS form for filing your taxes (even in dollhouse world, I guess we can’t escape), a minuscule box of aluminum foil, itsy-bitsy croissants, frosted donuts and yummy brownies in their own bakery packages, a miniature hurricane lamp (so necessary for power outages during storms) and so on. Under the house are our cars, surfboard, rowboat, life jackets, and other assorted toys associated with the beach.


Some of the wonders that furnish my dollhouse are due to Club Little House. This clever group of dollhouse lovers has provided fabulous creations such as a Hermès bag and box, artist’s easel with its accompanying canvas and palette, beds, dishes, blueberry pie, pie safes, china cabinets, cradles, Halloween treats, and so on. The imaginations of the wonderful club members inspire and astound me.

I’m hard at work on my Club Little House project and hope you will love it as much as I love making it for you. May your dollhouse days be full of sunshine and joy!

June

12 comments:

amy said...

AMAZING! I love these pictures. The picture of the front porch seriously looks like a real, big house! It's very inspiring to see these pictures. Thanks so much for sharing your story and pictures with us.

Anonymous said...

I can never quite get over the shakes for the siding. It's such a beautiful dollhouse; so many perfect details.

Anonymous said...

June, I just found your blog.
Sorry I had never looked before, I only checked you out on flickr.
Love the little house.
Will keep an eye on you from here too.

a pink-bee said...

I love your beach dollhouse! It is so pretty with all the decorating you have done -really like the tiny dollhouse you have for your own dolls:)

jess said...

This is just beautiful! I made the little bed there in the corner. It's so thrilling seeing what people do with the things you make. Have fun with CLH this time around!

kerry lynn said...

this is just beautiful!!
can i come for a vacation!?
xoxo

Daisy said...

Hey, when can I move in to that beach house.I've always dreamed of a porch like that!
Ever wished that you could be a real for life "Alice in Wonderland"? I think that I would spend each day in a different house. ( Unless I found one that I wanted to stay in of course!!!)

The Fab Miss B said...

It is so fun to see all of your little doll houses. I can't have one just yet as my husband and I are always traveling and don't even have a big house of our own at present. This is certainly quite inspiring. We were in Amsterdam a few months back and saw a doll house that was so tall you needed a ladder to get up to see it all! The description said that these wealthy women had replicas made of every object in their homes and used them to show off to their guests. They were not toys! They were status symbols. What a fun tradition. I'll check back often.

Saucy said...

June, your beach house is so wonderful! What a great wedding gift... and a fun story! Your husband must get quite a kick out of it.

Birds of a Feather said...

i want to live in the beach house, it's amazing right down to every detail, even the cars ~ perfect!

what a great idea to start a blog for your club. i love seeing what all of you make...and tried to join in but always seem to miss the swaps ~ someday.

i'll be stopping by to see your renovations!

Julie said...

This beech doll house is the cutest I have ever seen!!! My daughters had a miniture house when they were young and literly played that thing into pieces. I fixed it several times and then just had to give up...but it was well loved!

I am just starting to learn how to blog. You sight was a great inspiration!!! Thank you.

Cami said...

Oh, I love this!