What's she up today? Back to the dollhouse

I asked my husband for a house last Christmas. And this is what he got me. Thank goodness I wasn't hinting about wanting a real house. Just in case he didn't catch on, I dragged him to the hobby store and pointed out the dollhouse I wanted and then handed him the 40% off coupon.

The dollhouse to the left is what you get if you follow the directions. The instructions weren't the easiest to follow (no pictures or diagrams *gasp*). So I gave up on following the directions and had some fun in the process.

This is what it looks like after you punch out all the pieces. Word of advice. Label everything.
Oh! And don't through anything out either. I ran out of shingles because I placed them too close together. Ooops. I was able to cut extra shingles from the leftover roofing material.

Not too shabby. I'm particularly please with the bricks and grass. The bricks were cut from paper egg cartons, painted, and spackled to the house and yard. There are plenty of how to's on Pinterest. This was not my first adventure in paper brick making, so it went fast. I really wanted a yard and wasn't overly impressed with the ready to purchase grass at the hobby store, so I searched for some alternatives. Painting a towel sounded silly at first, but given that I could purchase one at the dollar store, I gave it a try. The towel worked great, though it did take take to get the texture right and to apply enough color to keep it from appearing too flat.

 The towel worked great for creating dirt as well. My garden isn't quite done, but here's an idea of how the dirt came out.




The outside's looking pretty nice. Time to get to work on the inside.