Colour Inn

Let's look at some of the colourful projects which have kept me recently and otherwise distracted.

Yes, it's the Dolls' House again. We'll start with a room-by-room, fine-tooth-comb explanation of the Dolls' House because I don't think you've seen enough of it. The roof is painted White Knight Cherry Red enamel.

These decal trees I got made especially for the Dolls' House. You can see more here.

I chose the sorts of trees and colours and got them appropriately sized. They're bespoke trees. I'll be honest, I'm not a fan of decals, but I thought they'd look good in this context. The back of the DH, you can see, is a black board. The exterior paint is Taubmans Favorite Fawn (susceptible to fingerprints unfortunately).

The roof garden: Here we have decal clouds, also from the bespoke bloke who did the trees, but I asked for smaller-scale clouds. The sky is Dulux Mineral Shower (c/o Sonia) There's an astro-turf lawn, some vintage dolls' patio furniture, a fish-tank plant in a plastic pot, some plastic roses as hedges, and some refreshing cans of dolly-sized, ice-cold coke from my Canadian contact.

The kiddies' room: Here we have vintage wall paper, a mix of Ikea and Lego furniture, and some vintage West German wooden furniture that I had when I was smaller than I am now. The walls are painted in Taubmans Orange Slice.

On the floor, we have a Moomin rug aka Moomin dishcloth which you can buy from Stockmann Finland. But mine came from Elisabeth. On the walls we have a sample of artwork from the Dick Bruna's Matching Card Game series.

 Soft furnishings are made by me from sewing scraps, except for the crochet blanket on the four-poster bed which came as a collection of flowers from Ingrid.

Master bedroom: Linking the kiddies' room with the master bedroom, is a miniature garland of pom-poms. I was inspired by Max (who's also taking part in the I'm a Giant Challenge). The room is furnished with a kaleidoscope of Ikea and Lego furniture. The walls are covered in vintage wallpaper from my good pal Zigsma, and are otherwise smeared with Taubmans Ancient Sphinx. The rug is hand-made from pieces of felt, and the vases are Dinosaur Designs miniature rip-offs.

Kitchen: The kitchen floor is vinyl slate cut-offs from Reverse Garbage. Furniture and family pets by Lego. The walls are papered in vintage wall-paper, and artwork from Bruna's Matching Card Game series.

On the left wall is a little black-board pig ... perfect for writing down a couple of necessary grocery items.

Dining room: This room may be my favourite, purely because the floor took so long to paint. As a base we have Taubmans Hi-chrome yellow, with Orange Slice, British Paints' Hot Pop Red, British Paints' Sonora Rose, Taubmans' Split Lime, Mineral Shower and Titanic. Art work again by Bruna.

Here we've dressed the table with a fabric scrap table cloth.

 Bathroom: Despite having my favourite vintage wallpaper, this room was the most frustrating to complete. There's a whale painted in Ancient Sphinx, vintage West-German cupboard, and an ice-cream container bathtub. The floor is wooden vinyl cutoffs again from Reverse Garbage. I wish I could do more in here, but I'm not sure what.

Lounge room: There's a lot going on in this room. You can see it over-looks the manicured front lawn. Walls are papered in vintage wallpaper and painted in Taubmans Split Lime. The floors are covered in faux-wood contact. Furniture is a combination of vintage Barbie Town House and Ikea, along with a hand-made coffee table and planters.

A collection of bead vases encapsulate the tropical tones of this room. There is a leather cow-hide rug under a pine coffee table. Cushions are all Marimekko and a fish-tank plant is set in a lime green planter made from the base of a pavlova egg (inspired by Artistica Domestica).

On the wall is an original print entitled Sundays Afternoon by Israeli artist tushtush.

In a misjudged photo opportunity, I realised that Dolly fails to wear undies, but we're all friends so let's overlook that fashion faux pas

In this part of the lounge room, we have various beads masquerading as vases and what-not, a sheep skin rug, Marimekko and green-velvet soft furnishings, a bespoke 70s wall mirror, and a fish-tank plant in a bullet planter (inspired by here) all made by me.

Fabulous. 

Whoopsy, I noticed that this Dolly's pants are falling down ... but let he or she who has never publicly disgraced themselves throw the first stone.

For more colour slams around here, look at what me and my new best friend, Ms Staple Gun, have put together. 

A new seat cover for this swivel chair. How easy is upholstering, readers? It's easy.

As for Advent calendars, I got in, just in time, to make up for last year's lack of, and bought this vintage Italian one. It's too cute. In a recent post, Bobbi the funniest Italian I know, asked me how I knew something was Italian. Well, generally people will tell me if it's Italian, and I'll believe them. Wrongly or rightly.

And then I've been whipping vintage tea towels into fabulous wall-hangings complete with dowel rods. We'll keep one, and give the other one away to some lucky, little tyke for Christmas.

And hold onto your knicker-bockers, check out Martha's "new" bed that used to be my bed. Complete with Marimekko canopy and bedspread. 

Acting on a moment of insanity, we dismantled her cot. Wrongly or rightly. Now she sleeps like a Scandinavian princess in an Australian toddler's body and most of the time it's not in her new bed, but in her parents' bed. There's something to be said for enforced incarceration in a cot.

Phew. Speaking of sleeping, I'm now going to put the blog to bed. It's impossible to work everyday, come home, pretend to adequately look after four children (ie feed them, smile at them and talk to them), and then blog about the superfluities. The blog's got to go. To bed. Finally.

So, to everyone who's commented along the way, and to those who have donated things for the Dolls' House, thank you.

PS I think our lizard is pregnant. Finnish K thinks I feed her too much banana, but I beg to differ.

She's got a belly full of something.