Where I've Been: a 1930s Dorm Room

I spent the last two days hanging out at my old college, helping my little brother begin packing up his dorm room.  I visited a lot of my old haunts, saw a few people I knew, and just had a great time. As we were packing, I snapped a few photos, which I thought I'd share.

One of my favorite things about living at Sarah Lawrence was the dorms. The college has a few traditional dormitories, but most of those were built in the late 1920/ early 1930s and have hardwood floors, Jack-and-Jill bathrooms, and other great details. Even better are the dorms in converted houses.  In the 1970s the college bought up houses in the surrounding area to house more students. The house/dorm above is one of my favorites!

I lived in this dorm during my sophomore year. That big second floor window to the left of the door was my room!

The college didn't do much more to the houses other than put up a few walls to make more bedrooms, so they have a lot of character. This section of the old kitchen was left untouched in Peter's house.

Peter's room is a tiny single in one of the converted houses. He's a bit obsessed with the 1930s, so walking into his room is a bit like walking into a time machine.

Don't believe me? His toiletries are above. His toothbrush is made of bone and boar's hair, he shaves with a straight razor (in the black case below the red harmonica box) and restores vintage lighters (next to the harmonica box) for fun. 

This Eastlake mirror is Peter's baby. We never know what he will bring back from the flea market. Sometimes it's an antique like the mirror...

...other times it's something like these antlers, affectionately known as "Bambi." The photographs and NRA (National Recovery Administration) poster are just computer printouts in thrift store frames.

 

I can't show the rest of the room, since we'd already started packing and created a huge mess throughout the dorm before I thought to take photos. I hope you enjoyed this little tangent. I'll be back in the miniature world for the next post!

Guess What I Did Last Night?

The nonfiction sections of my (real life) bookshelves were completely out of order, and a quick straightening job turned into a full scale project! My books are in several bookcases spread all over the house, so it took a few trips with a laundry basket full of books to get everything in the right room, let alone on the right shelf.

Victorian books above, miniature books below

 



The reason I'm posting about it here is that I finally got all my dollhouse books together. They've been spread out for so long, I was a little shocked to see how many I had accumulated. The bottom shelf is miniature books- histories on the left, guides to specific houses/collections (e.g. Queen Mary's dollhouse, and the Thorne rooms) in the center, and how-to books on the right. As I was going through, I noticed I had duplicate copies of a couple books, and many similar books on certain topics. I'm planning to go through them at some point more carefully, narrow them down, and offer the duplicates to anyone who is interested.

I decided to separate out all my Victorian reference books as well, since I mostly pull them out to figure out what my dollhouse should look like. They ended up on the shelf above the miniature books. You can see two of my favorites on this shelf. Antiques from the Victorian Home, by Bea Howe, is an older book that gives a great overview of Victorian crafts and tchotchkes. There are a few crafts discussed in this book that I've never/rarely seen mentioned anywhere else! Inside the Victorian Home, by Judith Flanders, is another favorite. It's the thick cream book on the shelf above.  While it's not the most relevant book if you are looking for information about decorating a Victorian period dollhouse,  it has tons of interesting information on everything from the release of the drug aspirin to the invention of the S-bend!

More books on a variety of topics

 

My favorite resource for books are the local library book fairs. I go to several every summer and come away with boxes of used books on the most random topics. In fact, the more quirky the topic the better, since these books often have more specific information about minutiae than brief web articles! Some of my favorite finds: an entire book about Cotswold privies, another about the history of valentines, and a guide to framing paintings which has a great section on antique frames.

Sorry for the tangential post. I'll be back to miniatures next time!

Naughty or Nice?

Today's post is going to be really short, because Christmas decorating is in full swing around here!

I made this little corset following this tutorial (I had to resize the pattern to dollhouse scale) I've tried a few different (mini) corset patterns over the years, and the nice thing about this one is that it really does have a very narrow, hourglass shape. However,  if you try this tutorial yourself, you should know that the hips of this particular pattern were huge. I took them in a bit, and they still look a bit large to me!

 I kept the front panels of the corset plain, but I just bought some silver thread, and am thinking I might be able to fake some little hook and eye clasps down the front with a few tiny stitches. I'll post again if my experiments are successful!

Where I've Been (and a Few More Beaded Bags)

A lot has happened since the last time I posted. 

 First, there was this:

During Hurricane Sandy, we lost the entire top of one of the oldest trees in our yard. It also took out our power for about a week, and our phone/Internet was down even longer. Being out of power wouldn't have been so bad (we'd stocked up before the storm) but...

we were also supposed to have a table at Philadelphia Miniaturia! We were really afraid that we would have to cancel due flooding. Fortunately, the house stayed dry, and we  were able to go after all!  We left the house in trusted hands, and headed for the luxury of a hotel with electricity.

Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so I don't have any photos of the show, but I'll post photos of the things we bought in another post.

We had a really good time at Philadelphia. Mom sold a bunch of her dolls, and I sold a few of my little things as well, including some of these beaded bags. I'm secretly dying to make more beaded bags -they're really addictive- but I'm going to restrain myself for a while, since they tend to take over my worktable and time!

 I'm generally not a big fan of purple. But the lavender bag (second from right) ended up as one of my favorites. It's difficult to see in the photo, but the design around the edge is backed by silver beads- the lavender is only in the center square.

The handbag on the far left was vaguely inspired by Gustav Klimt ( I was toying with the idea of making a Halloween costume based on his portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer) Somehow it ended up looking more steampunk but that just gives me an excuse to try again!
 My first post on the beaded bags is here, and the tutorial is here.

Projects with Paper

I'm really not fond of making flowers. It's strange, because I usually like working with paper. But even the simplest plant kit seems to drag on forever! Looking around my dollhouse, I noticed that it really needed plants. I'm addicted to miniature porcelain, so I have tons of vases, but they're all empty!

I started with a camellia kit from SDK miniatures. Most of the flowers ended up in this pretty wooden vase, at least for the moment. I thought the vase was painted by Janet Reyburn, but when I looked at the bottom, I noticed that the intials were RW. Does anyone know who RW might be?

 Because I knew I was making cut flowers, rather than a plant, I saved some time only adding leaves to the top of the stem. The top of a glue bottle worked well for holding them upright as they dried.

In other news, I also spent some time organizing my lace scraps.  I saw this idea at the blog French Laundry,  and thought it was a pretty idea. I aged some thick watercolour paper, printed images from the Graphics Fairy, and wrapped my lace  around. It's so fun to open up my drawer and see all the pretty cards of lace.

Miniatures in the Real World

I just had to post a photo of this. The other morning while I was in the kitchen, I noticed that a few patches of violets had migrated to our back door. Last summer, I found a bunch of tiny perfume bottles in one of my favorite vintage/antique shops. One of the bottles made a perfect vase for the violets! The whole arrangement is about 2" high, so it's definitely too large for 1/12th scale, but it would be perfect for a doll's tea party.