Doll-A-DAy 2023 #236: Remco Mr. and Mrs. Mouse House

   You saw the Remco Elly and Andy Baby Mouse Twins 3 Story Treehouse  in one of my posts on my friend Lori's childhood Christmas presents. Today we're looking at the Mr. and Mrs. Mouse House. This is the smaller house, also made by Remco. Why do the kids have a bigger house than the grown ups?

Notice the Tv antenna on the roof! Those were the days of only 3 channels, or 4 when PBS came along.

The house was made in 1966. it includes Mr. and Mrs. Mouse, dressed for bed, bunk beds, and a table with two chairs.

They have their names on their nightgowns.

  Mr. Mouse has dark hair, but Mrs. Mouse's hair is fire engine red! Both mice are about six inches tall. They have moveable arms and legs, so they can sit at their table and...wave or whatever.

  I have a weakness for mouse toys. I would have liked these when I was a kid. 

  That's it for today. Tomorrow we'll have a very long, and I hope, not boring, post about what I've been up to with all those projects lately, and we'll catch up with the August Doll Book of the Month. See you then.

Play Sets:Tweakie Toys

  Today's play set post is a little different. It's on a long forgotten toy series. They're Tweakie-Toys.

They were made by J Chein.

I received my Tweakie People set for Christmas when I was a little kid. The toys were made in 1969,so I assume that's when I got mine. I originally had four house blocks and four people. My people were with the house blocks when the box they were in went to the basement, (I don't know why it ever went to the basement in the first place.),but when I rescued the box a few years ago,luckily before the basement started flooding,the people and one block were missing. I'm still hoping we'll find them.

The bottoms of each square have the name and copyright information on them. Apparently the one I'm missing is number 837.

I found this picture online, showing the copyright on the bottom of a Tweakie person's feet.

  Tweakie People are plastic,and look very much like Fisher Price Little People, but they have features the Little People don't have. For one thing, they could sit down.

As I recall, they were about 2 and a half inches tall.

They could be made to turn at the waist,turn their heads,or bend at the waist and sit down. They also had moveable arms and hands that could hold things,sort of like Lego mini figures.

There were different house sets. The big sets were made up of four individual 'house blocks', and came with a family of four Tweakie people. I think that must be the type of set I got. Each block had a room on two sides, an outside scene on two sides, and a plain top and bottom.

 

According to this, the white rim is removable,although why you would want to remove it is beyond me.

The blocks  measure 4 inches square.

  The interior of the blocks are decorated with cardboard furniture or appliances made of the same piece of cardboard that makes up the walls and floor.

The cardboard interior is cleverly folded so that the feature,be it the fireplace,or bed ,or whatever, stands out in three dimensions,while the walls and floor stay flat.

The fireplace is three dimensional, as is the bathtub,which is printed with a bubble bath.
 

And the stove...

Hmm. Where's the stove gone? Looks like they had an explosion of some sort in the kitchen. Must have been a gas stove. Blew the whole thing clear out of there.

I took pretty good care of my Tweakie People houses. They were in good shape until Emma played with them when she was little. (As you'll notice, she did a little crayon work too.) The cardboard was getting old by then. She managed to break the cardboard at the perforations on the stove. The last time I looked it was still hanging on for dear life though. Perhaps it has gone the way of the forth square and the people. How any of it got out of the box and disappeared is a mystery.
There were even vehicles,although I never had any of those.

I don't remember ever seeing the Tweakie People items in stores when I was a kid. in fact,I don't think I had ever heard of them at all before I got them for Christmas. My mom may have seen them in a catalog and ordered them for me.

But then, I don't remember seeing them in the catalogs either, and my sister and I thoroughly perused those catalogs looking for what we wanted for Christmas!
  That's the play set for this month. I had other plans, but I packed that one away in Ivy's closet. Now that she's home with all her college stuff piled in her room,she says I may NOT get in her closet to get it out!

My Newest Dollhouse

  Yesterday Ken and I went shopping for Easter goodies. When your kids are grown it gets harder to find little gifts,and I'm trying to cut down on the sweets. Also, when they are earning their own money they can buy sweets any time they want to,so it requires finding things that are unique, that they might not find or necessarily buy for themselves. Anyway, while we were out we stopped at a couple of Goodwills,because that's what I do. At one of them I found this cool thing.
 

 

It was the amazing price of $2.99,so I said "Having!"  Ken whined about it,but I pointed out how it's my birthday month now, so he had to acquiesce.
  I think it must have just been some kind of decorative thing originally. Fuzz and I both noticed how it appears there were originally side pieces that slid in and out on the little tracks at the bottom. 

They aren't there now though, and whoever owned it wallpapered the walls. They must have used it as a dollhouse.
  It's an odd size though. The outside door and window/balcony are pretty much 1/12 scale.

Unfortunately the doors don't open. They're stuck on the outside. I'm thinking maybe I could remove them, cut them in two pieces,cut out a hole for them,and add hinges.

But the inside is almost 1/6 scale. The rooms are about 10 inches tall.

  It was a bit dirty, and the wall paper was coming out. So I cleaned it and removed the paper.
 

Kind of a shame because the downstairs had this nice paper with some pretty nice chickens on it. I saved it and cleaned it and maybe I can reuse it,or at least the border.

I was lucky that it was fairly nice out today. It wasn't very chilly. I got the house cleaned and the sky looked a bit overcast. Just to be on the safe side I didn't wait for it to dry out a bit first, but, instead, brought it straight inside. Almost as soon as I get it in the house, the rain came.  
  There is a broken spot on one side. 

That piece was resin. I'm hoping I can use some mold maker stuff I have to mold a new piece from resin. You can buy that in liquid form at craft stores,I think.
  So this is what I've been doing.

What I'm Doing,and What I Need to Do

  I'm having a hard time with this not posting every day. I said I wasn't going to this year,but I still feel like I should be posting something! I hope I don't run out of ideas because I feel compelled to come up with something every day.
  I still have work to do on Ivy's room. I ran out of time before she came home for Christmas,so when she goes back to school I have to put her couch/bed together and finish painting her furniture. I also need to upholster her cushions for the couch...bed.I have all my stuff. I just need to do it.
  Ivy goes back to school on the 26th,so I'm going to miss her. When she comes back her room should be finished. Of course, it should have been finished ages ago. It took me a lot longer than I thought it would though,because her room was such a mess,so that's on her.
  I did start a project a while back that I promised to show you the progress on. There hasn't been any progress yet,so you haven't missed anything. Here's the basis of the project.

I have a couple of these little houses. They're just decorations that are supposed to just sit around your house. Sometimes I see them in rustic gift shops,usually with some fairy lights or fake branches  around them. I was going to repaint the yellow one,(I hate yellow.),but I really like the other one. I  thought it would make a good size house for my Claudon Cats. 

I have dreams of remaking it into a beautiful house decorated to fit their era.
  The houses would make great dollhouses,except for one thing. They don't have an open side.

So that was the start of the project: tear the back off the house. I thought it would just pry off. Uh...no. There were nails and glue involved. There was also a groove in the base that the bottom of the side fit into. So with the use of an old butter knife and a hammer,and after a lot of tearing wood and mess all over my carpet,I eventually managed to rip the back off...and made a mess of it.
 

I broke all the ragged bits off the house. 

As for the wall,I figure I can fix the uneven surface by filling in with some spackle or something, and covering it with wall paper.

So that's the start. When I get around to it I'll put in an upstairs floor, decorate the house and make furniture for it.Then the Claudon Cats can move in and I can put a clear,removable back on the house so I can enjoy looking at them without them getting dusty.
  So I got a post on today. I can't say how often this will happen, but I'm trying!

First Great Yard Sale Find of the Season

First of all, welcome to our new follower, northstar62. Thanks for joining us!
  Today is Skipper Saturday of course,but that will be a separate post. I wanted to share with you my first great find of the yard saling season.Yesterday I swooped in on this cool deal:

It's Madeline's Old House in Paris dollhouse by Eden.

It only has three pieces of the railing for the roof, but you can't have everything!

I loved this house when it first came out years ago, but it was so expensive.I think it was sold in the mid to late 90's, when Emma was small.

It has a battery operated door bell and a working porch lamp, (It's detatched and laying on the roof. I can't figure out where it attaches!) I haven't checked them out yet to see if they work. The chimney pots look better when they're attached too.

 The roof is a little yellowed and the outside is a little sunfaded, but it looks alot better now after a wipe down.

It has a lot of the furniture that was available for the house, but not everything.

The house has apparently been taken over by two bears. This one waits for a phone call at the kitchen table. It's gonna be a long wait buddy. That thing's not even hooked up.

This room is the only one missing a window. That bear thought there was a draft...

Unfortunately the hamper is missing the lid. I'm not sure if the first aid kit on the sink is Madeline or not. The great vintage style trunk is by Shackman. The tray sits down inside, just like a real trunk.

Hey bears! Someone's been sleeping in your beds, and they're STILL THERE! This dollhouse family is squatting in the upstairs bedroom. At least they brought some extra furniture. This old set is painted wood. Anybody know the maker? The dog is Only Hearts Club.

 One comment on this house: Everything is scaled for the 8" Madeline and friends dolls,so what does poor Miss Clavel do?

There were also alot of other miniature goodies.

Complete bathroom gear,a dining room table with a removeable leaf, and an old fashioned stove. Just what I've been wanting for the kitchen in one of my 1/12th scale dollhouses!

See?! It's perfect! (Hey, this house looks pretty good...)
 By the way, don't mind that giant green fish in the frying pan on the stove.

The fish seems to be aware of his impending doom. Check out that look on his face. That stove needs a clean up.

Apparently Fuzzy stuck him in the dollhouse living room recently. I found him there and put him in the frying pan on the stove. I don't think Fuzz has noticed that yet. And dollhouse lady says don't look at the holes in her stockings...

Loads of other stuff, including a fireplace,a book case full of fake books, and more!

 This house and the furniture are still really expensive! Each window or piece of railing can get $5 or more.The furniture gets more than that. For all this stuff we paid $30! Ken put on his poor tortured man face when I bought it. He's just counting the $30 that he lost.
Check out my other post today for Skipper Saturday.