Happy New Year, My handmade mini furniture, and My Latest Thrift Store Find: Melody in Pink Tutti

 Happy new year! See? I haven't disappeared completely. Before I forget, I want to welcome our newest follower, Natalia, from Natalia's Fine Needlework. Natalia has several other blogs too, and she makes AMAZING things. Check her out.
  I hope everyone is having a good year so far. Without intending to, or even realizing I was doing it, I made several 'new year's resolutions'. I promised myself when Ivy went back to school today to get back on my diet and lose weight,and get the house in order and do all the painting/papering/carpeting jobs that need done.
  After the house is spruced up I have a 1/6 scale dollhouse to renovate, room boxes to make and furnish for selling, and I really want to get back to making dolls and doll furniture. I haven't made any for ages. I miss 'making stuff'. I just hope my bad shoulder can handle it.My sister and I plan to have a 'making stuff' day, where we do nothing but sit around and make various things all day long, and probably watch some movies.
  I also have some posts planned on making dollhouse furniture from things you probably have around the house. That will cover furniture in several scales, so there should be something there to interest everybody. I don't keep to one scale myself,so I have a need for things in all sorts of scales. I made furniture out of aspirin boxes and other things when I was a kid. That was pretty small stuff. When Emma was little I made probably my first 1/6 scale furniture. In recent years I have made 1/12 scale and smaller furniture, as you may have seen if you've been reading this blog.

Suede look 1/12 scale couch.

1/12 scale set in gold.

1/12 scale art deco set.

1/12 scale child's chair in nursery rhyme toile.

This was made from some amazing ribbon I bought. In some cases it was just wide enough.

1/12 scale child's chair.

1/12 scale child's bunny chair.

1/12 scale child's daisy chair.

1/4 scale fainting couch.

1/4 scale couch and chair.

1/4 scale fainting couch.

And a 1/4 scale couch in the beautiful toile ribbon. It was a lot easier to fit the ribbon to this couch than that chair!

Some of the furniture I'll be making will be alot easier to make than this stuff!
  I also want to show you my latest Thrift Store find. I spotted this girl about a week and a half ago at Salvation Army. 

She's a Melody in Pink Tutti, from 1966. She's wearing the rarer dark pink version of the dress though.

Her face is a little paled, but that can be fixed. That's a common problem with Mod Era Barbie and family dolls.

She also needs some clean up.She has all her bends and no greening though.The dress is in nice condition too.

Her hair needs fixed, but it's all there.

She was $9.99, but I was hoping she would still be there on half price day. They were having two half price days right before New Year. We didn't happen to go the first half off day, but Ken went on the second and she was still there. Yay! $4.99!
  See you soon.

This is The Stuff I Do

I do actually make things.Here are some of my older dolls.They have wooden heads and felt covered wire armatures.Mama Doll sold to a lady who then ordered Papa Doll. I hope she is taking good care of him because he is one of my favourites that I've made.He is about 2 and a half  inches tall, has pockets in his waistcoat and a watch chain made of thread, and spats!Their arms and legs are poseable. Her shawl is removeable.

This lady is polymer clay with jointed legs. Her hat is removeable. She's about 3 inches tall.She's going to be up for sale soon.

 

I make furniture as well as dolls. The chair and it's matching couch, as well as the little lady posing here, will all be for sale soon. She stands just over 2 inches tall and has poseable arms and legs. 

This is one of the newest dolls I've made. He has a polymer clay head, wire armature,sculpted felt hands, and cloth clothes. I made him a pocket watch,and pince nez glasses. I also made the buttons on his vest.

All the better to see you with.

He's just under 4 inches tall. Somehow he came out shorter than I'd intended, making him a very short old fellow for dollhouses.He'll go up for sale soon. Ebay or Etsy, that is the question.

These Raggedy dolls I made sold on Etsy. They measure just over 2 inches tall. They have all cloth clothes and rooted hair.

These little ladies will be going on Etsy or Ebay soon. I'm still deciding which. My earlier wooden head dolls had better sales on Etsy.These are polymer clay, with cloth clothes and moveable arms and legs. They're supposed to look like old fashioned China dolls.

They even have tiny underthings.

Here's the back view. I'm pretty proud of how the hair came out on these.

The back of lady #2. The shawl is removable.

And here she is from the front.

This gives you the idea of how small these ladies are. They make lovely dolls for little dollhouse girls.

Lady #3. I think she is a Civil War era lady.

And the side/back. I made the tiny stands too, out of necessity. There was no way to display them at shows without some way of making them stand up. My website for these dolls and furniture needs work and updated pictures, (All the dolls pictured have been sold.), but if you want to see more of what I have made,the site is Tamsykens.com, and there is a slideshow you can click on in the bottom right corner. I'll no doubt be talking about it on here when I  get these dolls and the furniture listed for sale.