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Hi, I'm Paula, aka gttygrl, from Southern California. I built my first dollhouse in the early '90s--fresh out of college, out of work, and kind of depressed about it, I found solace in building a Newburg kit and furnishing it from treasures found at the miniature store in Stoneham, MA, and the miniature shows held annually at the Shriner's in Wilmington, MA. (You can see it in the background here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pcarlson/385724353/in/set-72157594172082365) My sister and I purchased a Worthington kit and built the shell, but I was losing interest by then, and we let it sit there for years unfinished. When I moved from the east coast to SoCal, I gave my Newburg to the children of a friend, that I've now long since lost contact with. I don't remember what we did with the Worthington, probably gave it to the Salvation Army. (I am now imagining kicking my past self repeatedly in the shins.) Then we entered the age of Pinterest, where adorably decorated and landscaped dollhouses pop up on my feed on a regular basis. Last summer (2012, not '13), I bought the Orchid kit from Amazon, with the intention of finishing it for donation at the company's Christmas silent auction. I sanded and painted and stained for a few weeks before I got distracted by something else, again. All the neatly labeled and bagged parts have sat on a shelf for the past year and a half, until I pulled them down last week to try again. It's definitely going up this time. I still have all the extras that I'd purchased back then--the mixture and stencil for the brick exterior, the gazillions of scrapbook paper to choose the wallpaper from, the balsa wood for the molding, the templates I'd made of every wall and window. So far this week I've wallpapered a couple of walls (pinks and greens for the first floor), used tissue paper to "stucco" the first floor ceiling, and completely changed my mind on where the kitchen should go. And I am very grateful to KathyB's White Orchid post showing how she custom-made the stairs (http://kathiebminis.blogspot.com/2009/02/white-orchid-02-oven-wall.html). Once the ceiling paint has dried, I'll be assembling the shell and will likely continue the build in the order described in the More Minis blog (http://moreminis.blogspot.com/2007/04/orchid-day-1.html#.UxeJn86VtrM). This is the dry run. I had to sand some of the tabs to make it fit. I love the stained floors, they make me happy just looking at them. I hope this isn't too long. I can get a little wordy.

Wednesday January 22nd 2014 Today I have a cold. I think my son brought it home from school. My head is congested, I can't sleep and I desperately want to get into the studio to create. I spent some time the other day setting things up. I have to take pictures and add them in tomorrow. I have a new table, a dedicated sewing area, a clay area work storage, a place to paint and sculpt and an area for the Orchid. If only it would warm up out, I could work in comfort in there. I'm thinking of getting a space heater to get me through the cold months. The new area is great, I can store everything there. No more toting things all around this house. I like that. So pictures tomorrow of the new area of creativity.

My skills, confidence and ideas improved throughout a year of dollhouse projects. Watch as I show and discuss my Orchid, Glencroft and Storybook Cottage projects and how they became my focal Christmas decorations. Enjoy as much as I did!

1/5/14 Our home is a huge, old and rambling 18 room Colonial built in 1900. It has three floors and three complete apartments. I don't rent because I love my privacy. The second floor area is my work studio. It has a self contained kitchen and full bath and 4 rooms. Two of the rooms will become studio area for my sewing, modeling and miniature building. These are some shots of the studio. The first and second are the kitchen, the purple room will become my craft area. The only think I really would change is the wall to wall in the craft area. I may rip the carpeting out and just keep the floor as hardwood. But that's for another day.

Sunday 1/5/14 Yesterday, the stove kit was started. We took a break after 3 hrs to let the glue set. All that was left were the feet and the knobs, and small final assembly. It was completed today. I don't think I'm going to use the stove "tile mat" that came with the stove. I don't care for it and most of the 1900's stoves I've been looking at don't seem to have anything on the floor under the stoves. So I think I'll omit it or create something else to go under there. All in all I love the stove and total work time was about 3.75 hours.

Friday January 3rd 2014 Today I worked on the Chrysnbon stove I purchased off of Ebay. I loved this stove the minute I saw it and figured it would be an easy build since I have had model building experience putting together models since I was about 8. So while I had the spare time, I gathered the stove kit, my exacto blade kit, my Tamiya cement (I can't say enough great things about this cement, I love it) and a mug of coffee. Three hours later, most of it is done. I'm a perfectionist and I won't hurry any model building I do. The stove is drying, the feet need to go on and I'll snap a photo later and talk more in depth on the stove, and it's importance to me in this dollhouse. But in the mean time, I'm loving the Chrysnbon kit. I have 4 more on the way. Let the modeling happy times begin!

December 31st 2013 Today I thought about rooms, what's to go where, what doesn't need to be included and the general atmosphere of the house. I think I'm going to increase the kitchen area of the home and decrease the living area space. I've got a bedroom planned for the upper floor and I'm still thinking if I can or want to add attic space to the house. I've also been doing some research on spiritualism at the turn of the century since my Orchid will be haunted, I might add a dining room table and put the Ouija on it. Or I may put the Ouija in the attic to suggest the owner of the house did use it and now things have happened in the house and it's been put away. We'll see. My imagination runs deep and my plans big lol!

December 30th 2013. For Christmas I received an Orchid Dollhouse. To say I'm really excited is an understatement. This is something I've wanted forever. When it came to me, finally after what seemed like a forever wait, I spent a long time just looking at the box and thinking of the possibilities. The first thing that came to mind is "I want to create a haunted house." Not with Casper type ghosts but one with a history. So haunted it shall be. What to name it, I'm not sure yet. But I have an idea. So I placed the house under the Christmas tree to wait for a time I would have with no rushing to open it up. The first thing I would need would be studio space to work on the house. We have two extra rooms that aren't being used on the second floor and I've decided to take one over as my miniature studio. Since I was little I've enjoyed working with models and I'm excited to be able to visit that hobby again. This time working with miniatures and having the space to do it in. I also received a boat load of Sculpey clay for Christmas, so that opened up a lot of possibilities too. Hello miniature food, another extreme interest of mine. The studio space is purple, with a built in cabinet that I can store craft items in. It's perfect. It has a South Western exposure with beautiful sunlight that pours in from about noon onward. I'm lugging down a huge kitchen table that was stored on our third floor, and I need to find more storage bins for my clays, paints, tools and stuff. It should be fun arranging all of this. It's probably going to start in the Spring, as the second floor studio area is not heated, and I don't want to work in 48 degree temps! In the meantime, I have purchased a few Chrysnbon kits. And I need to get photos organized of my purchases so that I can see what I have. My newest purchase is a work lamp, that has a magnifying glass for my old eyes! The world of miniatures is a creative path I'm on that's for sure, and one that I've been wanting to travel on forever.

I've put the sewing machine away and am going to get Opal finished. We've decided we hate the pink paint upstairs and are going to repaint with a light yellow . Spent a few hours sanding and painting the trim and are now going with a yellow stucco finish with green trims , I think . I'm forcing myself not to start on the farmhouse and barn until O's done .