The ultimate craft project

I have had my dollhouse for 21 years now. It is the ultimate ongoing project.

When I got it as a Christmas present the dollhouse market was enjoying a resurgence of popularity. In the years that followed I collected furniture from many different cities. Vancouver had a few great miniature stores at the time. One fantastic antique store in Steveston, Richmond had a huge collection of tiny furniture and supplies for dollhouse enthusiasts. North Vancouver also had a dollhouse furniture store that catered to collectors and sold everything you could possibly need to outfit your house. There was also a great craft store in Richmond Centre Mall back in the day that sold miniature furniture. And when my parents would take us on summer road trips I always collected pieces from stores in other cities. The stores that I knew of in Vancouver are gone now. And although I have worked in childcare for almost 15 years, I haven't found a little girl who had a real, old-fashioned dollhouse. Kids only have Barbie dream houses now.

Anyway, I shot some pics of my house the other day when I was visiting my parents for Christmas. Unfortunately I couldn't take any shots of the front of it because it is currently tucked away in a corner.

I never really played with it. People always ask me, "where are the people?" I never found it necessary to buy a family for my house. I had little interest in playing with it. All I ever wanted to do was set it all up, take it all down and then set it up again in a different way. When I got older and began to "renovate" my house, I finally had to choose which rooms would be for what. It was definite as I was choosing wallpaper and flooring and would no longer be using the tiny bathroom as the poor, adopted maid's room. Or the large living room as a kitchen.

Short of actually building the house, I did everything else. It took years and it is still not finished. I shingled the roof - tiny shingle by shingle. I wired it so that all the tiny lamps plug in and light up. I wallpapered it, put in the flooring, spackled the outside walls and painted the whole thing. It really did take me years to do.

I still need to hinge the doors, which I have successfully put off doing for years because the hinges and the nails are approximately the size of fleas. Try using a real hammer on nails the size of fleas and you'll understand why it takes so damn long to get something like this done.

Anyway, the days of collecting furniture for it are over since it appears that craft and children's stores no longer cater to dollhouse folk. Luckily all I really still need is a new fridge. The one in the house doesn't look right.

I'll hang onto the house in case I have my own daughter. That was always my plan. Even when I was little, I was decorating it with the knowledge that I would someday give it to my own little girl. If I don't have a daughter, I sure won't be saving it for another 30 years until I have a granddaughter. I'll put it on the ebay market and sell it to the highest bidder.

But for now it is still fun to set it up for my Mom at Christmas (takes me nearly three hours to get all the tiny pieces in their place) and pull out all the bits and remember where they came from. I really hope that I have the chance to pass it on to my own girl and watch her spend hours tinkering with all the pieces like I did when I was little.

Christmas Eggs

More Christmas Eggs

A hunting themed egg for my wilderness-addict father. I've been saving the little owl since high school. I guess it finally found it's place. It's hard to photograph the eggs. It is difficult to capture the detail on the outside and the inside while getting a close enough shot. This one has a moose, a cabin, moss and a night sky with snowflakes and stars.
One of my favorite eggs from when I was a child has a little church inside. So I decided to recreate it. This one turned out nice, but I have noticed that the quality and variation of the tiny things you can find these days just isn't the same as the things my auntes used years ago.
An egg (above) for one of the families I work for. This one has two little brown birds in a nest with a forest in the background and an orange butterfly perched on the outside.

The egg below I made for my little cousin in Alberta. She is totally into fish so I thought that I would make her a tiny aquarium inside the egg, like a Christmas fishbowl. This shot isn't good enough, the egg is decorated on the outside and the inside with fish, shells, rocks, seahorses, starfish and seaweed. I particularly like the way the pearls fit the theme.
Making these little egg decorations is a family tradition. My aunt Janet MacNaughton was an artist on Hornby Island and Maui and made everything from decorative tiles to stained glass windows. I don't know when she started making these eggs; sometime before I was born. At some point her daughter, my older cousin Aleisha picked up the craft and Janet also taught her younger sister, my aunt Kathie how to make them as well. As I was growing up, Kathie and Janet gave us eggs for Christmas every year and that collection still adorns my parent's annual Christmas tree...despite my mother's changing tree styles.

But Christmas decorations are like that aren't they? A constant, a yearly reminder.

I'm always excited to make new things. This year I decided that I wanted to carry on the tradition and my aunt Kathie handed me the torch by showing me how to carve them without breaking them.

I worked on the eggs for several days. I kept the first one for myself and the rest will be opened on Christmas day and hung on trees in my friend's and family's homes.

I quickly finished the four that Kathie had lent me from her egg stash and then found myself driving out to Chilliwack to purchase more goose eggs from Fraser Valley Duck and Goose, at the base of a little mountain 75 kms outside of the city. It was a long drive but it was worth it to have the opportunity to craft something beautiful like the older women in my family.

When searching the city for tiny things to put inside the eggs, I happened into an antique/junk store in Gastown and to my surprise, sitting in a bowl at the back of the store were some smaller duck eggs. So I grabbed some of those as well. I hope that before next year I can find somewhere closer than Chilliwack to purchase eggs. Chicken eggs and duck eggs can be used as well, but the large goose eggs are more dramatic, as Kathie says. And quite frankly, it's hard to find things small enough to put inside the big ones anyway.

foil, feathers and fotocopies

I made a bunch of cute cards over the weekend. I found this felt pen at a local craft store that transfers photocopied images onto other paper. So I took the last of my card stock and transferred photocopied pics of buildings, statues and old music sheets. Then I just added some feathers and some amazing German foils that I found at Urban Source.

To make the cards extra special, I affixed an old stamp to each one. They turned out great, kind of like envelopes with the goodies on the outside!

Sockrrz for sale!

I'll be selling some of the newest Sockrrz at the Croatian Cultural Centre's annual flea market on November 14th. My mom will be there selling off some antiques and I'll stick around long enough to find loving homes for these poor little orphaned monkeys. Stop by if you're in the Commercial Drive neighbourhood and you can buy a monkey or we can leave them to be babysat by my mom and go for coffee!

3250 Commercial Drive, Vancouver.

www.croatiancentre.com

Shopping for something to do: Craft supplies and Halloween

If you're crafting or creating in Vancouver there are plenty of great shops that carry what you'll need. I'm not a huge crafter and I've never scrap-booked, but I do have some favorite things that I make throughout the year or for special holidays. I make most of my greeting cards, it is rare for me to purchase one from a store. I also sew small things like purses, curtains and fancy pillow cases and of course I make my SOCKRRZ.

One of the best local haunts I have found since moving to Main Street is the Urban Source. This shop is a total anomaly in the big city. I was confused by it when I peered in while passing by, but after my first visit I have returned again and again.

Urban Source, located at 3126 Main Street is a crafter and recycler's heaven. The small store is filled (and I mean filled) with odds and ends that look like the things your grandma would pull out of a junk drawer to entertain the kids on a rainy day. All those little things you should have saved in case they were needed...Urban Source has been saving them for you. They have bins filled with old slides, old photographs, puzzle pieces, wire, paint chips, test tubes you name it. A lot of their inventory is donated from companies or people whom I assume are cleaning out their basements. While this may sound kinda dumpy and gross, everything is clean, in great condition and organized. You can purchase a bag and fill it to your heart's content with diamonds in the rough or you can browse their stock of new merchandise. Urban Source is great for me because it is only a couple blocks away. If I have a rainy day inclination to make a mobile out of old film cases...I just have to wonder into the shop. And if you have little ones but don't want to spend a ton on art supplies for a project that may become a chore halfway through, Urban Source is a great place to let them pick out what they want.

Of course Michaels is an awesome craft store, it really does have it all. Be aware that it is quite pricey and there are many tempting impulse purchases to be had. If you're going, have a list of exactly what you need and stick to it. I have a craft box full of extras that were purchased not for the task at hand but because they inspired other projects for later. Not a problem if you're willing to drop a few hundred bucks on craft supplies. They are great for dried flowers, wreath making etc...

Dressew Supply Ltd. at 337 West Hastings is an obvious winner for everything fabric. This two-level shop is home to hundreds of great fabrics and every sewing notion in the free world. They also have a huge bulk button section and at Halloween a ton of costume doodads and fobbles. FabricLand is great for fabric too. There is one on South East Marine drive, right near the Knight Street Bridge.

If it is Halloween stuff you're currently looking for, like I said, Dressew is awesome. Also Party Bazaar at 215 West 2nd Ave has loads of holiday-related stuff. It's a little pricey but it'll probably have whatever you need for any of the standard Halloween costumes. If you don't know what to be yet, a trip to Party Bazaar could very well inspire you and send you in a direction.

Don't forget Value Village for cheap clothing that you need for a costume but probably won't use again. They too have a wide variety of new merchandise to spook you out. There's two Vancouver locations: Hastings at Victoria and on Victoria near 49th. There is also at least one in Burnaby.

For great Halloween masks, New York Novelties at 2429 Main Street has a ton, and they're really great ones. I bought a deer head mask for my father. It's hilarious and only ran about $30. I haven't bought a lot of masks in my day, so I'm not sure if that is a good deal, but it seemed reasonable.

Another great tip if it still exists: Last year (and possibly the year before?) there was an awesome Halloween store that popped up in an unused shop in Burnaby, just for October. I don't know what it was called, it may have been The Halloween Store, certainly that's what I called it and I don't know if it'll be back this year. But last year it was beside the Future Shop just to the West of Metrotown. If it's still there, go, they have it all. And if you hear of any set sales from films that are wrapping up in Vancouver, they often have great costume accessories and low prices too. But you'll wait in a very long line to have the privilege to buy a $2 turban or a $5 wedding dress.

And Finally, if you're looking to add some holiday decorations to your house but you don't want to take out a second mortgage just to decorate, both Welks on Main Street and Wonderbucks on Commercial Drive or West Broadway always have fun holiday decorations, usually for much cheaper than other stores.

Hawaiian or Mexican Wedding Cakes

These are awesome. they taste great and they look pretty. I used them last year in cookie boxes that I made for Christmas. Everyone loved them. There are plenty of recipes online, but they're all pretty much the same. There are just a couple of variations depending on if you are making Mexican Wedding Cakes or Hawaiian Wedding Cakes. I also double the recipe because...um, I want more cookies!

1/2 cup butter (soft)

1/4 cup icing sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup flour

1/2 cup finely chopped nuts (almonds or walnuts for Mexican or Macadamia nuts for Hawaiian)

(1/2 cup candied pineapple or coconut...if desired, for Hawaiian)

extra icing sugar on the side

Cream together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla in a bowl. Beat in flour, nuts and pineapple or coconut (if using). Roll cookies into 1/2 inch to 1 inch balls. Place on ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 F for 12-15 minutes (mine took 11, but my oven sucks). Roll each cookie in the icing sugar that you kept aside. Don't burn your hands, let them cool for a second.

They preserve for a couple weeks if stored in a sealed container.

OK, you're done now, go eat them!