The DIY Lamp

I've made a promise a while ago (over 6 months ago) that I will blog about the DIY lamp for the orange couch room in the previous post.

Okay, the secret behind the lamp is ... *drumroll*... a wooden toy vehicle set from the local dollar store.

As you can see, I've got a couple sets of them thinking that I can fulfill some mini-DIY potentials. Look closely at the lamp, you can see that the shade is two of the 'wheels' painted white and glued together and the 'post' was initially designed to attach the wooden wheels to the vehicle - until I completely changed its destiny into a miniature lamp.

The base of the lamp was your run-of-the-mill wooden pieces from arts & crafts store. It was really difficult to glue the 'post' to the base, so I've added small bolts to make it work.

There are also many other wooden pieces in these sets that I can let my imagination runs wild, stain and glue, here and there. Just no time to tackle those yet ...

I am not completely back into the 'mini-scene' so I am not sure when I will blog again (another 6 months?). Returned to work less than two months ago after my maternity leave and let's just say 24 hrs in a day is not just enough.

The Orange DIY Room

I have recently became an avid follower of Altera’s Mini World. Her blog first captured my attention when I stumbled across her ‘Super Bowl Sunday’ post. In her scene, she used a sofa from Voila dollhouse furniture set to mimic the orange Ligne Roset Togo sofa she loves.

Orange has been a huge colour for interior design in 2008. When I went to the Toronto Interior Design Show back in Feb 2008, orange was everywhere. I love the funky/happy vibe emits from the colour and I've managed to work this colour into my house by using it in my daughter's nursery (her crib bedding is Blocks by Rosemary Hallgarten for Nurseryworks in colour Pumpkin).

I wasn't ready to splurge about $150 on the Voila dollhouse furniture set just to get my hands on the orange couch and a few other 'usable' pieces (well at least not right now ... the set does come with pieces for different rooms such as living/dining/bed/bathrooms), so I've decided to be creative and make my own orange sofa with foam boards, this orange/white kitchen towel I found at the dollar store and some liquid-stitch. The whole thing costs roughly $3 + labour. The foam boards were salvaged from packaging and liquid-stitch is about $4 a tube and I only used maybe half of it.

After finishing the couch and quite happy with the result, I attempted to make throw pillows without a sewing machine. After trying to handsew one with needle and thread for a good half hour, I gave up and resorted back to liquid-stitch and it worked like a charm.

The green fabric pillows were made from this $2 set of pillowcases (leftover from the same ones I've used to recover the Flairline sofa in a previous post) and the orange floral pattern fabric was cut off from these dollar store potholders. The lamp is another DIY project (which I will talk about in a future post). And thanks to Mini Modern in her recent post, I was reminded of my Muji New York city in a Bag and the side table here is the Guggenheim Museum turned upside down.

Sources:
Sofa, Pillows, Table Lamp, Area Rug - My DIYs
Side Chair - Reac Japan
Side Table - Muji New York city in a bag
Coffee Table - Kaleidoscope House's Jasper Morrison living room set
Plant - The Dolls House Emporium
Magazine Holder, Mugs, Clock - Re-ment
Art - Ford Smith 'Elated Autumn'

Images - http://alterasworld.blogspot.com/

NIB Kaleidoscope House on ebay! HURRY!

For those of you who are still in the hunt for one of these beauties and live in the U.S., there is currently a new in box Kaleidoscope House on ebay with a starting bid of only $499.99 USD with only 15 hrs to go. I have a feeling some of you are already 'watching' this auction since I know there is a community of 'us' who probably search a similar set of key words on ebay religiously (not to mention on a daily basis).

I love this house myself but since the seller doesn't ship to Canada and I am not ready to commit to a 'house' yet ... hopefully my inability to own this will be your gain.

Update 03/03/09 - Sold for $860 USD

Area 12 Contemporary Dollhouse

What a gem! Although I haven't been playing around creating dollhouse scenes of my own lately, but that doesn't mean I've stopped my daily browsing of ebay, Flickr and mini-blogs that I follow.

This morning I came across this Area 12 Contemporary Dollhouse on Flickr and just simply wow'd by all the pics. Wonder how much one of these bad boys may cost? Safe to guess that it's totally out of my budget.

Off to getting ready for Sunday brunch with 20 something of our dear friends ... gotta rush so I will just let the pictures do the talking.

Images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aburahouses/ - Area 12 Contemporary Dollhouse photoset

Cozy Wine & Cheese

For the first few weeks of the year, we were debating whether to put our house on the market and upsize a bit so I've packed away all my 'toys' and kept them in the cabinet just in case. Now that we have decided to stay where we are, I am free again to create a bit of mess and clutter.

The past few days , I was stuck with the infamous Canadian winter with tons of white stuff while my other half is down in Cancun at an all-inclusive resort for a work conference. How to shave off some of the jealousy? Figured that I'd have my own little wine & cheese party in front a cozy fireplace.

The chairs are from the Kaleidoscope House's Dakota Jackson dining room set and the dining table is a piece custom-made by Queenie Wu of http://www.minisquare.com/.

Kaleidoscope House Living Room Set ... I got it!

Finally accomplished my quest for the Jasper Morrison sofa/living room set ... just in time to 'gift' myself for Christmas. The white TV stand, shelf unit and vases are from The Dolls House Emporium. I made the wood side table myself with pieces of precut wood, glue and stain. Accessories are a combination of Re-ment, ebay and miniature show finds. Looking at my shots, I really need to learn how to use the camera properly as one of my New Year's resolutions. One of the pics is taken with flash on and other off. Too bright and too dark - can't decide which way I prefer

Au contraire to the room here, we rarely watch CNN at home. Our real life TVs are usually tuned into TLC , HGTV, Family, etc.

Living with Miniature Stuff

My new hobby had taken over a very important space during the holiday season - where the Christmas tree normally goes in my combined living & dining room area. As December approaches, I've been seeking a new home/storage solution for my growing collection. After scouring through IKEA, we've purchased a new shelf unit for our basement/library/guest room (now also slash miniature playroom).



Love how the closed-storage is able to hide the visual clutter of Reac Japan chairs' boxes and I am planning to use the shelf above (the white boxes) for 'playing & displaying'.

Besides being the holiday season, the move is inevitable since little objects are not exactly 'baby-friendly'. Before I know it, my 4-month old will be crawling everywhere but the basement can remain off-limits to her.