So, one of my big projects this year was embroidering a jean jacket for my little sister. I stitched everything she loves onto it. It really did take me almost all year too. I started it in January 2021, and I finished it and got it mailed to her in early November.
Molly loves Taylor Swift, so there are a lot of Taylor Swift references on the jacket.
Quote from All Too Well by Taylor Swift
More Taylor Swift:
When Molly was little, I had a little fairy house. I would write letters and leave small gifts in it and tell Molly they were from the fairies. Molly believed in my fairies for so long. I was sad when she stopped. There’s a 7-year age difference between us, but we still had so much fun together.
Little fairies
Molly also loves Pride and Prejudice.
Elizabeth Bennett and Mr. Darcy
Molly is creative like me, and she adores the seasons, so the back of her jacket is the four seasons.
Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring
This is the whole front of the jacket:
Front of Molly’s jacket
This was a fun and special project, and Molly really liked it!
I’m so sorry for the random hiatus. School, life, and well, everything kind of got away from me for some time there.
I found out I needed surgery, and I wanted to have all my school assignments complete beforehand, so I wouldn’t have to worry about anything but recovering after. I turned in all my schoolwork early, and I had surgery on December 3rd. I’m feeling great now. I’m also a little amazed at myself for getting everything turned in early like that and still maintaining my 4.0. It was a lot of work. Anyway, it wasn’t a major surgery, and the recovery was really easy. I’m weirdly exhausted the past few days, but I’m hoping that’s just because Christmas was a lot.
I’m still leading group therapy with adolescent girls, but for now, my play therapy sessions are over. My practicum starts January 10, and I really can’t wait. I want more practice and experience. I’m excited! I’m also really hopeful that I will get to do more play therapy.
I’ve been glad to have a break from school, but with Christmas and post-op appointments, I’ve still been so busy. We just had new Internet installed yesterday too, so the room where Mushroom Meadow is located is a huge mess, and most of the furniture is too heavy for me to move myself. I’ll have to wait for Michael to get home.
My last post was two months ago and about Halloween, so I’ll start updating everyone on Mushroom Meadow from that point.
Happy Friday! I hope you’re doing well and feeling ready for the weekend.
Halloween is this Sunday, and I’m so excited!
Mushroom Meadow has a table entirely dedicated to their Halloween party.
Halloween Party
I gathered almost all of the pumpkins I’ve made, along with the ones from CatzillasMinis on Etsy, and I put them all around the giant pumpkin.
Those little balloons on the pumpkin cart are from a dear friend, and two of the three brooms are from CatzillasMinis. The big table in the middle was made by me, and the bridge, hay bales, baskets, white chairs and table, unicorn, black tree, and autumn leaves are all from Michaels craft store.
Little Witch
I made the witch’s hat and tutu in the picture above.
Plates from Elizabitzies
The amazing and adorable Halloween plates are from Elizabitzies on Etsy.
I love decorating tables. I don’t know why. I just find it so fun. The Jack Skellington cake and cauldrons are polymer clay, and I made them. I also made the pumpkins and the green candles.
Candy shop
I really should have made more face pumpkins this year.
In 2019, I bought this cute house on Facebook Marketplace. It was a wreck–totally covered in hot glue. I got the hot glue off mostly using a knife, but I don’t recommend doing it that way. It’s dangerous, and I hurt myself more than once. I read that rubbing alcohol and/or using heat to melt the hot glue are helpful, so if you need to remove hot glue, try those methods. Be safe.
Anyway, the picture below shows how the house looked when I purchased it.
The ‘Before’ Picture of the House
I liked the original colors, but I already had a blue house, and I wanted this house to be really colorful and happy. I also really wanted to experiment with textured walls.
I set to work right away. Because hot glue doesn’t stick very well, I didn’t have much trouble removing all the window frames, flowers, shutters, and doors.
I used plaster to texture the outside. It was surprisingly easy. I decided to have the primary color be yellow, and I used orange, green, and turquoise as accents. The finished product is pictured below.
The ‘After’ Picture
It’s garish, but I love it. I would absolutely live there. I mean, they have a beaded front door! I have always wanted a beaded door. The house is 1:12 scale, so it’s definitely too big for Calico Critters, but they don’t mind. They like having extra space.
The picture below shows the interior of the Alpaca house at Christmas. It’s not as colorful as the outside. I’m honestly not vey satisfied with it, so I’ll probably redo it in the future. But for now, it’s cute enough, and I like that my adorable Alpaca family has a home.
Alpaca House Interior at Christmas
I’m not sure if I prefer building houses from nothing or remodeling. They both have their pros and cons. When you start with just a kit, putting it all together can be exhausting, but it is entirely your own work. With a remodel, it can be tough to change things without breaking the house, especially with smaller dollhouses. It’s hard to get into corners and such to repaint, and taking it apart may not be an option. But the house is already built, and that can be nice.
Overall, I’ve had really good luck with my Facebook Marketplace finds. The Alpaca house and the Chiffon café are some of my favorite dollhouses.
I missed posting on Friday because I wasn’t feeling well, and I also had homework to catch up on after I finished leading group and play therapy sessions.
I’m here and ready to post today though!
On Saturday, I attended a virtual “Calico Critters/Sylvanian Families Mythical Party” hosted by one of my Instagram friends. Since the start of the pandemic, a lot of my friends have hosted different parties and events, and I have had a lot of fun participating in each of them.
Since August, I’ve posted pictures for a miniature tea party celebrating love, friendship and kindness, a princess party, a miniature pancake party, and the mythical party mentioned above.
Here are my pictures from the pancake party:
The Marshmallow Mice Enjoying Pancakes and Fruit
The Marshmallow Mice had polymer clay pancakes eggs and fruit at their house. The Alpaca family also had some yummy breakfast foods. Most of the food was made by me.
Alpaca Family
The Deer family prefers waffles, so they had waffles at their house.
Deer Family
The virtual princess party was especially fun because Princess Georgiana Maple is a princess. I loved dressing up my Calico Critters, and I made the blue and pink wig being worn by the cat using felt and embroidery thread.
One little bunny princess attended, and also, there was a TARDIS.
Here is a “getting ready for the party” picture I took.
Georgiana Maple Selecting a Dress
For the tea party celebrating love, friendship, and kindness, I ended up building a giant table. I also recently purchased the Fairytale Babies, and I adore them. I changed my Blackberry Bunny’s dress to a dress I have that sort of looks like Snow White’s dress to create a “Snow White and the Seven Dwarves” look. It turned out cute!
I also made my first ever polymer clay charcuterie board for this party. Most of the food was made by me except for the soup and the apple pie. The apple pie was a gift from the lovely friend who hosted this tea party, and the soup was purchased on eBay.
They have cake and pumpkin-spiced tea and little sandwiches. And yes, those are leaf plates. Snow White and her babies live in the forest.
For the mythical party, I was excited to have baby Cordelia, the mermaid, attend. My Sylvanian fairies were also present, as were my dragons.
Queen Maple had everyone over to the Fairytale House for this party. I made the unicorn cake. The skeleton unicorn is from Michaels Craft Store. The little unicorn book is from an Etsy shop. The Tinkerbell was made by me using polymer clay. I love how her wings turned out.
The pumpkin carriage is Epoch Toys, and the tiny unicorns are from Etsy.
Thank you for reading! I hope you’ll join the Instagram miniatures community!
I hope you’re having a good week so far! I have a lot of homework to catch up on since I took last weekend off from schoolwork to take pictures with Michael and visit his grandparents. If I get all my work done before Friday, I can spend next Saturday playing with my Calico Critters in Mushroom Meadow!
Mushroom Meadow is all ready for Halloween this year! Below is a the pumpkin patch I set up for the Calico Critter babies. All the pumpkins were made by me using polymer clay. The Candy Shop is from Target, and the weird pumpkin man was from a dollar store in Houston. The pumpkin wagon is a Calico Critter accessory. I’m obsessed with the tomato baby next to the princess bunny. She has little tomatoes on her ears, and it’s just so cute!
Mushroom Meadow Pumpkin Patch
The Pandas’ home is always a little spooky, but they’ve added some glow-in-the-dark pumpkins to their living room to spice it up for Halloween. I used glow-in-the-dark polymer clay for these. I made a Zero from Nightmare Before Christmas using this clay as well, but Michael loves him, so he took him to his office before I could get any pictures.
The Chiffon children made sure to decorate their upstairs apartment of the Mushroom Café as well. The Chiffon house is one of my favorites. It was a really lucky Facebook Marketplace find for only $20!
Mushroom Café Upstairs
Below are some pictures of Mushroom Café. The pumpkin garland hanging on the inside was made for us by a wonderful friend.
Mrs. Giraffe purchased a fancy dress from our friend at CatzillasMinis on Etsy to wear in honor of this month. She looks very cute! I love the bag and other goodies that our friend included!
The Otters have special pumpkins to match the color scheme of their home. Also, yes, that is Baby Ghost hanging out with Cordelia! They had a great time together on Saturday. There’s going to be a party this weekend, and Cordelia is very excited!
Thank you for reading! I’ll be back on Friday with even more pictures of Mushroom Meadow!
I hope you’re all doing well! My weekend went by so quickly. We spent Saturday visiting with Michael’s grandparents, and we spent Sunday taking pictures. I had a great time, but I am exhausted and wildly unprepared for the week now. Also, Cengage is down, so I can’t do my homework. Yay.
It will be okay though. I have plenty of other things I can work on until Cengage is working again.
My husband and I have a tradition of taking pictures together at a Pumpkin Patch every October. We both love October and Halloween. It’s our favorite holiday.
This year, for whatever reason, we couldn’t find a pumpkin patch, so we decided to DIY it by buying our own pumpkins and hay from Walmart and going to a nearby historical marker.
I think our pictures turned out really cute!
The dress I’m wearing is the Brigid Maxi from Holy Clothing. It’s so pretty, and it has pockets!
Below are the pictures from previous years.
I always forget I own those cat tights! I need to wear them more often. They’re so much fun!
Also, Miria (the dog) has only been to a pumpkin patch with us one time. She was very distressed and uncomfortable, so we have never taken her back. She was just a puppy, and she thought the pumpkins were terrifying. Isaac, our other dog, has never been to any pumpkin patches, but she happily takes pictures with pumpkins in our backyard.
That’s all I have for this post. I mostly just wanted to share our tradition with everyone. It’s very special to us.
I hope you guys are doing well! It’s Friday! I will be leading group counseling sessions and play therapy sessions all day, and I am so excited! It’s a lot of work, but I think I’m starting to get the hang of it.
For this post, I am going to share some pictures of the dollhouse that the Panda family lives in with Baby Ghost.
The Panda house is the third dollhouse I built, and I finished it in early 2019. The outside is grey and black, and the inside has a black and white theme.
Front of the Panda House
We display the Panda house on that cute marble antique table. I think it looks very fancy.
I purchased the dollhouse kit from FleursGifts on Etsy, and I was really pleased with the quality of the wood and the details of the dollhouse. Her shop seems to be closed now, but I got some really great houses from her, and I loved that her houses were so perfectly Calico Critter-sized.
I’m a book lover, so almost all my dollhouses have libraries. Below is the library in the Panda house. It’s decorated for Halloween.
Panda House Library
The picture below is actually quite old, but it gives you an idea of the interior of the house and its scale. Most of the empty rooms below have furniture in them now. One of the rooms even has a unicorn skeleton!
I used scrap wood, extra windows, and foam core to build a haunted house/ room box over the weekend!
Haunted House
I had a lot of fun wrecking it with paint and sandpaper to make it look as abandoned and decrepit as possible.
Haunted house – interior
I haven’t decided what to do with this house yet. I don’t think I’ll have anyone live in it, but maybe someone from Mushroom Meadow will stumble upon it and be scared. Or maybe it will be the location of one of Mushroom Meadow’s many Halloween parties.
The attic has a large barrel of poison, some rope, newspaper, and decorative lace in it. Someone tried to use newspaper to patch the holes in the roof–almost as though someone has been hanging out up there!
Haunted house attic
I used air dry clay and craft moss in this house too. I have a lot left over from when I built the fairytale house. I have a lot of stones left over too, so I surrounded the haunted house with them.
Haunted house interior
It was also nice to have a use for some of my broken things, like that window pan and the chair.
Overall, it was a fun weekend project, and I can’t wait to incorporate it into Mushroom Meadow somehow. I’ll probably include Baby Ghost since he’s a ghost, and this is a haunted house.
I hope you’re doing well! It’s Monday, and I have a lot of homework to do this week! Lots of papers to write and things to think about!
I used to work in a biochemistry laboratory, so I decided to give making a miniature lab a shot. Two doctors work in it, Dr. Oreo and her husband, Dr. Midnight. Their lab is in an abandoned building towards the edge of Mushroom Meadow.
Laboratory
They have books, a laboratory fridge, an eyewash station, and plenty of beakers. I stitched their lab coats myself. I want to make them some new ones soon though. Also, as you can see in the above photo, Dr. Oreo and Dr. Midnight are not afraid to eat in the lab (even though they really shouldn’t be doing that).
Mr. Alpaca with the eyewash station
The eyewash station/ emergency shower is made of polymer clay, wire, and a wooden stick. For a first attempt at any kind of shower and sink, I think it turned out nice.
Recently, a wonderful friend sent Dr. Midnight and Dr. Oreo some new lab equipment and a new table to add to their furniture. Peep the diet coke in the fridge. I love that the beakers and flasks came with colored plastic to put inside them. I haven’t tried working with resin yet, so all my other flasks are empty.
New lab equipment
The outside of the laboratory is just foam core, but I really want to cover it in brick or something and have it be a real part of Mushroom Meadow because it’s one of my favorite miniatures.
Dr. Oreo and Dr. Midnight are such rulebreakers. They have signs right in front of them that say not to have food in the lab, but they’re always eating. This is a Calico Critter fridge that I painted on to make it look worn and like maybe some lab explosions had happened near it (or inside it). That sandwich is oozing.
The black table in the back was made by me, and the bookshelf was made using a box and popsicle sticks for the shelves. The sink and countertop is Calico Critter, but I painted it brown and black and added some multicolored stains on it to look like spills. I found the Bunsen burner on the black table on Ebay. It makes me so happy that they have their own Bunsen burner!
Laboratory
The wooden floor and walls are weathered and splattered with who knows what kinds of chemicals. Dr. Oreo studies mostly neuroscience, which is why there’s a brain in the tray on the counter. Dr. Midnight just likes mixing things to see what happens. He’s working on a special Halloween drink right now for the upcoming Halloween party in Mushroom Meadow.
Experimental Halloween drink
It looks delicious–I love all the toppings, but I have no idea what he injecting into it. If you attend the Halloween party, maybe avoid these drinks!
Mushroom Miniatures 