I am Learning Crochet!

On January 24, 2022 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi there!

I hope you’re all doing well!

Monday comes way too early now that I work at my practicum site on Saturdays. I love having the opportunity to help out though. I worry about the teens being bored on the weekends without school or access to their friends or cell phones.

Besides work, I learned to crochet! I’m so proud of myself! At first, I tried it, and I honestly thought it was too hard for me. I just couldn’t seem to make my hands do what I needed them to do. But I gave it a couple of days, and when I tried again, I was able to make it work! The first thing I crocheted was Harry Potter from a kit my sister gifted me at Christmas.

He’s decent enough for a first try. I’m not sure how, but I ran out of the yarn for his pants, so I had to switch colors. I guess the kit didn’t have enough? Or maybe I messed up somewhere else. Who knows. His feet are terrible too. One of them is backwards. I was going to throw him away, but my husband insisted on keeping him for himself. Michael has named him “Scary Potter.”

Since making Scary Potter, I’ve also learned to make clothing for my Calico Critters! First, I made a new outfit for Tulip LaPoodle:

I also made this tiny crochet coffee mug for the babies to sit in:

I really like the mug pattern. I see myself using it a lot in the future. I might not always add a face, but I can imagine some cute Christmas decorations and maybe a silly chair in a play room for the Calico Critters using this pattern.

I made this cute yellow dress for Cecelia Reindeer:

Her giant popsicle is from TinySugar on Etsy. I love buying from that shop. She has great molds, and her foods are cute and reasonably priced.

My favorite creation so far has been the tiny mushroom shirt I made for Ivy Red Panda:

Oh, and this past weekend, I made some fruit dresses for the babies!

I love these fruit dresses so much. I didn’t find a free pattern for baby Calico Critters, so I had to make one up, and they both turned out really cute! I’m so happy with them!

I think I will write down the patterns I made up and post them for y’all since the internet seems to need free dress patterns for the babies!

Thank you for reading!

Mrs. Polar Bear’s Hot Cocoa Stand

On January 14, 2022December 28, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi there!

Happy Friday! I hope you’re doing well today!

For years I’ve wanted to build a miniature hot cocoa stand for Mushroom Meadow, and I finally had the time to put it together this year. I love how it turned out!

Here is the whole thing:

More pictures of Mrs. Polar Bear’s Hot Cocoa stand:

I had so much fun putting it together, and I can’t believe how cute it is! On the day Mrs. Polar Bear debuted her stand, lots of friends in Mushroom Meadow showed up to try some cocoa.

Even my Strawberry Shortcake ornament made an appearance!

I really loved creating this little scene this year, and I almost don’t want to put the stand away when winter ends. I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it though.

Thank you so much for reading!

Christmas in Mushroom Meadow Part 2

On January 10, 2022December 28, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi there!

Thank you for coming back for part 2 of Christmas in Mushroom Meadow!

Christmas at the Otter House was delightful with their new toaster from Hallmark.

The hot cocoa and teapot were made by me out of polymer clay. I loved how well everything matched in the Otter kitchen.

The Otter living room had stockings and a Christmas tree. I’m better at sewing and working with felt now, so I want to remake the stockings, especially my mermaid stocking. I’m sure I can make a nicer one now.

The Strawberry Cottage is where Ivy Red Panda and her parents live, and I’m always very excited to decorate their house. Check out my Strawberry Cottage post to learn more about why it’s so important to me. The Red Pandas have the best tree in all of Mushroom Meadow. It was also the most expensive.

I sewed the little tree rug myself. The Red Pandas also have cute stockings that I made using felt stickers and ribbon.

In their dining room, they have a Yule log cake with little mushrooms that I made out of polymer clay.

Here’s one more picture of the Red Panda living room, featuring a Christmas wood cutout gifted to me from a dear friend.

I also embroidered that little Christmas tree pillow.

Dr. Midnight and Dr. Oreo also got into the Christmas spirit in their laboratory. They experimented on some candy canes.

The Alpaca house got kind of neglected this year because there’s a table blocking it right now, but I did my best.

Their stockings really need to be redone, but I have been having such a hard time “finishing” cross stitch stockings. Tips are very welcome!

I usually decorate their tree with little beads and ribbon, but I just shoved it in there this year. I also struggled with the lighting in my pictures because of the table getting in my way. I’ll have to move their house or something.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed seeing Mushroom Meadow!

Christmas In Mushroom Meadow Part 1

On January 7, 2022December 28, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi there!

I know it’s a little late, but I wanted to share all the Christmas decorations in Mushroom Meadow.

This will be split up into three posts because Mushroom Meadow had a lot going on this year!

First, I want to introduce the Maple Cat family’s new butler, Mr. Cheshire! I’ve loved the butler set for years, and I’m so happy to have it! And, of course, the Maple Cats are very glad to have their very own butler.

*Mr. Cheshire, the Maple Cats’ new butler*

Mr. Cheshire worked very hard on his Christmas baking for the Maple Cats.

The Maple Cat house was so much fun to decorate for Christmas too. Here’s the front:

*King Maple in front of the Maple Cat house*

I also decorated the stairs on the side of the Maple Cat house:

Finally, the living room had a golden Christmas tree!

The Polar Bear family also got their house decorated for Christmas for the first time. Their igloo was built in time for Christmas last year, but I hadn’t finished the interior, so I didn’t decorate it.

The bedding, bear, and stocking are all from CatzillasMinis on Etsy. I love her shop so much!

They were in the midst of wrapping presents when I photographed their downstairs decorations. The TV is a Christmas ornament from Target that I just love. It’s the perfect size, and it’s so cute!

Next is the Lavender house, where Emma Deer and her siblings and parents live. I have ended up with far too many deer babies, and I do not know where to put them all!

I made the cross stitch reindeer. I wish its red, sparkly nose showed up better in this picture!

They also have snowman cookies!

Baby deer mailing their letters to Santa!

This is a cute winter bear from CatzillasMinis:

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to decorate the Panda house, so all they got was this little tree.

I have high hopes for next year though because I do not plan to be recovering from surgery!

I hope you liked this post!

Thank you for reading!

Snowman Party!

On January 5, 2022December 28, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

On December 4th, I hosted a Snowman themed party on Instagram! Since that was the day after my surgery, I took all the pictures for it a couple weeks in advance. Around 40 Instagram accounts participated, and it was so fun to see everyone’s snowcreatures!

For my post, I made this cute snowman costume out of felt:

I also made some more snowmen and snowwomen out of polymer clay for the occasion, and even Santa Lion made an appearance!

This party was easy to set up and host while I was recovering from surgery, and I loved seeing all my friend’s posts! They were so creative and adorable!

I was delighted to discover that I have so many little sleighs! I also made the tiny snowman cupcake and polymer clay Christmas tree for the occasion:

It was such a fun day, and I felt so blessed to have so many lovely friends.

Thank you all for reading! There’s going to be a cookie party hosted by LifeinBoston on Instagram, and if you’d like, I hope you’ll participate!

Have a happy Wednesday!

Molly’s Jacket

On December 31, 2021December 28, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

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.

Molly also loves Pride and Prejudice.

Molly is creative like me, and she adores the seasons, so the back of her jacket is the four seasons.

This is the whole front of the jacket:

This was a fun and special project, and Molly really liked it!

The Alpaca House

On October 27, 2021October 26, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi there!

Happy Wednesday!

I hope you’re having a good week so far!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Thank you for reading!

Virtual Instagram Parties

On October 25, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi there!

I hope you’re doing well!

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.

The Deer family prefers waffles, so they had waffles at their house.

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.

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!

The Spooky Panda House

On October 15, 2021October 14, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi!

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.

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.

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!

Thank you for reading!

Haunted House/Room Box

On October 13, 2021October 12, 2021 By miniaturemushroomLeave a comment

Hi there!

I hope you’re doing well!

I used scrap wood, extra windows, and foam core to build a haunted house/ room box over the weekend!

I had a lot of fun wrecking it with paint and sandpaper to make it look as abandoned and decrepit as possible.

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!

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.

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.

Thank you for reading! Have a great Wednesday!

Mushroom Miniatures

Tag: arts and crafts

I am Learning Crochet!

Mrs. Polar Bear’s Hot Cocoa Stand

Christmas in Mushroom Meadow Part 2

Christmas In Mushroom Meadow Part 1

Snowman Party!

Molly’s Jacket

The Alpaca House

Virtual Instagram Parties

The Spooky Panda House

Haunted House/Room Box