2. Plotting the interior...

My new dolls house came half-done, wallpaper and flooring laid out and lights hooked up (thank gods as I ain't no dab hand with electricity). It came with random bits of furniture, which I chucked inside haphazardly so that I could hold a conference with the future inhabitants. We needed to discuss the plans for interior.

(please keep reading behind the cut)

The dolls came from an American cartoonist, performer, and a multi-faceted artist Dame Darcy; beautiful dainty articulated creatures have been living in display boxes and little coffins for years until I finally unleashed them into this house. 

Here's one arguing with Bear about turning the child's room into a brothel bedroom:

Alas, Doll and Bear had a domestic, and went to sulk in the temporary bedroom (I'd already changed the wallpaper there, using this fancy origami paper).

The other doll by Dame Darcy is Spridula Eeeaaaooo, a glow-in-the-dark ghost doll who normally lives in a small coffin. I summoned her for tea, hoping she'd have some ideas. She told me to pry the attic open (it came glued down) and add hinges, so that she can haunt it as she pleases.

Spridula Eeeaaaooo's book club

ex-wallpaper in the sitting room

 And so the renovations started! Trips to DIY shops and power tools were involved.

I re-discovered the attic and gave it tudor beams from the stem of a shrub I spotted on a walk in wintry Greenwich. The blood stains come from my partner's fingers pricked with a needle while crafting... Because, obviously, every haunted attic needs permanent blood stains! 

I even made some familiars to keep Spridula company - two little bats crafted from wire, tissue paper, beads for eyes, and my cat's fur for tiny felt bodies.

(next time I might try black silk instead of tissue paper!)

But my two dolls seemed too selfish and biased in their opinion, and I still needed assistance, so I grabbed some Fimo and crafted my first doll, a dark witchy creature called Russ (after a character in a fanfic I was reading at the time), whose task was to do something about setting up a working kitchen.

Russ did get somewhat distracted by a litter of kittens that jumped out of my stores of "random cute things" I'd been collecting for years, but otherwise was excellently meticulous. 

I'll update about my kitchen in a future blog. So far I think it's my favourite room in the house!