Best of 2010

http://www.flickr.com/photos/cjtgsm/sets/72157625706028734/   See if this leads you to my flickr set.

You KNOW I'm still learning.

Well... all the news shows are doing the Best of 2010 so why not here too?
Oh oh, they are also doing the worst of. Think I'll just skip that. (Ruh roh, a couple are too grainy and now I don't know how to delete them from the set! It is hard to tell who's who from the thumbnails.)

What am I doing up this early? Someone down the canyon's car alarm went off. I am going to pretend it is a nurse going into work, a great and dilligent humanist, rather than a car burglery (is there spell check on blogging?)

Goodbye 2010
and, Here's to the Best of New Years! C

I need a new house

This is by Magis, the Metoo kids, Villa Julia. It is 47 x 53 x 63 inches wide. It comes with stickers to decorate too. Click here to see more http://2modern.com/designer/magis/Magis-Metoo-Villa-Julia.

Oh no Mrs. Santa is missing!

Santa is resting up for the big night, but where is Mrs. Santa? My little assistant (my 4 yr old Granddaughter) was over yesterday playing with them in the Victorian house. She LOVES them. But what happened to Mrs. Santa? I have searched high and low and she is no where to be found. I should have frisked the little assistant before I drove her home. I am not kidding, there isn't time to order a new doll. What if Santa doesn't wake up in time for Christmas Eve. Will there be no Christmas this year? Ha! If I told my litle assistant that she'd burst into tears! I better go look some more! C

Credits: Minimodernista bed and lights, strombecker side table, Gerlach brass vase, notecard rug, Andy Allan chair, antique crocheted afgan.MH1 by Wes Christiansen

Update: So I told my elder assistant and in between talking to and texting her fiance and talking about brides maid dresses ad nauseum, she pointed out maybe I should look harder.

The bed is lumpy. I pull back the covers, It's Mrs. Santa!

Whoa someone's grumpy! Get the coffee on!

Minutes later... Oh Santa!

"Your mochachino latte is ready!" Whew! That was close.

Mrs Santa has a PDR kitchen, she can have anything right, so only the best for her. Expresso machine by delph miniatures, French door refrigerator contemporary, unknown manufacturer, silver coffee maker, blender and microwave by mighty world, refrigerator drawing by my little assistant, milk, rement?
Later that day:

She's baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!  She said to me "Nana, why are these things so wobbly?"

I must say doll houses are good babysitters. We are having a staff party today! My elder assistant wants you to notice the BLING!

Um credits: DDR German sidetable, cheap Santa, Bozart people, Minimodernista bed, contemporary Christmas tree, Michaels plastic wreath placed on top of a beautiful vintage strombecker lamp. etc.

My New Year Fantasy: Photo project

So here is my ultimate dream scene. It was provoked by a post by Shopping sherpa, Anna-Marie.
I would take bloggers who know one specific house.

1 Lundy
1 triang
1Gottschalk
1 PDR
1MH1
1 Atriam House
1 K house
1 Oceanview
1Villa Sibi
1 Seablik
1 Lolly's Citadel
Marx?

and plug them in with a mini blogger.   Anina, Nicola  of Puppenlochen (sp?), CallSmall, ModernMC, Shopping Sherpa, Pubdoll, Amy, Susan, MiniDork, Rebecca, Oese (glass house?) Me,(MH1) ModernMC, Petite Noveau (Emerson) etc. and do a photo
play.
Oh by holiday, style whatever, hard core design, effusive light and see how each artist interprets the idea in a house they own and are familiar with.

If it were done quarterly it could draw in the mini bloggers who are busy with young children, and new bloggers with a small collection and inspire those of us with time to burn. It would be a uniting mini blogger event! What do you think?

Update: From your emails. Ha ha Oese! No one can understand me in English either!!
Anna Marie: Like a Tour de force of photographs from mini modern bloggers.
Something reflecting this school of thought which is happening right now. I like your idea of a calendar.

Maybe a virtual home tour for charity. I don't know any ideas?? C
C

"What do you MEAN you won't fit?"

Old Santa in a new style house.

And I'm the tax man

"You say you want a Revolution..."  what was that legislation you just passed?
Photo from 1/21/10 I use it whenever politics makes me crazy. OK there's a reason it's called "Leftcoast Mini". Ok?
I hope I don't have to stage a mini demonstration to repeal DADT.

credits: minimodernuistas ribbon lamp, Bozart lamp and day bed, childs rubber block from Costco for the side table, dish towel rug, reac chairs, Tomy rubber plant and tv, Beatles CD cover and a filter for the wall.

Post modern Gingerbread houses, MH Matso, we love you Wes Christensen!

So of course I wanted to make a gingerbread house with my little assistant this year. Have you seen the post modern ones? Too cute.

Pubdolls post today made me want to post this. http://pubdolls.blogspot.com/
I thought about using wafer cookies and after searching the market saw these crackers. Matso crackers were the straightest. (eek, rather like stonehenge... where are the Flintstones?)

Well. I did want to add chocolate steps, fireplace and support but... Doh!   or dough? or doe?
Merry Christmas Wes.We love you!

And this one from thisnext!

Check this one out!!! http://albertis-window.blogspot.com/2010/12/modern-gingerbread-house.html

 and

http://www.trendhunter.com/trends/architectually-correct-baking-mid-century-modern-gingerbread-house OMG look at these!  YUM! CM


Oh deer! They just keep getting better and better. Check out this ball clock and the Noguchi table and

Eames chair. I think marzipan is the answer! C

PRD Carpet tiles

I finally had time to play with my Paris Renfroe Design carpet tiles. I love them. They have adhesive under them to attach permanently but I like to keep them easy to move. I better go to his website to see what is new http://www.parisrenfroedesign.com/prdminiatures.aspx

And thank you Paris for letting me write s designer profile of you for Doll Houses Past and Present ezine. http://dollshousespastandpresent.webs.com/apps/profile/profilePage?id=41889988

looking to give a dollhouse for Christmas?

If you know me well, you know I have a 1958 Aljo canned ham style trailer. It currently resides in Taos with a friend. I can't imagine WHY my neighbors don't like it parked in my driveway???

 The funny thing is when I first posted it on flickr, they banned it. Apparently in some languages "dollhouse" has taken on the meaning of, um,  house of prostitution... on WHEELS? no less??? 

So you might think I would want this clever trailer model from the people at Greenleaf. You can find it here:http://www.miniatures.com/Dollhouse-Kits-C46.aspx?s=Name ASC&p=10

But I don't. Or

This clever hippie bus from the same source.

Oese had a good post about little trailers. I will have to go back and find it to put a link here.

 I have already done my hippie scene on http://myrealitty.blogspot.com/2010_06_01_archive.html

\

So
because I am a design fan, friends of mine also send me articles, such as this opinion piece by Allison Arieff from the New York Times:   http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/09/13/from-aeron-to-airstream-things-that-work/?emc=eta1 Thanks L who emailed it to me this morning which started this whole train of thought.

and I just want to be perfectly clear to Santa, I'm the one who wants the set of antique knife boxes by Tynietoy.
Have I been good....? depends who you ask. Just easing into the Christmas mood. C

The tree arrives in the Puppenstube

(Is it Puppenstube or Puppenstuben or Puppenhaus to refer to the doll house?) The family gathers around the Christmas tree mother set up in the living room.

Mother is happy with her work.

Grandpa tells the children Santa will be coming.

Grandma takes the children into the kitchen to bake cookies.

 Brother jumps up when he smell the cookies! Granpa and Father laugh. The children are so impatient.

The little sister wants to put the next batch of Christmas tree cookies in the oven to bake and Grandma and Mother laugh and tell her she is not old enough yet. They reassure her she is old enough to taste them when they are cool.

Midcentury German dollhouse, Caco and Ari dolls. I love these children, they capture the feel of a toddler. DDR furniture.
My daughter tells me every morning my little assistant races out of bed to the livingroom to see if the tree is up yet. My daughter hopes to get hers up this weekend. Meanwhile we have the little trees going up.
Update: Thank you Rebecca for the clear explanation. See comments below. C

The Design within Reach event hits the San Francisco Chronicle

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/26/HO001G1M04.DTL

Congrats Paris, Doris, Stacy and Tim and associates. Good article, good pictures!

Click here for Mini Dork's blog:  http://modernminihouses.blogspot.com/

she was interviewed for the article. Megan you house is smokin'! image credit: Modernminihouses

Wow! I just went through my tv's on demand list of movies and there is "Tiny Furniture"!

I think it's the sundance channel, review to follow! What fun!

Perfect to watch on a rainy day eating pumpkin pie!

Jessy's surprise

The best part of this ring is that Andrew comes with it! I am Thankful for my son-in-law to be, even if he lives on the other coast. The funny part of this engagement was all the twittering, facebooking and texting that happened for the next half hour! C

Update: So my younger assistant said upon hearing the news, "I don't want to be a flower girl... I want to be the bride."  

Juxtaposed: A little bit of this and a little bit of that...

Hum along. So you know I love hard core modern design. And I love antiques. So I call this juxtaposing the two. I love Peter Tucker and I love Tynietoy. I love pinchofpepper's tension lamp and I love the antique red-stained German table and chair. I love the persian rug wth the vintage DDR flooring. I love the Dwell magazine on the Tynietoy wing chair. It's not quite repurposing, using antiques with your modern...  but it feels like it. Breaking out a bit.  Good design always goes with good design, no matter what the age. What do you think? C  I think I'll play some more.... What shall I put with my red long and low couch???

Credits top: tv delph minis, Peter Tucker plywood chair, clock and wingchair Tynietoy, confetti couch and orange pharmacy lamp Minimodernistas, Noguchi table PRD, basket table napkin ring with lucite circle. Rug silpat mat  in MH1 by Wes Christensen.

bottom: DDR vintage German flooring, persian rug mouse pad, White back wall filter, book stack I made after DWR bookcase, red stained German antique butterfly table and cottage chair. Tension lamp by pinchofpepper.Olive green chair Reac, Japan, antique Tynietoy sleigh bed and wing chair in toop floor of MH1.

Update: Just a little bigger picture of the antique Tynietoy screen, Reac Barcelona chair and Linda Davy sculpture, "Candelabra"

What is this on the counter?

Isn't it a LITTLE early to cook the turkey??? Maybe I better here because my elder assistant is making Thanksgiving dinner for the first time this year. I remember my first turkey I cooked. We didn't even know enough to take the gizzards out...

And we ate at 10 PM. (don't tell anyone I said this, but she's kind of a know it all... the confidence of youth...she thinks she is the Barefoot Contessa. She has a little dish of salt out on the counter as if she tosses it on  the food  while cooking) My job is to sip white wine and say, "Wow! this is delicious! Wow! Wow!"

This is the PDR kitchen. I am wild about the detail, look at the faucet. So modern! Paris is SO thorough! It makes me wonder if I should get one like it in the basement remodel.
This is in the MH1 and it is my favorite house by Wes Christensen. I had to put a sheet over it to make doubly sure it doesn't get dirty during the construction. I'm a little worried about it, flying plaster dust... Everywhere. C

Kicking it up a notch

ON EBAY: 2 little bozart plastic vases.

Mid century German plant stand.

The bad news is my elder assistant is moving back to D.C. after Christmas.
(The good news will be revealed later)

The other news is I am follwing Shale's lead and listing miniatures I don't want on ebay. My elder assistant is donig this under Lepetitecarol. (She opened her ebay account in high school and now realizes that is mispelled, but it is too hard to change ebay and there we are!)

I will finish describing my current collection sometime next summer and then I am going to weed it out and refine it.

FOUND on ebay, (Not listed by me)

Did you see the Villa Sibi? $599.00 right now. There are many more pictures. #170566946347

Being on ebay as a seller is a whole new perspective and actually great fun! Have you ever done it? I certainly have a lot of experience as a buyer... I hope my little pieces find good homes. I am starting them out at 99 cents and  $1.00     EEK! CM

Tiny Furniture: the movie, now the HBO series?

Of course I am the one my friends contact about Lena Dunham's movie. Has anyone seen it? http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/11/15/101115fa_fact_mead

Now HBO is doing a series??? Got sets? What would be some plots? Life follows art?
It became hard enough googling "Dollhouse" after the Joss Wheelan show. My flickr stream was peppered with shots of babes in leather.

My 1:1 house. Just to be clear.

The diningroom table. My elder assistant is cooking her first Thanksgiving dinner at my house. So far she has set the table. That's it.

No menu. No groceries, yet.

But, if you look from this angle you can see someone used a clear spot to sort miniatures...

It's getting hard enough to tell what is miniature and what is real on flickr.

 Sometimes I want to post pictures of my real house there, people would say, "how does she achieve that REALISTIC cluttered look.." ok not really.

Yay Doris! If Martha knows you, you are REALLY on the map!

http://www.minimodernistas.com/

Good morning! Got my coffee, check my email and what a good morning it is!

Doris Nathanson has her new wedsite up! Minmodernistas! Her furniture is sooooo crisp and beautifully made. Her furniture will be in Martha Stewart's magazine in December. Go to the website for more details. Look for my article on her in Feburary's issue of Dollhouses Past and Present, ezine. it will be a Designer's Profile. I saw her first Martha! (Notice her red couch and confetti chair and pillow in the post below)

Minidork designed the website. Wow Great work. Mini Webmaster more like it. C

From Australia

with love? Well I love art with a capital A.

Galleries are my churches. Artistic expression are prayers. Get the drift?

I loved these works that were part of this summer's "Call of the Small" exhibit in Canberra curated by Anna-Maria Sviatko.

"Candelabra" and

"I'll Fly away"

 by Linda Davy

But they didn't arrive until today.

This is the view up to the street from my front door.

That green mailbox is mine on the street. But do you see the black one right above the shadow on the red bricks? Well it has been sitting there waiting to replace the green one for months We walk right by it every day. Today for some reason my elder assistant looked inside.
There was the package from Australia with an Ebay package I had reported missing. (I gave the seller good feedback anyway). Why did she look inside? Who knows, but hooray!
So... it IS a small world after all...  just not a simple one.  Sighs of relief all around! C

I see the light

Could these be the seasonal lights Mini Dork has been looking for? People use them to make lights in their dollhouses instead of wiring. They are $5.99 at Ace hardware. Whoo hoo holloween fun! C

Fooling around with the LED tea light. The fireplaces in the antique houses are best, this is the Christian Hacker House livingroom. The fireplace is not an antique. It just happened to be the right size. With flash.

sans flash

I thought the walls looked too bare, so up went the relatives. C