Miniature Mouse Tree Dolls House inspired by Brambly Hedge

When I was very little my Mum bought the Jill Barklem Brambly Hedge books for me and I loved them.  I used to paint and draw pictures copied from the books and I had posters on my wall.  I still have my original books and, about a year ago, I read them to my twin 4 year old boys.  I had just finished making my first miniature project (http://madshobbithole.wordpress.com) and was looking for inspiration for my next piece of work whilst waiting for the new Hobbit movie to be released……11 months later, this is the result – a Brambly Hedge inspired Dolls House

The house has now been sold if you are interested in any of my other work, please check my Etsy shop (https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/MadsMiniatures?ref=search_shop_redirect) (click to be taken there) or  email me at maddie.chambers@googlemail.com

  

The whole thing is inspired by Crabapple Cottage drawn by Jill Barklem in her wonderful book “Spring Story” (see link below)

http://www.bramblyhedge.co.uk/uploads/media/Gallery/Cherryblossom.jpg

   

          The frame and bark are completely hand made from scratch – see the post ‘how I made the tree house’ for details

       The laundry room – the towels are made from old baby bibs from when my twins were young and the cloths are strips of ribbon

And of course it had to have Mushrooms!!!  I made these out of Fimo and each one is approx 3mm across so very fiddly! I bought the dressers, but the one in the pantry was not tall enough so I made some more shelves to make it taller to match the one in the book.

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I am quite proud of this fireplace – it is made from scraps of wood, fimo and an old egg whisk! See how I made it here

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I made the mouse by modifying a Dolls House Emporium doll – I took off the doll’s head and made a head and hands out of Fimo.

    I made all of the food myself from Fimo and liquid Fimo.

I made the beams from strips of wood – I aged them by whittling down with a craft knife and then used coloured beeswax to stain them.  The fireplace is made from a frame of wood, cement painted to look like stone and sticks from my garden!  I added a flickering bulb from Matlock Miniatures (got all my lights from there too) http://www.matlockminiatures.com/Shop/index1.html

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I could not find a four poster bed to fit the bedrooms, so I custom made them from leftover wood from the ceiling beams

My mum sent me the apple blossom from USA – they have much more selection over there and it looks way more realistic than anything I could find here.  Thanks Mum xxx

I bought the fireplace from a wonderful shop in Chesterfield – The Dolls House Gallery.  If you are a dolls house fan, it’s worth a trip as it is like an Aladdin’s cave!  http://www.dollshousegallery.co.uk/

You can connect with me on Twitter (although I rarely use it I’m more of a facebook person!) @maddsrocks

https://twitter.com/maddsrocks

How I made the Miniature Mouse Tree House

I started with a lot of MDF – I cut the pieces and whilst I was cutting them, my twins drew pictures on them to “help” :-).  They called the pictures “dragon party” – they take after me with a love of fantasy.  I had no plans as such, just a scribbled drawing on a piece of paper with rough dimensions that I hoped would be ok.

        

                   

I then stuck all the wood together and decorated 🙂

  

I covered the chicken wire tree frame with modroc.  I decided  I was not happy with the fact I had missed off the little store room in the front big tree root, so I built a little separate room and stuck it down to be covered with plaster etc at a later date. It took a couple of hours, but I am glad I did it.

                 

I went to Sherwood forest to do some research on trees!  Took my twins and the dogs and took lots of photos and had lots of fun ‘hunting for Robin Hood’ I made the tree bark out of Masonry cement which is actually pretty difficult – my idea was to take a silicone cast of some bark (which I did) then press it into the plaster/cement, but when I did this it just kept falling off so I just had to ‘dab’ at it and it turned out ok!

     

Close up of the bark and moss.  Once the cement was dry, I painted it different shades of brown and added different types of moss, grass and flock to make it look more realistic.

  

I made the fireplaces myself – out of scraps of wood, metal paint, I made hinges out of fimo and the bars are my egg whisk!! I needed some thin metal bars and that was what I had to hand.

           

I finally added a flickering fire lightbulb and some pans.

I made the wardrobe and cupboard in the bathroom out of pieces of wood – I did look in dolls house shops etc for ones to buy, but could not find any that were the right size so custom built them.

Next I made the beds out of pieces of wood I had leftover from making the beams on the ceiling.  I borrowed my Grandma’s sewing machine to make the curtains!

  

All the window frames are hand-made.  I measured the window holes, then cut pieces of wood to match and then used liquid wax to colour and added ‘glass’ (thin perspex).  I then added pieces of wood for shelves and made some curtains to match.  I bought fat quarters of material from Hobbycraft to make all the curtains with.  All the curtain tie backs are the small ribbons that come in clothes when they are new to hang on hangers with.  I always cut them out and save them (and finally found a good use for them!)

  

The floors are made from sheets of thin wood floorboards (dolls house emporium) and varnished/stained.  The stone flooring is made with ‘realistic stone flooring’ from Bromley craft products – you get a stencil, make up the stone mix and spread it on.  Once it is dried you can add shading etc.  I highly recommend this stuff as it is a lot cheaper than buying individual floor tiles and looks effective.  http://www.craft-products.com/dolls-house-brick-stone-tiles.asp

The grass at the front is static grass which you can get from miniature railway shops or Games Workshop.

  

Made some extra shelves for the pantry dresser so that it is as tall as the one in the book.

   

The bricks are made from cement and painted to look like stone.  All the wood in the house is stained with coloured beeswax and carved with a craft knife to age it.

    

leftover wood strips from the beams – made these into a little table for the bedroom (see above)  they also were made into the bed frames.  I rarely throw any craft materials away as they can so often be used for other things if you have enough imagination!

I searched and searched for wallpaper to match the bedroom from the book, but could not find any, so in the end I painted it by hand and used a tiny flower stamp that I found in my craft box to stamp on the pattern.

  

frame all made and just waiting for decoration.

I really enjoyed making this house – my twins were really enthusiastic and drew pictures of mice for me and ‘instruction’ pictures to help me 🙂

Sorry to all those expecting to see ‘The Prancing Pony’  I got so far with it, then decided it was looking too much like a traditional dolls house, and I lost all enthusiasm.  Watch this space though, because I will very soon be returning to Lord of the Rings projects!

About me & other projects

I live in Chesterfield England and currently work part-time in IT support (gave up working full time after I had twin boys in 2007)

I play guitar (acoustic and electric) and my favourite music is rock music – Guns N Roses, Metallica, Stone Sour, Incubus etc.  I also love the exercise classes I go to – Kickboxing, Body Combat, Zumba etc

I love animals and have lots of pets and I like painting and drawing as well as other crafts.

Here is a link to my other project (the only other miniature I have ever done)

http://madshobbithole.wordpress.com
http://madsgingerbreadhouse.wordpress.com – for sale

You can connect with me on Twitter @maddsrocks https://twitter.com/maddsrocks

and a couple of  pictures of me 🙂

Pirate costume for a fancy dress party 🙂