How to Make a Doll Restaurant - The Decor

Here is a few decorating touches I added to Lola's Bistro...

I have a vase full of twigs and they always come in handy. I painted them white and hung them on the side walls. The back wall is for art from my viewers. We are accepting art from all ages and our viewers will vote for their favourite. We will use your art to hang in restaurant and in the new dorm rooms.

 I love how they turned out.

 I wanted the lighting to be special. I found these two Christmas ornaments at Value Village, as soon as I saw them I knew they would be perfect. To secure the lighting (ornaments) I made a hole on the ceiling and ran the string through and glued a piece of wood over it.

I found these wood piece at a garage sale this past summer. I stained them and glued them to the wall then added the mirror over it.

The doorway on the left is the door to the kitchen that doesn't exist. I wanted somewhere for the serving staff to come out of, plus that is where they get the drinks and the bill etc... I wanted the space for tables and seating.

To cover the doorway to the fake kitchen, I used these silver ball garlands I got from dollar store.

I love how the doorway turned out. The silver curtain balances the lighting.

I will be posting about the bench in the next post.

The Door...

Oops...time to change the blade...

Start gluing your popsicle sticks to the cardboard. I used hot glue...watch you fingers, hot glue is crazy hot... try following the same pattern on each side of door.

I glued a piece of plastic to mimic a window.

I Just finished the sign and address number.

The next post will be the final one, the furniture and the finished look.
There will be a video on our YouTube channel plus a little stop motion clip at the end.

Thank you for visiting my blog, tell me what you think of the new restaurant.

:)

How to Make a Doll Restaurant - the Floors

The Flooring...
I love how the floor turned out, I didn't want to do the giraffe print for the restaurant, because that is the schools flooring, and I wanted it too look elegant so I did a hardwood flooring, well more like soft wood, I used popsicle sticks.

After laying the floor down, I stained it.

Now that the floors and walls are done...time to start decorating, my favourite part. I will post the pictures tomorrow of the decor features I added, and a final video on our YouTube channel probably Sunday...with a little stop motion clip (I will post the video here to so its easier to get to).

I have only done a few videos in stop motion and it was done with me holding the camera and trying to stay in the same position taking the pictures, well that didn't work out very well.  I love how stop motion looks and want to do more of it but it has to look better, I didn't know why it wasn't looking very smooth, one of our YouTube viewers told me all I need was a tripod... duh... another duh moment. So I started looking for one on Kijiji and found a few, I also asked my brother because I know he has some good cameras and woohoo he had a tripod to give to me, now you can't get a much better deal than 'free'.
Thanks bro... you're awesome!

So don't forget to subscribe and join our blog and YouTube channel so you won't miss any of our new stop motion videos, tutorials and our web series thats getting alot of great comments 'Skull Academy'.

Thank you so much for stopping by and viewing my crafts.
YOU ARE AWESOME!
I think I use the word 'awesome' way to much :) but it fits :)

:)

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving to our

American Friends!

From Canada 

How to Make a Doll Restaurant - the Walls

My niece's Monster High dolls needed somewhere to hang out and go out on dates. So I made her a restaurant and we're calling it Lola's Bistro. Their grand opening will be next week.

Materials Needed

• 22" x 14" x !4" cardboard box
• scraps of cardboard
• white glue
• paper mache
• styrofoam 
• paint
• wallpaper

Fold in the flaps of  your box, add more layers of cardboard to all sides, this will make it strong and when you add the paper mache, the cardboard won't warp, warping starts when the cardboard is really wet, so keep a fan on the box and don't make your paper mache mixture too watery.

I added a patio to the restaurant.

I added a back bench for seating in the restaurant.

Styrofoam and a long piece of cardboard for the back of the bench.

 

Now paper mache all of it.

Urgh, the patio warped...and it warped really bad...not useable, despite my best efforts it still warped, I think it was because it was a long piece of cardboard, I should have broken it up into smaller sections.


Solution:
I removed the patio by cutting if off with a knife, removed the flooring section and kept the side walls, I still have my patio and actually works out better because this will make it easier to store it. I will post pictures of the patio by the weekend.

 I like to paint everything white, more like a blank slate, then I try to get inspired on how to decorate by the things I find. Not sure what to do yet in this picture.

Then I found this awesome wallpaper. I wanted something simple. We want to hang viewers artwork in the restaurant, so we didn't want it to look too busy. We want the art to stand out.

Check out my post on the floors. I didn't paint it this time, I .... I'll tell you later :)
Got to go now, back to my real job.

Please subscribe or join my blog and you won't miss the final reveal.

Oh yah, I gotta say it.... please vote for me :) for top 100 doll sites...we're at currently no.4 but go back and forth alot from 5th to 4th. 

Thank you for all you have joined and subscribed. You inspire me to start and finish my crafts. I love making these crafts for my niece and I love sharing them with you. Thank you so much for your comments.

Ginger :)

Dollhouse Contest

I am so excited, I just entered the First Annual Undersized Urbanite Dollhouse Contest.

http://www.littlevictorian.com/p/dollhouse-contest.html

This will motivate me to finish the dollhouse, I've been working on other crafts for the Monster High school house and our Skull Academy web series. Plus of course I also run my own business and try to sneak in one-two hours on my crafts and blogs everyday but I do leave my Sunday's for crafting.

Still so much to finish on the dollhouse, the kitchen and bathroom, furniture for all the bedrooms, a garden. I love it! I have made about six or seven dollhouses and this one is my favourite and its not even finished so I'm excited about finishing it and sharing it with you.

I have until May 2013...whew, gives me plenty of time. I am still trying to find time for my ebook on how to build these dollhouses, plus I have other projects I want to complete first.

I hope you will all vote for me once house is done.

Thank you.

 

Have a great day!
Thank you for subscribing and joining my blog. Please send me pics of your dollhouses, I would love to post them here.

Oh yah, I have to ask again, please vote for our site for 'top 100 doll sites' above.

Thank you so much!
:)

How to Bling UP your Old Barbie Car

The Vamp sisters Draculaura and Draculily got a big surprise this past week on our web show 'Skull Academy', a blinged up car from their father Dracula.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

• Barbie Car
• Gem stickers

I found this old Barbie car at Value Village for only $2. Perfect for the Monster High dolls.
But it wasn't fancy enough for the Vamp sisters Draculaura & Draculily, so I blinged it up.
I bought these awesome strips of gem stickers from Dollarama, $2 a pack. These are so easy to use but hard to find at all stores, they go really fast.

First I cut out a paper heart shape, taped it to the hood of the car and then surrounded it with the gems.
Once I had my heart shape I removed the paper heart and filled in the heart with more gems.

 Then I added more bling all around the car, I tried to balance it out so it looks evenly distributed with gems. I used bigger gems for headlights.

There is a crack in the window so I covered it with another heart of gems.

  

I wanted to remove anything that say's Barbie on the car, so I gave the sisters a personalized license plate.

Dracula, their father use to call them his 'little vamp's'.

 

 Please send us pics of your blinged up old cars and we would love to share them with our viewers.

One more thing, please vote for us for 'top 100 doll sites' above on the right.
Thank you :)

CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS!

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL OUR WINNERS!
We want to thank everyone who subscribed and joined our channels. You will be entered in all future giveaways, there will be another one starting soon for some cool fashions for your dolls.
Plus there will be more chances to win, by commenting and sharing!

THANK YOU :)

tailsofthesea - from Kansas

Elana Gilbert - from New York
LivandMonsterHigh - from England
Thenewmhrules1234 - from Florida
theneatthingsinlife - from Tennessee

Your laptops will be mailed to you soon, I will keep you posted.

GingerLola2011

VOTE FOR US!
Please vote for us, top right side above for "top 100 doll sites", we are
currently no.5.... help us get to no.3, we're not greedy, 3 is good :)
 
Thank you so much!
YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!

Sneak a Peak at our new doll restaurant!

Hi everyone, I am almost finished the new restaurant, it will set the scene for alot of 'Skull Academy' dramatic moments. The new restaurant will be called 'Lola's Bistro' it is a casual hangout with some elegant touches, I think so anyways. I will be putting together a tutorial video once its all done and posting on our YouTube channel and here as well.

Still waiting for viewers to send in their art. We got a few already that we will be hanging, but please keep sending scans of your art. We can also use them for dorm rooms and the school. We want you to feel like you're apart of Skull Academy.

Here is a few pictures, just finished the door this past weekend and I love it, I love that it fit in the spot it was meant for, barely but it fits...I haven't taken any pictures yet if it being done...enough said, here are the pics...

Almost finished, I don't want to give away too much, please subscribe or join our blog so you won't miss the big reveal. The big reveal will be on our web show 'Skull Academy' on our YouTube channel: gingerlola2011

 

Please don't forget to vote for us for 'top 100 doll sites' above on 

the right hand side, we are currently number 4 woohoo  

(at the time of this post)....we don't win anything but its nice to 

be in the top 10.

Thank you :)