Friday Night Lights

I attended the Bay Area Miniature Show and Sale at the Clarion Hotel in San Mateo.

There were beautiful room boxes made by Rainbowhand and Kathy. They have a new website which will be up next week: http://www.rainbowhandandkathy.com/.

There were incredibly beautiful blown glass pieces by Ferenc Albert from Florida. He had such exquisite bottles and decanters.

Drena West was representing her mother Doreen Sinnett who lives in Oregon. Her site is http://www.tinydolls.com/ do you know it?

It was so interesting to meet the people who make the miniatures and run the stores. I knew of Shellie's Miniature Mania in San Carlos and have read her newsletter. It was fabulous to meet her in person and talk about her shop. She is a doll, wouldn't you know it??? Her website is http://www.shelliesminis.com/

I had also seen the work of Bluette Maloney.

She lives in San Mateo and had fabulous roomboxes.

http://bluettemeloney.com/contact.htmhttp://bluettemeloney.com/contact.htmThere was a wide variety of work represented and I was surprised how many smaller scale items were available.

Shale has left the building..

Well my guest is off to Carmel for the 2nd part of her Cali vacation. BUT she left me so many treats. I found a copy of "Miniature Rooms" she hid for me.

 And what about the many things we found? The material here is from the Crate and Barrel outlet scrap pile in their Berkeley store. Did you notice the green chairs at the bottom of the last post? Susan Hale discovered them. They are repurposed from a rubber hot pad finger guard and a tamper. Cool, no? I may have to replace my "flyswatter" lounge chairs with these at the rooftop bar on my MH1.The beautiful silver cocktail table in that post is a $4.00 pastry tamper from Sur la Table shop in Berkeley.

Shale and I "met" when she posted in 2009 about Mr. Bluegreen (by Bozart) putting a nude Barbie (by Mattel) in her dollhouse as a statue.. I picked up on the tale and had Mr.Bg give it to Jim for Colette's birthday present. (It's is one of the reason's Colette dumped him). Susan was funny and gracious about continuing the tale of the Barbie Statue. Then we chatted about visiting each other. Some of her friends in Canada said, "How can you just go to this woman you've never met before's house"? Actually after following a mini house blog for a year, I tihnk you have a pretty good idea about the person. Oese said if I'm ever in Paris she'd like to meet. (Not likely right now with my older girl's health issues, and the younger one's wedding...) but I'd love to. We all love comments and it feels like you are visiting me through them! Cheers (and I mean that) CM

Antiquing in Alameda

Daphne and Colette look at a doll house for the Christian Hacker children's room.Shale remarks that the houses's along Alameda,s "Gold Coast" look like big dollhouses.SCORE! Daphne and Colette welcome the new dolls! "Your're going to Canada!" They say. The Flaggs are thrilled!The girls celebrate their success.(Photo by Susan Hale.)Is this a new dollhouse? No it's 1:1 Alameda!

Life in the Big City

Hey! Who are you? I came to take Colette for a ride

"Daphne.Wow, I  am a gal who LOVES TO RIDE, Hard, and NEVER puts 'em away wet!"Dapnhe replied eagerly

"Daphne!" he said "You are really out there aren't you?"

"Oh , well, um, I am a straight shooter... is that you hand?" she said"HEY! What's going on here!"Collette barkedDaphne, honey, I know you were a child's toy, and then in a box for 30 years... But you're not on the farm anymore and you have to be careful what you say".

how to take care of sore bones after hiking through wine country

The girls wake the next day to fresh orange juice and a soak in the hot tub.

Napa

So we drove up to Napa. It was a beautiful day.We got a recommendation to a restaurant called Martini, which had the best food I've eaten in a while. It was made from Walter Martini's original house in Saint Helena.

The Canadians Have Landed!!!!!

Let the party begin! "Hola nueva amiga", it was a question who was better matched. Susan and Carol, or Colette and Daphne! Everyone was getting along so well!

The two friends began with a brief tour of the embarcadero and fisherman's wharf and then arrived at Colette's house in the East Bay Hills. Pretty soon Colette and Daphne were sipping margaritas and planning tomorrow's trip to the Napa Valley!

Colette got an email from her old chum in Canada

Betty Flagg emailed Colette and said her friend Daphne was coming to the Bay area and could she stay at Colette's. Colette said, Of course! Betty was vague as to why Daphne was coming and sounded flustered.
Well, Colette thought, any friend of Betty Flagg is a friend of mine! Colette was looking forward to the Canadien's visit.
The summer weather in the Bay area was dodgey. Cold and foggy or hot in the 90's.
Poor Daphne, well Colette had lived the past four years in this one outfit, so Daphne might not have to pack too much after all.
Hmmmm got to see SF MOMA, Napa.... eat lots of Mexican food...drink California wine... um this was sounding good, perhaps one could say... blissful.

More Bliss illustrations

Notice the teepees...Tug of War

Bliss chairs

I just find the illustrations on this dollhouse furniture so charming. They are hard to photograph because the gold printing reflects light, the red is strong, but the blue has faded  the most. Little K is missing the back.

Bliss also made furniture

Using an alphabet design. Charmingly for Children.

A PRD Kitchen

or another kind of bliss.I had been using a silver spray painted Tomy kitchen set in my MH1. It was cute but it's time to install a new one. This is made by Paris Renfroe Designs. I think it compliments the gray and white modernism of th MH1. CM

Top Floor Bliss House

So Not knowing quite what to do with this house,

I made it Jack and Jill's little house

and put various antique pieces in it

with new Jennifer's printable wallpaper from the '40s

and little copies of pictures on the walls from

Mother Goose and Hans Christen Andersen .

My assistant took the day off

Happy 4th of July! Guest Curator

OK SO THIS GUEST CURATOR IS MY 3 YEAR OLD ASSISTANT. original wallpaper on side.

THOSE OF YOU WITH KIDS MAY RECOGNIZE SWIPER FROM DORA THE EXPLORER,

AND TASHA FROM THE BACKYARDAGINS.And perhaps even George Washington.

This is the back side of the Bliss house.

This was just not gonna happen any other way! So happy 4th! "No swiping swiper!"