Announcing Heartland Doll Tea Parties!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!!

As I mentioned in my posting yesterday, I've been feeling like 'too little butter spread over too much bread' lately. It was for a myriad of reasons but one of them is that I've been working on a huge project in the Doll House. That's right, I am making the Doll House mobile! I have just planned my first 'event' with the Doll House. I've long felt it was silly to have such an amazing Doll House but to never share it in any way with real live children. I wasn't sure how to go about ever having any in because, lets get real, my Doll Room is much too small for a gaggle of girls to play in. So what to do? I finally decided on the idea of making a 'mobile' doll house and to hit the road with it but how? My first inception was to do Birthday Parties for girls but... I wasn't sure how to make that happen? Then one of my very best friends and I were talking about her dream to change her Antique Store into a Tea Room and Antique Store. I said how neat it would be to make a Doll Tea Party because American Girl Doll Cafe's are something girls love to go to but not everyone can make a trip there for it. So my idea was to make a similar experience here in the heartland of America... And Heartland Doll Tea Parties was born! 

Much like the AG Cafe, each doll will get her own special seat right next to her girl and Mom (Grandmom, Auntie, Friend) at the table. Each doll will get her own cup, plate and spoon to take home with her just like AG Cafe. Only, unlike the AG Cafe, where there is only shopping after the fun time eating, at Heartland Doll Tea Parties, there will be an actual Doll House to play with your doll in! See the description below from the Treasure Trove Syracuse Tea Time website.

Formal Tea Parties are an experience every little girl should have at least once. When you bring a long a Dolly Friend, it is even more fun. Come and have a cup of tea with the special little girl in your life and her doll and create memories she will tell her own daughter about one day.

Party includes:

• Tea Sandwiches and petit fours served on beautifully set table of elegant tea plates
• Chairs for Doll Guests so Dolly can enjoy tea with her special friends
• Fun questions on each table to help create amazing conversations
• Fancy Photo Booth available to capture the moment forever
• A gift for each Doll to take home
• A visit to Heartland Doll House! An hour of time to play in the Doll House with your doll

The Doll House includes:

• Doll sized kitchen, living room, bedroom, bathroom and laundry room
• A wardrobe of clothes for your doll to play dress up
• Doll sized Sweet Shoppe and Vet Clinic
• A stable of horses and ponies
• A cast of 10-12 dolls, including boy dolls, to borrow as friends or siblings for your doll in Doll House

*Recommended age is girls between seven and twelve due to small parts and fragile items in Doll House.

Obviously the Doll House I am setting up for the Doll House visit will be a bit more 'child friendly' than my actual Doll House. There won't be any breakable dishes and such. It will still be super fun. I am nearly done getting all the components together and will set up what the 'Traveling' Doll House soon and take photos so you'll know exactly what it'll be like. 

I am super excited about this new venture! There are three Tea's scheduled in August.  If you're close to Nebraska, I'd love to see you there! To book a time, visit here!

Better run!
Till Next Time!
XXOO
Heather

Jupiter 18inch Doll House Arrived From Sam's Club!

Greetings and Salutations Doll Friends!!

I mentioned recently that I found a Jupiter Wooden Doll House on clearance at Sam's Club for only $16.51 and like $6 shipping... Well, it arrived on Tuesday and my sweet husband assembled it for me on Saturday. 

Sadly, Sam's Club ran out of them about the day after I ordered them because I'd love you to be able to get the same deal. I looked to see if they were available elsewhere and... Well... They are... But holy moly they are ridiculously expensive!! Now let me just say I am glad I got mine so inexpensively because I have to report a bit of bad news. This thing is annoyingly difficult to put together. Seriously. Like almost impossible. 

My husband has been a technician for over 20 years and it still took him hours and a lot of aggravation to get it put together. He's a really patient guy who knows his way around such things and it is only a testament of how much he loves me that he didn't pitch the whole thing out the window. It is literally a jigsaw puzzle to put together and comes in a ton of different pieces!! I would've taken photos for you of all the parts and screws and such but I, luckily, left the house for a few hours long errand and wasn't home to take the photos. Luckily you say? Well... My husband joked that it was good I wasn't there because there might've been massive frustration and a bit of cursing involved. Why? Well, he doesn't mind a jigsaw puzzle and even a lot of pieces but when it comes to them actually not having the drill holes in the correct places so he had to drill some of his own, he starts to get annoyed. As he said, "If I weren't a technician for 20 years and was just some layperson who was trying to put this sucker together for my daughter on Christmas Eve, she might just wake up to no gift and a very upset father!!" It even says not to use power tools on it because it would be really easy to ruin the entire house if you aren't really careful. Let's just say I told my husband I'd owe him not one but three really big favors for actually finishing it and not pitching it out the window. So... Fair warning, if you decide to buy this, be prepared to spend hours of your time asssembling it. We still didn't put together the little stove that came with. My husband was so aggrivated by time he got house together that when he went to tackle that I was just like "Let's leave it... You can put it together some other time!!" But, all that being said, now that it's all assembled?

I LOVE IT!! It's SO CUTE!!!

I've always wanted an operational door for the Doll House for the endless photo ops it would provide. I saw one on American Girl Ideas and loved it but also know I am not quite that crafty and so knew I'd likely never go to the time and expense of making one like hers. But for less than $25 shipped?! I am so totally stoked... Here you can see Heather Doll peeking out of the door and if you look closely you can see the actual Doll House behind her! SO FUN!

See? What I did was to set the Jupiter Doll House right in front of my regular Doll House. My regulard Doll House is actually all set up as a huge Cala's Diner right now for an upcoming YouTube video I am wanting to make....

See the 'entryway'? I think it looks so "real"!! 

See? This is how I set the Jupiter Doll House in front.

It's so much fun to look through the little door and window and see the Doll House!!

I am sure I'll think of other great ways to use it for photos as well, like when nice weather rolls around again I can take it outside and have so much fun taking photos of the dolls outside 'their' house. Fun!!

Better run!

Happy Monday!

XXOO

Heather

Tour Of Heartland Doll House!

Greetings and Salutastions Doll Friends!

As you may have read in my blog post about my upcoming Heartland Doll Tea Parties I've been working on putting together a mobile doll house. What do I mean 'mobile doll house'? Well, exactly that. A Doll House I can box up and bring, in its entirety, to different venues. The first venues I am planning to bring it to are the upcoming Heartland Doll Tea Parties. Depending on how they go, I hope to bring it to other events or parties in the future. 

I've finally got the house complete for the most part. I might add a few more accessories to rooms here and there but this is generally what girls and their dollies will find when they come to play at the Heartland Doll House. 

Here Prism showing you the kitchen. She is making breakfast for herself and Frann. 

All the accessories and furniutre you see here will be in the kitchen as well as an additional container of doll food for you to serve or cook for your dollies.

There is milk and eggs in the fridge along with a lot of fresh fruit and veg... Not to mention cupcakes!

Prism Doll made Frann Doll a breakfast of eggs and bacon served with cofee and orange juice! YummO!

Sitting down to eat...

Bon' Appetit!

Here are Calla Doll and Radel Doll in the living room of the Doll House. It is mostly the My Life As Doll living room set I got as a gift from my husband recently. I thought a more 'modern' living room than my normal one (you can see in this post) was in order. My regular one has much more 'grown up' looking furniture, a lot of which is breakable. So this one is much more 'fun' in that you can fully play in it with no one getting hurt. I plan to add more accessories to this room as time goes by.

Calla is doing her homework while Radel practices her guitar. What a nice comforable room to sit in!

Next we have Lilly Doll in the bedroom. It's got bunk beds with lots of pillows and stuffed animals. It's got a locker at the end of the bed to store various items for the dolls. The vanity is stocked with all manner of lotions and other beauty supplies.

Here we have Sasha Doll and Lilly Doll getting ready for bed.

Time for bed!

Before she went to bed, of course she had to brush her teeth. This is Sasha in the bathroom of the Doll House. There is a toilet, a bathtub with hand held shower, a vanity with a sink and mirror and pretty plants and rugs in this room. A perfect room for a Dolly to freshen up!

So that is the Heartland Doll House! If you'd like a 'video tour' you can check here. At the Tea Parties at the Treasure Trove I plan to also bring along four full size horses and four ponies and set up a small Sweet Shoppe and Vet Clinic but I'll have to give you a tour of those last two rooms in an upcoming post!

Better run for now!
XXOO
Heather

A Tale Of Three Doll Loo's! Win A Doll Potty!

Greetings Doll Friends!

I recently made a portable doll house called Heartland Doll House for an idea I had with my lovely friend Patti from The Treasure Trove Antiques and Tea Room to have Doll Tea Parties. We did a few of them and they were so much fun. 

Sadly, having a full time job and a family and trying to write this blog... Well, I just don't have the ongoing time to invest in continuing to put together and host Doll Tea Parties. So, I handed the Doll House over to Patti for her to use in upcoming Doll Tea Parties so I could turn my focus back to what I really enjoy... Creating or finding doll items and telling you about them. I am happy to report that Patti has gotten bitten by the Doll Bug and that alone will have made my time and energy into creating the Heartland Doll House worth it all. 

However, there was one room that I was reticent to give up permanently from my own Doll House... The Bathroom! It's come a long way from it's original inception... I don't think I even ever wrote about getting the sink from Amazon now that I look for the post I thought I did. LOL I tell you, a blog post lives a long time in my brain before it makes it out in photos and words and I guess sometimes I think I've made a post and it's never left the space between my ears. Hahaha!

So I wanted to be able to both leave a bathroom in the Heartland Doll House and have one in my own... So what to do? Doll toilets are not the easiest thing to find! I mean, American Girl just came out with a bathroom for Julie that has a toilet which is super-de-dooper-adorable but also $195!! I have been a member of doll groups on Facebook for a while though and so I know that popular options for toilets are the toilet bank like I had used and... There was a potty training doll from Fisher Price called Little Mommy Gotta Go Doll once that has a toilet and sink combo that also is pretty close to the right scale. However, they can get rather pricey on eBay. So when I saw this one on eBay for only $20 plus shipping, I excitedly snapped it up. This way I could review it for you and then give it over to Patti so she'll have a bathroom in the Heartland Doll House. Win win!! 

It arrived pretty quickly and it is so cute!! As you can see, it's all one piece, the toilet and sink are hooked together by a plastic 'wainscoting' and honestly match my Our Generation Bathtub almost perfectly. Right? Patti told me that she'd go ahead and get a tub of her own to match the new toilet sink or perhaps even make them a shower instead. So she'll have a great bathroom!

Here is Estella washing her hands at the sink. Perfect size, right?

One feature of this toilet is that when you push down the handle, the 'water' spins and has two sides, the clean water side and the 'poopy' side. Every single time I see the 'poopy side' I giggle. "Even dolls poop!" runs in my head. Hahaha! We used to have a kids book called Everyone Poops and sure enough... Even the dolls! 

Anyway, sadly, this toilet must have been flushed one too many times because instead of the default being the pretty clean water, the poop is always showing. Bummer! I mean, the flushing sound works great with the batteries in... But it will always look like someone forgot to flush. Stinker! Literally! (Teehee... Ok, I'll stop with the toilet humor but it really is the perfect place for it, right?)

So if you're looking to make a doll bathroom for less than $195, that might be an option for you... Still, even if you can get the toilet for about $30 like I did, once you add the OG Bathtub, you're at $60 and that's not nothing... 

"Hey! A little privacy please!!" 

(Kidding. I had to show you how well she sits on the toilet)

She can sit rather well... 

Just for good comparison sake, I went ahead a took a few new photos of my own toilet and sink combo in same space so you'd be able to better guage the size differences and simularities. 

I really do love my doll bathroom. I cna't help it, it makes me smile.

One of the best parts about the toilet bank option is that the toilet can sit right down into the OG Bathtub for storage! As I've mentioned before, I try to make all my doll rooms as portable and storable as possible because I don't really have the space in my Doll Room to keep a doll house up all the time so I usually only have a few rooms up at a time... So it's always good for items to pack away easily together.

As I mentioned, $60 is still a little steep for a Doll Bathroom especially if you're on a budget... I remember when I first started making a doll house, there were so many rooms I wanted and so little money to make them real. So I was hoping to figure out some good option for people on a budget but who aren't quite crafty enough to make a toilet like the genius who writes American Girl Ideas.Then, low and behold, like the day after I order the Fisher Price toilet, what do I see at the Walmart clearance section but a doll potty!? For $1.50!!

Now, mind you, it's not quite as realistic as the other two options but the price is way more comfortable!! Also, I think the dolls will sit easier on this one than the other two... There is a little lever on the left hand side that you can even 'flush' this one too. Pretty cute considering the price!!

So I had to pick one up because I knew I was going to write this blog post! Haha. I don't need yet another doll toilet though! So... Since last week's doll drawing give-away was so popular, I've decided that this little potty will be my next drawing give-away! Just the potty itself, not the rest of the items in the photo... Just to clarify! Don't want anyone disappointed when their potty arrives by itself. 

How do you enter drawing? Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!! Just like last week, you just go and 'like' the PCR American Doll House Facebook Page and share the post there about the contest on your own Facebook page. That's it, super easy!

 I will draw the name of the contest winner on Sunday September 10, 2017 at  6PM Central Standard Time.

*Contest only open to people in the United States or APO addresses due to postage costs!!*

(Sorry international readers, I only have so much money to devote to my little blog here)

So if you're wanting a doll toilet, maybe you can win this one?! Good Luck!!

See? She sits pretty well on this one too! Too cute.

Better run!
XXOO
Heather