I finally bought myself a hot glue gun and a couple of months later, I actually used it! My Teal Times sofa had come undone. I'd been using that awful Hobbycraft double sided tape at the time; I didn't buy the UHU Power until I was about halfway through that project. Anyway, that tape was absolute pants. The adhesive deteriorated after a couple of years and discoloured. According to customer services, it wasn't even acid free. It had already ruined several scrapbook pages, and now had ruined my dollshouses too. So I had taken apart that sofa over a year ago now, and just couldn't be bothered to put it back together.

Anyway, now being in possession of a glue gun, I thought I'd see how that would go. While I was at it, I decided I'd see if I couldn't do something about my first kit. I only did the most minor of customisation for that one. I thought I may as well revisit it, since I was increasingly hating the decor.

I made a dollshouse for Tiny, inside a cracker box. Like my other projects, it remains unfinished. I still have the bathroom to make, but I just can't get round to it.

Here's the outside. I offered to paint it, but Tiny wanted to keep it looking like a box of crackers.

Here's the interior:

Ohhh, you remember my paper maché monstrosity, don't you? Well, this is not a repeat of that. I'm sticking with the smaller scale. I started by mocking this up in The Sims 2. Fun fact: the in-game screenshot function no longer works, so I now have to use printscreen and tab out. Oh, EA, how I love you! I went for a tiny-home. In real life, I'm really starting to feel inclined towards living in a tiny home. Not that it will ever happen, because prisoner, gilded cage, etc. But I have to dream to keep myself sane.

Here is my mock-up:

I think that's what it's called. So here we go, and I finally got to do my red and black theme!

The decor on this was absolutely hideous. I can't even describe how awful the master bedroom wallpaper was. It had to go.

One thing to bear in mind about this one is that it is wider than the other three, so I had to get the one with the dust cover, as it had to go on the top of the display shelves. Otherwise Biscuit would have quickly done some "redecoration" of his own.

This one seemed to be from the same manufacturer as my first dollshouse (Elegant Times 2018?), but there has been an improvement. You actually get a sheet with all the pieces mapped out so you can easily see which piece is which.

After the success of the faerie bedroom, I wanted to extend that and make a full building. This is going to go to B as soon as I can trust him not to destroy it (it may be a matter of years). I'm not sure what scale this is, but it's definitely smaller than 1:24. The only thing is, I have no idea why I went with a bookshop, given how darn tedious making miniature books is. No really, it's tedious.

For the structure and furniture, I used that card thingie that I still don't know the actual name of [edit: it's called greyboard or mountboard]. I used acrylic paint to paint it, scrapbook design paper for the walls and floors, cardstock for the window and door frames, and clear cellophane for the glass. For the decorations, I used beads, tissue paper, scrap fabric and leftover bits from my dollshouse kits.

So here are some pics:

This is Tiny's house!

Yeah, I did it again. Here is the one I chose this time:

That's the default style. Originally I was planning on doing a complete repaint, as I did with Blue Times, but I do have a weakness for pink, but at the same time, I wanted to introduce a little more variation, and make it more "mine". So the red-and-black theme will have to be saved for the next one (and yes, there will be a next one).

I got Blue Times in the end. This one took me aaaaaaaaaages to make, about a month, in fact. Partly because of how much I customised it, and partly because it took me ages to end up going to Hobbycraft, where I finally found some decent glue!*

First observation: this one was really well-packed. The last mini house kit I bought, shipped from China, was in a terrible condition when it arrived, and one bag was open, with many pieces having fallen out.

This one cost about £20 on eBay, shipped from the UK. It arrived in a few days.

The quality of this one, however, I found to be lower than the first house I made. Both main wall panels were warped, one of the kitchen table legs was about 5mm too short and didn't have the tapered end. I had to make it longer with silicone glue (see if you can spot it). A piece for the support bars for the highchair was missing, and in the end the one I did get was too small when assembled, so I had to make it out of thick card instead. They bizarrely tell us to chisel the corner of the bedroom floor to a right angle, but there was absolutely no need for it. I'll have to repaint the corner, but even without customisation, that would have required repainting anyway as the original colour was white, but they don't mention it in the instructions. So do ignore that step if you buy this kit.

I bought a bookshelf for the two, and I still have two empty spaces. I managed to hold back and not buy another one just yet, though! I think I need to recover from this one first!

... is of course, to buy a kit, not make it out of paper maché.

I saw these on scamazon many years ago (actually, during the time I was making the paper maché monstrosity). And I decided that since I'm feeling kinda crap of late, I may as well get one to cheer myself up. Actually it's been pretty useful distracting me from the bazillion and one things that are causing anxiety these days.