Blog 8 – Little Red Cottage: Part 1

I fell in love with a 1:12 scale doll last year (2020), who kept popping up in my Instagram feed.  She was a beautiful older hippy doll, Impi, made by Minna from Minna Miniatures in Finland.  After months of drooling, I finally plucked up the courage to ask Minna if she would make an Impi for me, similar to her hippy flower-child.  Minna is so approachable and is an amazing doll artist and miniaturist.  Her Etsy shop shows the fantastic reviews her work has received although she doesn’t create in vast quantities.  Thankfully Minna was happy to produce an Impi doll for me, dressed similarly to her own lovely hippy lady. 

Only a couple of weeks later (amazingly fast in these slow postage Covid times) I had not only my Impi doll, but two kitset dolls also from Minna – Hugo and Hilda.  I assembled Hugo and Hilda and dressed them – then renamed them Paavo and Anneli.  Paavo is the equivalent of Paul and I named him for my very dear Uncle who passed in January 2020.  They’re a lovely couple and they quickly settled into the Pierce with Norm and Val.

Impi I renamed Tynne Valtameri (pronounced Too-nay similar sounding to today but with emphasis on too).   Tyyni Valtameri actually means Pacific Ocean so it was a fantastic name for my sunshiny lady who had come across the world to live with me here in New Zealand only 500 metres from the Pacific Ocean.

From the moment I knew Tynne was coming to live with me, I decided to turn my Greenleaf Storybook kit, into a traditional Finnish cottage or Mökki for her.  Once I’d finished my Creatin Contest entry, I pulled out the storybook to have a good look at it.  The first thing I needed to consider was how enlarge it.

Because it is such a tiny house, most use this kit as shops or cafes etc, very few people have posted online about changing this kit to make it bigger.  One who has is Jodi Hippler (on Instagram) otherwise known for her fantastic online blog – 

my-miniaturemadness.blogspot.com

Jodi’s work is phenomenal – I hope to be as good a miniaturist as her one day.  The work she did to enlarge her GL Storybook was amazing.  I quickly realised that I wouldn’t be able to figure out anything quite so elaborate so instead I chose simply to extend one of the side walls and bring the attic level down so that it became a workable/liveable space.  I created a stairway up to the second level and a wall upstairs between bedroom and bathroom.

That part was relatively simple.  Thankfully I have a trusty mini table saw and that managed to make the necessary cuts in the ply I was using for the extension.  Once it was all together I needed to consider how I would lay out the living area. 

I wanted to follow Scandinavian design which is very neutral and neither cluttered nor fussy.  I also needed to take into consideration who I was creating this home for.  Tynne is quiet but relaxed; friendly but more of an introvert; prefers to live simply yet does enjoy colour.  Therefore I wanted to create an open plan living area which would bring in some colour in a fairly neutral way.  The colour is of course in the wallpaper that isn’t on all the walls, but just a select few.  For the window seat I printed the wallpaper onto cotton to keep it the same.  Less patterns = less fussy.  The wallpaper is called Cream Chinoiserie and I purchased the downloadable file from Cobble Hill Miniatures on Etsy.

I realised that in order to have the kitchen workable, I needed a decent wall to butt the appliances and cabinets against.  Given the Bay window in that end wall, the only real solution was to build a half wall (as suggested by a very talented mini friend).  This allows the space to feel open yet gives a workable area for a reasonable kitchen area.

I also used some thin cut timber alongside the staircase to create a divider between kitchen and living while still allowing the eye to travel from one side of the large room to the other.

For the flooring I used strips of thin cut Kauri – a native NZ timber that I can buy from our local miniature association.  I used the same for both bottom and top floors but only oiled to keep it natural and light.  For the bathroom I downloaded a lovely tile paper from the Etsy shop Chloe Mini home.  I glued it to a card and used a stylus to create grooves in between each tile.  I then used Mod Podge to seal it.

I had thought about putting a round table in the bay in the kitchen however it really didn’t fit nicely.  Instead I created a natural timber indoor planter box so that Tynne can have fresh herbs growing in her kitchen.  Again, I oiled and left as natural as possible. 

In my next blog post I’ll discuss how I created all the lighting for the cottage and how I created the exterior.  Thanks for following along!! 

Please remember to leave me any questions or comments and I’ll be happy to answer when I can.

Cheers!

Rebecca