Spring in Chicagoland or IS IT?

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 Is it Spring in Chicagoland? 

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I'm Trish here at my Garden Center and Flower shop on the near Northside and Lake Michigan has kept our weather cool and unpredictable. Here, we have adjusted our garden center to help you to do Spring in Chicagoland.

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Since the weather can't make up it's mind. (chuckle)

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We have a large selection of perennials and hardy annuals that are ready for planting now. 

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Tulips are still in bloom, and many great gifts for Mother's Day.

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Cam has the greenhouse full of house plants and more tender starts for when the weather improves. We have a huge selection of garden statuary, pots, plant stands and mini ponds. We will be bringing in new stock everyday from our Batavia greenhouses.

 Special orders are always WELCOME!

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Running in ponds or birdbaths water are soothing as well as beneficial for the birds, butterflies and bees.

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We have Birdhouses and Gnomes and of course Sunflowers for a great sunny theme for your yard or home.

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We specialize in live and artificial arrangements for your outdoors or home. (All in doll scale)

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Frogs frolic in dry ponds, also lots of pottery and ceramic accessories for your yard or home.

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Our Green House is full of plants and decor, as well as hand tools and supplies.

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A greenhouse needs air-circulation to help maintain temperatures. Did you know that moving air makes your plants and flowers stronger?!

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All colors and sorts of potted flowers and plants are in our Greenhouse.

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We have unusual pottery and planters. Custom plantings are available or DIY!

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The fresh stems are always available for your own designs or for gifts. Say it With Fresh Flowers!!

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Always include foliage with your flowers... texture is wonderful in arrangements.

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Lots of garden tools, birdhouses, flags and banners.

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Don't forget Seeds, Pots, and Dirt, Compost and Fertilizers.

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Anyone need a Hedge Hog?

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A frog bath for small spaces. We also have larger pond installations available on our website.

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What garden would not be complete without rocks, stepping stones and plants.

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Come on down to Trish's Garden Center and Flower Shop...we are ready to assist you with all your Garden, Floral or Planting needs. 

And hopefully it will be SPRING soon!

DIY's and sources.

I'm a scrounge collector and many of the miniatures are thrift store finds, Dollar store items, or crafted by me. The large center plant stand came from Target and painted to match all the other store props. 

Greenhouse: adapted from an unbuilt Ikea mini greenhouse, added a taller bottom half scaled to the dolls. All shelving and interiors were added with scrap wood, Door was added later. Lid opens and has battery light attached.

Flower shop construction starts Floral Shop: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Florals are all bits in pieces mounted in foam, with/without moss, plants and bushes: Here

Flowers: Here and Weddings: Here

Plant stands: were purchased on Temu...and each came with pots..perfect scale for Dolls at 1:6 scale.

By all means enhance your dioramas with faux greenery and flowers...great way to seasonally change out a diorama. 

Thanks so much for visiting,

 I will post at the following Link Parties, I hope you visit them.

 Please do not use my photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

BarbieOldNewGreenRedo, is an ad-free blog.  

I do not endorse or receive any $$ for any products I may use. I enjoy showing how I use products, 

but I do not receive any $$ from anywhere I shop.

Sandi

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Resurrecting a 1966 Barbie Family House

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I've had this for years....but had no place to set it up. I think I paid $6.99 at a thrift store with a few pieces of furniture. The roof was badly cracked. 1966 plastic doesn't survive if left out in the sun, but the the vinyl walls and floors were still vibrant and in great condition! WIN! WIN!

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Here is the outside of the case open, the graphics are so MOD FUN!

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Inside you have three very small room areas when it is opened up...here I'm trying some furniture bits and pieces. 

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The couch is original to the house, the rest are odds and ends of this and that.

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This vestibule makes the whole thing sturdy but isnt' large enough to use for much of anything. I'm thinking of placing an apartment kitchen across the doors. 

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Stingy in size this barely fills a 16" shelf. The wall brackets for the shelves steal another 3/4". 

To the left of the house now on the shelf...was this space.

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Since the doll room is in the basement I run this fan constantly and it waves back and forth making this 10" or so to the left not really useable. But, how about adding a bunk room? since two room mates would be sharing this tiny structure.

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I did some measurements and sketches and grabbed some odds and ends of foam core, papers and tapes.

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I had bits and pieces and a few sheets of printed scrapbook paper I thought would blend with the decor of the existing house. (these are the leftovers) 

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To assemble foam core walls I use duck tape, white  on the inside and (where no one will see, heavier silver duct tape to hold the corners together. I'm free floating this next to the house as I don't want to ruin the vinyl walls.

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These walls are pretty straight forward, as deep as I could make it and as wide as possible and the angle of the ceiling was designed to allow the fan to blow and turn above it.

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The scrapbood paper is applied with double stick tape.

I have a few pieces of flourescent orange/pink pieces to use for furniture, so I planned around them.

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I jutted little rooms ceiling all the way to the shelf above.

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All the assembly is on the back or outside. The colors worked really well together and blended with the vintage vinyl walls of the 1966 'Family Home'.

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Many years ago I invested in a large SQUARE measure for cutting perfect straight lines and angles. I also have a small one and a cutting mat where you always have a ruler edge.You could cut on a cardboard surface but eventually it will be shreds.

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I cut the ceiling with an extra 1/2" overlap on the back  so I could cut a notch and place the wall flush across the shelf bracket and still keep the room from moving around. I ran some loops of tape on the back wall to go on the shelf bracket also for stability.

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Eventually, I'm going to cover the pegboard bits showing with paper.  So, now there are 4 tiny rooms, lol for my room mates to share. Billie needs a small studio painting space, they need a dining area, a 'desk' and clothes storage. A challenge and will definitely need some careful arranging. 

Now of course there isn't any bed that will fit exactly so I made them one. Back in 1960 all my friends and myself made poster beds with pencils and a shoe box.

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 The box for the bed and the cover for the top of the poster bed supported with new pencils. Basically that is what this is, only with different materials.

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I used a Barbie shipping box to make a bunk bed. I covered the brown cardboard with white contact paper and then added popsicle sticks through slits for supports.  This is upside down....

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The edges are clamped holding the sticks that were put through slits in the cardboard base and top. I'll eventually paint the sticks when I decide on the  color. 

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'

Here's the bunkbed in place upside down while the glue (E-6000) sets. I just used measurements for how much room I had. The bed is shorter than 12" but EL and Billie are both petite size.

Now I have to ask them what they want in their new home? 

I'll post again when they get done moving in and decorating  their under $10.00 vintage home! 

Thanks so much for visiting,

 I will post at the following Link Parties, I hope you visit them.

 Please do not use my photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

BarbieOldNewGreenRedo, is an ad-free blog.  

I do not endorse or receive any $$ for any products I may use. I enjoy showing how I use products, 

but I do not receive any $$ from anywhere I shop.

Sandi

barbieoldnewgreenredo

Structures: Grand Hotel, an Overview for all ages.

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I'm very anxious to get this project up again...it was hastily taken down when we had a flood. Basically the entire doll room was packed up in less than 2 hours, I had 5 helpers...and well...life, the dollroom got really scrambled. 

I'm doing an overview to show you the project's inception and some finished bits, before I unpack the "Grand Hotel" which I renamed the GrandView.

This takes up so much space, an entire 6 foot table with the bakery kitchen extension that no one has even seen yet, just some posts on working on it.

The Grand Hotel I found for $10 was faded in poor condition with dead electrical, doors missing, no accessories, but the elevator worked.

Wood laid out to increase the height of the first floor. Blue tape is where the new wall will be constructed. Pillars are Cake pillars which will support the new second floor.

I wanted to make a couple of condo's upstairs and two shops and a small office downstairs, also a lobby area across from the doors.

Since all Mattel structures are stingy on space, I started to plan a deeper building. Here you see the structure opened flat out with some of the existing floors removed. I built new floors to make the floor 22" deep instead of the barely 12" it was. 

I added a wood 2"x4" wood foundation made to look like concrete to raise the main floor and increase the height to the ceiling. The new outside walls were to be created by foam core. the entire piece rests on a plywood base.

To keep the construction process entertaining I had Lara as overseer of the project and Russell the contractor participating in the design and problems.

I even had guys working on the building...that post is actually FUN!

I even did posts of the dolls...on and off the job. LOL.

Adding that 'footing' of wood  made all difference in the height.

There was tons of measuring and lots of trial and error...here the floor is laid out before gluing to the new plywood floor. The wood 2x4's are trimmed and painted to look like concrete.

 The  small white blocks are for the pillar bases to make pillars line up  to evenly support the second floor.

This shows you what had to be added to create the  lobby of the building. The blue tape defines the open atrium area on the second floor. 

Of course I made poster board patterns...the elevator had to be left open to function. The right side would become a 'studio' condo.

Russell and Lara checking out the new floor. Note how the elevator levels to the new floor---WIN!

Which ended up looking like this when 'tiled' to match the downstairs.

The atrium was filled with plants windows and railings on the second floor.

The condos were restored with cobbled parts from thrift store Barbie structures and windows.

Side and back walls were foam core and secured with velcro as well as the pillars. This is still early in the construction...the hole in the wall is for a built-in cooler for the bakery.

my tile...I tweaked until I got just the shades of color I wanted.

Bakery window and outside eating area.

Old Mattel counter redone....and lit with battery lights. The upper shelves are a makeup organizer from a thrift store.

A two story stained glass window was 'uncovered' in the demolition..a supposed restyle that was covered it up in the 1920's.  The 'window' was printed on pieces of vellum and mounted on plexiglass which filled the back atrium hole with a planter and an added settee.

The atrium becomes a meeting place to share a cup of coffee and some delicious bakery from Sindy's Patisserie.

The Grand Hotel restoration into the GrandView. BMR Ltd. decided on a refined palette of colors... lengthy posts on painting are available at the end of this post.

Salon Jacquie before finishing the remodel. All fixtures were from thrift store finds and redone.

Nail station...repainted from YUCKY Barbie pink.

Remodel of chairs was simply a repaint of acrylic mixed with lots of medium to 'stain' the fabric.

Sadly the opening of the GrandView coincided with the shut down of the US from Covid and all the ramifications of no business operations in Chicago at that time. 

Since I have many young viewers...I did stories with dolls masked...trying to solve their life's problems.

If you are interested in the actual DIY construction and the planning process...simply search  Hotel or follow these links.

Grand Hotel REDO:Stickers,Cleaning,Masking, Painting. (part 1)

Grand Hotel Painting Part 2

Hotel Project Part 1

Hotel Project Part 2
Demolition: Men at Work
Grand Hotel:Lara surveys Progress
Tutorial:Grand Hotel Demolition
Grand Hotel: Grand Hotel Demolition Secret

Grand Hotel Walk Through

Sindy's Patisserie Opens

Salon Jacquie Can't Open (Covid)

Hotel Condo's Moving In

Hotel: Foldable Plywood Walls.

The Devil in the Details: (Hotel)

Hotel Lighting Upgrade or what I should have done in the first place.

These are all mostly construction information posts, there are lots of story posts of the residents, events, holidays...so enjoy my Doll world surrounding 

the Grand Hotel...renamed the GrandView. 

As, you can see...I can't wait to put it up again!

Any questions, or comments I will be happy to answer, just pop it in the comments or send me an email.

Thanks so much for visiting,

 I will post at the following Link Parties, I hope you visit them.

Funtastic Friday

 Please do not use photos without linking back to this blog without my permission. 

BarbieOldNewGreenRedo, is an ad-free blog.  

I do not endorse or receive any $$ for any products I may use. I enjoy showing how I use products, 

but I do not receive any $$ from anywhere I shop.

Sandi

barbieoldnewgreenredo