Welcome to a Human Bean's Mini Blog!

"Human beans are for Borrowers - like bread's for butter!”

The Borrowers and Miss Hickory were among my favorite books growing up. The idea of using BIG things to serve as functional objects in a tiny world was and still remains fascinating to me. I became interested in minis and dollhouses when my Grandma purchased two house kits when I was 12 and we spent many weekends working together to assemble and decorate them. Fast forward 40 years and I find myself drawn back to the craft as a hobbyist. I am by no means an expert nor a high level craftswoman, but I wanted to document my journey in this hobby for my own satisfaction of documenting (hopefully) my growth in skills and knowledge. Also, as I started down this path I had so many questions, so hopefully I can leave a few breadcrumbs to help those on their own pathway to mini satisfaction. So I hope you find as much joy in this blog as I have in creating it!

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Pierce Dollhouse Winner

Congratulations to Jackie K. Of Angola for winning the Pierce Dollhouse! Drawing was done by Betty of the Grape Festival headquarters at 3pm on Sunday, September 18th.

Greenleaf's Pierce 3: The Pierce Staircase - Keep or Ditch?

I've heard many people say that the Pierce staircase is one of the most challenging dollhouse staircases. Aside from assembly, the way it connects the first and second floors creates "dead" space in the dollhouse. Some of this area can't be accessed nor seen after assembly from the back opening nor from the windows. If you are a purist, you will still want to decorate this area. However, be forewarned...any decoration must be done before the second floor is permanently installed! Window view of 2nd floor landing and attic ladder. Some people decide to eliminate the staircase all together to have a larger area in the downstairs. Some people decide to use custom spiral staircases to save space and still have a way for their small people to access the 2nd floor. Others use the staircase, but relocate it to another part of the room to change the shape of the first floor layout. Yet others will embellish the staircase by customizing it with shelving or adding a closet. I...

Greenleaf's Pierce 8: Trim 'N Things

WINDOW TRIM Trim is the finishing up, tying off, and making complete the final product. The instructions and many experienced dollhouse builders suggest putting the trim on last. But like anything concerning building dollhouses, you can pretty much do what you want how you want. Bay window and circular window trim. I did not follow the instructions and general rule of thumb for putting on trim last. I guess you can judge the wisdom of that move by looking at the end result and considering my reasoning for doing my own thing. This dollhouse's exterior trim has 4 pieces: sill, sides, a top curved piece, and a cap. The round windows have a keystone piece on top of that. I chose to put the exterior trim on last because of my brickwork and the method I chose to apply it. The stencil would not allow me to place brick right up to the trim. When applying the brick work, I taped off where the trim would be glued and placed the brick eve...

Human Bean's Minis

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