Walls and Floors

I love to set up dioramas for the dolls that I collect -- which may be one reason why I tend to collect the smaller dolls. Dioramas usually need good backdrops and flooring to look their best. I also snagged a dollhouse room at Target on clearance for only $15, and it needs new wall treatments and flooring.

So on my trip to Tuesday morning, where I bought the Only Hearts Club outfit, I spent some time going through the packs of scrapbooking paper that I discovered, with dolly decorating in mind. Since I already had some items in my cart, I put back some of the bigger packs of paper, but I saw an inexpensive pack that had pages that looked like wood flooring. That made the pack worth putting in the cart. I decided to get some pictures of it today. These pictures aren't going to be the highest quality, as it was dark outside by the time I took them. The lights in my bedroom give off a rather yellowish cast, but they are the only lights we have in the room at the moment. I'm going to have to put a lamp in the room; I hate sewing or doing anything else in there at night with the harsh, yellow lighting. These bulbs are in the ceiling fan, but Mr. BTEG likes them, so I guess they have to stay. :)

These pages are by Crate Paper, Inc. The theme is "Ski Lodge." If you are not familiar with scrapbook paper (I'm not), each page measures 12" x 12" when the edging is cut off. One side has the wood floor look; the other side could do for wallpaper. Our model today is Tonner's 10" Sophie. She is a vinyl doll from the Ann Estelle line. Tonner now uses this body (with the bending knee that was added to the last few runs of Ann Estelle) for his Patsy dolls.

Here Sophie stands up nice and tall on the flooring paper. I don't think it looks too horribly out of scale.

In this picture, with the assistance of the flash, you can see how there are a lot of marks on the page that might detract from the usefulness of this floor. The most glaring are the spots where it looks like somebody put a coffee mug down and left a ring. (As an aside, any geeks out there who remember Dilbert's "Coffee Stain of Quality?")

Here is the opposite side of the page, hung up as wallpaper. I'm not really fond of the print, but I also find it strange because there are reddish dots and blotches along the edges of the paper. I don't get what those have to do with a ski lodge. Maybe this "ski lodge" is actually where they shot The Shining. Although none of the red blotches spell out "Red Rum."

Lastly, here's a shot of Sophie with the white on the side cropped out, so it looks like Sophie is actually in a little room. As you can see, you really need more than one page of wallpaper and flooring piece to make a decent size backdrop for even this 10" doll. But this gives the idea.

I'm hoping to make another trip to Tuesday Morning before too long, or look for scrapbook paper on sale elsewhere!