Horsies!

 I found another good example of how using things meant for 18 inch dolls sometimes works better than using the things meant for my dolls' actual size (12 inch/Barbie/1:6).  I've mentioned this before, most recently in my review of the Hogwarts Express playset. 

Image from Internet.

According to this and my clumsy math, a regular Barbie-scale horse is technically a pony. 

The average (using measurements on Angus and Khan) height of a Barbie horse, to scale, is only 12 hands.  I don't take issue with my dolls having ponies instead of horses.  It's just an interesting point.

Both Angus (hairy feet) and Khan (funny tail) are based on real horse breeds.  Angus should be 17 to 19 hands.  Gage should have of trouble looking over his spine! Khan is smaller, about 14 hands, but his spine still should be chest high on Gage.  Remember, I'm using my own math skills here, so estimates and bad calculation are both possible.

Bullet: thanks for giving up your spot for me.

Khan: Jeanie made me.

Like Khan before him, Bullet jumped into my hands at a local flea market.  He fit all my criteria for a doll horse: reasonably realistic eyes and a dynamic pose. He is a horse, not a pony, on my scale.  Roughly fifteen hands.

Bullet was heftier even before I noticed his long legs.  Turns out, he is a Our Generation horse.  Our Generation are 18 inch dolls similar to American Girl dolls. Thus this blog post.

Some of you may remember I had a few more horses.  All but Angus went in the post-soap-opera purge, for various reasons.  One of them wasn't walking or anything, just standing there, and originally had human looking eyes that I tried to fix.  Most of them were too small to be anything but babies.

When I found Khan a few weeks  ago, he had some kind of wiggly stirrup thing that was meant for the doll to (I assume) stand while riding.  It stuck out of his belly and was purple to match his saddle and bridle.  I sawed most of it off and used black nail polish to hide the rest.

Bullet needed a scrubbing and a brushing.  My friend suggested naming him Silver Bullet.  Once cleaned up, he isn't as silver as we thought, so he's just Bullet.  

Angus fits nicely in the horse trailer.

Khan also fits nicely in the horse trailer.  He is skinny enough to share the space, but neither of his buddies are!  

Bullet looks like he can step over with just a little effort.  While we're at it, let's try on the tack! 

 Khan's saddle and bridle almost fit Bullet.

Pink set does not even come close.

Pink saddle number two almost fits.

 

Angus's saddle has been repaired with elastic so I didn't even try to wiggle it over Bullet's big ole hips.  Ignore the water.  He forgot to stand on his head for proper drainage after his bath.

Not sure where this came from, but it will fit with a bit of effort.  Most of my barn stuff came from thrift store assortment bags and I think this was in one of them.  

Too small.

Khan can wear it.  Almost.

Angus is not amused. 

 

Angus can share this one with Bullet.  Khan prefers his purple halter with the gold reins. 

My other barn stuff, usually stored in either the horse trailer or the sleigh.  The lanterns and signs were Christmas tree ornaments.  The buckets were probably in the previously mentioned assortment bags.  I did get a rooster once but he had a speaker and the speaker holes looked like violence had occurred.

Everything together to be put away.  Eventually.  My excuse this time?  Gotta let Bullet stand on his head for a while and drain that bathwater.  That fashionista bag used to hold the tack... but now I have too much tack... 

 

Rainbow High Color and Play House (Part Three)

 Oh, my aching back.  And knees.

But progress is being made.

I used a box flap to make a "door" for where the two houses meet.  You can see it better in the first picture... very in keeping with the whole rainbow theme.  I can't decide if I like that blue sectional or not. 

The kid room's "door" on the second floor.

On the dining room side, I taped a calendar picture to the back of the box flap.

The unopened kitchen set, two unopened bathroom sink & toilet sets, the second sectional, and the used pink kitchen.  These are available for adoption by my dolly friends.  First come, first served.

I spent most of the day sitting about where that rice cooker is, sorting through the pantry. Who put the floor so dang far down there?!  

Kitchen, complete with stocked cabinets and fridge.  I managed to keep most of the pantry.  That tall skinny shelf is from the Minibrands Books.  Most of the appliances are Minibrands Home - the scale is not consistent at all, but I can make it work. The food items are mostly Wacky Packages or Shopkins. Dishes are mostly Teeny Tinies or Minibrands Home.

Dining Room.  Each table came with only two chairs but I put all four around this table.  It's too small for the huge family I'm gonna have in this house, but how often does a whole family sit down and eat together nowadays?  I did keep the second table for things like Thanksgiving.  I have a whole bunch of dining chairs (mostly pink) on standby, too.

Living room.  I'm still undecided about the sectional.  

Library.  The tiny chair here and the one in the last picture are from the Minibrands Home collection - they work well for the babies.  The wall art says "I read banned books".  Can you guess where most of the books came from?

Bunkroom.  They can't fit much more in here! 

One of the teen or adult rooms.  Gage for scale.  (Not really.  He was just there.)

Little bunkroom.  The larger playthings I left on the bookcase as a basement playroom.

Second teen/adult room. 

Parents-of-baby's room.

Deck number one is for fooseball.  Also babies and kitties.

Quilter's room.

Deck number two is for the telescope. Jonathan is sitting on the "ball" from a Lord of the Rings Minibrand.  I just liked the look and decided it's a stool.  

Doll corner.  The plastic bins with sorted accessories are on top of the shelving unit. Three shelves and a tabletop full of people - and that's after I stopped the soap opera and thinned them out! Fourth shelf is the basement playroom. Bottom shelf holds my set pieces like the schoolroom. Clothes are in the big bin under the table. Standby furniture is in the purple bucket beside Hogwart's Express.

This dollhouse will be the primary set for storytelling.  Also, if you come over, you can play with it. 

Rainbow High Color and Play House (Part Two)

 

I noticed another creepy.  This is the back "window" of the room with the emerging faces!  I can't decide if these gals are the stalkers or the stalkees.  Anyway, it's up against my wall, so no biggie there.

Building the second house was quicker, mainly because I knew what I was doing this time.  No backward dividing walls this time, I promise!

The smaller first floor room is going to be a little library.  I had scrapbook paper that was books, but it wasn't big enough to do the whole area, so I went with this nice pink. I still need to secure the edges with clear tape. I sure wasn't going to try maneuvering around the trompe l'oeil plant again, but I kept the wainscoting on the side walls.  I do like wainscotting.

The larger first floor room will be the living room.

Gotta figure out what to do here.  My dolls do have some nice big shelving units that they might be able to hide it behind.  Curtains or a fake door are options, as well.

This is the second floor where the houses meet up.  Same solutions are being considered, even if this one might work as is.  Looks like a glass door!  

 This side of the first floor joining could be a pass-through.  Maybe I can find some low enough shelves to fill the bottom of the doorway on the other side. We shall see.

Fluffy cat moved in already.  Brought a candle and basket of playing cards.

I hoped to put the two attics together or the two decks.  Then I considered not using the center attic and having a really big deck.  But I decided to just have a weird looking house.  

These are the included  furniture, etc.  I have two of each because I got two houses.

Clockwise starting on Rusty's lap: Beds, kitchen appliances, bathroom sinks and toilets, couches, dining tables and chairs, markers, and assorted doodads.

I will definitely be replacing my current kitchen with the bigger and less pink set.

The bed that came with the house is just a teeny bit short.  The My First Barbie bed is much longer because My First Barbie is 14 inches tall.  I bought it because it's wide enough to be a double bed.  Note the trundle bed on the MFB. Since I'm going to have six bedrooms, they will all be used.

The blue sectional in the corner is the RH couch.  The other blue is Monster High and the pink/gray daybed is, of course, Barbie.  I have a lot of living room furniture to choose from.

This is how things looked when I stopped for supper.