News

Mom makes a special gift for Christmas

dollhouse

By Bill Moss, Published: December 28, 2014

She is a 24-year-old mom who lives at Mainstay, the shelter for victims of domestic violence.

She made a gift — the kind of gift only someone with a great love could make — a special dollhouse all made of bits and pieces that she acquired or bought.
"Growing up every Christmas my stepfather would make something for me or a sibling, and I always thought it was really cool so I decided to do the same thing for my daughter," says the mom, who for the safety of herself and two children did not want to be identified. "I've seen people make dollhouses before and I just got the idea to make her a dollhouse."
It started with a big cardboard shell, a fragile and disposable material. She started construction back in October. The large pieces of craft cardboard cost her "two or three bucks" at Wal-Mart.
One room has light-green floral design as a ceiling border.
"That's actually a placemat," she says. "That came from the Dollar Tree and I just cut 'em out."
Another room she painted pink with big hearts.
"She wanted a room specifically for the baby," she says of her daughter, who is 7. "It was going to be a surprise but my mom kind of let the cat out of the bag. Well, we both did. She caught us talking."
Her daughter knows about the dollhouse and but she has not seen it.
Mom used electronic teacup candles to make a chandelier. The tiny lights even switch on and off.
For the kitchen, she cut apart soap boxes, then glued in tiny shelves made of balsa wood. Cabinet doors with tiny pieces of Velcro open and shut.
"The handles that I used actually come off of a bracelet," the dollhouse maker says.
"I didn't really know what to do for a sink because I couldn't find anything small enough," she said. A friend from the shelter "actually found some contact lens containers. We just cut a hole in the balsa wood and stuck it down in there. And then I just painted it with metallic silver paint."
Over the fireplace, she glued on an oval sign with the word "Faith."
Why?
"Because without faith," she says, "what do you have?"
While it looked grand a week before Christmas, it was bigger still on Christmas Day — three stories and 4½ feet tall.
Mainstay's executive director, Tanya Blackford, says she marvels every time she sees the dollhouse at how creative it is.
"The whole thing is in this temporary structure," Blackford said. "I don't even think she thinks about something like that. It's the first thing somebody like me notices."
The young mom ended up here after trouble at home.
"I was told that Mainstay could help me get on my own two feet," she says. "Right now I work at the Dandelion." Had she worked as a waitress? "No, but I like it," she says. "When I'm done with my internship at Dandelion, I plan on getting a waitressing job. They're going to help me."
When she talks about the raw materials, the mom often mentions the exact price.
"I found a couple of sheets (of felt) that was like 97 cents and then there was a couple that were a little over a dollar," she says.
Could she have done the project in her former situation?
"I think I would have gotten it done but it would have been a lot harder," she says. "Because the whole money thing — everything is a fight. It would have been a lot more difficult to finish this dollhouse in the situation I was in."
At Mainstay, she's not looking over her shoulder while she works. She is surrounded by friendly faces and a support group. She is safe.
What feelings does she think her daughter will have about the special handmade present?
"I think she will see that her mom loves her enough to build her a unique three-story dollhouse," she says. "I wanted her to have something that nobody else had."
Of that there is no doubt.
The maker might live in a temporary shelter, and, yes, the house for a child's imagination is made of fragile and disposable material. But no stronger love exists than the love that made the dollhouse.