Ohhhh, so pretty!
I'm terrible with things like this. Crafting has always been a part of my family. I see this and immediately think' what else do they have? I want to do one.' Then you mention that they do music boxes! That sounds awesome. I have been thinking about getting a musical box for my husband on our next anniversary, one with his favourite song in it. I might make one instead.
Thanks for this beautiful in-depth review. I'm sold.
It's always great to have projects you can work on with your kids. My daughters have long flown the nest, but your article reminds me of a custom made dollhouse we gave my oldest daughter as a Christmas present. I've always loved miniature things for some reason. We bought miniature furniture, lots of things like that. We even had miniature lamps that actually lit up.
Some people might say that 20 hours may be a long time for a project like this to be put together, but that's just more time to spend with the kids, as I think you pointed out.
Ordering things originating from China can pose some challenges. You do end up with manuals that are sometimes hard to make sense of. Missing parts, wrong parts, or things that don't quite fit together are just some of the problems you're likely to encounter. I'm glad that you were able to solve these problems.
I placed the winning bid for a hand carved jade dragon on eBay several years ago. It came from China. I'd read lots of horror stories from people ordering things from China, so I kept my fingers crossed. I needn't have worried. The dragon arrived less than three weeks later and turned out to be a beautiful piece. I'm glad that you were able to solve the problems you mentioned and describe how you did it. Very helpful.
It's good that you mention the tools you need. There's nothing worse than getting halfway through a project and then having to put it on hold because you don't have a needed tool.
I'm curious about your product reviews. Did you actually buy all the products you describe or did you collect information from different sources?
I took a peek at your Q&A page. It covers a lot of ground, which is good. Talking about required space is something people may overlook. It reminded me of one of my own hobbies - restoring old clocks. I have about 20 of them from the 19th century that I've gotten from various places and repaired. At one point, I had a lot of them on display in my living room. There were clocks everywhere. My daughter thought I was going nuts! I thought it was fun when they all started chiming out the hour.
Hi,
Thank you very much for your expanded comment on this blog post and your opinion matters a lot to me!
About your question on product reviews.
The miniature kits from Robotime I purchase and make them myself, as that is obviously my hobby and I have lots more waiting for me to get done, I am kind of addicted lol.
You can follow that process on my Youtube channel, where I explain other things as well, like how the manual works, etc.
Also, I have my other personal work, where I use products from Etsy, like for my fairy houses.
Of course, I could not buy everything I review on my site myself, but I use people's opinions on certain items on Etsy, if enough people have purchased from that shop, you can have a good view of them, I would presume. If a seller sold 20000 items so far and still has a 5-star review, that would be a good store for miniatures, no?
About your other tips, thank you for those, but I needed to edit them, I am sure you understand that they have nothing to do with miniatures or dollhouses;-)
Best regards,
Lizzy
Hi there, doing crafts and activities with kids are such a fun way of spending time together, and even more so if you can construct a little thing like the miniature dolls house. It will be perfect for the fine motor skills that kids need to develop. It seems like the perfect project to do with my granddaughter.
I really enjoyed your website and the topic of reviewing Robotime Miniature Kits for your community of crafters. I liked your step by step explanation of the process of building it and the explanations of the missing parts and how you adapted and made the parts yourself. I think when you did this, you encouraged your craft following community to trust that they, too, can learn to adapt and to not get too hung up on pieces that are missing. I liked that you were frustrated but not "stuck" and I think that really helped your readers. Your readers seem to really value your expertise and I would agree that you have an excellent rapport with your readers and a high level of trust is evident. Beautiful job.
This is a great website that you have up and running here and having only just discovered it just a few days ago, i found myself wishing that i had found it earlier. You see, my mother collects these so i like to buy her something for her dolls house whenever i but her a present.
This dollhouse sounds like something I would love to mess around with as I love toys and puzzles and it looks like this is both 🙂
I like how you honestly shared that there is a missing piece, as this can be frustrating, and I like how you talked about the confusion the transparent plastic caused, I would probably give up or start googling 😀
The assembled house looks adorable and I love that it comes with a little light. I might consider to buy this, it would be good on a boring Thursday evening.
Thank you for the article,
j.
Ah a missing piece, it must be really frustrating..
Those dollhouses look like require quite some work to assemble but the end result is sooo worth it! Your dollhouse looks absolutely amazing. Look at those details, they do look like a miniature place.
Having a dollhouse is always one of my childhood dream. Now it looks like a great family activity together with my kids. Thank you for your review.
How cool is that! You have not only given us a great, fun idea, but you have shown the kind of detail we need to know to make the project a success. I might have to try one of these.
I so love doll houses and miniatures. My aunt had a collection of Victorian doll houses, and for years she added miniatures to the rooms. We always knew what to get her for a gift -- find a new contribution. Those houses were so cool! She worked at an art museum in Connecticut and knew all the local artists. They painted miniature pictures for her and she created a little art gallery. When she died, the collection was sent to Knott's Berry Farm. I'd love to go visit and see if it is still there.
I am just starting this. Not all of my pieces are pre-painted. My biggest problem is that the pieces are part numbers (like A1) in the manual but not on the actual pieces. How do I find A39?? Their explanation says A1 is part number. A1 is in bag No. 1. Well, there are not 39 bags, so what am I missing?? It recommends painting several pieces in advance, but their part number explanation is terrible. Thanks for your tips.
Hi Jill!,
There should be a few pages included in the package, where you can place the pieces that you got out of the numbered bags on.
So, for example, A39, should be on one of those pages and you can put it at that place and it should correspond.
If I remember right, there is not a lot of pieces for this kit to be painted, but if you want to give something another color, you always can.
Other kits require a lot more painting.
Also, you could 'hack' these miniature kits, like I wrote about in this blog post, and I have done so a few times 😉
I hope this answers your question and I wish you happy crafting!
Lizzy
