Let There Be Tiny Light

Congrats! You found your dollhouse! No? Not to worry if you didn't, it'll pop up. For now, let's talk about the stages of building your house. Once you have yours built, before you paint and paper, we must light! Light is one of the more important features. Not only does it make your work visible, it makes it believable! The right lighting can really trick the eye into thinking your 1:12 room is full scale. Take a look at the two images below of the seance room I finished. One is lit with doll lights, the other with an exterior lamp... what do you think? There are a lot of options out there to light your house. You can buy kits of copper tape and doll light fixtures on ebay and watch these great instructional videos. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXcDC--SPI I prefer a different method. It's less expensive,(about $5.50 per room) and gives you the freedom to use colored LED lights, make your own fixtures, and choose gels to cover your white light with. I use floral lights meant for bouquets and flower arrangements. These are sold at local craft stores and cost about 4 dollars with a coupon. They have about 10 stems with a bright white light bulb at the end of each strand that's perfectly in scale with 1:12 houses. They are great for wiring around your mini rooms since each strand is about 10 " long. NOTE: DONT buy a strand of lights, these lights are in stems, branching out from a single battery pack. SPEAKING OF WHICH, they run on two AA batteries. CRAP! Those last about 3-4 hours on a really good day. So how do we make this great lighting last without burning through Duracells? You have two options for turning these into electrical powered devices. One costs about $16 and is available here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl0r2psFGlU The other costs about $1.50. It involves you stripping the wires to the floral lights, intertwining them with the wires from a dollar tree USB LED light and then plugging that in. Here are the MEME instructions I came up with. It really is easy to #convertAAbatterypackstoelectricity. Once you have done this and lit each room, plug each into a USB hub. They are for powering about 3-5 USBs by only using one plug. Fantastic right? They are available all over, but here are some great ones. ttp://technabob.com/blog/2007/09/04/little-dude-could-be-my-favorite-usb-hub-ever/ LIGHTING TIPS: 1. Remember to use slightly less light, leave a little mystery to the room but make sure things are visible. 2. Light sideways for tall furniture, it gives the room height. Make use of those table lamps and wall sconces. 3. Don't be afraid of a little color. A light blue gel can really make a room feel larger... even if it's 1:12 scale. HOPE THESE TIPS HELP! More pictures to come!