Dust - the ever present enemy

The problem with American-style open back dollshouses, or indeed with any miniatures not sealed up behind a hinged door or a glass front... is DUST. It is so awful to look proudly in at your creation and suddenly realise there is a light film over everything, including lots of things that will be impossible to dust or vacuum without breaking them or losing them down the vacuum forever.

I've even taken to covering my vignettes and smaller houses with a plastic-bag tent - looks like heck but at least it keeps the dust off. And my Christmas vignette is wrapped up in clingfilm until December rolls around.

So it was inevitable that the Willowcrest would fall victim to the enemy. I am still (very) slowly working on it, but the dust is working on it faster. So it needed a cover. It's too big to put a plastic bag over so I was trying to think what I could do.

On another open backed house, I have screwed screws into the sides so that their heads just protrude, and drilled holes into thin plexiglass so the sheet will hang from the screws and keep the dust out.

But the Willowcrest construction isn't strong enough for putting screws into.


So I had a brainwave and went to the haberdashery store and bought some clear vinyl, and some of the Velcro that is sticky on one side, and the other side gets sewn on.

I cut the vinyl to shape to fit the back of the house from top to bottom, and stuck pieces of velcro at all four corners of the opening. On the vinyl, I sewed on the corresponding velcro, backing it with felt to strengthen the stitching.

















Now I can just press the cover on to keep out most of the dust. It doesn't look too bad, and it is easy to remove. I took a closeup picture so you can see the felt stitching on the upper corner.