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February's Member of the Month - Meet Havanaholly!
By Teresa Martens
Holly (havanaholly) has been a member of the Greenleaf Miniature Community since March 23, 2005. She also is a ‘Team Master Builder’ and you can see some of her wonderful houses at the links provided below. With 8,230 posts (and counting!) she has provided know-how and inspiration with her wry sense of humor and tell-it-like-it is attitude.
As a young girl with a dollhouse, Holly used her fledging talents to create things for it. From there she progressed into dressing dolls of various sizes and then started making her own dolls. During this time she also pursued different kinds of needlework.
Holly blames her husband for her current full-blown mini-mania, because he was the one who decided to build, “from scratch”, a dollhouse for their granddaughter over a decade ago. That house was a ‘Dura-Craft, San Franciscan’. Holly had hoped it would entice her granddaughter into the world of miniatures, but as Holly puts it “some things just don’t work out”. However, they worked out for Holly when she found rec.crafts.dollhouses, Small Stuff Digest, the Dollhouse Miniatures forum and then the Greenleaf Miniature Community.As Holly puts it “it has really snowballed”.
Holly’s favorite part of mini-ing is learning new things. That’s why she went to nursing school at the age of 50! She enjoys reading posts from ‘new members’ as they discover all the neat things they’re learning about this new hobby. She also enjoys watching a dollhouse kit go from sheets of punched plywood to a finished house ready for ‘little people’ to move in to. She loves watching bits of junk and table trash turn into miniature lamps and bottles and little people emerging from clay (and lately, food). Holly says “it’s all the creative process, and it’s what we share of the Divine that our Creator has blessed us with”.
Holly has built several houses, one of which is the ‘Glencroft’ which she turned into a pub worthy of visiting and taking in a pint. You can view the dressing of the pub and its accessories at Holly's Dressing the pub Gallery and the Pub accessories Gallery. She also built the ‘McKinley Dollhouse ’ which is a dollhouse that hangs on a wall. You can view this house in The McKinley Gallery.
Holly has built the ‘Storybook Cottage’, the ‘Cambridge’, the ‘Coventry Cottage’, the ‘Haunted House’, and the ‘Westville’. These houses have been decorated, furnished and peopled with Holly’s wonderful soft sculpture dolls which add so much personality to her houses. You can view Holly’s houses at her Dollhouse Gallery and in the Community Dollhouse Blog List. She also shares her doll making talents with others and many of them have found new homes with Greenleaf members. You can view some of Holly’s spectacular dolls in her gallery as well. Holly has also participated in many Community Mini Swaps which is definitely worth a visit.
Holly is somewhat secretive about what she’s currently working on only saying “we just got home from one of our frequent trips and I found a GREAT BIG GREENLEAF BOX leaning against the front door, so I expect as soon as I get my Orchid store moved downstairs and clean the workroom, I’ll be building it”. I, for one, am eagerly anticipating the unveiling of this secretive venture!
Holly’s mini-future looks very bright! She has been working on drafting a ‘Craftsman Bungalow’ she hopes to build from scratch one day and to furnish and people it. She would also like to build “lovely little furniture”. And, just because she needs the room, Holly hopes to have the eyesight and manual/digital dexterity to work in 1:24 scale.
When asked if there was any advice she’d like to share, she simply stated “in nursing school we were taught to never give advice. I will share . . . what works for me:
1. There is NO SUCH thing as a STUPID (substitute the word of your choice) question.
2. You cannot have too many clamps.
3. Always know where your towel is.
She also adds “never stop growing, learning and believing in yourself. There’s no such thing as ‘can’t’ or ‘should’; if it’s right for you, DO IT! You’re NEVER too old.”
When Holly isn’t busy building houses, making dolls or doing needlework, you can find her cooking, cycling, hiking or kayaking.
As our ‘Featured Member of the Month’, Holly will receive a $25 Gift Certificate to the ‘Greenleaf Store’. Congratulations, Holly!
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