Craft a Doll Sized Croquembouche

       A croquembouche is a French dessert consisting of choux pastry puffs piled into a cone and bound with threads of caramel. In Italy and France, it is often served at weddings, baptisms and first communions, but in North America it is served at fancy dinner parties, for weddings or to celebrate the New Year.

       To make our version of a doll sized croquembouche you will need the following supplies: Mod Podge, cotton balls, old cardboard, a recycled bottle cap for the desert stand, masking tape, acrylic paints: yellow, gold, rust and black, gold metallic thread, black felt and plenty of white school glue!

       First, you will need to cut a half circle from scrap cardboard and curl it into a cone shape. Use masking tape to hold it firmly in this shape. This will be the form you will use to attach the croquembouche so make sure that it is the height and width that you want for doll play. Our tower is four and a half inches tall including the stand, and about two inches wide. 

       Fit the cone's bottom inside of a recycled bottle cap and tape it securely on with the masking tape. I painted this cap black and glued a bit of black felt to the bottom after finishing the croquembouche to prevent it from scratching surfaces.

Left, the cotton croquembouche rolls are glued to the cardboard cone shape.
Center the croquembouche are painted. Right, the faux caramelized
 sugar is "spun" around the toy croquembouche.

       Unravel the cotton balls until you have a large stack of cotton to work with. Roll dozens of small balls between your finger tips with white school glue to make the small croquembouche. The size of your doll's desert tower will determine just how many of these you will need. Our small rolls measured approximately half an inch in size and we made about 100 of these for our tower. It took about an hour to make the structure. I glued each roll, side by side down and around the tower using white school glue and let it dry over night before painting it. I did not glue the cotton rolls to the cap stand; I only let the bottom row of the rolls just hang over the rim of the cap slightly.

       Paint on a heavy coat of pale yellow acrylic paint to the croquembouche to begin with. Then using a dry brush, apply a second random coat of gold color; then a random coating of rusty brown color. You should be able to see all three colors in a variety of places on the croquembouche. Let the cotton batting tower dry thoroughly before applying the finishing coat of Mod Podge, followed by the coating of black for the stand. You may choose to paint the stand in an alternative color. I used black to match the black serving dishes we use already for our doll's New Year's Day play set.

       Finally, I applied a finishing coat of Mod Podge over the cotton croquembouche in order to make the surface sticky. Wrap a fine thin layer of metallic gold colored thread to imitate the spun sugar used in decorating real croquembouche. The finer the tread, the more convincing the faux spun sugar will look!

 

Here you can see the doll sized croquembouche between the charcuterie boards we made for
our doll's New Year's Party.

Craft oysters on the half-shell for a doll's party

Finished, assembled doll-sized oysters for an American Girl Doll party. These appetizers will be
perfect for a New Year's Eve bash! Some are painted to represent Oysters Rockefeller,
 a cooked oyster recipe.

        To assemble these 18" doll-sized oysters on the half-shell, you will need the following supplies: mini bubble wrap, tacky white glue and hot glue, acrylic paints in green, brown, yellow etc... and most important "Coquina" seashells. These tiny clam shells, approximately 1/2" in length, can be found in abundance at the beach. Sometimes people refer to them as butterfly shell clams. They come in a variety of colors, from grey to lavender and are very delicate. Coquina look just like miniature versions of oyster shells!
       Glue halves of tiny clam shells, using white tacky glue onto the cut sheets of mini bubble wrap. This wrap will look like ice. I cut small paper trays from a recycled box to display the oysters in and also glued the bubble wrap into these as well, in order to prevent the pretend oysters from falling out all over the place.

       Next, take a hot glue gun and squeeze tiny pretend oysters inside the coquina. Let the glue harden and paint a bit of color on top of the oysters if you want them to be fancier for a party. You can serve oysters on the half-shell plain with lemon or cooked and seasoned.

• Why we eat oysters alive
• This Coffin Bay Oyster Experience is Bucket List Material
• How 3.5 Million Oysters Are Harvested in Virginia

How the oysters will look before you paint them. Upper right, hot glue is the oyster.

Chalk Work Party Signs for a New Year's Eve Party

       Our doll's party will be at their Grand Hotel and every child is invited along with her or his dolls to celebrate the New Year here at our blog. Do not redistribute this clip art from alternative websites folks; it is for personal use only.

       I altered these designs for our doll's New Year's Eve Party 2020 to look like faux chalk work signs.  Included below are a few printables for those of you who would like throw a party similar to our own, but do not yet know how to work with chalk.

       I left the sign at the bottom blank at it's center so that the year for the doll's party might be switched out for alternative dates on the decorations. Check back next week to see how we made them up for the party!

New Year's Eve party signs for The Grand Hotel by kathy grimm 2019.
Texts: 'Hotel Appetite', 'Take One' and 'Happy New Year!'

       Mount the above signs on thin cardboard. Include the date of your doll's party by printing or drawing the numbers of the year on white paper. Cut these out and paste them to the center of the bottom sign.

       We will hang the "Hotel Appetite" sign over the buffet table, the "Take One" sign over the party favors and photo props and the "Happy New Year" sign somewhere near the entrance of the doll's party room.

• Visit smallchalk to see how professional chalk work artists craft their work. It looks like so much fun!

Printable posters and logo for our Doll's Grand Hotel...

       Larger images depicting the Grand Hotel poster, illustrations and logo that I have cleaned and recolorized for little ones to print out for their hotel lobby or other accessories.

       These images originated from an old play about a "Grand Hotel" from  the 1930s and have a distinct Art Deco flavor to them. Do not redistribute these from alternative websites folks.

A poster of two love birds relaxing in the lobby of The Grand Hotel.

Guests at the Grand Hotel in black and white.

Guests at the Grand Hotel in black, white and pink.

The Grand Hotel Logo.

The Real Grand Hotel...

Sketch of the Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, 1891

         In the United States, the Grand Hotel is a historic hotel and coastal resort on Mackinac Island, Michigan, a small island located at the eastern end of the Straits of Mackinac within Lake Huron between the state's Upper and Lower peninsulas. Constructed in the late 19th century, the facility advertises itself as having the world's largest porch. The Grand Hotel is well known for a number of notable visitors, including five U.S. presidents, inventor Thomas Edison, and author Mark Twain.

• The Grand Hotel official website

       Grand Hotel is a member of Historic Hotels of America, the official program of the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

• The Historical Hotels of America
• National Trust for Historic Preservation

       In 1886, the Michigan Central Railroad, Grand Rapids and Indiana Railroad, and Detroit and Cleveland Steamship Navigation Company formed the Mackinac Island Hotel Company. The group purchased the land on which the hotel was built and construction began, based upon the design by Detroit architects Mason and Rice. When it opened the following year, the hotel was advertised to Chicago, Erie, Montreal and Detroit residents as a summer retreat for vacationers who arrived by lake steamer and by rail from across the continent. The hotel opened on July 10, 1887 and took a mere 93 days to complete. At its opening, nightly rates at the hotel ranged from $3 to $5 a night (equivalent to $83.66–139.43 in 2018).

• Mason & Rice Collections at the Art Institute of Chicago
• The Architects: Mason-Rice & the Legend of Albert Kahn
• How Albert Kahn Became the "Architect of Detroit" by culture trip

Postcard of the Grand Hotel as seen from above.

        In 1957, the Grand Hotel was designated a State Historic Building. In 1972, the hotel was named to the National Register of Historic Places, and on June 29, 1989, the hotel was made a National Historic Landmark.

       In September 2019, Dan Musser III announced that his family, which owned the hotel "for nearly nine decades", is selling it to KSL Capital Partners.

       Carleton Varney, a protégé of Dorothy Draper, designed the Grand Hotel in its late 19th-century decor, including Pelargonium geraniums. Varney purposely designed the hotel so that all the rooms are different from each other in at least one aspect. There are four types of rooms: Category I, Category II, Category III, and Named Rooms. There are six two-bedroom suites consisting of two bedrooms connected by a parlor, of which two, the Grand Suite and the Carleton Varney Suite, overlook the Mackinac Bridge and the Straits of Mackinac. The presidential suite is located in the center of the hotel with a balcony over the porch. A detached structure added in early 2000 was named the Masco Cottage.

• Carleton Varney Suite Designs
• Visit Dorothy Draper & Company

       Additionally, seven suites are named for and designed by seven former First Ladies of the United States. These are the Jacqueline Kennedy Suite (with carpet that includes the gold presidential eagle on a navy blue background and walls painted gold), Lady Bird Johnson Suite (yellow damask-covered walls with blue and gold wildflowers), Betty Ford Suite (green with cream and a dash of red), Rosalynn Carter Suite (with a sample of china designed for the Carter White House and wall coverings in Georgia peach), Nancy Reagan Suite (with signature red walls and Mrs. Reagan's personal touches), Barbara Bush Suite (designed with pale blue and pearl and with both Maine and Texas influences), and the Laura Bush Suite (decorated with bright cream and floral patterns inspired by the Texas prairie).

• The Named Rooms & Suites at The Grand Hotel...

Theatrical film poster of "Somewhere
in Time" set in the Grand Hotel.
Classic Trailer

       Grand Hotel's front porch is the longest in the world at some 660 feet (200 m) in length, overlooking a vast Tea Garden and the resort-scale Esther Williams swimming pool. These areas are often used by guests on a casual family vacation, for large conventions, or concerts during the hotel's annual Labor Day Jazz Festival. The hotel has drawn some criticism for its policy of charging a $10 fee for non-guests to enter the building and enjoy the view from the famous porch.

       Before 2007, air conditioning was only available in public rooms, such as the lobby, parlor and Salle a Manger (main dining room). Due to the building's design it was difficult to add air conditioning to the guest rooms. That year, the entire hotel became air conditioned after 170 guest rooms were installed with heat exchangers which cool the air through contact with the bathroom cold water system.

       Mackinac Island does not permit motor vehicles (except for emergency vehicles and, in winter, snowmobiles), and transport to and from the dock to the hotel is via horse-drawn carriage. The only other motor vehicles allowed in recent history were cars brought over for the filming of "Somewhere in Time." During the winter months, when ice prevents ferry transport from the mainland, the hotel is closed. The island also has a small airport (no fuel or services) for private aircraft. The horse-drawn taxis will take guests from the airport to the hotel or any other destination.

• All About Mackinac Island

       U.S. Presidents Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and Bill Clinton have visited the hotel. The hotel also hosted the first public demonstration of Thomas Edison's phonograph on the porch, as well as regular demonstrations of Edison's other new inventions. Mark Twain also made this a regular location on his speaking tours in the Midwest.

• Presidents At Mackinac
• ...When Mark Twain Came to Michigan

       In May each year, the Grand Hotel serves as the headquarters for the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce's Mackinac Policy Conference that attracts politicians, businessmen and labor leaders from across the state and the northern Midwest region.

Conde Nast Traveler "Gold Lists" the hotel as one of the "Best Places to Stay in the Whole World" and Travel + Leisure magazine's lists it as among the "Top 100 Hotels in the World." The Wine Spectator noted the Grand Hotel with an "Award of Excellence" and it was included in Gourmet magazine's "Top 25 Hotels in the World" list. The American Automobile Association (AAA) rates the facilities as a four-diamond resort. and in 2009 named the Grand Hotel one of the top 10 U.S. historic hotels.

Grand Hotel Mackinac Video Tour

More About The Grand Hotel and Mackinac Island:

• Mackinac Island: Grand Hotel
• Mackinac Island in the Winter
• Story of Mackinac Island
• Mackinac Island in 1944 film
• Fall Color Walking Tour on Mackinac Island