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Greenleaf Dollhouses is proud to introduce our new line of laser cut dollhouse kits! We are starting off with an old fan favorite, the Tennyson Dollhouse, which has been out of production for years. Enjoy this house like never before with it’s improved laser cut features.  For new offerings, we have released a Dollhouse Lighthouse in both one inch and half inch scale, both of which have a level of detail that is amazing.

Laser cutting works by directing a high powered beam of light with incredible precision across the surface of a sheet of wood leaving a high quality finished cut. There are many differences in die-cutting and laser cutting wood, the most important is that we can realize intricate designs that are too complex for die-cutting. We can also cut smooth curves and even engrave highly detailed patterns into the wood, a technique that will add dimension and scope to our products. Additional benefits of laser cutting is considerably less stripping of parts and minimal sanding.

For over sixty years, Greenleaf Dollhouses has been die-cutting thousands of products with great success and will continue to do so. We look forward to a future of blending laser cutting into our product line, while continuing to die cut our dollhouse kits that are loved worldwide.Â

Get ready to start your engines because the Big Bus Dollhouse Kit is coming to town.   It all started with an email from our friends over at Hobby Builders Supply.  The Miniature Mad Man, Ernie Collier, mentioned something about a bus in his March newsletter which got a tremendous response.  It didn’t take long before we got the call; “Make me a bus”! 

This isn’t the first time we’ve been challenged by HBS.  Our Houseboat kit was the direct result of Ernie’s love of real houseboats.  He got it in his mind that it would make a great project for miniaturist and decide to drive us crazy until we finally made him a prototype.  I have to admit that the houseboat dollhouse kit has become very popular, so this time, we didn’t hesitate and knocked this project out in record time!

When I sat down with my development team and said BUS, they all scratched their heads.   We had three goals; Make is stylishly, make it functional and make it affordable.  We started our research and struck a target retail price of $40 and with in a week (okay, maybe two weeks), we where sending pictures to HBS for their input. As you can see in the picture below, we originally had the opening on the opposite side of the bus.  Ernie and his team made mention of his and we were in full agreement, so we switched it around and started the final prototype.

Now that the details were hammered out, it was time to roll up our sleeves and get busy!  Introducing a new product is quite involved for us at Greenleaf.  We needed to transform a sample that was hand cut on a jigsaw into a manufactured product; fist layouts, then tooling the dies, sampling, more tooling, more sampling and then finally making a box and packing it all up.  Since this item is an HBS exclusive, there was no need for a point of sale label, but there was the matter of assembly instructions.  In steps Hobby Builders Supply resident-miniaturist, Sally Cook-Thomas.  We have worked closely with Sally in the past and it’s always been a joy.  Sally was also responsible for writing the Houseboat instructions which were spot on, so we are grateful that she took this responsibility off our desk.  It’s a very involved process that would have bogged us down and drastically effected the released date, so three cheers for Sally.  On top of this commitment, Sally took one of our final prototypes and decorated it for the HBS catalog cover and was kind enough to share it was us (so six cheers for Sally).  Her Sixties theme is whimsical and fun, so I used it as the focus of the above flash slide show.

Greenleaf now has three dollhouse kits based on a transportation theme.  First, there was our Miniature Travel Trailer, followed by our Houseboat kit and finally the Big Bus which is now available for pre-order exclusively at Miniatures.com.  They are running a pre-order special, so you can get $5.00 off the $39.99 retail price.  This coupon code, WPC2812, MUST be entered in the media code box while checking out.  For those of you interested in the recreating the Sixties theme, there are more pictures of Sally’s bus with links to some of the items she used available here.

In closing, I’d like to thank Ernie for approaching us with this project.  I’m sure that he could have imported this kit for less money, but when possible,  he prefers to buy products made in the USA.  As an American manufacturer, this is something we always appreciate!

NOTE: There is a larger version of the above show available at the Greenleaf Miniature Community.
Click here to see it now!