All Posts Tagged With: "New Products"

Another sneak peak at a few of the options that will be available for this years Spring Fling dollhouse.  Up on top we have the Cupola Kit which can drastically change the appearance of your project.  Big and bold, it looks great on not just the main house, but the additions too! 

The middle photo is the Dormer Window Kit.  Dormer-style windows have a long history in American architecture, and now you can add one to either the base house or the additions in a blink of an eye!  For you kit bashers, adding a whole in the roof will make it fully functional! This little window is the perfect addition to any dollhouse!

Last we have the Roof Finials!  Fitted to decoratively emphasize the apex of the roofs, they are said to pull double duty (by those who are superstitious) to ward off evil spirits!  The finials are made of our thinner maple plywood to stay true to scale.

Of course, all of these items are laser cut with the precision of a Jedi Master.  You will find them at a deep discount when we launch our Spring Fling contest next week!

As the days get longer and the snow beings to melt, it can only mean one thing… the Greenleaf Spring Fling is just around the corner!  This years project will set a new standard in expandability which will allow even the timid to bash their kit into a one of a kind creation!

We decided to expand off  the concept of last years project kit, now know as the Baslow Ranch, which was a base kit with an optional addition.  We will again be offering a very handsome base model at an affordable delivered price, but there will be many optional enhancement available to customize your project.  The picture above is just one of those items; a stair case/upper deck kit which can attach to the project kit (or for that matter, any of our dollhouses) in many different ways.  This option will come with two door frames so you can add a faux door to complete its appearance. 

Besides the stair case/upper deck kit, we will be offering additions, roof enhancements and maybe even  platform bases on which you can display your project.  All of these items will be offered at a deep discount during the contest.  Stay tuned for more details over the coming weeks and remember; Spring is almost here!

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!

Well our good friends over at Hobby Builders Supply have us working on a new project… a bus!  It’s in the early stages, but we’re rolling along.  This will be our third miniature project with a transportation theme; first the Travel Trailer, then the Houseboat and now a Bus.  All three of these projects have been inspired by the miniatures.com crew who are always thinking about something new and interesting.  You can catch the bus in the upcoming Hobby Builders Summer catalog!

The Limited Edition Arthur is now available exclusively at the Greenleaf Company Store for only $89.95!  That’s only $35.95 more than the original Arthur Dollhouse!  This represents an incredible value;  the upgraded components alone are worth more than that alone!  The fact that there are only 200 of these doll houses and that they are made of birch is just the icing on the cake!  Visit the Arthur Limited Doll House Kit page today for more information!