PROVO -- Those who create the intricate dollhouses for the annual Dollhouse Festival event for the Children's Justice Center have a couple of things in common.
They have an eye for all things miniature, and they have generous spirits.
It's likely they experience the same angst when the time comes time to part company with their creations.
"My 8-year-old granddaughter is not liking the fact that the Barbie house is going to the festival," said Dee Ann Davenport, a Provo matriarch who has been furnishing dollhouses for the festival for the past four years. "She really likes it."
"I have a little bit easier time of it," said Provo mother and grandmother Tricia Stoddard. Stoddard has the job of making sure there are enough donations to support the festival. "I paint and pass along so I'm not so attached."
Tracy Allred and his wife, Lauren, of Orem design, build and decorate the houses they donate so it's a little harder for them to let them go. But they feel like it's one way they can give back to a community that's helped them with medical expenses for Tracy. An anonymous donor paid thousands of dollars of his hospital bills in December 2001.
Stoddard had never made dollhouses before she moved to Utah County in 2001, but she met festival co-chair Ruth Brazier and was talked into helping out.
"I learned as I went along," Stoddard said. "It was really on-the- job training. I found a wonderful organization in Salt Lake and Web sites that taught me a lot. It's not hard, it's just having fun and being resourceful."
Davenport says she shops more than she creates.
"I buy lace and eyelet when I see it. I just kind of do my own thing," she said.
"The first project I did was for a couple of things donated by the local (LDS) Relief Societies for the boutique. Then I fell in love with all the houses. I bought a Christopher Robin/Winnie the Pooh house that my grandchildren played with. They've moved on to other interests now so I redid it in a Polly Pocket motif. I'm re-donating it this year."
Davenport said she realized the Barbie-size houses rarely came in furnished so she offered to do the interior decorating.
She puts pictures on the walls, hangs blinds and curtains and adds flooring and accent pieces as well as pieces of furniture.
"I just shop, I guess, but I've really had good fun doing that."
Stoddard enjoys the freedom that comes with simply painting donated houses.
"It's a little difficult sometimes trying to decide where you stop and start when you paint the rooms inside, but I figure it out," she said.
She not only figures it out, she adds interesting little touches, like sponge-painted walls, wood-stained fireplaces and hand- decorated planter boxes.
If you go. . .
What: The 6th Annual Dollhouse Festival and fund-raising dinner
Where: The Provo Marriott Hotel, 101 W. 100 North
When: Friday, Oct. 22, and Saturday, Oct. 23, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., fund-raising dinner Friday at 6:30 p.m.
Cost: Festival admission is free with houses for sale in a silent auction. Dinner is $75 a plate, corporate tables are $750.
For more information on the festival, call Tricia Stoddard at 812- 1967. To reserve a table at the dinner, call Barbara Curtis at 374- 8084.
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