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Welcome to the Greenleaf Gazette!
Hardwood Floors to Faux Trap Doors! |
March 2009 |
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Dear Miniature Enthusiast,
Wood is good. We love the texture of wood and the
beautiful grain hidden within each piece. Most of all,
we love the feeling of having a pile of wood sheets
take shape under our hands and be magically
transformed into a dollhouse.
Be honest... when you open a kit for the first time, you
lean forward and inhale deeply to get that fresh wood
smell don't you?
But let's think outside the box for just a minute.
Actually, let's think outside of the instructions in the
box. There's more that we can do with wood than just
assemble the dollhouse. There are hidden treasures
inside every wood piece that we can use to enhance
our dollhouse. This month, we're going to take a look
at how we can use the wood already in our kits and a
few supplies like Greenleaf Dollhouse Siding to create
hardwood floors, authentic looking aged plank siding,
and even a fake trap door for those non-existent attic
stairs.
To make it even more interesting, Tracy Topps has
joined me this month in creating twin tutorials. Each
of us has recently built a distressed house but we
used different methods to create two totally different
looks based on the same concepts, so we're going to
run side-by-side tutorials showing you two different
ways to achieve aged effects with exterior plank siding
and interior floors. Not aging your dollhouse? Take a
look anyway. You'll find that these techniques can be
used for a newer looking dollhouse with just a bit of
modification.
Have you heard the news?
Spring Fling 2009 has
begun!! Miniature artisans all over the world are busy
building their entries for our biggest miniature contest
ever. This year Greenleaf has developed a truly
unique kit for the contest and we know the results are
going to be the most fabulous group of entries the
miniature world has ever seen. Do you have your
Spring Fling kit yet? We'll it's not too late; we are
extending our special pricing through the end of the
week! Find out all the details about the contest here.
Deb Roberts
Editor in Chief |
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 Faux Trap Door
By Deb Roberts
It's a dilemma as old as dollhouses themselves.
You'd like to add stairs leading to the attic in a small
house but you don't want to take up valuable floor
space. The solution is a faux trap door that gives the
illusion of a folding ladder!
Full Story...
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 Tracy's Distressed Plank Siding
By Tracy Topps
Tracy Topps creates the perfect exterior for a mountain
or forest cottage and shares her technique with us on
how to achieve this woodsy delight.
Full Story...
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 Deb's Distressed Plank Siding
By Deb Roberts
Deb's aged plank siding has a southwestern feel
perfect for haunted houses, old farm houses or desert
ghost towns. Follow along as she shares her
techniques.
Full story... |
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 Tracy's Plank Flooring
By Tracy Topps
Tracy shows us how to achieve a rich tone to aged
floors using paints and a surprising touch to add just
the right hint of luster!
Full story... |
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 Deb's Scored Hardwood Floors
By Deb Roberts
Deb shows us how to score the floors in the kit to make hardwood floors and then add just the right touch of aging
Full story... |
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 Member of the Month - Meet Freya
By Heidi Cleveland
March winds are blowing in. The weather this month
can be so unpredictable. One moment it is cold like a
polar bear`s tookus and next it gives you a tease of
Spring to come. One thing that is not unpredictable is
this article. You always know you are going to get a
nice, warm, and fuzzy feeling after learning about one
of your fellow miniaturists. I would like to introduce you
to our March Member of the Month, Freya (Grynche).
Read more about Freya... |
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Havana Holly's Quick Tips!
By Holly Parker
Polymer clay marble: You do need to
get yourself a piece of translucent clay. Condition it
and roll it out thin. Take a bit of whatever color marble
you wish to make on your paint brush and draw a few
random lines, fold the clay and roll it, and do this a
couple of times. Repeat with another color or two and
white/ pale gray. Last of all roll it thin again and draw
fine lines with black. Roll up your sheet of clay into a
roll and roll it into a cane. From this you can slice
pieces to roll out and bake to make counter tops or
tiles. This is a great way to use up stray bits of
colored clay, too.
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The Critter Corner!
So this is where my human spends all his time...
Like so many pets, Buddy wishes that his human
would spend more time with him. Buddy dreams
about days of playing fetch and running thru the
backyard with his human. He wishes that his human
would devote more time to rubbing his tummy and
scratching his ears, but alas, Buddy's human is a
dollhouse builder. Instead of playing tug-of-war with
Buddy, Corwin spends time working on his Garfield
and chatting on the computer with his friends on the
Greenleaf forum. Buddy seems to have figured out
how to hack Corwin's password to sign into the forum
but he appears to be a bit puzzled about why it's more
fun for Corwin to hang out here instead of playing fetch.
Corwin and Buddy will receive a $25 gift certificate from Petsmart for being featured in our Critter Corner this month.
If you'd like to submit your pet's picture for
consideration for the Critter Corner, you can upload
pictures in the "Good Pets
acting bad!" or "Good Pets acting cute!"
galleries at the Greenleaf Forum.
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