No matter how many times I have worked with Paper clay, it always amazes me to see the house "Spring to Life" when you add just a little bit of color to it. I dirty washed the entire house and have onely added one color so far to the bricks and the Shingles. Yes there are more colors to add to them to make them look more realistic and I have not started the stones (other than the dirty wash) but I am very pleased with how it is turning out.
It is beginning to look like I imagined it to look
Well, I spent the past 2 days playing catch up. I should have been complete with this house and I can happily say, it is all downhill from here ;) . All of the paper clay I have to do is DONE and I am quite happy abouty that !
Now, all I have to do is paint. Because this house is so much bigger than I remember last, I do not think I will add a base to this house because it is so much harder to ship the houses when they are larger because the base makes it larger
It's amazing how much th
I have added the shingles to this wonderful house. It is so fun to see this project take shape!! The only thing left for me to do is the inside. I have done the Chimney on the outside but I guess I did not take pictures of it ;). I added a widows walk like thingy on the roof I made. I used the plastic iron fence. I cut it down to the size I needed. Of course, I ruined two fences because I cut them wrong the first time around. I was much more careful the next time around .
Enjoy the pictures!
Well, I finally finished all of the stone sculpting outside if this house. This house is really a fast & Quick build. So far, I have only spent 5.5 hours on it. I added a fireplace in the Living room so I felt I had to have a Chimney. This is something I noticed that I have started to add to all of my houses and if one is missing, the house just does not look complete to me . This is the picture of what it looks like before the stones and bricks are added.
I also decided to add som
I added a roof to my front bay window. I decided to make it a copper roof and I wanted it to look "weathered".
I weathered it by putting on a base coat color of "Sea Mist" by Deco Art. I let it dry then I "dry Brushed" the second color on which is "Metallic Antique Copper" by Folk Art.
This is the way it looks now that it has been painted:
I finished the roof and took the house outside to photograph it. Please do not look at the dandelion bed it is sitting on.
I will be building the furniture for use in an Arthur I started 2 days ago. It will be a simple quick build, sparcely decorated as it is a gift to a friend.
Melissa
Ihave started adding the paper clay to the outside of the house. The side wall opens and closes because I decided to add a hinge to it for easy access since I added this extra room. I have not attached the "real" roof that I am going to use and I am still working on it. What worked easy in gator foam is a little more difficult to use in wood (Getting it straight & flush).
Here are the pictures so far
You can see that I added a bay roof because I thought it would look nice to have
Here is what I have made or am making for this house:
a Belfast sink
a refrigerator, kitchen shelves (kit scraps, craft sticks and toothpicks)
bedside table (kit scraps)
the Chrysnbon bathroom kit (what didn't fit in the bathroom went in the bedroom)
window treatments
footstool (Reggie's trying it out, he likes it fine; I did not make Reggie & Annie, they are jointed porcelain Mr &
Today I assembled the Chrysnbon bathroom kit. OF COURSE the water closet is too tall so I had to shorten it somewhat (<1") but that sucker is in place to stay! The tub tucked nicely against the wall and the lavatory basin went next to the window; actually it sort of kind of slops over the window frame a wee bit on the right side, but in the early days of our marriage DH & I lived in some apartments that looked worse... (don't ask)
To make the bedside table I used one window punchou
Before I start this weeks blog, please notice several thank yous to different members for their most welcome tips and tutorials. Without the help and teachings of members like you, I would be totally lost. There is mentioned two things that Riley and I made during this week that I hope will help some one to--the desk and my bay seat.
During the week, I mentioned to Riley that I would like a "customer service" type desk for my reception area. One that is a little taller and the fr
By "not everything" I mean I still have a bedside table and the bathroom to do.
I glued the bed together. I only had to trim one tab on the bed bottom, and the dry fit went OK.
I decided that cherry stain would go best with the rust-colored carpet. I glued the bottom to the back and then glued the sides to the ends of the bottom and the sides of the back. Hunky-dory. Then I glued on the front. Well, the edges of the sides that are supposed to glue to the back
I began with two stacks of plywood "easy" chair pieces (they are, if you don't try to upholster them so they look like nice furniture) and two stacks of posterboard and foam chair backs, seats and inner "wings". There is an art to making one polyester tie cover two chairs like this. The one I used for the Haunted House chair & sofa was a lock-gate pattern with trees, etc, so very random. The one I've chosen for these chairs has a striped pattern with flowers in shades of brown with a blue st
I love gel stain, I put on a pair of rubber gloves, grab a piece of cut-up teeshirt and have at it. I punched out all the desk pieces and stained them. I stained a bit of siding in case I was going to need to make chamois hinges, which I didn't want to do.
By bedtime the stain was dry enough to glue the acetate "panes" on the doors; I use white glue for this because it dries clear.
I glued the sides to the back of the desk and I glued in the big shelf, then I began assembling the "cu
I cut three posterboard circles using the paper pattern I traced from the seat piece.
Then I cut the fabric circles 1/4" larger, trying to keep them oriented the same way so they would look alike.
I ran a gathering thread around the edge of each fabric circle with black thread, then gathered it around the cardboard circle.
After clipping the first one to fit between the back supports I got smart and gathered the circle outside thos
We got home Sunday afternoon. As we were leaving first thing Monday AM to go pick up two sea kayaks in Gainesville, FL, I gave the refrigerator spackle one last sanding and painted it with high gloss white enamel. I had cut 1/4" square dowel into 1" lengths and spray painted them black. After supper the white enamel was dry and I glued one of my brass window handles onto the refrigerator door with super glue gel. I glued the door on with wood glue and used scrap wood to protect the paint & s
I learned this technique about 4 years ago in my first class with Rik Pierce and Sometimes I use it when I am completely out of miniature flooring (like I am now). 1st you take a Vinyl floor tile and cut it to fit the room you wish to install the finished floor in.
Then you check to be sure it fits good BEFORE you start the next step. Once you are sure it will fit, take the peice out and take your pencil and start drawing where you would want your grout lines to be at. You can also purchase
Here's the finished product! There are more detailed pictures in my gallery.
The front of the house:
Entry way:
The back of the house and garden:
Right side of house and garden:
Left side of the house:
And the interior:
I've had so much fun with the Coventry Cottage. It's a delightful design and goes together so easily that it's a pure joy to build. It also has more potential for individual interpretation than any other house I've encountere
Using scenic water was a new venture and one that I've really been looking forward to. A japanese garden wouldn't be complete without a koi pond. The search for the right container for the pond took a few weeks. I just couldn't find anything quite right. Then I found a mother of pearl saucer in the candle section at walmart. That'll work!
I glued in the stones and some moss to the bottom of the pond, and added a couple of koi to the bottom and one on a rock. The instructions for the scenic wa
I've never done a full landscaping on a mini before, so this was a trial and error process. I wanted a formal japanese garden with a look in keeping with a Shinto Buddhist.
I scored big with a tree I found at Big Lots. It's one of those fiber optic things, but I discovered that if I pulled it out of the stand, it was no longer a bonsai tree........it was a perfect 1:12 scale tree for my garden!
Getting it to stand up in the garden was another matter. I finally used a round of florist foa
The more I looked at the bamboo entryway, the more I felt like it wasn't what I had in mind for the house. It just didn't quite work. So I pulled it back off and started over.
This time, I built the same type of frame I used for the sliding doors. While the entryway is too small to actually make the walls open and close, it does give the illusion that the walls would be moveable. To make the panels, I found a jpeg of traditional bamboo and crane artwork and sized it to fit the panels,
This past week, I was able to make a some progress, not much, my regular work schedule has been hectic, its budget time so a couple of days when I got home I just sat and looked at the house. I did browse the internet and downloaded some pictures that will be display in the reception office of dancers and ballerina shoes, etc. I also downloaded some printables for a slate/rock pattern that I would like to use for the porch. So if any of you can help me with some hints with Photoshop it would be
My big tub of spackle is turning into fluff. The newer, smaller tub has a pool of viscous liquid floating on top, so I poured some of it off into the fluff and it sort of reconstituted and I began frosting the fridge's outsides. I attached the frame half of the hinge to the wrong side of the frame and protected the door half with masking tape and spread the frame's outside with spackle, and I spackled the door. When it was all dry I began sanding it smooth and big chunks of fluffy spackle fell o
Ever do something on a house and when you're finished, you just sit and giggle and play with it for half an hour? That's kind of the way it went when I finished the sliding rice paper doors for the inside of the house.
I used basswood strips and stained them to match the interior woodwork, then laid them out in a grid. I was planning on making the smaller panels on the doors, but in this scale, it looked too fussy and busy in a small space. So I reminded myself that japanese design is
I gathered together the scrap wood bits I thought I would need to make a monitor-top refrigerator such as DH's DGM had in her kitchen. One punchout was 2.5" wide & I cut it 4" long for the back of the cabinet. I took a piece of 1/4" scrap and cut two pieces 4" long and set them along each long edge of the back piece to make the front. I cut another strip to fit between them across one end for the top, and another for the bottom. The punchouts for the front bay windows were 1 3/16" wide and I
I have started on the floors because I felt I had to do something to my poor house. I am so tempted to work on my Rik Pierce Lighthouse BUT My Coventry won the battle LOL. I used the wood siding from greenleaf to create my floors and think I will have stone floors in the entry way and in the kitchen area. These are pictures before I fill the gaps and stain them.
This is downstairs
This is up which is angled and meet in the center
