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About this blog

Community Members go head to head against the seasoned Team Builders in a miniature show down!

Entries in this blog

Day Thirteen - October 5, 2006 - FINISHED!!

Ray and I completed the Orchid today. We really enjoyed the opportunity to build and blog as a part of the Community Team. I counted the days in my blog as I knew Ray and I couldn't build each day due to work and other family obligations (my dad suffered a brain injury a couple of months ago). We were very surprised to see that we could build a lovely house in under 2 weeks. Ray and I had never built a house using a kit before this Orchid. What a lovely e

Missymew

Missymew

The new life of the Fallen Acorn

I am donating the Orchid to this years Toys for Tots drive. I have spruced her up a bit, dug deep in my mini stash. I reinforced all the decorations on the outside so they dont get broken off. I hope it finds a happy home with a little girl out there somewhere.

heidiiiii

heidiiiii

Death of the Fallen Acorn

I forgot to post this when it happened so... The Fallen Acorn Fell...down the stairs and went BOOM! It was beyond repair and I had to trash her. Rest in Peace Fall Acorn...we knew you well.

heidiiiii

heidiiiii

First Day - August 1, 2006

Today I began my first-ever build from scratch house kit. Up to now I've just decorated, renovated, landscaped, and built roomboxes and mini-garden scenes. When I first looked at all of the sheets I'm only able to recognize where some of these giant "puzzle" pieces will fit. Ray shows me how he dry fits the construction (puzzle) pieces using the sitemap. This really helps as I can more easily identify where things fit together. 

Missymew

Missymew

Medieval Chappel Completed

Well here it is - at last - the completed bash. From this: to this The front entry way Interior: Exterior angles I'd like to say thanks to everyone the Greenleaf Forum who helped with landscaping tips. painting and paperclay tips, opinions and ideas on how to tackle the various problems I encountered while trying this bash experiement. Without their enthusiasm an

hydroped

hydroped

stairs

I finallly decided what to do with the stairs. I had seen someone else do this but I can't remember who it was. I cut the risers and made a platform so the stairs angle and are useable. As you can see I also added the chair rail and made some tables. I made all the tables and shelves from punch outs from the kit and a bag of wooden spools. ( except the table in the middle of the second floor.) I need to finish painting them. Some of the pieces looked just like f

Shakyshaky

Shakyshaky

All done

Some how with my amazing technical abilities I deleted my last blog entry, so here are the pics of my finished Orchid, The Greenleaf plant shop!

Shakyshaky

Shakyshaky

It's pretty much a wrap!

Well, it's taken just over a month from beginning building to completed decorating on this little house. The build was SO easy and went together quickly so that it left lots of time for the fun stuff!! The only problem I ran into was with the porch posts. They didn't meet up with the porch rail, but I figured it out. My gable addition was not straight . . . it pointed upwards, which made the porch posts short, so I had to add in pieces to accommodate the difference (just call it a d

MiniMadWoman

MiniMadWoman

Fallen Acorn Gallery is done

Ta da! I finished her yesterday. I had alot of fun building this house. I have no idea what I am going to do with her or where I am going to put her. Here is the staircase area. I made this stained glass before and I mounted it and secured it to the ceiling. One view of the gallery area. I put bowls with tiny star fish in the window. Here are another views of gallery. This is the

heidiiiii

heidiiiii

Day Twelve - Orchid - September 23, 2006

Yesterday Ray finished shingling the roof with Cork shingles that I'd cut. We're satisfied with how the shingles went on, but we're going to do some shading with a highlighter to add definition. Mother Bear had a surprise for me. She'd hidden it very well behind her apron, but now the 3 Bears are four. I've created a place for the newest Baby Bear in the charming little alcove off of the Master Bedroom. I took pity on Mother Bear having to heat baby bottles over the fireplace, s

Missymew

Missymew

Day Eleven - September 11 2006

Yesterday I cut shingles out of my corking material. I traced them using the shingles that came with the Orchid kit as a pattern. While I was at work today Ray got most of the shingling done. He would have completed the job, but he ran out of shingles. Tomorrow I'll pick up some more cork. We used aluminium foil for flashing material. -Susanne

Missymew

Missymew

Landscaping

Well I'm there - at the end. Tomorrow will be my last blog entry for this project. I've built a couple of small retaining walls - this time out of polymer clay and put some of my preserved plant material in the retaining walls. It's doubtful that I'll have enough coffee grounds by tomorrow to put in some nice walk ways but we'll see - I'm amazed that used and dried coffee grounds look so much like rich mulch but after this project I know I won't be throwing the coffee grounds away anymore. &

hydroped

hydroped

Let's go shopping.

The Green Leaf is done and open for business. Care to look around? The workshop. Once we start to show some profit we plan to get more inventory. We just planted the seeds for the landscaping so they will take a awhile to grow in. Come back and see when they are mature! It has been so great to be apart of this build! I wanted to thank everyone at GreenLeaf and everyone here for letting me a part of this community! Everyones houses are s

Shakyshaky

Shakyshaky

Nearing the End

Still no landscaping. I haven't a clue where I put my stuff except that I had a few days before I started looking for it - <sigh> But here's a picture of the new paint job. I think it will work out alright. I'm afraid it may take me a few more houses to learn to do it right the first time and to make them look more the way I want but I think this is better than the last paint job I had on this one - so after sanding, and quite a few color washes Here's how the house stands.

hydroped

hydroped

Orchid Chappel - the front

Here's a photo of the thick paint job that I really didn't like. I almost forgot to take a photo before sanded it all off. All that was left was this one little wall but you can still see the very flat grey color I had painted it. and here at long last is the front of the building - not finished but I'm much happier with the way it looks. I've added yet more to it but am not so worried about how the paint will go on. The roof may be a bit tricky but it can be a little un

hydroped

hydroped

Day Ten - 31 August 2006

I had the day off today and decided I'd do nothing but read my book and work on my miniature projects. It was a wonderful restful day. The "big" jobs I have left on the Orchid is to fix the roofing job. Ray and I both have Monday off, so we're planning on finishing off the roof. Otherwise, I just have to glue my landscaping in place, install the crown mouldings and finishing trim on the back of the dollhouse. Today, I pain

Missymew

Missymew

Almost there

Well as I said in my last entry the interior is almost there. A couple more things and it's done - it's the exterior that's been perplexing me now, but it too - finally- is almost there. I've gone over some of the paint to try to even it out - it's still too dark but I'm afraid that's just how it will have to be. I've found I an lighten it but it lightens very unevenly so I'm going to let it be dark. I've also spent a bit of time filling cracks, filling window gaps and in general just trying

hydroped

hydroped

Working With Paperclay - an update

I'm afraid there aren't any photos for this update but I wanted to let everyone know why the heck it's taking me so long to finish this up. Every night I work on it... I live with the next day on the kitchen table where I walk by it several dozen times.. and that night I start again trying to fix what I did the night before. This has been going on for about a week. You might be asking what could be so tough? What you messing up every night. Well I may have mentioned I"m not the greatest wit

hydroped

hydroped

Davids Interior nearly finished

It's been a day of frustrations. The house itself is a dream to put together however making mitred corners for an octagonal window without posessing sufficient math skills can be quite challenging After all the time I spent today on it I don't care if I ever make another octagonal window frame. I cut it out of scrap, recut.. recut.. glued in place.. pulled it off.. recut again.. <sigh> I'm sure tomorrow though I'll feel differently. It took a lot of time to figure out the angle to cu

hydroped

hydroped

Roofing Done

I finished the roofing on saturday. It was kinda tedious but I loved the way it looks. I just glued and trimmed lengths of the twine to the house. I let them overlap so I could get a good tension and pull without messing up the glue. I used twine and made a spiral on each side of the gable. I noticed later that they werent even. I dont care at this point..LOL I waited to finish the whole roof before I started to trim. &

heidiiiii

heidiiiii

Day 5 - August 8, 2006

Ray connected the light fixtures into the tape wiring that he had installed the other day. He found the brads too small to handle, so he used flat thumb tacks to make the connections. Here on the second floor he pushed the thumb tacks into the divider for the first floor. This way the thumb tacks were embedded in this divider wall. I've also added this photo of the light fixtures on the main floor after Ray had run the wires through the cei

Missymew

Missymew

Day Nine - August 23 2006

Today was a day with accomplishments and a major disappointment. The cork looked real good over the three gables. Today, however, when I applied it to other areas of the roof, it kept spring up. I tried glue and extra double sided tape, but it wouldn't hold down firmly. We've decided that we're going to take the cork off and redo the roof. You win some and you lose some. I have a couple of other ideas that I'll try out befor

Missymew

Missymew

Roofing

I painted the house chocolate brown! Reminds me of a Hershey bar. Mmmmm. I was staring at the roof today and I really didnt want to have to dig out those blasted shingles. Then another click went off in my head. Jute Twine! As I was sitting watching Oprah, I cut off lengths and glued and glued and glued. I glued for about an hour and got one side done. After the glue is completely dry, I

heidiiiii

heidiiiii

Day Eight - August 22 2006

Ray and I went for a beautiful ride out in the country this morning. We didn't start on the Orchid until late afternoon, but got a fair amount accomplished today. I painted the exterior with a stucco/acrylic paint mixture. It was great fun - kind of like icing a cake. I'm quite happy with the results. Tomorrow I'll touch up any areas where I didn't completely cover. I wanted a thatch roof effect for the roof, so t

Missymew

Missymew

Paintin` is fun

I finished papering the outside and started working on the front porch yesterday. I think I am going to use some wood to reinforce the porch to the house to make it sturdier. I am using 4 colors of brown for the outside. Today I am going to add some more color and I am going to reattach the boards that I had from the stoning fiasco! Thinking about a

heidiiiii

heidiiiii

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