Jump to content
  • entries
    302
  • comments
    199
  • views
    249,339

About this blog

Willowcrest, San Fran, Westville, Beacon Hill and others

Entries in this blog

Newberg is done!

Well, I might add some sealer here and there, but it's ready to box up and put in the mail. (Aunt J, I need an address!) Sourcing: Inspiration: Robin Carey's "The Darling House" [Chantilly] , the color purple, and the desire to make a Newberg like nobody ever saw before "Duval" railing, "Barbados" and "CiCi" porch grills, "Cumbria" brackets, "Marissa" gables (3 lg, 1 sm): Heritage Laserworks Corbels and "Victorian picket roof ridge cap": Manchester Woodworks Papers, fabr

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

A little here and there, and a cabin.

So the gables are affixed, as well as the bottom trim for the house. Ready to start siding. Inbetween the Willowcrest, a "quick" project for one of my little nephews, who apparently is quite jealous of all his sisters getting a house but nothing for him! I've only got 'til November, when his birthday comes along. This has to be a very manly house; no lace or fine Victorian trim here. So I got a Corona Concepts Shadybrook cabin off Amazon, a very simple kit; it's made of 1/4

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Bits here and there.

After the quilts were done, I got into classic British murder mysteries-- I read all of the Inspector Appleby books (Michael Innes) that Kindle offers (very sad to run out ), then I read all the Inspector Grant (Josephine Tey), then I started in on Inspector Alleyn (Ngaio Marsh). Very absorbing, and a nice break from everything. Meanwhile I have picking here and there at the house: I discarded the turret because it didn't look good or fit well, and decided to go a different way that I think

rbytsdy

rbytsdy in blog

Unfortunately, the quilts are finished.

Perhaps I'll have to make some more, as extras. I've always hated how my bed-dressings stick out at the bed sides, so I decided to do something about that. I sewed in some soft wire that I had lying around. For the paper-pieced quilts, I stitched it into the backing before I sewed on the backing. I have read of folks using aluminum foil for this also, but I think it would have to be pretty stiff foil for the materials I'm using. Here I am picking out all the papers. English paper-

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

The Willow is complete!

Well I trimmed and trimmed until my fingers nearly fell off (actually it does a number on my back, with all the weird angles I have to get into to lay the trim), and did some touchup paint, and finally finished off the Willow. I also looked around for boxes but nary a one to be found that's big enough-- 3' x 3' x 2' is what this house needs. I do have a couple large boxes on hand that if patched together, will do the job, so I guess that is what I'll have to do!

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

San Fran - finished!

Well it was a race to get the San Fran finished, and me plagued with allergies to boot, but I finally got it in the mail. Some pics- first of the base, which I covered with the brick powder treatment that came with the kit. I had never tried this stuff before and was a bit trepidatious, but it turned out pretty well; alot hardier than I had thought it was going to be. You would pretty much have to take a chisel to it to get it off! I decided not to install any more win

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

What have I been doing for the past 2 months...

Well I saw this and got inspired to make my own crazy quilt! The other two are by means of English paper piecing, 3/8" squares-- it's the only way I can keep it looking neat. Boy this is addicting. The two paper-pieced quilts are still stiff, mostly due to still having their papers in them. I need to de-paper, then back the quilts. I hope these new pics added to my gallery don't mess up my pics in my blog posts for the past couple yrs. With the new upgrade, the mapp

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Let me tell you about these chairs...!

But first, the banjo clock and upholstered chairs for the living room, that I made from Kris' tutorials. This is the first time that I've tried a sofa (I expanded Kris' patterns for the chairs), but they all turned out well. I lowered all the seats by one thickness of foam board, as I had done for the Calico Critters hedgehog family in the Shadybrook Cabin build. This is the first time that I have put piping all the way around the cushion (top), but I figured that I had to with the cou

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Fun with matboard.

Trying out the blog again-- looks like I "have used all the attachment space [I am] allowed". Hmmm. Using Kris' kitchen cabinet tutorial  as a guide, but shortening everything to suit the mice: The cheese platter is from Ernie's (April Fool's sale). Splattered the counter-top twice: the first time I used a brush that was too soft, so I had to paint over it and splatter again with a stiffer coarser brush. Much better. And the cabinets, fit to the space (I used Kris' tut as a genera

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Kitchen curtains.

Had some fun with the kitchen curtains-- pleased with how these turned out: And the bathroom curtains: Using more cardstock forms with the curtains this time around: this cotton fabric is too thick to cooperate much in the way of fancy folds, but it will sit nicely on cardstock.

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Fencing and other forward progress.

Got the house landed on its 3/8"-thick plywood base (1/2" square dowel on the edge); got the lattice parts made (matboard) and the stair (cut the steps to make its width match that between the porch posts): Enjoyed making the parlor window treatments with satin ribbon trim-- had to think about em for a bit, two drapes on each side of the pelmet would've gotten a bit much for those two closely-spaced windows, but then it came to me: a single centered drape with a neck-tie knotted ribbon

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

The Mouse House takes shape...

Got this house for a new niece-- it is not much to look at: I got it because it has similar basic structure to this house, which is actually a place of business in California; I found it while googling "victorian houses" or some such: Isn't it a beaut! Anyway, here what the Artply house looks like in rough dry-fit: Not much to it: So I got to whacking and hacking. Took the 2nd floor down by an inch, widened the front door, added matboard and scrap wood to extend wal

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Down the rabbit hole...

I've been foraying into stairs-- these are the kit stair sides: With steps an inch high, this simply wasn't going to work for the mice. I started putting together a winding staircase based on 1/2"-high steps and 5/8"-treads, from foam board and matboard, to see how it would look in the space: Those pieces that extend into the room are just base pieces that would get cut off, but regardless as much as I liked how they turned out, this staircase simply took up too much space in

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Closing the windows.

Whew! More hours and hours, from Kris' window tutorial: And door tutorial: Added some height to the bottom and put things together in a really rough dry fit: figured out where the hallway will be (love hallways): I am going to have to glue the structure together very carefully to keep everything square; those tall bays in particular are getting pretty curvy. Need to put a little sealer on those windows and start mapping out my lighting; found a battery pack wit

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Walls going up.

Carefully gluing floors and walls, one joint at a time: Working on the stairs: had to bump out the bottom stair so that the front door would open fully:

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Toodling along...

Starting to look like the photo: Here's how the hallway will look, and the third floor: Understair is lit, and stocked with a tiny apple-shaped shelf unit that I found some teeny things to fit in: Wanted some ceiling medallions, found a soft-metal variety pack on amazon: Figured out that I can't start siding until I do the framing, painted white. I am spacing the siding at 3/8" instead of my usual 1/2"; It will take more siding but will hopefully look more

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Finally, the main color.

Got the "tile floor" from miniatures marketplace installed into the powder room: I think that the bathroom fixtures will have to be white (and the window dressings monotone) in order to balance all that color going on with the wallpaper and flooring. Here's what I've been doing for the past while; always takes longer than anybody thinks, especially the way I do it (for pieces with any length, I mask-tape each layer top and bottom and let the glue set for a while- sometimes all wee

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Inside, outside.

Something happened to my pics in the last post: here there are: Some progress views: Detail on the front window: Figuring out how to hide the battery box wiring while working with the given length of wiring: Lights strung out into the attic space: What to do with that wire going up the side of the hallway: Playing with the roofline: Front gable with half-scale fish-shingles: Finally got my order from amazon, some sma

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Off to the (red) brick road...

I'm a bit of a fabric addict, I suppose; Joann's run (well okay, I probably spent over an hour in there ), and an online order from Etsy: Decided that I must have a chimney. (I know it's not regulation height. ) Egg-carton bricks are addictive; trying out the base color (barn red), which I think I'll try to tone down a bit with charcoal and peach: What you can't see is that I've added a battery pack (will be mounted on the base on the back side) because I decided that I must

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Do we have enough bricks yet??

First some tea set and tableware pieces that I got for cheap off amazon (these are just a few of the pieces-- love that teeny bowl), and a couple pieces from the many minis that my aunt sent: This is an awfully blurry pic but it gives a notion of my brick touchups (peach and gray) over the barn red: Here we are after sealing then grout (spackle mixed with water and paints) and after wiping off grout from the brick faces: I think that I will do a little touchup with

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

(Slow) progress...

Got the roof shingled and painted! First coat was dark, then used light gray for intermittent touchups. At first I thought it was too dark overall, but it's growing on me. I'll continue to ponder on it. But those roof trim pieces were bugging me: the larger front one wasn't as wide as the others, and there was too much dark/congestion going on. So I painted over the mini-fishscale shingles with a lighter green, and ripped up the roof trim pieces: widened the one, and shortened the porc

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

A little window-works.

Unfortunately I don't think I'll have much time to work on this house during the holiday break due to traveling , but I did figure out what to do about the window blinds. I decided to make the same blind design for all the windows, and after some thought about cloth versus paper, settled on a cardstock base with scrapbook paper on either side. I had some Korean rice paper that I had gotten at an art store a few years ago, and it was a good weight to use as an edging (scored down the middle so it

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Finishing out the window dressings.

A few more shades-- More fiddling, and all the windows are dressed (a view of my home-made "pretty pleater"): My order from etsy came in-- I've been looking for the right sized toilet and bath furniture. Well the sink and ironing board are a bit tall, but they're Renwal so I won't cut them down. I will, however, spray-paint the tub and ironing board off-white. (Hide your eyes, vintage purists! ) The toilet isn't Renwal-- it doesn't appear to be marked-- but it is just the rig

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

Want to know what hours and hours look like?

This is what hours and hours look like! From Kris' tutorials for windows and doors. Got my paper order in from happy scrappin; very pleased: Here are some colors starting to come together: I was going to do the sashes in white, but noticed that my inspiration house has very dark green sashes, so here we go. (I am not good at keeping square...) Got my holiday coupon savings from miniatures.com and Greenleaf for hardware and siding, so that will keep me busy for a whi

rbytsdy

rbytsdy

×
×
  • Create New...