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Willowcrest, San Fran, Westville, Beacon Hill and others

Entries in this blog

How I made the wing chair.

This is mostly for myself so I won't forget, but if anyone else tries it, I'd love to see your finished product! Edit: note: this part is a bit fiddly; I cut the card a bit oversized so that I could fit it around the chair and trim it to shape. Just have to do this by eye and see what will fit well.
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Some notes for the Tennyson.

Picked up a can of Valspar interior latex semi-gloss in "Dainty Touch" (281-2) for the Tennyson today; it's quite close to the Olympic "Rendezvous" color that I already have but it's just a shade deeper. Some color notes for the Tennyson: Painted lady with a similar blue base color: http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinkimmett/3549263683/ Wow! Hard to see exact shade of blue here: http://gocalifornia.about.com/od/californiapictures1/ig/Victorian-Houses.-Npr/Full
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Rocking horse.

I've been working on the Spring Fling, but took a little break to try to make a rocking horse, which actually I've been thinking about for years now, I guess! I came across Karen Fitzhenry's site a while ago: http://www.karenfitzhenry.com/ Her miniature rocking horses appear to be hand-carved and are absolutely beautiful. For my rocking horse, I printed out one of her photos as a guide to shape (I never was any good at drawing horses), and rendered three pieces on cardstock, the torso+head and
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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!
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And the Magnolia is complete!

It is currently bouncing along in a delivery vehicle-- well hopefully not too much bouncing... Some lit pictures-- finally got my transformer in: Some shots of my wing chairs and sofa: The legs turned out to be alot shorter this time around, but that's OK. I wanted to make something for the kitchen, so I looked up Kris' tutorial for kitchen cabinets out of matboard: http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20to%20make%20ki
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Floors and trim, and an upside-down house.

I made fitted cardstock templates of all the floors and ceilings, marking each as to which side is out: Parlor and kitchen floors in dry-fit. The parlor "carpet" floor is a flocked scrapbook paper (doodlebug design inc. "1879 bon bon - crushed velvet cardstock"); I didn't glue the papers to the templates (that would've been too thick) but rather used the templates as patterns to cut out the flooring papers. Testing the lights-- Some of these
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Willow progress.

Even though it may not look or feel like it, I guess that I have actually made alot of progress with the Willow-- I finally decided that painting the window trim red would be too much, so I went with a few coats of off-white blends. I also decided that yes, I did need shutters...! Even though they are very time-consuming, I really like the look. The frame is in raw umber, and the slats are an off-white to match the window trim; I cut and glued in each slat individually, then sprayed the finishe
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Spray-painting and wallpaper.

But first, I'm always tickled with what a difference a layer of grout makes; from this (here I have dry-brushed onto the original barn red some peach and soot highlights)-- to this: The "grout" is spackle mixed with a little water, some gray and soot paint (and then some white paint when I got it too dark ). I sprayed the bricks well with matte sealer and let it dry overnight before I started the grouting. At first I tried some little bottles with very fine tip applicators, but I
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A little fabric-works.

If you want to see some very nice miniature EPP (English Paper Piecing), check out this blog-- beautiful work. Here is my latest, intended for the country house: These hexagons were about 1/4" to a side. Used some of my favorite scraps. Wanted to make a little wing chair, like the ones I made for the country house- forgot the details, so had to work them out again. This is for a l
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Sand, spackle, paint, sand, repeat...

Well I have been chugging along the past couple weeks, nothing interesting, just prepping porch and window trim assemblies: ...installing roof pieces, prepping and installing roof trim: ...installing exterior window trim pieces: So the corner trim pieces don't quite fit flush to the base trim, because of the pre-installed siding. That might be a reason to install siding afterward, but then one gets paint ever
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Back to the Magnolia, and a new arrival.

Now that the Spring Fling deadline has come and gone, I am back to the Magnolia-- hope to get it on its way to the east coast by the end of the year. I resumed work on the porches, installing the railing and finishing the edges: I put cross-beams on the underside of the porch roof and installed two hooks for a porch swing. Just got confirmation that a new niece is on the way! I know exactly what real estate she needs, and here it is! &
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Paint washes.

I was thinking about the Willow and was thinking that it looked a bit dark, so I washed it lightly with a beige-cream: That looks a bit better. I am still thinking about the best color to paint the window trim; I keep leaning to a red. I've also been thinking about whether to put shutters on this house... I gave the Magnolia shingles a dark dirty wash and then sanded out all the blotches and glue spots: I rather like the weathered ef
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Curtains.

Well it has been almost two months since I posted anything; I have been busy with work, travel, and this little guy: Not-so-little, actually, but only about a year old, so a big baby. A baby who bounces off the walls, likes to chew anything, and harasses my older dog to distraction. Despite Eddie's best efforts to "help", I did finish an idea I've had for a few years now for a Mother's day card, with embroidery "doodles" (lo
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San Fran porch railing.

The dowels provided in the kit for the 1st-floor porch fretwork were too big to string beads on, so I hunted around and found some thick wire and beads that would fit on it, and braced up the back of the porch decoration piece with square rod; drilled holes in the rod to support the wire, and braced the wires on the top with matboard. Painted the beads and wire; everything needs a couple coats of semi-gloss now to seal.
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Coming 'round the bend.

I am rounding the bend with the country house (bash of a Laurel kit); now I am approaching the finishing-up stages. (So yes, there is a fair ways to go. ) Finishing install of the kitchen cabinetry: Do you like my little potholders? They're bits of cardstock covered with fabric and bordered with cord. One can barely make out in these pics that the "tile" floor was pieced together from two very slight
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Start of Magnolia build.

Well I decided that the Magnolia was my new niece's house after all, and I set about thinking about color schemes. I have been thinking very hard about colors (almost to the exclusion of anything else!) and settled on my "Mother-of-Pearl" for the main color fairly early (I just got done with a yellow house so I am a bit yellowed out!), but then I was thinking about what trim colors I could do with a white farmhouse. Did alot of googling, found a rendition of the Magnolia in white by http://nanas
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Diamond-pane windows for the SF.

Well I needed some windows for my Spring Fling with little "leaded glass" diamond panes, and I was looking at http://aboutmydollhouses.blogspot.com/2012/05/tree-house-progress.html; she used some mesh that she painted and applied glue and thin plastic. Well I didn't have any mesh that I could use, so I figured that I had to make my own mesh. Now I'm sure that somebody else has done this sort of thing before, so if you have, let me know! But I hadn't recalled seeing it on the blogs...
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Magnolia & Willow progress.

It's great to have a four-day weekend-- so much progress! I finally installed my paperclay (DAS) onto the Magnolia chimney and house base: The paperclay seemed to start setting very quickly, however-- it couldn't have been more than an hour that it took me to glue all the paperclay on, but it seemed to be setting already so I started marking the stones out right away. That's why there are only two boring layers on the base; I felt like I had to mark them quickl
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San Fran finished, finally!

Finally-- I buckled down this weekend and polished off the San Fran; I posted the pics in an album, but it wouldn't let me choose which pic to be the album title pic. It should've been this first one. This is, of course, made after the style of Robin Carey's San Fran, which photos I studied carefully to get the colors right, even down to the front gable shingles and the porch spindles. The base treatment is actually an embossed "stone"-look scrapbo
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Wing chair for roombox.

I wanted to make a wing chair, and started off with the pattern from Vivienne Boulton's book The Dollhouse Decorator; it's a simple pattern but I wanted to see how the size worked out, and modify it from there. That sad pile on the far left is the first attempt; the cloth was unworkable and I quickly figured out some ways to improve the assembly. The purple one, I cut the inner form into three pieces and installed them separately. The third, I tried some more tricks with how I put it together. &
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Paint, furniture, and San Fran progress.

Well it has been about a month since I posted last, because of the upgrade; I think I have figu(red out how to post photos (had to put them in an album first), so here goes: Some exterior paint, finally: Looking more and more house-y! Screen door and staircase railing: Meanwhile, assembling the walls of the San Fran; each wall piece has a little groove that the piece below it slides into. The whole wall assembly turns out to be a bit bendy and flimsy; hopefully it will end up being supported b
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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
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Start of Rosedale half-scale.

I thought about titling this post "It's the little things" but that wouldn't be very descriptive. Whilst thinking about my next big step with the Spring Fling, I got into the half-scale Rosedale package. This is the first half-scale kit I've ever tried. The sheets of plywood are quite thin, but much denser than the old 1:12 die-cut sheets. Also they are pretty curvy due to being so thin, so will have to watch about that. The laser-cuts were very nice-- minimal sanding
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Furniture for the San Fran.

I've been pretty quiet lately because I've been working on furniture for the San Fran, from Kris' tuts, of course; parson's chairs (time-consuming, but I really like how the red piping pops on this fabric): Upholstered chairs for the parlor: The toile is a thicker fabric that I found the other year whilst fabric-shop-hopping with my mother; the thickness presented some challenges, but I think it pull
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Windows, or why it takes me so long to finish a build!

After cutting down the dormer a bit, finalizing the window placement, and cutting out the windows and doors: Trying to figure out where the upstairs divider should be: I think it will be this one, because it makes sense for me for the (smaller) powder room to be over the kitchen. I seem to take a long time with windows in general. I don't know what it is, but I find myself fussing over window trim and detail more, it seems, than any other feature. These win
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