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Willowcrest, San Fran, Westville, Beacon Hill and others

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Walls up

Got the walls up, and flooring templates fit: Bannister-ing the staircase and the 2nd floor landing: I use cut-off sewing pins to help align (and maybe it adds a wee bit of sturdiness). Those dark details on the stair step sides are actually photo corners; I thought they'd add a bit of interest once painted.

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Finally!

I did manage to get bits and pieces done on the window+door prep over the holidays, despite travel and sickness and insane work schedules : Now all the windows and door(ways) are assembled, painted, and sealed. I believe I'm finally ready to start assembling the house structure! (That handle on the single door is a fixture that I found at Michael's or HL-- "Tim Holtz idea-logy" ring fastener. I thought that it looked l

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A bit of window works

This is a time-consuming bit-- framing out the windows. The pieces in the kit (simple frame pieces) were un-retrievable, as the die had not cut all the way through, so would have had to destroy them to extract them from the sheet. I opted for matboard framing, doubling up thickness on the exterior frame and the sills. It will look nicer anyway. Got the door frames prepped-- no, I won't leave that exposed cross-bar wood like it is! And yes, I

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A bit there...

Got the primered pieces sanded and the wallpapers glued on; here are the papers that I've used so far (this is just in dry-fit): Have decided to use matboard framing for the windows instead of those old clod-sy pieces that come with the kit; prepped the matboard trim and now ready to start framing out the windows.

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A bit here...

Did some Hobby Lobby shopping last weekend, got papers and woods and flowers and paints: Edit: and those two little pink fairy garden chairs: Got the foundation glued onto the 1st floor, and did some more priming; got the wallpapers sprayed with matte fixative (Mod Podge); also my 25%-off Black Friday from Ernie's came in so I have my siding, roof shingles (fish-scale shingles for gables are on back-order), dentil moulding and spindles. &

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Another pink Tennyson

Where have I been? Quilting. Had a request from a family member to make another pink Tennyson; found this old Whitney Tennyson kit on eBay-- I guess it was back in April-- figured today was a good day to break er open and see what we have here. Got the big structural pieces sanded and together for a dry fit. Those 1st floor right front walls' top tabs will need a bit of sanding down so that the 2nd floor right front walls wi

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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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Bits and pieces.

Well here I am, another month gone by; little bits of progress here and there. Made a bed frame out of Al tubing and matboard; stuffed wire into each tube to try to keep it from buckling when I bent it around a form (made of brads, sort of like how Kris did her kitchen chairs) with mixed results. (Well, my brads weren't nailed into the board firmly enough, for one thing.) I need to get a mini tube bender if I'm going to try this again. Anyway, used Kris' mattress tutorial with some modif

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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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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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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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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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Even more color for the San Fran.

I went ahead and installed the 3rd floor partition and the little attic floor; I didn't want that long narrow space at the very top, but I didn't want to close it off entirely, so I made a little triangular wall out of foamboard, cut a hole in it, mounted one of the lights behind it, and framed it with a jewelry finding (with a bit of "glazed" translucent scrapbook paper that lets the light out but prevents seeing the nuts and bolts behind it). I also installed the two remaining lights be

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Lighting up the San Fran.

I am so tickled with how my little Tiffany lampshades from Dejoux are turning out that I just had to post some pics. I laid out the ceiling paper (embossed scrapbook papers) on cardstock so that there would be something to support the lighting fixture, with a bit of overhang for that center connector board, then strung the light through the template assembly and through a "medallion" (actually one end of one of those little plastic Christmas drums) and then through a hole in the top of th

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More color for the San Fran.

Well I had to go get more paper to finish the attic-- three sheets of Recollections "Blue Wallpaper" wasn't enough! Finished gluing the attic subassembly, and went to glue it onto the main house structure. Well the tabs in front help align to the front, but there is nothing to help align those long sides that glue onto the angled trim on the 3rd floor. I suppose if I were clever, I would've glued a bracing piece onto the roof to interface to the angled trim. I had to clamp as best I could

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Still coming 'round the bend.

Well there for a bit I thought I might just get the country house finished to send for Christmas, but a combination of time getting away from me, and not good timing to send it, got the better of me so no mad furious mini-ing this holiday!  Got the porch handrails installed (door wreath from Ernie's), and a chimney topper made of basswood, square wooden rod, matboard, and screen (inspired by Brae's (otterine): Got all the windows dressed. Some

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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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Kitchen cabinets

It has been a busy month; I have made progress with the San Fran, getting up to the attic pieces and doing some wallpapering: Installed the front doors, which is a pin-hinge system using brads: Dry-fitting attic pieces: Meanwhile, the country house got its porch roof installed, finally!

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A bit of this, a bit of that.

I've been working on a few different things lately; the folks got an old family piano restored, so I used dadas dollhouse piano tutorial as a base to make my version of it. Here is the original: My version, staged in the parlor of the country house (Laurel bash): A comparison of the one built straight from the tutorial, and the bashed model. I used dowel and foamboard, with cardstock overlay, to make the inset end-pieces. It took me a couple weekends to make, all told. I didn't quite get the

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San Fran starts to take shape.

Well it is a bit unwieldy having to upload pics to an album first (instead of directly into the blog post) but it is nice to be able to drag and drop photo files into the gallery now. Wish there were some way to miniaturize the photos, as they display full-sized on the screen... This makes the blog post a bit unwieldy to view! Here I am cutting the trim pieces and gluing certain ones together, with my Gorilla wood glue: Here I am setting up the main braces into which the wall components will sl

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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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Siding done, and cracking open the San Fran box.

Figuring out what the staircase looks like, and installing a (matboard) door, pin-hinged: I found on sale some of that acrylic gel stuff that one mixes with paint to make it look like stain, and have been trying it out on the stair treads and railing newel posts; so far it looks OK, though I mixed it with a dark paint to get this (what I consider to be) medium color. Siding done! :thumbup: And side trim (matboard strips) affixed. I have to get some paint now! Also you can s

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Progress with siding and staircase.

Well I finally figured out what the porch light fixtures look like: bits of matboard and some odd eyelets. I need to find the right diameter clear plastic tubing to fit over the light bulbs though. The lights being installed, siding is progressing slowly but surely; I've learned my lesson about applying siding layers too hastily, as it leads to buckling. I've been working on the staircase; the Laurel kit staircase just has two sides and the treads, so I used those as a base

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Finally, some light on the subject.

But first, some of my goodies that I got from Michael's with my gift cards from Mom (thanks Mom!): I was eying that pastel turquoise paper for the country house living room, since I didn't like the paper I'd installed there; before (finally got windows installed, after putting fixtures on them including handles made from Kris' tutorial at http://1inchminisbykris.blogspot.com/search/label/How%20to%20make%20kitchen%20cabinets%20from%20mat%20board., as well as black-painted jewelry-fixture-b

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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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