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beyourpet

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Everything posted by beyourpet

  1. Latest update... -------------------------- Posted on May 5th 2013: The past week and a half I’ve done a lot. I finally just decided to start really making it, after putting it off for a while out of nervousness… Here’s a video of some of the progress, and some photos below. I stained the shingles (or, most of them… I still have a lot more I need to do) with the steel wool & vinegar recipe I mentioned before. It turned out great, couldn’t be happier with the results! At first I was trying to be really careful, painting the solution on and even picking up each piece with tweezers (which took forever), but then I started to realize that this vinegar solution is not sensitive to every touch like regular stain is. I tried just dunking a few in the solution, grubby fingers and all, to see if that would turn out the same. It did! So from then on every piece just got a quick dunk and was laid out on the cookie sheet to dry. They turned out perfectly! The thing I really love about this staining solution (other than the weathered grey color) is the way that each piece turns out a little different, they’re all slightly different colors. Much like I think happens to wood naturally when left to weather on it’s own. It looks really natural and not overly uniform. The shingles after drying completely. After deciding that I wasn’t going to break the whole thing just because I have zero experience in sanding… I decided to prepare the pieces and do a dry fitting… Sanding down the pieces and dry fitting the shell. It went well. Tools used to prepare the pieces for dry fitting. Also a plain sheet of sandpaper. Before gluing I wanted to stain the floors to look more like hardwood floors. I don’t know if I’m done with them but I thought it would look better than wallpapering them to look like wood. Part of the way glued together. The floors have also been stained using the store bought stain. The lighting in here is bad but this is the dollhouse with everything glued except the third floor. Just the shell, I’ll add the roof and outside walls once I have decorated the inside. Starting to look like a little house. : )
  2. From now on I'm just going to post any "work in progress" posts of my experience with my first dollhouse (the Corona Concepts, Willow) onto this thread in case anyone wants to follow along with me as I go. Hope it's ok if I post it all here! I don't want to block up the threads by making new posts all the time but I wanted it to stay all in one place. Of course I'm still posting it all at my blog as well. It's been a little while since I last updated, mostly just because life has been hectic and I haven't had the chance to get on here and post what I've already posted to my blog. But here is what has been happening lately with my Willow dollhouse. -------------------------- Posted on April 24th 2013: Just wanted to make an entry about where I’m at with my dollhouse. I really haven’t done much at all, but I’ve been busy and haven’t been able to get supplies. I finally got some over the weekend but unfortunately not the things I need to really get started. I apparently (according to my dad) bought a grit level that is probably too course. I need something more gentle… But I can probably find some spare sand paper laying around here somewhere. I need to make a sanding block though. I also want to make a grey wood stain for the shingles. I intend to make this steel wool and vinegar stain but I still need to buy some steel wool (apparently we only have the copper kind )… Hopefully that will happen over the weekend (I’ll probably buy some tonight and not be able to use it til this weekend since it needs to sit). I also need to get the wallpapers printed. I bought this decopad but the pages are obviously too small to use directly. I intend to make some larger layered graphics out of them and get those printed. Then I’ll mod podge them on to the wood I think. Some things I bought. A brayer for mod podge (will use for regular art projs and the wall paper for the dollhouse), Sandpaper (I need some different grit levels), Wood stain (#233 English Chestnut), painter’s tape, masking tape, and a deco paper pad for the wallpaper. I actually scanned all the pages if anyone wants me to send them to you for your own use. Just email me! (beyourpet AT gmail.com) I made some plans for color scheme and such by layering and filling in images of the techniques I hope to use onto the blank dollhouse images. Here’s what it ended up looking like. A grey stained roof. Crackle paint on the outside shingles, although I’ve never used that stuff and have no idea if it will work well or what color to use… I want it to look like an old house that has been left for a long time without any care to it’s paint. So I figured the crackle paint might work well for that. The two greys are from steel wool stain. The crackle is some crackle paint jobs. The roof here is also the steel wool stain. The sample there is the stain I bought… Might not work as well as I thought it would with the more grey toned aesthetic… Here are some samples of the papers from my decopad. I liked these, they looked like old torn up wallpapers and painted wood. I spent some time labeling each little tiny piece on every single sheet in the kit (with pencil) in case I misplaced anything… I took photos of each sheet, mostly for my own reference guide in case I need to know where a certain piece is, but also as a reference guide for anyone either interested in getting this dollhouse kit, or if you already have it but mixed up your pieces. Sorry the photos look awful but I was trying to get the contrast to show the outlines. Sheet #1. You can see the rest of them here. I don't want to bore everyone by posting every single sheet! Shingles and junk wood in a bag. After putting them in here to get them out of the way I decided to pull apart all of them because they were coming out anyway. So now they’re all individual pieces. The junk wood is ‘kept somewhere else in case I need it. This is a regular size shoebox, this is how much the shingles fill it up (after they’ve all been separated). Quite a bit of shingles!
  3. That's the instructions the kit came with. Thank you though. Maybe they used to not come with those and so they were considered alternate instructions for a while, but they had those in the box in my kit.
  4. I've been looking all over for alternate instructions for the Willow and haven't found anything other than the guide it came with. :/ Do you happen to know where there might be some? For some reason I'm not getting relevant results when I search on here...
  5. I'm an introvert in the real world (social anxiety ) but pretty extroverted online. That's the lovely thing about the internet!
  6. I found an off brand of modpodge at Micheals, it works the same as modpodge (MP is pretty expensive! I think this was at least $4 cheaper than the $8 MP). I've seen some recipes on Pinterest of how to make wallpaper paste and modpodge glues at home, haven't tried them but they're probably also cheap alternatives.
  7. Responding to you here because I didn't want to start a new thread and wasn't sure where else this has been talked about, but you said you used modpodge for your wallpaper. How did that work out for you? Before reading up on dollhouses more I was intending to buy some of that scrap booking deco paper you see at Micheal's and places (because I saw some pretty old wallpaper styles that I thought would work well) and since I use modpodge in my art sometimes, I figured I could apply the paper to the walls with that... Does it work well or does the surface of the paper require a fixative spray afterwards, in your experience? I wanted to make sure this was a good idea before I bother getting supplies for it...
  8. That's awesome that you had this epiphany, I find that the most fun and rewarding projects are from little epiphanies like this, and a "dilapidated old boarding house" sounds amazing! I'm hoping to make mine look fairly dilapidated as well, once I get started on it... I know how you feel about being a bit of a perfectionist with your projects, I've always been the same way. I think it must (for me at least) come from an anxiety of trying to get things just so, not to make them "appear perfect", because as havanaholly says, there's nothing perfect really... But I guess I just try to make it look a certain way and trying so hard can sometimes make it seem odd and forced and far from my ideal... Over the past few months I've actually been dealing with this same issue in my art (I do illustrations among other things), and I've come to understand and love how imperfections (like pencil sketch marks, eraser marks, etc all over a drawing) can actually give it a lot more character than being "perfect" from start to finish. I was looking at too much art from others, comparing them to myself, and seeing how their art all seemed "perfect", flawless, with no marks of their first and second and third tries, no marks of their mistakes. But I've come to realize that those little flaws and mistakes are actually what, to me, makes a piece interesting and dimensional. I guess I've come to see that my style and the style that I love from others is a messy mistake ridden true to life version, instead of the crisp and pretty. Like you say, "so what if the wallpaper tears???", it's a lot of fun to give in to the imperfect. I think dilapidated old "ruined with time" houses are the most beautiful of all. Good luck with your house, if you're still working on it.
  9. beyourpet

    P1090054 2

    Love the dollhouse within the dollhouse. I'll have to get one of those little ones after I've made mine!
  10. Oh! That's so sad, I was hoping it would age beautifully and I'd get to visit it one day... I wonder if they left the burned structure up or if they demolished it? Burnt structures are also very beautiful in a sad way. That's awesome! I'll check it out. And thank you.
  11. Thanks so much! I'll check out your work on the willow right now. And that's good to know there are some more instructions, these that came with the kit are fine and all but they seem a little less explanatory than I was hoping... And good to know wood damage is normal and those little pieces aren't important! I was a little scared at first, haha. Haha after seeing the "pets being bad" gallery on here, I think you're completely right about that! Thanks for the advice! I'll get some spackle when I go out for supplies this weekend. And I'll keep all the scraps just in case they come in handy. Glad to hear it's not as scary as it seems at first! haha. I'm loving how organizational this whole thing is, I actually really love doing organizing tasks so I think this definitely will be a nice relaxation project for me in a strange way. Glad to know about the "dry fit" thing, I wouldn't have thought of that, but it's a really good point. Definitely! Haha. Sounds like a great plan, I think take it slow and do it like you suggest. Thanks all for your comments!
  12. (I'm so sorry if this is not the right place to post this, I can remove it if it's not. I'm just trying to find my way around these forums and I think I'm not able to upload photos until I've been here longer... So I thought I would just create a forum post with the photos instead. Question for members: Where are we generally supposed to post our update photos and descriptions of how things are going?) Unboxing My Willow Dollhouse Kit: My dollhouse kit arrived the other day in the mail! I haven't begun work or anything yet, I'm going to study the guide a little before starting and I have to get supplies on Sunday before I can do much anyway. But I made a little "unboxing" video and took some photos in case anyone was curious what this kit looks like straight from the mail. (These images are from the diary entry I wrote, you can see it all here. The video I made can be viewed here.) My kitty Twitch thinks this is all about him… Front view of the box. The back was plain with the shipping info. So you can see that they didn’t hide the fact that it’s a dollhouse. Thought I’d mention that in case you’re someone who’s buying one of these as a surprise gift. This one was shipped from Overstock.com. The opened box. The shingles there were already popped out of their sheet when I opened it. I guess it got a little knocked around in transit. Closeup views of those shingles and the little bits that I’m not sure if they’re important? (Those little tiny bits you see, smaller than the shingles)… Probably not, but I’ll keep them until I’m positive… Some of the wood damage on one of the sheets. Wood distortion on the back of one of the sheets. Another angle. Lots of little pieces. Closeup view of those little bits I mentioned before. If you can’t tell, it is massive! Haha. It weighs 30 lbs according to Overstock.com I love this. The instructions to the instructions. “DON’T PANIC!”… Well now I am totally going to panic, thanks. ;) If you're interested you can see more of the images on my diary entry, I couldn't post them all in this post.
  13. Thank you everyone for the replies! I'm glad to see this is such an active community, especially since there's such great tips and resources to find on here. Thanks all for the suggestions! I will definitely be posting images and updates once I've begun work. I'm going to be getting supplies on Sunday hopefully so should be able to get started soon.
  14. I know the feeling! I have a ton of subscriptions in my RSS reader and I almost never have the time to keep up with them! :lamo: Thank you, looking forward to posting here and getting started. Glad you mentioned not to use hot glue because the guide says you can, but honestly it seems like it would be much harder to work with and more damaging if you mess up than wood glue. So I'll def steer clear! And yeah I am getting more and more nervous that it will be hard to achieve the look I'm going for, haha. but I'll try to take my time and learn from this group as much as I can before taking drastic steps. Glad to have found this awesome resource, I think it will be a great help. Thanks for the book suggestion, I'll check it out! Oh I love that lifesize dollhouse! I found it a few years ago but I hadn't seen these WIP images of it, wow. Such an amazing project, I hope I can visit it in real life one of these days! And thank youu. Oh awesome! I live about an hour from Richmond, near Charlottesville. We actually just moved here in Aug '12 for my boyfriend to attend UVA. It's a beautiful state, we really are loving it. We're from Texas, so the weather and seasons and trees are all a very nice change for us.
  15. Absolutely love your work on this house! And I love the description you wrote about the way you envisoned it "not completely dilapidated but in a state that might make you pause to enter...but with a warm albeit old and perhaps historically creepy interior." That's definitely the feeling I want to go for in my dollhouse. I'll come back to your album for inspiration!
  16. Hi, my name is Brittanie. I just joined this group today, the same day I received my Willow Dollhouse Kit in the mail (this model in case you're not familiar). I haven't begun working on it yet, I intend to take my time and do things as well as I can because I've never worked on a dollhouse before. I had one that my dad built when I was little but that was long ago and it wasn't from a kit (plus I didn't help build it!)... But I'm an artist so I have a vision for it. I hope this will be a good project for me to relax and have fun with in my down time. I'm hoping to achieve an old somewhat abandoned house look, although I have no idea if that will be possible or not. I work in mixed media with my art so I do a lot of distressing and staining with paper, I'm hoping I can apply similar techniques to wood and wallpapers and such. Wish me luck! :surrender: I've always really loved dollhouses. Something about the creepy but calming image of the miniature house in a child's room has always appealed to me. I really love antique dollhouses but they're too expensive for me right now. My fascination with them has been apart of much of my art and writing! A little about myself: I'm in my 20s, living in central Virginia US (I'm originally from TX) with my boyfriend and our 3 pets (1 blue heeler, and 2 kitties). I'm a freelance artist and I'm also currently working on my first novel. I spend a lot of time online, making art, and hanging out with my bf and pets. I'm a pretty big homebody but I also love nature and going exploring. I have an aesthetic love for Victorian era, Georgian era (which is the era my dollhouse is from, architecture wise), abandoned buildings, shabby chic style, girly style, natural earthy tones, dark and gloomy things, and lots more... An example of a style I love for dollhouses, this is an antique that sold for thousands! I'll be recording my experience with my dollhouse on my blog which you can see here. :type: I admit I'll be posting there more often than here but I'm going to try to use this site to get help, inspiration, and to make friends! :yes:
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