zelda

A really cute children's book is The house that Mouse built by Maggie Rudy. Everything in the house is created from household or found items. Her website is cute too.

Thank you for the tutorial. Your buildings look wonderful.

In regards to the wood burning, although I have not tried it, Alessio Miniatures sells wood flooring which has wood-burned designs in it so I know it can be done.

I have built the Grosvenor house but not with the mdf. I used the mdf panels as templates to recreate them out of plywood to make it lighter and easier to cut in additional windows. I am pretty much kit bashing the whole structure except for the basement and the attic.

Berenice, I am currently working on the Grosvenor Hall with basement kit however I am modifying the design so that there are only five rooms in the main structure. I decided to make it more like the Pistner House a display type setting for my miniatures. There was a blog a few years ago by miniaturemanorbyvivian.blogspot.com and she did a wonderful job in decorating a Grosvenor house.

Porcelain doll molds are designed larger than the finished product because porcelain slip on average shrinks by 17%. If you want to use a mold that is designed for porcelain for clay you have to put a release agent in the mold before putting in the clay. A product called Flumo used to be available and you could pour that into your porcelain molds. It would shrink similar to porcelain slip and did not require a kiln. The texture was similar to plaster of paris and was fairly durable and you could paint with acrylics. Depending on what type of doll you are going for: Jamie Carrington has a series of DVD's that used to be sold by a company called Mind Storm. He also had a book. Although I have some of the plastic molds to be used with polymer clay I have not tried them yet.

I've been playing around with texture paste for my stonework. There is a youtube video by LuvleeScrapin that compares a variety of pastes, purchased and homemade. For my house I wanted a sandy texture to the stone so I utilized the baking soda recipe she presented. I use a base paint coat for the grout, next, a coat of tinted gesso same color as the grout and then finally the texture paint (which can be tinted) on top. Before I put on the texture paint, I used drafting tape (1/16) for the horizontal lines, which pull up really nice and leave a wonderful spacing. For the verticals, I carved with a v shaped chisel. The texture paste carves well and gives a nice 3d dimension to the stone.

This really captures the essence of a modern house. I would move right in.

Loretta Kazaa made a number of 1:24 scale dolls. I know that Mountain Miniatures still carry her dolls. Also, Terri Davis makes 1:24 dolls, she made me a regency couple and daughter a few years back. I also have a baby boy in 1:24 from her.

Great job. The house looks beautiful.

Hello everyone, I recently purchased (new in the box but from 1997) a WABI house. It is a 1:12 scale Japanese thatched roof house. The house was originally sold by Olde Mountain Miniatures. I contacted the website however the folks who have taken over the store do not know anything about the house even though it is still on the website. I was wondering if anyone has built this house or knows if it was covered in any of the dollhouse magazines. I am having some difficulty in deciphering the construction instructions and would love to see additional pictures. thanks Zelda Attached is a picture of the house.

Thanks to everyone for the kind welcomes. I live in Romeo which is north of Detroit a little less than an hour. Heidi is my real name and Zelda was my college moniker for laughs.

Hi, I just joined this forum and am new to miniature dollhouses. I recently purchased a Brookwood and this will be my first attempt. Wish me luck. I have read a number of the posts and have already learned a lot of information. Thanks for all of the helpful information.