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Well here it is - at last - the completed bash. From this: to this The front entry way Interior: Exterior angles I'd like to say thanks to everyone the Greenleaf Forum who helped with landscaping tips. painting and paperclay tips, opinions and ideas on how to tackle the various problems I encountered while trying this bash experiement. Without their enthusiasm and encouragment I would not have had the courage to tackle such a project. I learned so many things through this build that I really believe this will remain one of my favorite houses of all time. Thanks again everyone!! :angry:

Well I'm there - at the end. Tomorrow will be my last blog entry for this project. I've built a couple of small retaining walls - this time out of polymer clay and put some of my preserved plant material in the retaining walls. It's doubtful that I'll have enough coffee grounds by tomorrow to put in some nice walk ways but we'll see - I'm amazed that used and dried coffee grounds look so much like rich mulch but after this project I know I won't be throwing the coffee grounds away anymore. So here it is - the Orchid - nearly done. I still have a few more bits of lanscaping to put in, need to finish gluing down the grass edges over the board - and after 3 other kinds of glue failed I found a nice 3M spay product that works really well :angry: , and I need to take it out in the sunshine and try to get some final photos of it and she'll be complete. But for now - here's how the landscaping is coming along As I mentioned I made the stones out of white bulk polymerclay - for things like this it's cheaper than paperclay and I don't have to wait for drying time or worry about cracking as it dries and they're definitely small enough to go in the oven. I gave it the same treatment as the paperclay stones on the building a light wash of grey paint and wiped off the excess. I put some foam core down inside the walls to protect the "grass" mat underneath and then went with non-hardening clay like plastina to stick the "plants" into this way I can always change the plants if or when I want to by removing the plant stuffs and sticking new in. I'd like to make more rocks tonight and perhaps a path going over to the well - we'll see what happens when I get the rocks made. Hopefully there will be some nice sunshine for taking photos tomorrow.

Still no landscaping. I haven't a clue where I put my stuff except that I had a few days before I started looking for it - <sigh> But here's a picture of the new paint job. I think it will work out alright. I'm afraid it may take me a few more houses to learn to do it right the first time and to make them look more the way I want but I think this is better than the last paint job I had on this one - so after sanding, and quite a few color washes Here's how the house stands. A bit of landscaping and I'll consider this a done deal. I'm not sure yet if I'll use the well in the above photo with this building or not. And a few more bits for the interior made from home made moulds Tomorrow I'll make one more attempt to find the landscaping stuff I have here and if I can't find it I'll be off to the craft shop again to get some more. And then it will be a wrap.

Here's a photo of the thick paint job that I really didn't like. I almost forgot to take a photo before sanded it all off. All that was left was this one little wall but you can still see the very flat grey color I had painted it. and here at long last is the front of the building - not finished but I'm much happier with the way it looks. I've added yet more to it but am not so worried about how the paint will go on. The roof may be a bit tricky but it can be a little uneven I think and still be ok. The parts I'm adding to the front will be fine just as long as I paint them all at the same time - the boarder blocks can be a bit lighter in shade than the rest :angry: Once a put new boarders blocks around the side windows I'll be ready for what I hope will be the last of the painting to be done on this As you can see the sanding left some of the dark places and lightened others I'm hoping that this will give a deeper look to the stones.. and if nothing else I hope it will look better than the flat grey it was before.

Well as I said in my last entry the interior is almost there. A couple more things and it's done - it's the exterior that's been perplexing me now, but it too - finally- is almost there. I've gone over some of the paint to try to even it out - it's still too dark but I'm afraid that's just how it will have to be. I've found I an lighten it but it lightens very unevenly so I'm going to let it be dark. I've also spent a bit of time filling cracks, filling window gaps and in general just trying to smooth out the over all look of it and make sure there aren't any glaring "oops"es showing.. and there still may be a few I haven't spotted. I painted the under side of the eves - something I'm now wishing I'd done before assembly :angry: And I've been working a few details that I hope will add just a few nice touches to the place. I used the wooden door frame that came with the kit on the inside and planned to do the same with the exterior of the front door but apparently I misplaced it.. which is probably not such a bad thing because it forced me to do some block work there which I think will make it look more finished in the long run. Here's my block work around the front door exterior and a block step which is paperclay over the hard styrofoam. As you can see I still have some painting touch ups to do. Once this is completely dry and I'm satisfied that all gaps there have been filled it will finally be time to add on the entry way permanantly but I've been working on a shield for the interior. I found an image of a shield I liked (from one of the small ones I had on the interior back wall) and I sculpted it in polymer clay the size I want it - then baked the shield. Once it was baked I made a press moldl also in polymer clay from it and baked the mould. The next step was to make a mould out of paperclay which will keep the weight down. Below is the mould and the paperclay sheild that came out of it - the last step will be to paint it then put it on the wall. As you can see in the above picture there is also a smaller mould there made directly off one of the tiny shields I had up - In this case I just used the original to make the mould from in order to do this: Unfortunately right now the small paperclay shield, unpainted looks like a nose beneath two hollow eyes but once it's attached and painted it should be a great detail to add to the entryway above the arch - at least that's my hope :lol:

I'm afraid there aren't any photos for this update but I wanted to let everyone know why the heck it's taking me so long to finish this up. Every night I work on it... I live with the next day on the kitchen table where I walk by it several dozen times.. and that night I start again trying to fix what I did the night before. This has been going on for about a week. You might be asking what could be so tough? What you messing up every night. Well I may have mentioned I"m not the greatest with paint. So I started out with my blank paperclay.. and gave it a nice light wash.. only it wasn't all that light so I had to wash as much off as I could.. but then it still wasn't quite getting in all the crevaces as dark as I wanted so I went back over those with a darker wash but then couldn't get all the dark off the stones and had to try to wash it off again.. and then I painted the roof..... and of course it dripped down the walls :angry: which I wiped off.. but again it doesn't all want to come off so I had to try to wash it off which took off some of the paint under it too and then I added the windows.... and it looked ok till I realized that I just couldn't live with some of the gaps between the windows and the walls.. small gaps but gaps none the less and they had to be filled.. so that left nicely painted (sort of) walls but white paperclay on the edges - no problem I'll give them a nice wash and they'll blend in... or not. The wash went on but they did NOT blend. Ok so I started in with other colors to the stones randomly - Wow! Nutti was right add those other colors helps a LOT!!.. except I still couldn't get the patches to blend in.. Finally I decided I needed to just paint over the entire thing to just cover it all and make it a uniform color which I could then add different color washes too and I chose a nice light grey... which dried about 2 shades darker than it went on :lol: And Now the chappel and the roof were almost the same color grey! :lol: So tonight I repainted the roof a darker slate color.. but it still was very bland, dark and flat looking and the washes of color were now not showing up so well on that flat dark grey stone. So after thinking and contemplating I finally found a use for that bit of sandpaper that came with the kit (the same sand paper I almost never use on the kit edges)... I sanded down the entire building! I left all the detail and some of the thicker paint but took off most of it and you know what ? I think this just may work! I've added a few more bits of paperclay. I've got about half the details on that have been bugging me - my nice octagon openings in the entrance look like round portholes <humph> so I'm edging them and tomorrow when I'm more awake I'll finish adding the rest of the stone edging and after that... back to painting this time with very light transparent washes of color :lol: So what have I learned from all the paperclay on this building? 1. It really helps if your clay is uniform thickness - it helps give the building a uniform look that way all your groves between blocks is about teh same depth and all the block has about teh same texture and what ever shrinkage you have in the paperclay will be uniform throughout the build. 2. The thicker the paperclay is the more it tends to crack For some reason (at least for me) it seems to shrink more if it's laid on thicker perhaps it's something to do with the tensile strength of it and shrinking the way there is the least resistance <?> so where ever you make an impression (morter line) it will crack and then tend to split even past the impression but if it's thinner the shrinkage perhaps goes into it thinning against the wall rather than thickening and cracking. 3. When painting.. very very light washes. To get a lighter color you don't really need to keep adding white paint (which is the first thing I always think of) but instead use a little paint and a lot of water so it looks like really thinned out watercolors then just apply in thin coats and a sponge brush helps keep it from dripping. If a drip does start you can use a dry sponge brush to stop it. 4. Just like Nutti said - unevenness in painting can really REALLY be helped by adding other colors in thin light washes in a random pattern to your stones 5. Random patterning isn't as hard as it sounds if you remember to sometimes wash the same colors on conecting stones.. so it's not polka dot but actually random, some touching, some not, very unevenly distributed. I had a tendancy to want to make it even and not have any stones of the same colors next to each other.. to be really random some of them would have to be next to each other. 6. Paperclay takes sanding really well :lol: and is actually pretty durable stuff! Tomorrow if nothing else there will be photos of the sanded exterior

It's been a day of frustrations. The house itself is a dream to put together however making mitred corners for an octagonal window without posessing sufficient math skills can be quite challenging After all the time I spent today on it I don't care if I ever make another octagonal window frame. I cut it out of scrap, recut.. recut.. glued in place.. pulled it off.. recut again.. <sigh> I'm sure tomorrow though I'll feel differently. It took a lot of time to figure out the angle to cut it at.. next time it will be a lot easier but I think I'll still plan on buying double or tripple the wood that I think I'll need just to have on hand for the mistakes I'll make in measuring. In the end I still managed to make the frame too large for the window but did find that the angle for cutting on is an imaginary line on my Easy Cutter half way between 60 degrees and 75 degrees. I really don't want to take them down and do them yet again. I'm afraid I'll shorten them too much and really mess up the windows (and not have enough wood left to fix it) so here is what the windows look like for now. I had thought I could live with the paperclay I put around the inside of the windows but after a couple of days they just looked worse and worse - I'll have to see how these look in a couple days And now for the interior. I picked up a few bits of furniture for the inside while I was at the mini shop the other day. I had wanted something for the back wall but didn't know what. These two shields appear to be the right thing though I just tacked them up quickly with mini hold to see how I like them. They'll need to be straightened and applied correctly, and possibly painted first. I had wanted a sarcophagus for the back wall as well but for now the chest will have to do The front wall is much the same as it was - added is a table and gobblets and of course the new wood molding around the windows above. Also a single simple bench sits below the dias The interior as it is today: The front door is completed sans hinges. The opening in the bottom was filled with 2 bits I found at the mini shop that are glued on to make up the door pannels and below that a rectangular piece that I cut from what was left of the kit sheet after all the pieces had been punched out. Staining the whole thing makes a world of difference and of course the "leaded" window panes are in place.

It's been 4 days since I made a blog entry - unfortunately weekends are fraught with distractions however things are progressing. There's a bit of wait time with paperclay waiting for it to dry, filling cracks, waiting for it to dry again, and then painting (or repainting) and I have the bad tendancy to put things together and then remember that I forgot something and have to take it appart again - case in point the small upper octagonal windows.. I forgot to put in panes of glass.. which of course means I need to make more stained glass and I Still haven't found my gallery glass so until I do all the windows will be clear :lol: So this is what's gone on in the last 4 days: Paperclay shingles: I thought about using wood shingles. I have a bag of the rough looking stuff and of course the Orchid comes with some really nice smooth looking shingles but I got thinking about it and decided I wanted slate... so I used paperclay, knocked on wood and crossed my fingers and hoped I was doig it right and just jumped in. First I rolled my clay out and then cut it into strips the width of a ruler then I glued them in place and imprinted them with the end of a plastic ruller I have to make divisions in the clay. I got tired and went to bed and the next morning of course I had to paint what I had done (even though it wasn't finished) to see if I liked the look.. it's ok but it shows up the patches pretty badly since the bottoms shingles are painted and the top ones aren't and the patches really arent lol Once it's all dry again I'll repaint. As you can see the windows are finally attched to the front of the Orchid and waiting for the glue to dry - once that's done I'll go around the edges and fill any gaps and repaint On the inside I got the inner beams finally glued in place. I still need the back beams but want to wait until I get all the windows in place. I do have a confession to make here... I used hot glue on the arches that go around the dormer edges - I tried gluing them up with tackey and it did work but it took a long time to dry and then (being the dim wit I am) I realized Ack! I forgot to texture and stain the beams - out they came and when they went back in I just used hot glue to hold them. Tackey was used to glue the tall beams in place and the way they're in there I don't believe any of them is likely to have any problems staying in place. Over the arches at the front of the chappel I used one of the scrap pieces from the kit - an octagonal piece from inside the small octagonal window frame to make the shelf that St Francis is sitting on. For the moment I'm back to working on windows - this time for the front door and once I'm done with them the small octagonal windows. A word of warning about this type of stained glass - it's tedious- but I do like the way they are looking but because of the time it takes I'm considering leaving the glass out of the entry way.. besides glass back then was terribly expensive :angry: I've lightly glued the frames in place and as you can see I'll need to do a lot of patching if I want to leave the glass out of the windows... but before I do that I'll leave it over night and sleep on it and take another look in the morning when I'm not so tired and see if I still like how it looks without the windows panes in the entry way

The goal was for me to be finished today - at the latest. I've been stumped, confused, frustrated, boggled, puzzled and only changed my mind a half dozen times in the process and can honestly say I've had a Wonderful time building this house! :angry: It's not quite done yet. Actually if I made a list of what has to be done it would seem I'm still only about half there but I think in actuality I'm nearly to the end. I've finally made all the final decisions, my last minute changes are in progress and I think the rest will come together fairly quickly.. I swear for me half the time in building is trying to figure out what I'm doing LOL So here's the newest changes to the Orchid The new paperclay on the front : Once I get the windows in the door installed and the roof on it will be time finally attach the entryway which I'm planning to do as the last thing with the Orchid's exterior. Next here is the new windows for the openings I made in the ends of the house. I still cannot find the gallery glass.. but because I really don't want to mess these windows up I'm thinking tha I may finish the house with them as clear glass and use the gallery glass on them later - it's the one thing I'm really disappointed in, but I hated to spend another $15 on paint that I already have - somewhere So here's the window - got 2 made - one more to go :lol: And now for the inside which I've been staring at - even with the arches that I dry fit last time I was still not really enthused about how it was turning out. Now I've got the shrine area in. I still need to put up a shelf and I've got a few more smaller arches going in around the back of the windows - Now it's starting to look my vision :lol: The figures on the top probably won't stay there.. but it looks like it needs somethign up on that ledge... but what?

It would be So nice and helpful if I were to start a house and work from start to finish in a nice neat organized and orderly manner but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon :o Unfortunately my poor ol brain just doesn't think that way so I end up working a little on the front, the inside, the front, the inside, one day stones, the next wood then back to stones. .. So here's my latest escapades with the Orchid I have been racking my brain to come up with an easy way to do the stained glass windows. Unfortunately nothing has worked except the gallery glass and I can't find the gallery glass paints I have :lol: - I tried using Workable Fixative spray.. that didnt' work to help the ink dry... I tried using testors kit paints.. that didn't look good at all - so I'm back to searching for the glass paints I have somewhere.. in the mean time I started plastering the inside of the gables.. or dormers.. I'm very bad with correct terms on these but I was asked a question the other day about plastering.. do I do it before or after I put the house together and I said without hessitation After... only today I found that sometimes it's a good idea to do some of it before assembly - it was a lot easier to plaster the interior of the gablesand then glue them thusly: You might notice in the last blog post the house had wooden beams but they weren't glued in yet - just a dry test fit once I get all the plaster finished the beams will all get their stain and texture and be glued in place but I don't want to get any plaster on them if I can help it and I've still got more of that to do once the glue is dried and in place. So here is the front - almost as it will look when finished. I still haven't decided if I like the plaster look on the outside of roofline or if I should try to go for a smaller block work. I think the color is definitely wrong for the exterior and I'm leaning toward smaller block work up there to match the larger blocks below.

Well it's about time LOL but I finally got the floor in. I used the dremel to cut the stones then cleaned up the edges with an exacto - I cut the stones freehand just following any "natural" lines that seemed to jump out of the floor pattern and laid the first piece in the house. The tiles I bought were 12" tiles so it wouldn't cover the entire floor but I decided not to piece it flat but instead go for a raised platform at the front of the chapel so I needed a riser. For this I used a piece of foam cut to just under 6" Next I cut the rest of the floor made up of the top piece to cover the riser and two thin pieces to cover the sides of the riser. The top stuck very well to the foam and only one side seemed to give any problems so far in sticking - tomorrow I'll see how it's doing I may just not have rubbed it down well the first time. I've also got two of the gables on the front - the third has been glued together and is drying before I put it on. I ran out of spackle mix so tomorrow I'll get more and should be able to just about finish up the inside <knock on wood> . As for this evening I've been boiling and bending more wood for the interior. There are still 2 pieces in the jig that will hopefully be ready to put in the house tomorrow but here is where the interior stands as of tonight Unless I decide to make more additions the inside is pretty close to being ready to decorate though I haven't found the benches that I'd hoped to for inside.

Well I know it seems like i"m going in slow motion on this - that's how it feels to me anyway. To be honest this is a sweet little house to build and I should have been finished with it last week if I only knew what I was doing :lol: After much trial and error I finally am getting some progress on the floors, windows and arches. First the arches. I had a lot of trouble getting them to hold the bend - it seems heat really does help a lot! The wood needs to get good and hot and wet then go into the jig before it cools too much - to get it really hot and wet I found an old spagetti pan and boiled the wood in that - My only complaint is I wish the pan were a bit taller. You'll notice a second pan sitting in the first one. I used that to hold down the wood and to keep a bit of pressure on them in the water. Getting desperate in waiting for the wood to dry completely I finally put the entire jig in my oven and cooked it for a bit. The wood did come out good but next time I'll try it on lower heat - probably around 125-150. at 350 part of the jig started to burn so that's definitely Way too high! (aren't you glad someone else is trying this? :o ) I was determined to have some nice stained glass windows in the front of my chappel.. I tried printing on the transparency sheets I have but they were not made to go through the printer and the ink just sat there without drying. After several hours of hoping it might dry I gave up and went for try number 2. I borrowed a book from the mini shop called Dollhouse Stained Glass Windows. I'd heard of it but after borrowing it an having time to look through the great designs I'm definitely planning to buy a copy of it for myself. I scanned in the grid I wanted for the windows on the black and white setting and printed it off to the size I wanted and laid it under a clean transparency sheet. Next I opened a package of Gallery Glass window leading strips Using a ruler with a metal edge and an X-acto with a new blade I cut each of the thin strips in half lengthwise to make them thinner and peeled them off the paper backing. They are pre-glued so you just peel and stick and I laid them on the transparency following the lines from the pattern beneath. Now I need something to hold them in place and I posted pictures of the Window frames I made with the Scroll saw before so it was now time to cover those with paperclay. Here's a shot of that and also my high tech tool - aka the cut up credit card heheh. It's not a real credit card but one of those that the company sends out with something like "John Doe" in the name space - still they're plastic and easy to cut with scissors and make great tools for working in paperclay. I cut all my block lines with this and a 6 inch clear ruler. You'll also notice an old china cup that I keep water in to smooth out the clay. And finally a picture of the windows in 3 stages of completion to give you an idea of how it will look when done. I still have 5 more windows frames to finish and 2 more window panes to make for the downstairs part of the chappel I was also having a lot of trouble with the flooring and after trying the linoleum knife, wood V gouge and X-acto I finally got round to trying the dremel. I found that it does dig up the flooring a bit and doesn't give as nice a finish as using the X-acto does however - it's a LOT faster and tons easier on your hands - In the picture below you can see the floor I did today. I have gone back with the Xacto to clean up the edges on the right half - the left half have been left as is for the photos. Even having to go back and clean up with the blade is still much easier on my hands than carving the entire thing with a blade. However if you do try this with the dremel or other moto-tool I'd suggest using a flat tipped cutter and not a pointed or rounded tipped one as they want to wander. A flat topped cutting tip worked best for me.

In my last Blog entry I showed the interior of the Orchid I'm working on. I was really getting frustrated with the exterior and a bit ashamed to say that I'm not doing so well with the paperclay. The front seemed to do alright but I thought I was impressing the lines too far through the clay because that's where it was cracking and seperating - easy enough to fill but when I got to one end of the building I thought Aha - I'll be smarter and make much lighter lines, no one will notice it since it's on the end and it won't crack so badly... wrong! Here's what happened when I used lighter morter lines. Instead of cracking at the mortar lines like the front had the worst splits here were random and ran right through alot of the brick work. When it had cracked before it was fairly even but this is really ugly looking. I'm sure I'll be able to patch it but getting up in the morning to find this was disheartening. I had said in my last post that I really didn't like the way the big block work looked from the inside so I decided to go with a plaster look on the inside. I used a pre-mixed spackling compound and mixed a little acrylic craft paint with it to take off the white edge. I used a color called Wild Rice which is a really light sort of tan color. It mixed in really well and I used some cheap paint sponges to apply it directly to the wall. I found a dry paint sponge worked best and just a little finger pressure to get it to stick to the wood grain. It went on really easy. Then once it was applied I went back with a wet sponge which I cut notches out of to take off some of the rough texture and try to get the plaster too look hand applied and in scale. The texture is a little heavy still for the right scale but I'll let it dry up a bit and hit it again lightly wth the water on the textured sponge. Here's the texture sponge I cut. I used a 1" paint sponge I used a pair of regular scissors to cut 2 small sections out of the sponge leaving 3 "fingers" to texture the plaster effect with And now two last photos for the day. The interior full plastered - which I like much better and a first glimpse of my bent wood for the arches. They're definitely holding the bend now.. I just wish I'd made the arc a bit more severe but I had no idea the wood could take more bend than that but it clearly will with the right persuasion :lol: I also worked on some stained glass windows today but once again I ran into failure. The clear over head projector sheets I have are slick on both sides and even after several hours the ink on them did not dry. On the other hand if I ever need to print a pattern on tissue paper I've found that you can lay the tissue paper over the printed sheet press smoothly and the image transfers great! .. I'm not sure why I'd be wantint to print on tissue paper.. but if you ever need to this works :o Tomorrow I'm off in search of artists fixative to spray the transparencies before they go through the printer.. may not work but it's the easiest of the two ideas I came up with for making my faux stained glass windows. The second involves strips of gallery glass leading, a ruler an X-acto knife, a very straight eye and a steady hand. We'll see which method I end up using. Right now the house feels like it's going very very slowly but I have to say I'm learning TONS that I never would have tried otherwise so even though it's slow going it's a great learning process.

I finally started on the interior. The exterior isn't finished but I felt it was time to get things moving and get on with the inside. The floor still needs to be finished but I got the block up on the inside of the front wall... after I got it up and painted - and patched.. I decided I really didn't like it. I like the block work on the outside ok but when I look at the inside it makes the room look very small. Of course this is a small building but there's no need to make it look even smaller than it is. Here's a picture of the inside of the entry wall and you can see what I mean: I really like the idea of having an all stone building inside and out but got thinking about it. To get more of the effect I'd want I'd need to use lots smaller blocks or stones.. and I think the inside and outside should match ... unless of course I went with plaster on the interior. So I decided to give that a try. I mixed a few drops of acrylic paint (a light tan) to the spackle compound I had on hand, mixed it up and applied it to the end wall to see how it would turn out. I think I like the results. I applied the spackle directly to the wood wall and didn't try to use any glue.. not sure if that was a good idea or not but we'll find out in the morning once it's had a chance to cure and dry. Heidi, Tracy, and Marie (marsiedotes) have given me a lot of great tips on alternate ways to cut the floor tile! The X-acto really made my index finger sore and the joint has been aching now for a couple of days so I'm trying the other methods mentioned. So far I've tried the parting tool or V gouge that was in my little wood carving set and a Linoleum knife - both seem to work pretty well. I think I like the knife better but I may look into getting a new one as the one I have is pretty old and dull. I still have to try using the dremel but I'll save that for tomorrow :lol: Here's a pic of the gouge and linoleum knife: I made a trip up to the mini shop this morning looking for things to put inside to help finish it off. And of course once I brought them home I decided I need to change my plans yet again for what the focus wall will look like. I had intended for it to be pretty bland - pretty much a mirror of the back of the room.. but now with a water holder and a St Francis statue I'm thinking it will look a bit more like a chapel and will have a definite altar area even if there's no altar in it

You may be wondering why I titled this Flooring - try number 1.. well I've never done this kind of floor before so if it doesn't work out I'll be writing up a try number 2 heh :lol: I decided to go with a smoother stone floor than I've done before - previously I've used paperclay under stone print scrapbook paper and I was really happy with how it turned out but for this I wanted a smoother less bumpy floor and one that looked more like stone. So I went with vinyl floor tile, only I couldn't find the magazine that I had with directions in it and before I was pointed to Tracy's wonderful tutorial I was already on my way to my own attmpts lol - The first thing I did was lay strips of masking tape across the top of my tile so I could draw on that with a marking pen - then I couldn't decide if I wanted random stone shapes or stone blocks. You'll see that I also drew directly on the tile - that part is a scrap piece that will be cut off so it fits the room and I wanted to see how it would work. I don't recommend using a permant marker directly on the tile - not one of my brightest ideas. I think I'll be using a pencil though on the next one and skip the tape. Then I got worried about messing up my tile and lifted the tape up and transfered it to a different color tile which I actually like much better but I don't think will look quite right in the Orchid I'm building. After transfering the tape I took X-acto and carefully began to cut through the tape following the lines I'd drawn - as each stone was outlined I removed the tape covering it so I could see to cut in the groove just a bit on each side of the original cut I learned a couple of things real quickly - cutting through tape and tile together is harder than cutting through just the tile and there seems to be more chance of the blade slipping when cutting through the tape. Also I drew really thick grout lines thinkng that would be how it would come out. I didn't realize that you can get quite fine lines between the stones which really makes them look nice. It is however very slow cutting and If you use a very pointed blade I'd recommend safety goggles. Mine didn't break but I was concerned that it might and changed to a rounded tipped blade. These floors are a lot of work, they're slow going but I think if I have the patience to do it - it's really going to look nice! Here's what I've got done so far - it's not much but it's a start

I still haven't gotten any pencils and I gave up with the crayon after one stone heh - so I've been cutting the stones as I go - freehand. The drawn stones I did in the beginning definitely look better and more random than the freehand ones I'm doing but I'm not too unhappy with the flooring. Changing blades often REALLY helps - Tracy wasn't kidding! That's the best tip I've heard for doing this kind of flooring. Of course being somewhat cheap - I hated the idea of changing blades but then I decided to compare prices. One sheet of wood flooring sells for about $15. One package of X-acto blades cost less than $1.50 and the tiles cost me 99 cents each. There are 5 blades in a package and I'm on blade number 3 now - So even on a budget it's a pretty reasonable price for flooring that looks this good! And if you take your time and draw out your stones your floor should come out a lot better than mine! I also found that as I've worked it's gotten easier. I was having a bit of trouble using the curved blade - it was harder to see exactly where I was cutting so I went back to the standard pointy tip. The very tip of one of my blades did break off so the safety goggles were Wonderful and I wouldn't work on one of these floors without them. But as I said it's gotten easier as I've learned how much pressure is needed and how to better handle the blade. I do find that I need breaks quite often as I tend to use my index finger on the blade handle to apply pressure and it gets sore after a bit. Anyway here is my floor so far. You can see my new safety glasses in the picture. I got them today and I'm really pleased with them, not only are they very clear and easy to see out of but they have 2 tiny led lights - one on each side that can be turned on or off and really help light up my work. Below is a test fit to see how one piece of the flooring is going to look inside my Orchid. I still need to do the block work inside which will definitely give me a better idea of how this will look. After all this work I really hate to start over again with the grey floor tile though I'm still thinking it will look better than the brown, even though the brown is my favorite of the two colors

I've gotten more paperclay done. A question I've heard fairly often (and have asked myself) is how much paperclay does it take to cover a house. That always makes me think of the tootsie roll tootsie pops - how many licks does it take to get to the center lol :lol: I'm beginning to think houses are the same way. At this point I've used most of 2 large packages of paperclay. These are the 1lb packages. This sounds like a lot just to do the front of a small house but then you have to consider that I did the entire front plus the inside and outside of a pretty big entry way which actually took more clay than the front of the house. Without the entryway I think these two packages would have done the front, sides and probably a good part of the interior too. I've left the front entryway seperate from the house. Here's a picture of the inside of the Entry. I think I'd have had a dickens of a time trying to paperclay it if I'd attached it first - so the entry will probably be one of the last things I actually attach to the house. I want to get all the rest of the exterior and interior of the front wall done first. Here's a picture of the front without the entry - I left 2 strips of bare wood in hopes of getting a better glue bond to attach the entry to and also I didn't want the entry pushed out the extra 1/8 inch of lenght. later there will be stone steps inside and the whole thing will be mounted to a base board, for now it's sitting on a piece of foamcore. And then a picture of the front with the Entry sitting in place but still not attached to the house. My biggest problems right now are 1. the beams for the interior are not holding the bend as well as I'd like. I've spent 2 days wetting and putting them in the jig but no luck. I soaked them all afternoon and over night last night and they're in the jig again- if they still don't hold a good clean bend by tomorrow morning when I take them out of the jig then I'll go back to boiling them on the stove - I know just the place to borrow a nice deep pot ! heheh The second problem are the arched windows. As you can see the foamcore ones came out pretty nicely but the ones I cut on the front of the house came out at the pre punched areas and no longer really look like arches. I tried to find a real simple way (by simple I mean less work) to fix this. My first thought was to use a fine screen mesh, cut it to shap and just insert it under the paperclay at the top and paperclay over it - only.. I didnt' have any fine mesh screen so it was back to the drawing board. I grabbed the front door and held it up to the windows - I really like this look. I still think I want the window frame done in stone but this is really the shape the windows should be so after deciding that this will probably work best I used the door as a pattern (again) and transfered the window shapes onto the second story floor which I won't be using in the house. Now I have window casings to cut out on the scroll saw. The other day was the first time I'd used a scroll saw in a long time, but it looks like I"m going to get lots of practice with this I was just complaining I hadn't gotten a thing done on the house the last couple of days and was starting to feel a little frustrated because of it.. but that's the nice thing about blogging.. I guess even though I didn't feel like I'd gotten anything accomplished, when I look back over the page I guess I have actually made some progress :o -David

Well the last couple of days I don't think I've gotten much done. And I'm a bit worried the rest of the week may end up like this but I've got some things to check on this Friday - Thinking ahead I've decided to take a trip to the local rock show and see what they have in the way of glass for the windows. I normally don't like using real glass but I'm thinking for this house - if I can find something that looks like hand rolled glass with small enough air bubbles to simulate old window panes, I just might try it. - we'll have to see what I find out on Friday. I cut a couple of the window frames last night and called it an evening. Today I went back and finished them up, mostly - they still need the edges trimmed even and a good sanding around the openings I cut 8 of these on the scroll saw which is a pretty handy bit of equipment when you've got this many to make. After half a day and an over night soaking and almost 2 full days in the jig the first of the beams came out. It's holding a curve but not the full curve so it looks like it's back to the cooking pot to try boiling the next set of them. The curve is almost where I want it but just not holding quite tightly enough. They will work at this curve but if I can get a little tighter one that would be even better

Once I had the pattern for the entry way done I realized I wasn't at all happy with the interior. The Orchid has a great floor plan but now that I'd decided what I was doing with the front the problem was the inside and the outside no longer matched.. what was I going to make of this house after all.. the outside looks like a medieval chappel or a family crypt but the inside looks like a house hmm. So I did what any one would do in my case - pulled out the second floor and decided to pull the nice arches from the outside right on through to the inside! :lol: The problem was should I use paperclay and try to make it look like wood.. or use wood. After lots of great advice I went with the wood. I got some Balsa and in the first test I boiled it. It bent pretty good by hand but not enough and it needed a jig to hold the bend - so I took the house appart again - made a paper pattern of the end wall then traced and cut where I wanted the timber to be to get the right degree of arch: Holding the paper pattern against a 2x4 we traced the arch onto that and then cut it along the line: The wood gets a good soaking and goes into the jig to be tightened slowly and then left over night The first test worked great the boiled wood went in and the next morning came out and held the arch perfectly! As you can see in the picture below there are 2 beams of wood. The pale beam is 1/2" thick the dark beam is a boiled 3/8" thick wood one which came out with lovely aged color. The jig works! Now the problem is that I think the 1/2" wood makes the room look a bit smaller inside and doesnt' emphasize hight as much as the 3/8" and I cut the 3/8" strips too short. Another trip to the store for more wood ensues: I soaked the much longer strips of wood in the bathtub but they don't seem to be holding the bend as well as before. I may have to go back to using some really hot water on them or may have to wait for a drier day - today was our only day of normal summer weather and we got fog and drizzle.

So last night I started with the paperclay. I rolled it out about 1/8" thick using and old kitchen pastry roller. I found that unless I turn the paper clay often it sticks pretty badly to the counter top so I give it a roll one direction, pick up and turn the clay then roll again and repeat. That seemed to work the best for me. I rolled it out to about 1/8" thick and using a ruler cut one straight edge on the clay to line up with the bottom of the wall to be covered. The first place I put paperclay was directly on the house front in the area that will be inside the entry. I placed the entry against the house and marked the insides of the walls with a pen. I applied glue (Tacky glue) and smeared it with my finger to try to get a fairly even coating all over the wall then lifted the clay, lined up the bottom edge and gently pressed and smoothed it against the wall then trimmed the edges to match the pen lines on the building: Once that was done I set to work on the entry itself. Because I used foamcore to build it from I was afraid of warpage so I worked on both sides at the same time. I worked on opposite sections starting from the back. I did one back section front and back - then the other back section front and back. By the end of last night I was getting pretty tired so decided to finishe up the front this morning. By this morning the paperclay had dried and I was very pleased that I could not notice any warping at all :lol: However I did get a little heavy handed in places and while imprinting the block lines I went all the way through the paper clay in some places and when the clay dried those places left some pretty big gaps. So it was back to work filling gaps, re-smoothing and blending the clay all over again. One other thing I didn't anticipate was that I once the paperclay was applied to the octagonal window shapes they appear round. I should have cut them larger to accomodate the clay and may have some trouble with this later.. or I may just take the dremel to it once it's dried and make them bigger and hope i don't damage the walls while doing it. I'll just have to wait and see how it goes.

I decided not only did I want the entry taller but it also needed windows. I transfered the paper pattern I used previously onto foam core and cut the sections out. I used the same window pattern I used on the front of the house to the side of the entries - slight error in my calculations though and forgot to leave room for a center beam between the two arches. I think I can manage an easy fix for this though as I go along. Now that I had side windows on the entry the front was looking bland so taking the octagonal shapes from the dormers I pulled that shape into the top of the entry to allow some light into the entryway. I marked the centers of the sections and used a punch out of one of the small octagonal windows as a pattern And now the front looks like this: After disassembly and cutting of the front windows on the scroll saw the house is now back together looking only slightly worse for the wear. Notice however that the nice arched windows I drew on the side of the house are now.. not quite the same as the drawings. Unfortunately the precut window pieces didn't cooperate and stay in place. there was probably a simple fix for this before hand but I didn't think of it at the time. That's still ok though I'll need to add a center for the entry windows too so it will work out - it will just take a little more finaggling with it.

After letting the Orchid sit over night I got down to deciding what to do with it. A few ideas struck me right away. It would make that great Haunted house I've been promising to make myself - then again I've had Castles on the brain lately so I thought Aha! A small tower.. after checking out the concrete forms I have (too big) and the Oatmeal box (too small) I decided not to do a tower and try something simpler .. well that's what I told myself at the time... I decided to go with something like this: I used poster board to draw up the patterns and just taped them on to the house to see how it would look. I then used the arches in the front door to draw new windows on the sides of the entry way to match the door arches. The front and top gable have been removed here because after looking at it I decided the window needed to be raised - octagonal window frame as a template I drew the new window in place I raised the front entry a bit because I decided I watned it taller - made a front arch to echo the door and window arches and taped it all back together

I did a lot of planning and thinking about this house. My first inclination was to build it exactly as it shows on the box and just change the colors a bit - It's a beautiful little house but then my mind started wandering and I have been promising myself a witches house.. on the other hand I've really had castles on my mind a lot and how cool would it be to add a small tower to this :lol: So first thing's first - I opened the box and gave the direction a quick glance, punched out the main parts only, leaving all windows and doors in tact. I've changed my mind on other houses and decided not to have a window where the window punch out is and filling those back in can be a nuisance so I decided this time to leave all doors and windows solid until I decide where I want the doors and windows to be. Then I dry fit the major pieces together (floor, walls, roof, second story) just to get a better idea of what I might be able to do with this house. I usually will leave a house like this until I decide what to do with it. This house was a real easy put together. I had it taped up like this within 15 min of opening the box. Its' a sweet little build that promises to go to gether really easy.. of course I'm not following the directions on this one which means lots of extra parts. I identify the remaining parts from the parts sheets and mark them all then bag them in a gallon size plastic zipper bag for use on future houses.