Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'the aster'.
Found 8 results
-
Jolly Old Santa Clause was my favorite childhood book, and for YEARS I've had in my head to recreate the different scenes from the book for a huge Christmas display. Some will be houses, some will be storefronts and some will be ones I hope to create from start to finish. The first scene is the one below of Mrs. Clause's kitchen. I believe I've figured out most of what I'm going to do, but I'm baffled by the column there to Santa's left. I'll be using a combination of foam core and builder's foam for the fireplace, the archways, and the floor, but I can't think of what to use to make that column. The upstairs will be converted to an entire floor rather than a loft and I'm going to use that as 2 rooms, a cookie boxing room, and pantry. Any suggestions for what to use as the column?
-
I thought I'd better bring this uptodate with photos of the finished house. It still needs work on the landscaping, but the house is complete :whistle: I decided to keep the original mezzanine floor, rather than fill it in, as I'd planned to do. I'm happy I went with it now, as the loss of space is more than made up for in the extra character the half floor gives this little cottage.
-
After quite a few attempts with mixing different shades of brown, I found one I liked - Raw Umber, straight out of the tube I used Polyfilla (spackle) first, to give the roof some texture, & then painted it. Actually getting the roof on was quite a challenge. With this baby you assemble the main parts on the house & then remove it & finish it away from the body of the house. This means you have the roof with all the 'box thatch' pieces to carefully manouevre (sp?) onto the house, whilst lining up the slots & tabs . The air was blue at times But, don't be put off, this is a lovely cottage to build. More tomorrow
-
Well here's a photo of the hearth. I found the 'washes' were a bit beyond me; I think I need to practice this technique a bit. Still I'm pleased with how it turned out - not what I had in mind, but who cares! Here are pics of the shell. I'm not going to wallpaper first anymore; I'm glad I tried it, but I found it very tricky to get the walls, slots & wallpaper all aligned at the same time. I seem to have lost a bit of the character of the cottage, with filling in the mezzanine floor, but I think it will come back when the roof is on, with the dormer & windows & stairs etc. All for now
-
Still following Grazhe's directions & am very pleased with how the hearth is turning out. This is the hearth after sanding the bigger lumps & bumps out, then smoothing the 'stones' with a wet cloth & finally going round the gaps with a tooth pick to give a bit more definition. I'll do the washes later.
-
I've assembled the dormer & the dormer thatch frame, but I can't say I'm happy with the gaps in between the wallpapered walls. On the downstairs walls I left enough wallpaper to turn the corners to fill these joining gaps, but couldn't really get my head round doing this in the dormer for some reason. I'll run a strip of trim around, so it will look OK when it's finished (hopefully!) I've just realised that before I assemble the main body of the house, I've got to prepare the hearth. I'm using polyfilla & have just drawn the rough outlines for the flagstones before it dried. I'm copying Grazhe's stone floor. there's a lot more work to do on it, but if it looks half as good as hers, I'll be delighted All for now
-
Having done the dry fit, I thought I'd like a complete upper floor, rather than the mezzanine, so I filled the gap in & moved the stairs to the side - they'll just fit between the window & the door. I then decided to try wallpapering before assembling - I've not done this before, so it will be interesting to see how well it works - watch this space! Here's a photo showing the roof constructed (yes, you glue the roof together, remove it from the house & then add all the extra thatch pieces) & wallpapered: Then here's one of the walls. The paper hasn't turned out as pretty in the photos as in real life. Now to start the window trims. 'til next time
-
I've dry-fitted the Aster today. It went together like a dream, apart from trying to figure out which thatched roof fiddly bits went with other thatched roof equally fiddly bits! It was like doing a 3D jigsaw. Anyway, I followed the instructions (yes, I do that sort of thing ) & see now how it fits together. I think I'm going to fill in the gap in the bedroom floor - I don't really see the point in losing that amount of floor space, but I don't know, it's kind of cute .... This is the rear view: and this is the front:
