My poor neglected Tennyson. I lost interest in this house. I walk by it everyday. Alysia was going to finish it but then she became a teenager. <sigh> I was looking at her today, wondering if the five minute room rescue would work on her. Maybe just working on the house will get her back in the zone.

I have had a lot happen in the last few months including moving out of my house, moving twice, then moving back into my house. Somewhere along the line the skil craft disappeared. It may turn up, then again it may have just been tossed. I had made a lot of progress on it, but hadn't taken any pictures.

Below are exerts from my personal journal about my Minis and other hobbies. I only recently started to include my hobbies in the journal.

Saturday~1/12

I need to finish this house and get it out of my way. I am pretty sure that I now have all the materials to finish it. First, I need to finish the shingles/asphalt roofing. Then I need to finish up the outside trim, fill in the gaps, sand and touch up the paint. I ruined the arch window acetate, so I need to cut a window from Plexiglas to replace it. I need to cut, trim and apply the stain glass decals that I made. I need to touch up the main house color. Paint and install the door and the interior door trim. The exposed edges also need to be covered up or done. My roof sprang a leak, again, but this time it was above the house and dripped on to the second floor carpet. I need to find away to get rid of the water stain. I think that this would finish up the house. At least I hope.


Sunday ~ 1/13

After playing Poker with my sister today, I can home and finished the shingles on the house. I also worked on the trim. I took a break to watch a movie while the newly painted pieces dried.

I suppose if I had any resolutions this year the would be to organize my hobby addiction. To organize my projects and only work on one at a time. There is a lot of chaos in my work room. I have reasoned that to end the chaos I must do one of two things: get it done or throw it all out. Since that latter is not likely to happen, I started to think that maybe a short list of things to do each day on each project might help me reach my goal. I came up with that idea last night. Todays goal was to finish the roof. Its done! The second was to work on the exterior trim.

I would say that 90% of the trim that came with the kit is done. I need to cut new trim because some of the trim from the kit was damaged when I opened it. I got some colonial moulding from Lowes to replace that. It needs to be cut, painted and installed.

Tomorrow's goals for Hobbies:
1. Cut and paint replacement trim
2. Cut and apply stain glass decals.

Monday ~ 1/14
My to-do list today included cleaning out my bedroom closet. This task expanded to the dresser, the rest of the room and the master bath cabinets. I threw out three bags of stuff we don't wear, use or haven't seen in a year. I didn't do any hobby stuff today, but I did get my regular routine done plus the extras that needed to be done. We'll see what happens with tomorrow.

Tuesday ~ 1/15
I seem to have caught yet another cold from work. Oh, yay. After the regular chores I painted some trim and cut out some of the faux stain glass. I did get some of them put on; I spent about 30 minutes on the project. I took some cold medicine and fell asleep till my bother called.


Wednesday ~ 1/16
I felt a little better today. I did get all the trim cut and installed plus all of the stain glass. I am not happy with how the one window turned out. Unless you run a finger over it it looks natural. It folded over on itself and stuck while I was smoothing on the top. Its ironic it was the last one I did: didn't have any problems with the others. I have the door glass to do but the door still needs painting. There is a little touch-up to do on the teal paint, but I will wait to do that until I touch up the purple. I also got the new arch window cut and installed. I started painting the dowels for the Apex trim, although I think I am going to touch-up the trim before I install those.


Tomorrows goal:
Finish painting the dowels and the door.
Touch up the purple paint and paint the wood edging.
Touch up the maroon paint.
Touch up the teal paint.
If the door is dry put it back together and install.

Thursday 1~17
Today on my dollhouse I finished the purple edge trimming, got the door painted, installed the dowels on the apex trim. Also, I fixed the corner on where I had the other gap. I guess I just kept forgetting about it. I also touched up the purple paint. All I need to do now is to touch up the teal and maroon. Glue the stairs back on since they got knocked off.
I guess tomorrow I will stand back and take not of what needs to be finished.

Friday 1~18

Toward the end of the day, I finally got around to finishing off the house. Its done; I think. I will make room for it on the shelf and look at it in a week to see what I forgot to do.

My sister needed a ride to pick up her car. While I was out I stopped to get a jar of Modge Podge. I got two since they only had the small jars. I also got a sewing pattern for stuffed letters. I don't really know why. Its something I could make a pattern for myself. I also picked up some fat quarters and scrap ribbon packs.

Last night I started the design the Hex sign for the end of the Carry-all and the distelfinks for the sides. So far I just have some base coating done.


My jars and other accessories projects are taking a little longer than I thought they would. Here is a sampling; I do have a lot more done, I just thought I would be done with this already. Tomorrow I don't have to work, I can work on minis. At least I hope.

I have been looking at my dollhouses in progress, scratching my head thinking 'what shall I do next?' I wanted to finish the roof on the Madison, but I need more tread tape. Its winter and the heating bill makes it difficult to set aside money for entertainment and hobby purposes, I used some of my Holiday gift money to pay it, too. I only need one more roll. Last year at this time Walmart had it on clearance; yesterday they had none. I was thinking Ella could give up her beef pot pies for a week so I could finish a house. (She is on a pot pie kick right now; she will eat other stuff, but wants a pot pie with everything) While I am waiting to get that I could finish up the trimming that needs to be done. I really wanted to finish the roof first and I have no motivation to work on the house.

On the Tennyson, I ran out of skinny sticks that I was doing the floor with and I haven't been restocking them as I had been. I can work on the porches and exterior of the house. I need to build doors, too. I have been going thru my wood supply and checking out what I have. I could do the wallpaper in some of the rooms , but I have half of a small container of modge podge. I have actually been thinking of an alternative. I have been thinking about using spray mount and then sealing with polycrylic. The problem with that is it is gloss. It is very shining when it drys. A can of matte polycrylic and large jar of matte modge podge cost about the same, I think. Either way I am stuck till I can buy some.

The Carry-All, I just need to paint it and put it together. Its a large surface area, so I think I am going to need more paint. I could use the purple latex Mabyn painted her dresser with on the inside. I wanted to paint it blue. The inside just needs to be a solid color. I also have one of those tester colors from Lowes. Its a burgundy. I have to think about this one some more.

My miniature accessories. I have been working on jars and label. This project is going very well. I have everything that I need. I have some Michaels hutches that need painting too. I have been painting other turnings, too.

What have I been up to? Well, I did my first craft show. I sold 10% of my crafts I made for the show. For a first show it wasn't to bad. I have been working on the Madison and repairing the Tennyson. I set the Tennyson on the floor because I was out of table space. Dotty chewed part of it. Its repairable, but it is slow going. Its kinda like putting a Monsters, Inc. shredded door back together.

The Madison: I have been using Duck Brand outdoor tread tape to make asphalt shingles. Its a great way to ruin a pair of scissors. Its a good thing I have plenty of "evil" scissors for this project. The Madison kit was short exterior trim. I have used the trim to do the upper embellishments ( I still need to finish) and will use store bought trim for the bottom. I did use a wrong piece and need to clean off the glue. The next piece of trim is where I had the gap and will have to get creative with Spackle to fix the angle for the trim. I also must fix the paint job, it has acquired some scratches and crayon markings while sitting on the Kitchen table while my work table was being used by Mike to build his computer case.


I have been experimenting with making my own water slide decals. I did find a local source for the ink jet sheets for these. I did find out that clear sheets don't work well with dark colors. When I have time I have been practicing stroke painting in miniature. My technique is getting better, but it is still difficult. One thing I learn about minis is the same thing in 1:1 must be done differently for 1:12.



I participated in a Christmas swap(another forum) and received these lovely items. My recipient hasn't opened hers yet so I can't post a photo.

I took a break for a few days for my uncle's funeral and to work on some other sewing projects. I worked on the Madison here and there. I did have to step back and figure out what I was going to do with the door ways. The door ways have rounded corners. I could have gotten some interior door, but I wasn't really interested in cutting them to fit the upstairs doorways. They have a 45 degree angle to accommodate the roof.

Today, I finished most of the trim work for the main floor. I still need to do the trim around the windows and paint the doorways to match room trim. I was taking pictures when my batteries went dead; they are charging now. Once all the interior trim is done, I'll finish the exterior. Maybe, I can do some more "power" building tomorrow.

I have gotten a lot of work done on the Madison. All of the interior walls and floors are done. I have also painted some of the exterior architectural details painted. I did decide to use store bought picture frame moulding to replace the moulding that came with the kit. A lot of it is in bad shape, chipped, cracked and splintered. (Didn't know crap board, a.k.a. MDF, could splinter)

Now for the "grrr" part. When Alysia had dry fit the house it went together smoothly. Everything lined up, a perfect fit. She had glued part of the house together and then I finished the rest of the walls. I have one wall that had a 1/8" gap. Not a big deal, its easily taken care of with some filler, carpet and ceiling materials. So I proceeded to the roof doing another dry fit when I discovered I have 1/4" gaps where the two front gables are supposed to meet the roof. I went ahead and glued it with gorilla glue and left for work. I planned on filing the gaps with spackle and texturing the ceiling, still do. While working, it occurred to me that I could have cut off the existing wall tabs and nailed and glued the crap board roof into place and I wouldn't have had any gaps at all. And it would have been a lot less work.

I started working on the Madsion. Alysia was originally building this house. She discovered it was to heavy and bulky for her to move around. I am using the paint colors that she had chosen for it. Its going to be purple with blue and green trim work. I have also removed the wall paper that she had put it. We don't have a mini store here and I haven't ordered a supply of wall paper yet I decided to use fabric as wallpaper. I have a huge stash of fabric. Some of it looks like the wallpapers in my catalogs. I have some pictures in my gallery.

To apply the fabric. I lightly starched the fabric, this was to give it some stability and to keep it from stretching to much when I applied it to the wall. I applied modge podge to the walls and then applied the fabric lightly rubbing it to get it to stick. I had rolled the fabric up to so I could unroll it as I worked in 5" sections (give or take). Then I applied two coats of modge podge going past the edge a bit. I was able to get a nice clean cut with my razor knife to trim off the extra.

On the first floor I cut the fabric a 1/2" longer than the walls. I used the the ceiling as my guide to apply fabric. So far, I like the results.

This is an item that I started months ago. All I had done was make the posts for the bed. Last night I got most of it done. I still need to add some finishing touches to it.

I built this bed from findings that I had around the house. This bed is a From Trash to Treasure item.

The bed posts are made from Christmas Ornaments. Some of the beads from these had to have holes drilled larger to go over a 5/64" dowel.
The head board also from Christmas Ornaments and the metal circle from a pip berry wreath that I had taken apart for the Heart Arbor.

The bunk board/ box spring is made from scrap strip wood, card board and covered with an old piece of cotton sheet.

The mattress is made from two pieces of an old cotton sheet. Sewn in a pillow, then tied with DMC craft thread to flatten it out a little

The lace dust ruffle came from a lot of ribbon from a second hand store.

The sheet is made with gold organdy ribbon and a piece of an old sheet.

The bed spread is made from samples of fabric swatch books.

The pillows are made from a swatch sample and a piece of an old sheet.

I still need to finish the backside of the head board and the corners of the bed.