Sunday, 6th June 2010

Now we’re in business!

Sorry - couldn't resist!  I just had to come back to this post and put in an extra photo of the little birdhouse.  It's my favourite thing for the day!

It didn’t take that long this afternoon to really see a difference in the little cottage too. I am really enjoying doing this one just as much as I did the Sea Shanty. It will end up a really pretty little house and I look forward to each step.

The first floor is now wallpapered and I am waiting for the paste to dry thoroughly before I slice out the dormer window area with a sharp craft knife. It looks a bit odd in the meanwhile but when it dries, the piece over the window will go forward to cover the front (window) wall of the dormer, and the side walls and roof of the dormer will go on. Very clever, really. By the way – for US readers, it is the second floor vbg. For Aussies, Kiwis and Brits it is the first floor, and the lower floor is the ground floor.

Halfway through papering the first floor, I realised that I hadn’t taken a photo of the front porch roof, so here it is, papered and glued in place. It will look much neater with the trim over the apex of course.

And while I have waited for glue to dry or been in the lounge room keeping Peter company rather than tucked cosily away in my lovely workroom, I have been busy too, going cross-eyed. Not mini petitpoint this time, but quarter scale flowers kits. I posted a photo previously of the clematis vine without any flowers. Well, here it is with the flowers on it:

And I’ve also finished putting the flowers around the base of the bird house. It’s really sweet, isn’t it? I’m very happy with it and it was sooooo much quicker to do than the clematis with all those fiddly leaves! The main thing that held me up was finding some paper clay for the ‘soil’ around the base. I finally had to take a bit out of one of my kits because my container of paperclay is here – somewhere – but who knows where! I did bring it around from my brother’s house but cannot find where it’s been put. The trouble is that things get moved by different people and put in strange places - I guess it will all turn up eventually but it would be great if everything could go where they should straight away. Men!!

Thesequarter scale flower kits really are ‘diminutive delights’ – here they are alongside a ruler, which gives a bit more of an idea of just how tiny they are.


And have I had enough? Well no! I actually have at least 20 more kits to make up. And call me a glutton for punishment but I haven’t given up the idea of lengthening the clematis yet either! Now that’s just insane lol! Tonight I started on some delphiniums and hollyhocks. The leaves are painted and are drying right now.

So will they go into the garden in Miss Marple’s cottage? Maybe – or they might go in ‘Story Book Cottage’ since I bought the landscaping kit for MMC. Wherever they go they are adorable.

And now I will have to wait until tomorrow when I can buy another new blade for my knife before I tackle cutting that wallpaper.  I have noticed that this 'Grandma Stover's' glue seems to take a long time to dry in this cool weather, and I've made the mistake of trying to trim the papers too early a couple of times - fortunately no catastrophe resulted, but I am nervous anyway about cutting this part and don't want to risk making a boo-boo here!  So for the rest of the night I will content myself with doing some of my neglected mini petit point.