Progress on Washtub Cottage

Welcome to my newest follower, Kylie - my oldest daughter.  She has been promising to look in on my blog for a while now and in fact while they were here at Christmas the boys were very interested in Sunflower Garden Centre (especially Luke) and they had a look at the finished result on the blog after they went home.  It is lovely to have you as a follower darling - hope you visit often to keep an eye on what your mama is up to vbg!

Today I did a bit more on Washtub Cottage, but only on the ceiling/floor of the first floor.  The paperclay isn't really perfectly dry yet and it had cracked in one place on Washtub's floor.  So I patched that up with some more clay and left the floors of both cottages to dry some more.

A lot of time was also spent trying to work out a problem.  One friend told me that when she tried to see my full profile on this blog she got a message that the page was dangerous.  Apparently a lot of people are getting this message on their blogs at the moment when they try to add photos etc, and it seems to be a malicious prank of some sort.  I was unaware of it because I don't get the message - only people who try to access my profile, apparently.  Let's hope Blogger fixes it soon!  I couldn't find out on the forum how to remove the message or fix the situation.  If anyone knows please tell me!

Peter was going shopping and I asked him to buy me some craft matchsticks and a piece of balsa wood - it is easier than trying to find mine in the workroom at the moment, especially in the heat today!  That meant I could do the beams on the ceiling of the ground floor piece. I got quite enthusiastic about this and not only attacked the balsa wood main beam with my craft knife to rough up the edges but did the same on the matchsticks too.

And here it is with the first coat of dark brown paint over it.  This will be followed by another coat of dark brown, then light brown, then cream.

While the paint was drying (it didn't take long!) I cut the pieces for the floorboards on the top side which of course is the floor for upstairs.  As recommended I do this by eye so that they are not perfectly regular .  In later projects Bea uses a method of just drawing on the floorboards, but I really like using the strips of paper and have used them in the Yule Tide Shop as well.  I didn't paint this lot with black though, I thought I would try it with dark brown to see what the effect is like. 

Apart from being a bit bumfly where I removed a couple of pieces because I kept forgetting to make joins in the 'floorboards' it has come out really well.

When this paint dries properly I will sponge on light brown paint, dragging it in the direction of the boards to give a grain effect, which is the method that is used in all the projects.

I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to do anything on Toadstool Cottage today, but we are all very tired.  It was another warm and humid day today.  Last night stayed at 26degC all night and it was very humid too and we found it difficult to sleep.  We are expecting a southerly change about midnight tonight - that for us ibrings a cool change, and it will be very welcome indeed.  Hopefully tomorrow will be a more productive day, seeing progress on both cottages :-)