I have a confession to make.....

Two posts in one afternoon! This part is out of order, it was written on Wednesday 2nd March -

I've been rather naughty.  Well, sort of anyway.  It happened like this: I wasn't happy with the paint effects on Washtub Cottage so I fiddled around with it a bit more, which meant that I had parts sitting around with wet paint, waiting for it to dry.  Sooo..... I just got the pieces of Flower Pot Cottage out.  Just to check them out, you understand.  And I thought it would be a good idea to mark the pieces with their identifying letters..... since I was waiting for the paint to dry.... and I didn't have the thick paper to do the tiles yet.....

Then I added a bit more colour to Washtub and of course I had to wait for that to dry too.   So I figured it might be a good idea to do the parts of Flower Pot with gesso in preparation, so that they wouldn't warp when I got to do the Paper Clay on them.  Just while I was filling in time, you understand!  The gesso dried really quickly, faster than the paint on Washtub, so I did the second coat of gesso. 

And then because the Paper Clay on Washtub was getting a bit soft from all the moisture from the paint, I thought I had better leave it overnight so I decided I might as well do the PaperClay on the floor and garden sections of Flower Pot.  Yes, I know that the instructions use a different method for the floor in this cottage, drawing on the quarry tiles with a fine felt pen over a painted surface, but I wanted to do flagstones in clay like I did in Toadstool Cottage.  So that's what I did.  And I am really happy with the result.  I took photos but they don't show details of the flagstones, just a plain white surface, both the ones I took last night and those I took this morning.  So I've deleted them.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I went shopping and bought the thick paper for tiling so I really should be able to say that tonight I have the roofs of both cottages tiled but I can't.  I do have the painting finished on Washtub and the window glazing put in though, and the entry porch is attached.  And the strips of paper are cut out ready.  I am part way through snipping them to make the tiles but I've spent a large part of the day ordering things over the internet ready for the project after Flower Pot Cottage.  This is the English Cottage by Debbie Young, and I am taking it to Bundaberg in Queensland in a fortnight's time for a holiday with my good friend Jan.  We are going to have a week mini-ing together.

 It's so exciting, and I have bought a new carry-on case that is just smaller than the size allowed, but deep enough to fit the container in which I will bring the cottage back to Sydney on the plane, along with my laptop. It was difficult to buy one that was deep enough - I had to find one without the computer section at the front. Today  I needed to source some different wallpaper for the ground floor of the cottage and also some paint - our local craft stores no longer stock Ceramcoat or Folk Art craft paint, or will only stock a very limited range.  And I  ordered a large supply of quarter scale flower kits.  Quite a bit of time was spent sorting out tools that I'll need, making lists of things to buy or pack for the mini project, and so on.  Clothes are a minor detail that I'll worry about closer to the time vbg.

So the tiling won't be completed until tomorrow after all. 

Friday 4th March
So now you know my little secret vbg!  And now I can share my progress with you.  I continued to do bits on Flower Pot Cottage while I was waiting for things to dry on the other two cottages and by the time I started on it 'officially' today the flooring was painted on the ground floor and the first floor, the walls were partly joined together ready to stick to the flooring (yes, I know that's not the way it says to do it); every piece had had two coats of gesso on it, a coat of sealer and two coats of ivory paint.  Except for the ceilings which were painted white.  Not bad considering I hadn't admitted that I had started it yet LOL!

For the first floor I did the usual strips of paper for floorboards - I really like doing it that way and have adopted it as my preferred method of flooring. This time I used some of the thick art paper I bought on Tuesday and painted it first with a very dark brown-black, then went over it with a medium brown (Folk Art brand, colour Nutmeg). I painted the flagstones with a grey mixed with brown, to give it a different appearance from the flagstones in Toadstool Cottage and to give it a little bit of the warmth that the quarry tiles give it in Fiona's book.  Why flagstones? Because I find doing quarry tiles in Paper Clay tedious with all those little squares that are so hard to keep even and I didn't want to just draw them on vbg.

The path and garden area was fun to do.  I did the gardens slightly larger than Fiona's model, and also dug out most of the clay from those areas.  That's because I like to add some 'soil' around the plants I make to hold them into position.  The path is just painted with the Nutmeg colour darkened a bit then lighter and darker browns dabbed over it randomly.  The grass is the usual landscaping green. 

Of course with everything prepared so far, it didn't take long to put it all together and here  is how it do so:

First, walls added to the floor:

:Then the interior partition walls - not sure what I will put in there, but I rather fancy that it is the stairway to the upper floor:  You can't really see the trim around the doors and the skirting boards along the floor of these walls, but they are there.

And then adding the first floor:

That's not bad for one afternoon's progress! Of course without the earlier groundwork it wouldn't have gone together so quickly.

The story for this cottage is that it is owned by a middle-aged couple, who are very house proud and who love their garden.  The walls are not going to be aged inside, because they keep it as fresh and neat as they can.  I am considering adding an extension to the base for a little more garden to expand on this theme.

Tomorrow night I will start on the Paper Clay for the exterior.  Whoooo-eeee!