And where do all the flowers come from?

......home grown in the greenhouse!

All those flowers in the gardens of Church Farm Cottages, the ones in the front and of course those in the 'hidden' gardens that miniature houses always have along with the 'hidden' rooms that we don't see but 'know' are there - they are all grown in the greenhouse there in the yard.  And here is the greenhouse.  I made it last night, from a Petite Properties kit.  It's the second greenhouse I've made up from a PP kit, I blogged about the first one earlier in the year (June 8, 'Petite Properties and more')

 To make this one different I have painted it green, omitted the raised garden bed and covered the floor in gravel (railway scenic gravel) instead of the tiling paper.   This photo shows the interior with the gravel floor.
I like this effect, and in real life of course gravel is often used to give excellent drainage.

  Looking at it after I put in the potting benches though, I wish I had used sand instead to represent lighter gravel like the pathway because the benches don't show up well against the brown.


What benches? you ask.  Well, the first is also a kit from Petite Properties, a potting bench with soil retainer.

  Bea's kits are so easy to make up, and this one went together is a really short time.  I painted it brown, using Ceramcoat Nutmeg.  Then I went over it in patches with a very dark brown before I put the  soil mix into the retainer section and some over the surface of the table.  It ended up with a bit more 'soil' in the retainer than I had planned, but it's okay.  It still needs the trowel to go in it, and the pots etc added of course.


Then I used the second potting bench  rescued from the Templewood greenhouse that met a disastrous fate under Peter's feet.  Fortunately it escaped with the top part intact.  Once I glued the legs together again it was reasonably stable so if I prop it up with something to keep it in place it should be fine.   So I've been able to re-use both of the benches from that greenhouse, and hope to re-purpose the pieces of the greenhouse itself as well for another project.

Here is a view  with the roof  removed, looking down with the two benches in place.

And among the things I've brought with me are bits and pieces that I can use in here as well - so it might even be finished before I go back home, who knows vbg?

And just because I love to show the size of these quarter scale buildings, here it is in my hand.

It seemed simple at the time.....

But things rarely turn out that way...

First things first though

A big 'Welcome' to both Helen and Hilsu!  I am so happy that you have found my blog and have chosen to join my journey in the wonderful world of miniatures.  What a wonderful world it is too Hilsu, that we can share our delight in this hobby when you are in Finland and I am here in Australia!  You have a very pretty blog.  Helen, I couldn't find a blog for you, do you have one?  I sincerely hope that you both enjoy visiting here and return often.  Please feel free to leave feedback - I really love comments, it makes me feel in touch with all my friends around the world.

And now that garden

I blithely thought 'I'll just fill the pavement area in front with flowers - no problem'...After all, it's a small area.  But the catch is of course, that quarter scale flowers are even smaller - tiny, in fact, lol!  So it of course takes a lot of them to fill even a small space!

I'm sorry I've been so quiet for so long, but it's because I've been making flowers at night and during some days too.  Flowers, flowers, and more flowers.  And still there are white spots in that garden, though I'm getting there now.

The clematis is half done.  Whew!  Boy am I tired of those tiny leaves!  But I really want to have it on the front of the cottages. It will be worth all the effort (I hope).  

So looking at the result of all the hours (and hours and hours) of work.  First I did a hydrangea, which is really sweet.  But it didn't give me the splash of real colour that I wanted on the right side of the garden.

So I put it aside and will use it elsewhere, either in this garden or another, and made a red camellia which I also love.  And it gives just the lovely colour that I wanted.

In fact I love it so much that here's a second photo 'just because'.  It shows it with the branches arranged more closely together.

I've already showed you the first part of the garden planted out, here it is with the camellia added as well.  

Then I did a whole stack of tulips in red, white and yellow and planted them beside the path. The colours of the tulips were dictated by what  was available from Susan of sdk miniatures.  I didn't want to have a particular colour scheme for this garden, just a whole range of plants in different colours.  But I can't help myself!  I do actually have to have colours together that I am comfortable having there.

Here's an overview of the garden as of today.  There are still white spaces, despite endless hours of flower-making, or so it seems.  But I am so pleased with the result so far.

Now I'll show you the different parts bit by bit.


The only addition to the left side is some gerberas in front of the sunflowers.  There are daffodils in front of the gardenia (can't remember whether I showed those before) and as you can see there is a couple of areas to fill in on both sides of the path).

The right side has gained some lovely blue delphiniums, some gerberas in cream and purple, and a blue feature pot with blue flowers trailing down the sides.  Don't ask me what sort they are - I made them from left-over petals and leaves I 'borrowed' from another kit.  It turned out that I had so many flowers trailing down the sides that you can hardly see the pot vbg. Tucked in between the poppies and the blue pot are some white petunias, some of them draping over the front of the garden.

And here is the middle section.  I took this photo before I 'planted' the chrysanthemum in front of the purple delphiniums.  The white gardenia is on the left, and blue and purple delphiniums provide both height and splashes of vivid colour against the wall.  The tulips are a lovely bright border along the path, some black-eyed Susans are between the tulips and blue delphiniums on the rights. In front of the purple delphiniums there is a dark red chrysanthemum plant, and there are lots of gerbera plants in orange and dark pink.  A mass planting of purple and white petunias fills in the area between the daffodils and primroses and these plants, but there is still a bit more area to fill - I think more pink would be a good addition.

This close-up photo of the middle section was taken after the chrysanthemum was planted.  I like the way it shows the orange gerberas so well, and the yellow daffodils show up nicely against the white and purple petunias, while the pink flowers peep through in the middle too.

Yes, all in all this will be a nice garden I think.  Tonight I will finish off the front edge and sides with paperclay, and mark 'stones' into it.  I don't think I'll be doing any more flowers at this moment. 


Suggestions please for filling the gap between the blue delphiniums and the red camellia on the right.  And also for the space between the gardenia and daffodils and the pathway.  

The cottage that thinks it's a banana

Well it must, mustn't it?  After all, the front, base and side walls have been sitting there on my bench with a weight on them for a week now and they still emulating bananas!  The right side wall is nearly flat but I am still not happy with it!


In spite of that I really wanted to see some PROGRESS on Friday so I painted the pieces anyway.  As I told you the other day the 1st floor was already done with floorboards and apart from one part that has come out a bit crinkled it looks pretty good.

So in the morning while Kylie was taking the boys to school and preschool I did the ground floor and the brick walls with a very, very, thin wash of light grey.  More like dirty grey water really.  When that was dry the flagstones had several tones of grey and brown-grey, with a few touches of dark brown, sponged on randomly using a makeup sponge.

The brick surfaces were also sponged, using terracotta with a little bit of brown mixed into it.  When that was dry on the brick areas it was dry-brushed with black to age it.  Then the rendered areas received a coat of cream paint and that was also distressed/dirtied up by dry-brushing when the cream was dry.

I made the mistake on the left side (brick) wall of letting the edge of the sponge onto the surface and you can see that the paint is too heavy in that area.  I guess a bit of greenery will have to hide that bit!
After all the paint was dry each piece was sprayed with water on the back (wooden) side and covered with foil.  I stacked them one on top of the other, placed two housebricks on top of them and then the water container rather precariously on top of that.  If all of that doesn't flatten everything I'm not sure what I'll do next lol!
As you saw from the photo of the first floor, it is slotted into the dividing wall.  So at least I can go ahead and start papering that dividing wall and the rear wall while I am waiting for the other walls to flatten out.  And the grooves are already cut on the underside of the floor, into what is the ceiling of the ground floor, for the lighting.  So I can go ahead with the rather fiddly business of inserting the wires and covering them over with wood filler - that takes a bit of time.  But not as long as deciding what sort of light shades to make for each room.
Keep tuned - what momentous decisions are to come lol!  And of course there are the flowers - lots more flowers.

Gardening 1:1 and 1:48

and still waiting for the clay to dry...

Actually it did dry, and at first it seemed that we were having success in beating the warping bug, but during the last stage as usual the familiar curving appeared.  So now the side and base have been dampened down and are sitting between two layers of foil, covered by a breadboard and under a weight (my 10L container of water to be exact - I have to buy water because the water here is disgusting and doesn't agree with my tummy).  An added benefit is that using that container doesn't take any extra room - which is scarce anyway in a caravan vbg.  So there are still no photos of those pieces, sorry!

This is the second try, I had the front under there as well for the first lot but it meant that the weight wasn't concentrated enough so I have removed that for now.  

Peter and Nathan went home yesterday after lunch.  I won't see them for another fortnight or so and Nathan was a bit teary.  He hates that I'm not there at home even though he is mostly in his room playing X-Box when he is home.  But with him getting teary I managed to wave them off the broke down and had a real sob.  There are many times in the first 10 years of his life (over 30 in fact) that the girls had to do without me at home while I spent anything from a few days to weeks on end with Nathan in Hospital while he had tests or more surgery so now it is Kylie's turn.  It wasn't easy to leave the girls then and it's not easy to leave him now but that's the way it is.

On the positive side I am loving having time with Kylie and the boys.  And Kirstie and her four were up over the weekend and that was great too.  Our littlest one is growing up so fast, as the baby of the family always does!  Soon he will be 2 years old and it seems like yesterday that he was born.

The title was 'flowers' and you must be wondering by now - What flowers?'  Well, on the 1:1 side, Peter tells me that the garden at home is doing well.  No, of course he didn't think to take photos! 

On the 1:48th side however there is a lot to show.  Well, at least I've spent a lot of time on it, even though it doesn't take up much room lol! 

First, I planted some poppies on the right of the garden, along with some daffodils.  Here you can see the size of one of the groups of daffodils.

On the other side of the path is another group of daffodils along with the primroses.  I've propped the front of the Cottages against my glasses case to hold it up and you can see that the front has quite a curve to it.

The left side of the middle garden has a gardenia bush that took me three evenings and most of yesterday to make!  These plants might be small but they certainly are time-intensive.  I buy all of my flowers as kits from Susan Karatjas of sdk miniatures LLC.  Her web address is http://www.sdkminiatures.com  and her site is worth visiting.  She has kits for 1:12th, 1:24th and 1:144th scales as well as 1:48th scale.  And she does lovely furniture and other kits as well.  If you order from her please tell her you heard about her from me.  My very largest order ever went missing - worth over $200.  When it didn't ever turn up, Susan replaced it for me, and did so with much grace.  I had bought several other things since that order and we worked out adjustments to the original order and she was very patient with that process too.

And this next photo shows the sunflowers on the left of the garden, with a ruler to show the size of them.  This is only a narrow space and I haven't decided yet whether to add the Cottages to a larger base.

So here we have an overview of the garden and front so far - and no, the front of the cottage isn't really on a slope vbg, its the way it is propped I guess.  I have tidied the clay up a bit on the front, and re-scribed the bricks but they really aren't the best job in the world.

Here it is again, with a ruler - the front is 9" long, which is quite long for a Petite Properties building.  But then it is two cottages in one.  

and looking down on the garden you can see that there is still a lot of 'white space' so there is still a lot of garden to be planted.  I have made a bunch of tiny little white flowers and pink flowers with leaves, and will put them in as fillers when other plants are in place.  the delphiniums are on their way.  And I'm working on a vine that will go up the division between the two surfaces and spread across the two buildings.  If I don't go crazy first lol!  It is a clematis vine and if you consider that it took me days to do the leaves for the vine that went over the trellis on the arbor for the giveaway you will understand the task I have set myself.  I go cross-eyed doing those leaves, which are around 1mm each and have to be glued individually to the stems.  And I want to put a vine across the whole building?  I must be mad!!!!  Perhaps ivy would do?  If you see ivy instead, you will know I have admitted defeat.  Ivy is painstaking enough so it's not really an easy out but it is less insane than clematis.

And there's also another flower wheelbarrow.  It might not be used in this garden, I just felt like doing one.  Here's a view from one side

And from the other

And from the top

So that's what I've been doing for the last few days when I've been mini-ing!  I'd love to have been painting but until the clay is dry that has to wait.  


Did you notice I said the base was drying?  That's because I did the floors too - forgot to mention that!  On the ground floor I've done flagstones.  Mainly because I don't do quarry stones well.  Scribing 1/8" squares is not my strong point.  If I manage to get them even going one way (and that's not likely) I mess them up going the other way, when it drags the clay out of shape.  Yes, I know I could draw them on but I prefer them in clay.  So I've done flagstones.


On the first floor I did floorboards, using strips of thin card in the method I learned for the Corner Shop.  I find that the card used to support stockings in their packet perfect for use in PP kits, and since I only wear stockings once a week to church in winter, I carefully hoard any of these that I get.  I was congratulating myself on remembering to make them go the correct way this time, and was showing them to Peter when I realised that I had done them on the wrong side of the timber!  Oh well, it just means that the wall will slide in back to front and I might have to adjust the roof line so the roof fits properly. 


What is it with this cottage?  I seem to make so many errors!


And guess what?  A parcel arrived for me on Friday from Petite Properties with The Cottage Stores and 2&4 Birchwood Avenue kits plus some furniture kits!  Things are humming here lol!

Welcome Mary Lynne and Marver

I opened the blog this evening and found two new followers - Welcome Mary Lynne and Marver!  Mary Lynne, I really enjoy looking at your blog; you cook such delicious things and write such interesting thoughts. I know you followed our trip on the other blog and it is lovely to have you visit here as well.  Marver, you certainly have a variety of miniatures - from a bedroom to a car dealership to the Tomb of Tutankhamen. And your houses have lots of detail - both the country house and the 1:144th scale one with the fimo furniture.


Thank you both for visiting!  I really hope you enjoyed your time here,and would love it if you come back often and leave feedback too.  

Less haste more speed!

Started a new project - and it is......

Church Farm Cottages!  I chose this one because I love the different finishes on the front: brick on the smaller cottage and the plain finish on the larger side.  There are two more kits on their way from Petite Properties at the moment, but this one might even be well on the way to being completed by the time that parcel arrives here.  I also have the Pickett Hill kit here but I'm a bit hesitant to start that at this time when our two grandsons are on school holidays and naturally would want to help me.  Pickett Hill is a much more delicate project, not really suitable for a 9 year old and a just-turned-5-year-old to help with.  Our youngest daughter will be visiting as well, arriving today along with her four children, aged from 10 down to nearly 2 so the place will really be jumping around here for a couple of days.

I started on Tuesday (today is Friday) by doing all the MDF pieces with sanding sealer.  So there wasn't anything to show then. The reason for doing this is that using paperclay always seems to make the MDF warp for me.  So I am trying to seal it even better than usual to see whether I can bypass the process of having to weight each surface down with books to flatten it out again.

I am very pleased to be able to start something again.  I think I can safely say my mojo is back!  and I'm pleased to be doing quarter scale again after doing two swaps in one inch scale and the birthday card exchanges in one inch scale.  Quarter inch is more my comfort zone now even though I still enjoy 1:12th scale.

On Wednesday I painted all the pieces of MDF with sealer/undercoat.  Then I did the windows and doors and assembled them.
The interiors of all the windows and doors are done in Ceramcoat Ivory
For the exterior of both doors I've used Folk Art 942 Honeycomb.  For the door with the little glass panel in it I've highlighted around the window with a mixture of Honeycomb and Ivory - about 50/50.
For the windows I did the glazing bars in Ivory and the outside frame in the same mixture of honeycomb & ivory, but I don't think it will be seen once they are in position behind the window cutouts.
The windowsills are honeycomb.


The pavement section that goes along the front isn't going to be a pathway for this cottage.  I have mapped out a garden for it, with two paths in 'crushed granite' or gravel (in reality very fine Sydney beach sand).  And I've started to make plants to go into the garden that will cover the rest of the space.  I already had daffodils and poppies and have made some primroses and am in the process of making some purple delphiniums and some gardenias.  I think the garden needs to be bright and colourful, with a climbing vine going up the front as well.


Peter and Nathan are also arriving this afternoon so I'm excited that our whole family will be together for a couple of days.  I miss Peter and Nathan very much and have been a bit teary today knowing that they are on their way.

I've made a big push with the cottages today, doing the clay work on the front and the sides.  That's where the title comes in.  First I rolled out some of my lovely new packet of clay on the tile, all the time thinking 'I've forgotten something!'  Oh yes - I should have put baking paper on the tile before rolling out the clay.  Scrape it off and start again.  Put it on the side of the cottage.  Ooops!  Forgot to put glue on first.  Third time lucky.  It doesn't look very exciting in the photo - I've left the fingermarks that made hollows in it and all the imperfections in it too, because I like an old cottage not to be pristine.  I am hoping it develops some cracks so I don't have to put some in myself.


The it was time to tackle the left side where I want the brick finish.  Going to be lazy and use the brick stencil I have.  Right.  Three efforts to make the stencil match up because it isn't tall enough to cover the whole wall in one go.  Hmmmm.  Some uneveness in the bricks here too - will sort that out when I sand and scribe the bricks to give more definition.  There is no way on this earth that I am going to try and match that stencil again!


Now to do the front.  Remembered the baking paper.  Remembered the glue.  Carefully lined up the stencil and it went fine.  Except that I cut off the bit that I wanted to go around the edge of the side!


That fixed, and reasonably satisfied with the brick part of the front I tackled the easier side.  This is a larger area but it was quite straight-forward.  Stippled it with the end of a stiff paintbrush then marked the bricks above windows and the left hand door and it's finished until I tidy it up properly once it is a bit dryer.  At the moment it is too soft to do much with any of it - being new clay it is quite moist and tends to mark really easily and I was getting too many finger marks on it.  I will tidy up windows and doorways when it is dryer and I don't cause damage.


Then I went on to the back roof - found a nailbrush, did the clay, remembered the glue, got the clay on, did the finish.  Whew.  Again cut off the bit that was supposed to go over the edge!  Added that again, did the finish on it, and the edges tend to bunch up when you do them.  I give up!


I wanted to do it all today because being Friday I won't do anything mini-wise from sunset tonight until after sunset tomorrow night.  I thought that would give the pieces a good chance to become semi-dry and if they are going to warp they should be dry enough to weight down to flatten them by then.

Peter is bringing my qs wallpaper with him - along with so many other things that I've asked him to bring that he reckons he will need a trailer to fit them all in vbg.  I want to wallpaper the interior of the cottages.  They will be one combined residence and will be lit - I actually have the lighting with me, just have to work out how I want the lights to go.


And here is my faithful shadow - who desperately needs another bath!  She had been trying hard to persuade me to go and sit on the bed but when I stubbornly refused she gave up and grumpily decided to make do with lying beside me on the couch at the table.  she's had a haircut so she's not fully living up to her name of 'Fluffy' but she's a loveable little thing.


There'll probably not be any more progress until Sunday - so have a wonderful weekend all of you!