The cats have moved in......

and they look very happy too....

They are obviously enjoying the sun. 

Meanwhile upstairs Campbell Constructions, Decoration & Renovations has been busy, readying the first floor for the occupants to move in again.  Very busy company, Campbell Constructions, Decoration & Renovations!  Very popular in Ferny Creek vbg.

And just who are the owners of this cosy cottage, you ask?  Rachel and Richard Grenfell, village bakers and pastry cooks.  They own and operate the village bakery/cake shop, which you shall see very shortly.  Richard loves to cook and he is the main chef.  Rachel works in the shop of course and also runs the miniatures club in the village.  In fact, the upstairs front room of the bakery premises is the meeting place for the weekly Ferny Creek Miniatures Club get together, as well as a place for the members to come and work on their projects in between.  Of course there is always a selection of yummy morning and afternoon tea delights to choose from the shop downstairs for the mini ladies!

So now it is is time to show you the cottage so far.  Here is the front bedroom overall.  Of course, still lots of accessories to be unpacked from 'storage' and put in place.  Rachel couldn't decide at first about the walls.  We tried cream paint, to make a change from the green wallpaper downstairs.  We tried green paint.  Neither looked right.  With the furniture it was all too plain.  In the end she decided on this wallpaper after all (printed from the green wallpaper book from Sandie Burchell) and it looks good with the simple lines of the furniture.

And here is a view of the left side.  The bedroom furniture is all Heywood-Wakefield  a style popular in the 1930's and very sought after today (kits from sdk miniatures),  The colour is as close as possible to that of the furniture I googled on the web.  Above the three drawer chest on the left wall is an art deco mirror (from BJ Miniatures).  And that is not a blank area between the bed and the corner - there is a door there.  Can't see it?  Look really hard.  After all, how else do Rachel and Richard gain access to their bedroom if there is no door?

On the right side of the room you can see the chimney - one of Petite Properties Victorian chimneys.  It was too short for this room, so I glued several layers of cardboard together and lengthened it.  Then the surface was covered with spackle to even out the sides and cover the join.  The whole thing fitted perfectly - until I wallpapered it and the top fold is now a bit bulky so will have to be adjusted in order for the roof to sit properly.  Hope the paper doesn't get ruined in the process.

 A four-drawer chest is snugged into the alcove beside the fireplace.  The vase of flowers has been moved from downstairs to sit on the mantle up here.  The firesceen (BJ Miniatures) covers the empty grate - it is summer time after all - and the fire tools (from Grace of Vitrual Dollhouse) sit ready for when they are needed.

This style of bed usually just had a simple covering so I used a cream on cream fabric to make one.  The room is nicely understated, and ready for accessorising now.

 Downstairs Rachel and Richard have changed their large table and chairs for a smaller drop-leaf table, deciding the previous one took up too much floor space.  The entertainment centre has been discarded in favour of Rachel's beloved stained glass cabinet and she has already unpacked things to go in this even though they are hard to see.  And her favourite display plates featuring houses are featured on the open area, along with a bowl of sweets.

The books haven't been unpacked for the bookcase (sdk Miniatures) but it does fit nicely into the ground floor alcove beside the fireplace, and the chime of the mantle clock is a homely, familiar sound (BJ Miniatures).

And here is the cottage interior overall so far:

There are a couple of additions to the kitchen table: a bowl of fruit that I made when I did the other one for Flowerpot Cottage, a plate holding a bagel with cream cheese (from Virtual Dollhouse).  I have done a few bowls and pots to put on the bottom shelf of the table as well.

Still a lot more to do, so do keep tuned.  I'd love to hear what you think so far.

Mini hugs

Sandra

More red and green

Progress Inside & Outside

More geraniums - this time in a hanging basket.  That front door called out for a basket of colour hanging there.  For now it is geraniums. 

 It might change in the future, but for now it is geraniums.  They can be unhooked and changed in the future if I want to. But I think the geraniums look nice. 

 And I'm particularly proud of the little hanger - I made it out of the strip of metal edging from the metal rose leaf sheet that I made the climbing rose for Rosebud Cottage.  It had a thin edging around all four sides and I kept it.  One of the strips was perfect for this little hook.  It could be curled around into shape with my fine tweezers, cut with scissors and glued with plain white wood glue, with a spot of tacky glue for a quicker grab.  I didn't use any superglue though I thought I'd need to, and was pleased about that because superglue and I don't get along very well no matter how careful I am! 

So that's the outside.  I've also been busy on the inside though I would have liked to have had a lot more completed.  First there was the lighting.  I fed that through the back wall and across a groove in the ceiling, which I then filled with wood filler.  I just have to figure out how to get the light shade that I want to use over the light - the hole is too small to have fed the wires through and drilling a larger hole just resulted in destroying the shade, which is a jewellery finding.  I think I'll have to resort to another alternative somehow.

The walls are done with a wallpaper that I printed out from a book I bought from Sandie Burchell.  I have all of her printable books for miniature wallpaper, fabric and quilts etc.  I printed the paper out on the option for 6 to a page to reduce it.

It has a lovely subtle pattern, in a pretty green.  I also printed some out on silk organza from Crafty Paper for curtains but that wasn't very successful - it was too fine for the pattern to show. 

The rug is one of Sandie's patterns as well, printed on some cotton lawn from the same source.  It also came out a bit light once I peeled the lawn off the backing so I added some of the scrap lawn to the back of it and it looks okay.  The edges are folded over and glued underneath. 

The fireplace is the Victorian style one from Petite Properties, and there is another one upstairs.  I have just painted the surround brown for a wood finish, then the interior is black as is the wall behind it.  I was tempted to do little tiles on the sides but ran out of enthusiasm for doing that because I wanted to get on with furnishing the room.

So here it is, with a 'trial run' of furniture - some of which will probably change.

The green wing chair to the left of the fireplace still leaves room for a book case in the alcove.  I'm pretty certain the entertainment unit will go, and I'll probably put a smaller dining set in there - I always worry about leaving a decent pathway for my mini people to move around in the house lol.

I had the lamp from the 2007 Sydney mini fair and it was the perfect colour.  The green wing-back chair is a kit from Karen Benson.  It still needs a bit of trim to cover the raw edges on the sides - being a plain fabric, they show.  The lounge and chair are from Pam Junk - I  really like her kits and have a lot of them.  They are covered in my own fabric.  At first I did a cream set but they looked too formal.  So I made up another kit and this time I made both the chair and the sofa shorter and covered them in this print so they look more 'cottagey'.  I've done some cushions using the cream patterned fabric but forgot them in the photo.  I'm really happy so far with this part of the room and will be even more so once  more accessories are added.

Not so happy with this side of the room though.  I did another rug but it needs one that is much larger, to cover the area under all the chairs and the table - I really don't like chairs scraping noisily on floors.  And I think a smaller table is in order here too.  It might just be because two of the chairs have arms, but this one takes up a lot of room.  And if one of the mini people falls on this hard slate floor it will be very painful.

Also it is quiite difficult to arrange such a small space so that anyone sitting in the chairs can actually see anything on a tele if I have one in the entertainment centre where it is.  And I can't move it to the other wall because there will be a door in the wall and there needs to be somewhere for a table and chairs.  More thought needed on this matter, obviously!  I will consult the owners of the cottage and see what they prefer - and introduce you to them as well.   They will be moving in as soon as the rest of their furniture arrives, or so they told me today.

On the outside of the cottage some roof work has been done.  The chimney has been moved over to the left of the scullery, where it should have been in the first place.  So new tiles are needed where it was removed.  But overall I think the exterior is looking quite nice.

Yes, the kitchen/scullery will probably be set back a bit from the cottage rather than being level with it - so that the door from the cottage can be at the rear of the side wall rather than smack bang in the middle.  But until things are done, they can always change - that's the way it is with me!And at the moment I am experimenting a little, thinking about how to set the completed cottage on the base that Peter has kindly cut ready for me.

Keep tuned - I'm on a roll now, and will move on to the first floor tomorrow while I make decisions about the ground floor...... 

And what goes with green?

Red geraniums of course......

I've spent quite a bit of time over Thursday night, part of Friday and tonight, doing some geraniums for the front of Gooseberry Cottage.  I had two long pots - or rather troughs - from a Templewood kit of pots, and these ones I painted the same green as the doors to the cottage and the scullery kitchen.  They are the perfect size to sit one at the front of the main cottage and one at the front of the kitchen.  And I'm thinking that a hanging pot on the front wall might be a nice touch too.

Here they are so far:

Aren't they cheerful? and really appropriate for that 'cottagey' feel too, I think.  I have the new charger for my camera now and I am much more comfortable using it than I am using Peter's camera.  I tried taking a photo of the kitchen with the light on and the front wall in place and it certainly looks homey and welcoming.

A lot of people have indicated that they are intimidated by the thought of doing quarter scale flowers.  I do use kits for all of my flowers, because the punches for the tiny petals are so expensive and the range of punches required for the variety of petals is quite large.  So I thought I'd show you how they are made.  I'll use the geraniums, which are not the simplest of the flowers in the range but they are the ones I'm doing at the moment so it is convenient to use them as the example.

First, here is one of the petals on my finger:

Yes, they are tiny.  In fact the most difficult part is separating the petals - they come pre-coloured and several layers of paper are punched together, so the petals tend to stick together.  It can be fiddly seperating them but rubbing them with the ball of a larger stylus helps or sliding the point of a scalpel between them does the trick.

After they are separated, they are rubbed firmly with a small stylus on a bit of old mouse pad to make them cup-shaped.  When enough of them are done they are glued to the end of a wire which has previously had a tiny bit of glue added to it to form a tiny 'bead' and allowed to dry. You can see the importance of very, very pointy tweezers for doing these!

It takes between 8 and 10 of the petals to cover the 'bead' and once they are all on, it can be moulded into the proper shape with one's fingers if they have become a bit distorted. 

The leaves have a tiny 'stem' on the end, and this is bent over and attached to a wire stem. 

After trimming the wires to a good length - slightly different for a bit of variety - some air drying clay is glued into the troughs.  This is topped by a more glue then bit of 'soil' is sprinkled over that.  The stems are dipped into glue and arranged into this clay, and it is all left to solidify and dry.

And there you have it - quite straightforward really, just requiring a bit of patience and fine pointy tweezers.  And of course some good kits from sdk miniatures or somewhere.



Progress on Gooseberry Cottage Kitchen

Did some more 'bits & pieces'

I've been working on accessories for the kitchen and it's starting to look more 'lived in' now.  It all looked too bland around the top of the upper cupboards so I started there by adding some colour.  At first I wanted to make an Arnotts biscuit tin - Arnotts is an iconic Australlian brand of biscuits and has a great picture of an Eastern Rosella, one of our colourful parrots, as it's trademark picture. People often have decorative tins on top of their cupboards and I thought that an 'antique' tin would look nice.  I googled images of their biscuit tins and made printies but ended up not having enough room up there after all, so I'll keep it for something else.  

A nice place gave a touch of red contrast so that was next.  And two containers are actually little bits retrieved from the motherboard of a computer - have no idea what they are.  But painted green and with a bit of floral printie around them, they fill the space nicely.

There were enough leaves left over from the philodendron that I made in the hanging pot for the pergola (see the post 'The competition that wasn't) to make another smaller plant, and I put it in a plastic pot which I painted green.  I must say it looks rather as though it is reaching out to grab the plate that is also on top of the cabinets vbg.

The space above the fridge still looked bare so I made a small shelf to go in there and printed off some covers of cookbooks to sit on the shelf.  One of them is the Australian Womens Weekly Cookbook - another common Aussie kitchen iicon, and the one at the right hand side, obscured by the light, is the Commonsense Cookbook.  I had to have that one, as a nod to my first ever cookbook in Grade 7 - the first and only year I did cooking at school, before our grade was divided up and I was made to do Chemistry and Physics instead.

On the bench there is one of the set of 3 chopping boards I bought from......, and an 'electric kettle' that isn't in the photos because I forgot to put it in.  It is really a metal kettle with the knob sanded off then painted green, with a black strip down one side to mimic a cordless kettle.

I made the kettle after spending a long time this evening assembling a coffee machine from a kit by..... It is one of five kitchen utensils and I am really impressed with the result.  But after making it I found it was too tall to fit between the cupboards. 

The table between the kitchen bench and the sink unit is a kitchen worktable kit by.....I am really pleased with how this turned out too.

The oven mitt on the Aga and the one hanging on the fireplace are printies.  The little mat on the floor in front of the fireplace is also a printie.  the cat dish on the mat is made from Creative PaperClay left over from making the cat basket that is tucked in between the fireplace and the wall - look carefully and you can just see it.  The cat dish is filled with 'cat food' made from a bit of broken terracotta flower pot that I ground into tiny pieces!

It looks so nice with all the rest of the lights off and just the light on in the kitchen - really cosy.  I have tried and tried to make Peter's camera take a decent photo of the room with the light on but the flash keeps going off and making the scene bright.  However I will keep trying to work it out to show you.



Kitchenalia.....

 I have been working on kitchens, and have made good progress, especially on the one for Gooseberry Cottage.  The name 'Gooseberry' suggested green to me, so when I was assembling it I chose green for the door and window ledges and I am going with green for the main colour scheme. When I did the lean-to greenhouse I was thinking of putting it with this cottage and hence I did the door to that green as well. 

First step was to decide which  of the kitchen kits from Debbie Young to use.  I had made up both of them to try them out.  In the end I decided against using either of them, and instead chose a cheap plastic set that had smaller items in it suitable for the layout.  I felt that the ivy green aga I had (from Virtual Dollhouse, it is made by Jenny Wren) would be perfect for the colour scheme, and give the room a real lift.  So the whole layout changed.

Using the aga called for a fireplace and since I want a door from the cottage into the kitchen through the wall the fireplace needs to be on the left wall (which means the chimney has to be changed).  Some pieces of balsa wood and some cardboard and a lot of fiddling and I had the basic shape.  I have some Elmer's  Wood Filler left over from doing the StoryBook Cottage - I love this stuff, wish I could find it here in Australia!  I am trying to use it up before it goes solid in the tube; it is starting to become difficult to squeeze it out now.  I used some of it to go over the wood and cardboard frame of the fireplace for texture and strength.  I closed in the top part to try and make the shape similar to the shape of the wall, using a piece of paper.  Then I 'plastered' over that as well, using the wood filler.  When that was dry I plastered it inside as well to give it strength.
 

I have some 1:12 scale tiles that have the ivy green that is on the door and a reddish-terracotta colour that goes well with the quarry tiles on the scullery floor. Printing them out in a reduced version, cutting and pasting and I had the perfect tiled back for the fireplace.  sorry the photo looks a bit washed out - I had my magnifying light on as well as using the flash.  The green is actually a dark ivy green.

The walls are cream and after briefly considering doing the cabinet doors in ivy green but deciding it might be too dark, the cabinets are cream as well. The benchtop, which is a piece of cardboard, is painted in various shades of green and some white.  Printing out a reduced version of the border tiles to match the tiles I used for the fireplace and more cutting and pasting and I had the perfect splashback for the bench and for the sink.  I finished off the top edge of the sink with some of the terracotta border from the

un-reduced copy of the tiles so the white plastic wouldn't show.  I tried painting the handles of the cupboards in green but it didn't look any good so it was back to the cream again.  I will try with gold tomorrow.

It still needed more colour, so the fridge ended up ivy green as well.

 I think It would be nice to have a border right around the top of the room or something, the top cupboard area is a bit bland,  but I haven't found anything suitable yet.   Ivy would be perfect.  Meanwhile some pots, a plant, something along those lines would do the trick I think.  It certainly needs something!

Still to come - the door of course.  Appliances - I have made a clock for the chimney above the stove (its a printie folded around a piece of cardboard to give dimension).  There are some shelves in the kits, but they look too bulky so making a smaller set for above the fridge might be the go.  A shade for the light, some dishes, Maybe a small dresser if I can work out how to fit one in.....

I'm quite proud of myself tonight. I  did some electrifying as well!  I've been putting it off - partly because I can't make up my mind about the kind of light shades to use. I know where to put the lights and how I want to go about it, but a simple thing like light shades had me marking time. I have wired the kitchen for the cottage (which is actually a side scullery) and also the house itself. Photos of the lighting tomorrow when I put the shade on - as you can see in this last photo I took some tonight but left the magnifying light on and the LED lights don't show up well.