Wednesday, 16th June 2010

I spoke too soon!

When I said I'd have the garden finished by the weekend, that is.  I have come to the conclusion that I will make up some flower kits to use, to give more variety of shape and contrast in colour.  The dried flowers that came with MMC have burgundy, purple and cream dried flowers, and they tend to look a bit 'murky' and not show up to their best advantage in the beds, and I want to lift them with some contrast colour.

I did my own thing quite a bit in the garden. First I experimented a bit with how I wanted the lawn then cut it to the shape I want.  There's a v-shaped piece near the house on the left side, a nice big area on the left front corner to allow for the garden bench, and a garden bed down each side of the path.  The right side is slightly smaller but is surrounded by gardens.

Then I pulled apart some of the hedging I have in the landscaping supplies I've acquired since we came home from our trip.  The hedging comes on little plastic stalks so I pulled the tufty bits off and glued it around the edges of the lawn as a border planting or hedge - not a very even hedge though.  The tallest of the dried flower spikes look nice along the front of the conservatory but need something in the middle to really lift and highlight the spot.  And a bit of stretchy vine material in a light green behind the birdbath and over the corner of the wall gives some shelter for small birds  to make their nests.  Aren't I thoughtful? At the front entrance there is another vine made from the stretchy material, this time slightly darker green, and I have detached tiny little burgundy dried flowers from those supplied and glued them on individually. 

A little bit of pink scattery stuff (can't remember what it is called) on some of the little bushes at the front and sides gives them some colour,  I don't have any other colours of that so will have to order some more.

I had a kit for a lovely garden bench, and it was perfect for the left front corner of the garden.  It made up beautifully, and when it was dry I just painted it with the dark burnt umber paint to tone with the house, and left it unvarnished to let it look a bit 'weathered'.  It's so tiny and sweet - just look at it on my finger. 

Here is a bird's eye view of both the front gardens,showing the dried flowers in place and the greenery I have added. 

And here is a closer view of the left side.I then spent the evening (until the early hours of the morning) working on flower kits for daisies, daffodils and pansies to go in the garden.  After I 'plant' these I can see whether I need to make up more kits - I have snowdrops in the offing, and others as well.  And of course geraniums for the conservatory. 

So I can't see it being finished by the weekend lol!

Tuesday 15th June, 2010

Really getting excited now.....

Can you tell?  I slept in quite late this morning, and still have blurry vision vbg but it was worth keeping at it until the early hours.  I glued the cottage to the base before I realised that I hadn't taken a photo of the timbering last night, so I did that while having my morning coffee and admiring it all.  Then (showing great restraint) I left the glue to dry while I cooked my rolled oats and ate them.  Pat, pat, pat - that's me patting myself on the back. Then it was down to business again.

I felt last night that the cottage looked as though it needed horizontal timbers, and this feeling was reinforced this morning.  The photos definitely did not show them, but I emailed an English friend to ask her advice (Hi Sally!).  Then I just had time to glue the wall in place, and cut the grass to go in the centre areas of 'lawn'.  At first I just cut two oval pieces approximately the size I want them to be.

And do you know, great intelligence and years of experience teaching finally bore fruit - it dawned on me that even if I couldn't find my grey paint I do have black and white - duh!  I could have asked any child in the first year of school and they would have told me that, or even most pre-schoolers lol!!!  So I was able to touch up the edges of the roof - at last! - and it looks much better.  Also did the dark burnt umber paint on the floor edges and wall edges at the back of the house.  Hint here if you are doing this cottage: do this first, it's easier than doing it after the wallpaper is added.  Here's the view from the back.

By now it was time for lunch and to set off for a massage.  Sounds nice, doesn't it?  NOT.  My therapist is a lovely bloke, 6'2", an English guy who has immigrated here to Aus.  He is a soccer player and does sports therapy too.  And he shows no mercy!  When it hurts he says 'sorry' and I tell him he's not at all - and he laughs and agrees vbg.  He tells me he does what I need, not what I think I want.  In another flash of brilliance (not) I packed my little cottage into a basket and took it with me.  I've been going for massage to Gary for around 9 or 10 years now, and we know each other well.  His 7 year old daughter has just got her first dollhouse so of course I am very interested in that and encouraging her interest and Gary's support of her as well.  I asked his advice too, and it turns out that there are houses just like the cottage only 30 minutes from where he used to live in England.  He was fascinated by MMC, as he has been by photos of my 1:12th scale dollhouses as well.  And he agrees with Sally that it definitely needs horizontal timbering.

I staggered out of the one-hour session, feeling battered and bruised but a lot less stiff and sore (too much sitting this last week had resulted in extremely tight muscles all through the back, neck and legs) - and with strict instructions to do my exercises lol!  It took me a while to feel up to doing anything when I came home but eventually I did some horizontal wood strips and it looks much better I think.  Sally has given me a link to photos too, and I might even add another horizontal line as well.

Then I started gluing the grass on to the base as well.  Only the outside edge to begin with.

The next step was the climbing rose.  I didn't realise how long it would take - all evening in fact.  The results are pretty spectacular, even though the dried 'baby's breath' is rather out of scale for 1:48 size roses.  But they look great even though in 'real life' they would be something like 9" or even larger. That's some rose vbg!  I took the vine right over the roof to the back as well, to hide the tiny crack between the roof and the chimney.  Handy stuff, greenery.

It took a bit of fiddling to decide what shape and size I wanted the lawn area to be but I finally settled on something I was happy with and glued that on too, and moved the birdbath from it's original spot in the front corner to near the birdhouse.  That way the birds can be watched from the conservatory, and not be frightened by passers by. I have used a different bird bath too, a shorter resin one. You can't see it in this photo but you can further on.

Peter decided at bedtime that he wanted to put some soup on in the slow cooker so while he was chopping vegies I couldn't resist pulling apart the clumpy greens and placing them around the edge of the walls, the chimney and alongside the conservatory on the grassed area.  I also put them along the front of the wall.  I know that doesn't look as neat as the example cottage does, but i like the way it softens things.  

There is plenty of the clumpy green material, even though I have made spacious garden beds inside the walls. But I am going to add some of my own landscaping material to provide some variety of colour - it looks a bit boring all the same tone of green. 

Looking at the photos reminds me that there's more touching up needed in spots - especially the chimney and the front of the path.  I have 'dirtied' up the stone tops of the wall for now, until I find the sand or talcum powder - and by then I probably will have greenery all over them and won't bother vbg.  And in this photo you can just get a glimpse of the birdbath.  And I really like the blue door too.

I can't wait to move right in to this lovely little cottage! Wish I could put some flooring down on the first floor - I do have selection of beds to choose from for there, just need a dressing table and to make up a wardrobe kit I have already.  And I need to make up my mind how I want to decorate the ground floor.  Do I do it as a kitchen/sitting room like the one Sue has done?  It's such a little room, not nearly as spacious as the Sea Shanty but I don't want the Conservatory to be the only sitting area.  I have a whole heap of flower kits as you know if you've looked at the flower post, so have plenty to choose from for the conservatory, and want to put some wicker furniture in there.....what a sweet dilemma indeed.

Next step is more greenery and adding the dried flowers supplied; also drybrushing the greenery outside the wall with paint then adding dried flowers to that as well.  I will probably add flowers from my kits as well if I think it's needed.  So yes, I reckon the garden will be completed in a day or so.

Monday, 14th June, 2010

Happy birthday, Your Majesty

It is the Queen's Birthday Holiday today so we are having a long weekend.  Of course in the northern hemisphere her birthday is celebrated now because the weather is warmer than in April when her true birthday is.  But here in Australia it is winter.  Further south in the snowfields there is rejoicing because the ski season has started with good falls of snow. In Sydney we very rarely get snow and it doesn't settle if we do, but last night it reached -2degC and only 17deg during the day.  For us that is chilly.  Peter worked a night duty last night so I had a good chance to shut myself away in my workroom with the heater on and work on Miss Marple's Cottage some more.

Sue's instructions say to fill the gaps in the joins between the conservatory walls and roof with tacky glue, then paint over them.  So I did that this morning, and allowed it to dry - it needed doing a couple of times to fill them properly.  Letting them sit and fully dry all afternoon has allowed me to redo the parts that they needed doing again tonight.

The walls for the garden were fun.  I want to make the stone finish on the trim rougher, so I will paint them again, adding a bit of sand to the paint, or a bit of talcum.  But of course I can't locate them at the moment either! That's the way it goes just now.

Peter usually goes to bed about 6pm for a bit of sleep before he leaves at 8pm (they work a 10hr night duty at his hospital) but tonigh't he stayed in the lounge room with me 'to keep me company'  And promptly slept through the news (which I had seen before) and the following show (which had no interest for me) but if I moved he woke up again lol!  But it was very nice just to have him there anyway.

After Peter left  I added the windows, having realised that of course I could do that - they don't depend on the floor being in.  That took ages actually, they are tricky little things.  They would fit in the 'dry run' then once a spot of glue was added to the corners of the house - the windows decided to be difficult and wouldn't go in.  And I decided to put the front door in too.  Even renewing the flooring on the ground floor won't bother that.  The instructions say to paint it green, but I have done it blue.  It took a bit of experimenting to decide which blue I liked best.  The first one wasn't suitable when I actually put it on the door, and when I painted over it I got a bit of a streaky, aged effect which I quite like so I have kept it. It is quite subtle and doesn't show in the photo, but it is there.  And I've decided to leave it ajar - that gorgeous ginger cat might want to go in or out, and it looks so inviting.  I've also added gold to the knob and keyhold inside and out.  For the 'glass' in the windows I used some of the acetate left over from the conservatory rather than using modge podge as suggested.  I prefer the effect.

Next it was time to add the brown timber trim to the house.  I haven't found my grey paint to touch the edges of the roof up - can't think where it could have gone since I was sure all the paint was kept together.  Having pre-prepared the trim, windows and door, according to the instructions of course.  And here is the result.  Makes a real difference.

I can't remember whether I've mentioned before, but when I was doing the roof trims I also went around and did the 'eaves' of the roof with cream paint to cover over the wallpaper that goes right out to the edge of the roof pieces.  Just a little detail but I don't see many eaves on houses wallpapered vbg and you might have gathered by now that I am a bit of a perfectionist.

And then - adding the timber to the conservatory, and it too was finished and ready to add to the house. And isn't that conservatory just the most gorgeous thing?  I can just imagine sitting in there among some plants, with a purring cat and a magazine (mini of course!) and enjoying some gentle warmth coming through the glass.  Lots of plants, and wicker furniture.  Haven't looked for wicker furniture for this conservatory yet though.  And it is very small - no pun intended!

After this, I can  move on to landscaping the yard.  I've already constructed the base in readiness.  I tend to do things like that while I wait for stuff to dry or whatever.  But before I left things for the night (and it was getting very late by now, my eyes were quite blurry) I couldn't resist putting it all together on the base for a trial run.  The tape is still holding the base trim in place - that's the cream bit across the front.  And I had to put the birdbath in (yes, I've finished that too, early on) and the birdhouse and clematis vine I did last week just to give it a few flowers.

And that's when I realised that I hadn't put the timber trim on the peaks!  Now some people call me very patient, some call me stubborn, and some call me obsessive.  (It's all right Zoe, Mummy Jan is just on the floor because she is laughing so hard - give her face a really good lick and she'll get up again!).  But I could not go to bed knowing that the timbering wasn't finished.  So I had to do that too.  By then I really couldn't see straight, and didn't even take a photo, as I found out this morning (Tuesday) when I had gone on to the next step.  But here it is.......

Sunday 13th June, 2010

Wow, look at me now!

Can't you just see the cottage saying that?  Today was 'mini day' - in between the usual chores that is, vbg.  MMC has sat there on my worktable all week, calling me, saying 'here I am, here I am' but I have been so busy that I have had to resist the temptation, hard though it has been.  Today was my reward! 

Well, actually I did manage to sneak in one day, cut the paper over the dormer opening and glue it to the window wall, but that was all.  It took all of ten minutes if that.  I took a photo of it this morning but it was straight on and when you look at it, it looks as though the whole dormer is done!  Last week I had glued the walls and roof pieces to the wallpapers so today I was able to attach them to the dormer.  Definitely a case of needing a practise run here, to decide where to trim the paper.

When I covered the roof pieces with the 'tiling' I tried to be as economical with the layout as possible, but today I still had to piece together the strips for trimming across the ridge of the roof, the dormer and the porch.  So it would be worth considering whether it is possible to cut them another way to enable a longer strip to be left.

After the dormer and the ridge capping was done, it was time to do the fireplace and the chimney. Here's the fireplace done - I will go back later and add black 'soot' to it. 

 I decided to add a bit of a design modification to the chimney, by putting a sloping piece between the bottom square and the stack.  I just cut a rectangular piece of cardboard, cut in for 1/4" at the corners at and angle of 45deg, and bent  the sides to the shape I wanted.  Then I taped it together with thin strips of masking tape and put some pieces of cardboad underneath it to support it.   The stack sits on top of it perfectly.  After all, I didn't want any miniature rain to puddle on the flat bit and cause a leak - the chimneys that I see usually have a sloping piece like this!

I haven't done the wooden trim around the fireplace inside yet, because I haven't heard back from Sue Heber  and don't know quite what I'm doing about the flooring.  I'm being patient for the moment since I know there are mini shows on in the states - hopefully that is the reason.

Aging the brickwork by adding a wash of cream paint as suggested by Sue seemed a good idea, so I did that next.  I don't aim for pristine - softly aged seems more natural.  And it also 'excuses' any less than perfect finish on things lol! 

Sue's instructions said to do inside skirting boards next but of course I can't do that yet either, until the flooring is done.  So I started on the conservatory.  I had already done the flooring with tiling paper, and am happy with the result.  There is plenty of wallpaper to do the walls and it looks really pretty.  I really love the trim around the wall under the windows.  The windows themselves in the conservatory are particularly nice -  the conservatory is the reason l in love with this cottage in the first place actually!  the walls and roof are so delicate and decorative.

Everything is coming together so well and I have realised I haven't got the furniture together to go inside.  I will have to seriously consider what I want to put in there.  Of course looking at the wallpaper it will be soft and pretty in the way of furnishing, and I have already bought a lovely ginger cat from Grace Shaw, handpainted.  I love making up kits of furniture rather than buying the resin sets but might mix the two for this project.  I guess I enjoy the 'hands on' part - although I love having craftsman-made items also.

Peter is working another nightduty tomorrow night so I will do some more minis tomorrow evening as well.  Yaaaaaaay!  It saves me from being lonely at least.

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.

Thursday, 3rd June 2010

Pressing on Regardless

I couldn’t wait any longer. There’s still no word from Sue Herber about the order or about the flooring paper; I think there are some shows on at the moment or soon, and perhaps she is preparing for or away at those. So while Peter was off collecting Nathan from the workshop and taking him for an appointment, I went on with constructing the cottage, having decided that I will fit the flooring paper inside later.

As I said before, piecing the paper together on the ground floor has resulted in a bit of a mess and there isn’t enough left to do the first floor at all. I do have enough to do the conservatory but the idea of doing it in black and white tiles appealed to me. I left the pieced paper on the ground floor, and went ahead with adding the walls to the floor.


And here the instructions are a little bit confusing. The diagram associated with this step shows the wall placement, but it shows all the walls attached. And the instructions do not specify that you do not attach wall E, in which the front door is located, until later. It is only when you read further that you realise that you don’t add Wall E at this stage. But the instructions are also not specific as to when you attach the two side walls for the front entry section. These are added at this stage. In this respect it would help to have slightly clearer instructions, perhaps photos like the Sea Shanty had.

I decided that because of the small area inside I would put the floor in after I had done the wallpapering. I’m not sure that was a good idea now. To try and make sure the floor went in even, I first marked the line where the ceiling/first floor would go then did the wallpapering as instructed. The wallpaper is very pretty and delicate, and I love the little border on the top one, which is cut off and put along between the two sections.


The photo was taken before the wallpaper was properly dry so it isn’t trimmed properly yet. I think I will have enough left after I do the conservatory part to trim around the front door as well, or perhaps around the archway into the front entranceway.

Finally I fitted the floor and glued it in place. But it was very tricky getting it to sit even, in spite of the line marked on the walls. It kept wanting to dip down at one corner or another and I’d even it up only to find that it had slipped down out of position when I clamped it to hold it in place to dry. Very frustrating indeed. I think I got it straight in the end though.

And I experimented with some black and white paper for the conservatory floor. I had to trim the middle down and t hen trim the border to fit of course but I think it looks okay. When I printed it out it came out with a bit of a greyish tinge but it’s not bad. I will spray it with some preservative and probably some semi gloss finish, to make it a bit more like tiles. In this photo it looks blue rather than black but it isn’t. And it isn’t glued to the floor yet either.

So I’m very happy with the progress tonight! It was a pretty tedious day – bad headache from high blood pressure, tedious time unzipping several hundred backup files that I’ve moved over to my new computer (yet another long story!), then I found that we could have visited our friends after all when we thought it was off – so I figured I deserved some indulgence tonight and sure did have some lol!

But I have been busy the last few nights too – and have come to the conclusion that the clematis vine is probably not the best 1:48 flower kit for a beginner to start with lol! Those tiny leaves are just 1/8” long and there are nine of the teeny things to every stem, each cluster being a bare ½” long. Now I like my clematis vine to be rather lush but I have to say that my idea of the size it was going to end up being has steadily reduced! It really has been a slow process and to my mind the vine still isn’t as lush as I would like it to be.

I have made all the flowers – they were quite quick to do in comparison to the leaves. But I want to add more to the vine itself before I add the flowers.

The first photo shows the vine. Here in the second photo you can see the size of the vine, being held in my hand. And in the third photo you can see a closer view of the individual leaves. At first I had thought that I would make the vine quite long, to go up the side of a door or garden arbour and over the top. It was also quite generous in order to go around behind the arbour or along part of a wall as well. I might still lengthen it, if I have the

patience to make sufficient leaves. I’ll see how it looks when I’ve made up all the leaves.

I’ve also made up a birdhouse kit from SDK Miniatures (as is the Clematis kit) and finished the ivy vine around the stand it stands on. That was not nearly as fiddly as the clematis! I still have the flowers to go around the base, so I haven’t taken photos of it yet.

It is a great feeling to have progress to report and to see things starting to take shape.

Sunday 30th May, 2010

A day of mishaps....

It was a 'mini day' today, celebrating the fact that our washing machine has broken down again for the second time in a week (may as well look on the bright side, right?) and that my back is too sore to be moving boxes and things. Besides, Peter was busy clearing out the caravan to put it in for repairs and a service tomorrow, so he couldn't finish cutting the new shelves to the right length and I couldn't sort out the workroom any more either. I thought that by tonight I would be posting photos of Miss Marple's Cottage (MMC) with the walls up and the wallpaper on, and also some quarter scale flower kits made up. 

It all went quite well to begin with, the plastic brick on the walls and the plastic roof sheeting on the roof bits adhered well and the glue dried well overnight.  I cut the bits apart this morning and put them back in their little plastic bags, after I had photographed them.  Then I papered the floors with the flooring paper.  What a disaster!  I turned the pieces over to smooth the paper and it was all bubbly!  Efforts to remedy it just made it worse.  In the end I removed the paper, destroying some of it in the process - removed the remnants of glue from the pieces and dried off the wooden flooring.  Then tried to use the paper again.  I thought that if I was careful I could manage to re-cover the floors in the two floors of the main house part, if I pieced it carefully on the ground floor.  I have some 1:48 tiling that I could use in the conservatory section.  Well, I pieced it carefully and it looked terrible and there still wasn't enough to do the 1st floor anyway!  I do have some sheets of flooring but they don't come in a size big enough for the ground floor - they will need piecing together and I can't find them at the moment, with the move from the caravan to the house.  Sigh!

So I thought I'd check the folder again where I keep my quarter scale wall and flooring papers - and knocked over a glass of water, all over the desk.  Which was very cluttered at the time, with things that should not have been there!  Fortunately I have a container with household cloths in it on the desk and I grabbed a handful of those and stemmed the flow, and cleaned it all up.  Nothing got damaged, and I dried everything off, put things away, cleaned off the working area on the desk and washed my paint brushes that I had been using earlier.

I walked in from the kitchen where I had been doing that, with a fresh glass of water and my laptop.  Put the laptop on the nice clean desk surface, put the glass of water out of the way and decided to look up some items I want to order to go in Miss Marple's Cottage, moved the laptop - and knocked the glass of water over again!

All in all, my desk has had a really good clean down today lol.  I did do some more painting of stripwood, windows and door after that, and tried to work out how the fireplace goes together, but by then Peter was home again. 

So I joined him in the lounge room after tea with my supplies for flower making.  I was trying to decide which kit to make after I had finished the clematis and the daisy kits.  What a laugh!  By 10.30 I had assembled precisely six stems only of clematis leaves and four flowers!  I'd painted them earlier or wouldn't even have done that much.  The flowers don't take long but those tiny leaves are very temperamental and they are not co-operative at all.  My idea of the  size of the vine has progressively reduced as the evening has gone on! 

But the mishaps of the day hadn't finished yet.  I had started off working on one of those little portable tables in front of my armchair earlier in the night, then moved to a laptray. Peter brought me a hot drink before bed, lovely man, and moved the little table, which upset the balance of the lap tray - and everything landed on the floor: hot milk all over me and the floor, scissors, tweezers, flower and leaf sheets, paint tray, brushes, water.....the whole kit and kaboodle!  I couldn't believe it.  Three times in one day.  Plus spoiling the flooring paper.  What a day.  I think perhaps I should stick to stitching in the evenings vbg.

Saturday 29th May, 2010

Next time read the instructions properly.....

Friday afternoon I sneaked some time to start on Miss Marple's Cottage - at last!  I haven't posted photos of the Sea Shanty because I need to touch up the water a little bit, but it is basically finished.  Tomorrow (or today, it is half pst midnight now) I hope to do just that and take photos.  However, I was able to start painting the windows for the conservatory yesterday, before we had to leave for our appointment with the doctor to have our flu jab.  These windows are so beautifully cut and delicate, and take quite a while to paint but I did one side and left them to dry.

Tonight I did the other side and then it was time to join Peter in the lounge room and keep him company while we watched Midsomer Murders, one of our favourite shows.  I thought that the rest of that part of the instructions was just painting and when I was set up in the lounge room I skipped down to the next section, which is the actual assembly, without checking.  You'd think I'd know better, wouldn't you?

The first part of assembly went really well.  I glued the supports under the flooring and let it dry.  Then I did a 'dry run' and taped the walls around the floor. It all went together quite well and I was surprised at just how tiny this little building is.  The Sea Shanty is considerably more spacious. 

So once I knew just how it all fitted together I went ahead and glued it.  Big mistake.  Then I finally read the next part and realised that I had goofed! I had neglected to read through all the first part which didn't just deal with painting the wall trims and the fireplace etc, but also says to glue the walls to the brick paper.  Oooops!  So into the microwave with it, and dismantling it.

 Mind you, there appears to be an error in the instructions as well because it tells you to glue all the walls around the floor.  Then later on it tells you to wallpaper inside the front section and to hold wall E (which has the front door in it) against the front of the house.  So I guess you don't glue that wall on at all at this stage.

After taking it all apart I finally did the right thing and read the instructions more thoroughly, glued the walls to the brick paper and have left it all to dry.  And I have also glued the roof parts to the roofing paper.  So I will leave them to dry overnight, weighed down with some books. 

The conservatory will need more coats of paint to give it a really good finish, and I will do my usual thing and paint the inside of the walls before papering them as well.  When I was first beginning to do miniatures I bought all sorts of how-to books, because I didn't have a club to belong to and wanted to learn how to do things.  In one of them it said that painting the walls white shows the colours in wallpaper to its best advantage. 

I also do the walls with presanding sealer to even out the surface somewhat.  I think that's more important than ever in this smaller scale.  

I'm always very excited to start a new project, whether it's stitching or constructing and I'm excited to be starting this one.  Hopefully it won't be as drawn-out as the Sea Shanty was.   

Thursday 27th May, 2010

More forgotten treasures.....

Peter and I were trying to reduce the mess in the house yesterday - we had so much that had been brought in from the storage container and it couldn't be put away until the curtain brackets in the workroom were up!   I spoke about it a couple of days ago: the shelving units had to be moved to put the curtain brackets up.  So nothing could go on the shelving units etc.  Well, thank goodness yesterday it all happened - the brackets are up, the shelving units are back in place.  No the wall plate is not fitted - apparently that will be quite a job, Peter is willing to pull the shelving out later on to do that.  Or so he says at this stage......So I was able to put a certain amount back on the shelves, put containers into the workroom.  It was raining steadily all day so Peter wouldn't bring the new shelves for the other side of the room out of the car, and he certainly couldn't use the router to finish off the edges so there are still lots of things that can't go on the shelves even unpainted.

I was even able to clear off my desk and have a clear work area.

That made quite a difference to the lounge room and the workroom.  So we tackled other bits that we could now get to.  And then it was time to tackle our clothes .........

But among the things I was unpacking in the workroom I came across five more Counted Cross Stitch pieces.  None of these have ever been framed, and I had forgotten all about one of them.  So I laundered all of them and took photos, including the one I found the other day.  And here they are.

This 'House Rules' is a lot of fun.  I am going to frame it and put it in the kitchen.  Normally I don't put glass over cross-stitch, I am of the school that likes to see the texture of the crosses and the linen or the cloth.  But considering that our kitchen is so small and I don't want to have it ruined by grease etc, I will make an exception for this one.  And I hope it will serve as a gentle and humourous reminder to the menfolk in my household that this family does not come with a maid!    Sorry about the appearance of it having an odd shape - unlike my petitpoint, my cross stitch does not distort at all.  It is purely a result of the angle at which I took the photograph.

I love irises, and this piece appealed to me.  I can't remember the designer but I have several of her charts.  This is a little piece, only about 8" x 6" on 32ct linen.  I am looking forward to having it framed.  It is delicate and pretty.  Flowers are my favourite things to cross stitch apart from fun teddy bears and the Lanarte (I'm sure that spelling isn't correct!) pieces I have done which are all of girls: one which I haven't finished of a girl on a bike; and  one of two girls painting on a beach; one of two girls sitting on a grassy verge.

This long one is called 'Christmas Teddies' I think.  Again, it has never been framed.  I had forgotten that I had stitched it.  There are stars here and there, done in gold thread and it hasn't tarnished or anything - hope that's not because it's been packed away.  I think this is another one of the projects I did in 1993.  And again it reflects my love of teddy bears.  I know that it's companion piece 'Teddies on the line' is still in the storage container but I can't get to it at the moment.

This one is the picture form of the Christmas stocking that I did for our youngest daughter Kirsten.  I have mentioned that I did it while staying at the hospital with our son Nathan, over the Christmas-new year of 95-96.  It was about a 6  week stay and we had lots of anxious moments during this time so this was one of the projects I did while watching at his bedside.  When I stayed with him when he was young I didn't go home (except during school terms, when Peter would stay during the day and I would go to work, then I would come back after school and stay overnight then leave for school the next day).  But this of course was over the Christmas holidays (our long summer holidays) and I realised when I walked outside to say goodbye to one of our visitors near the end of the stay that I actually hadn't left the building for over 5 weeks vbg! 

This next one is again a reflection of my love of teddy bears.  I think the date on this one is 1993 as well.  It was a big year for cross stitch!  I also collect teddies and have lots of them.  At some stage I want to have them properly displayed, along with all my cross stitch teddies.  I had hoped to have room in my workroom for it but now that everything is combined in one room it won't be - yet!  The piece is called 'Cross Stitching Teddies' I think.  Again, I  can't check because my charts haven't surfaced yet.  Yes, I keep all my charts, they are filed in a folder along with everything that came with the kit.

This last one, which I found the other day, does have a frame.  It has been hanging in our hallway but came out of the frame and was packed away separately from its frame.  Now I can't get to the frame and the mount to re-do it.  I could at first and thought it was among the things I had retrieved from the container, but when I went to get it yesterday all the boxes have of course been re-arranged after our efforts at getting the clothes boxes out the other day.  So who knows where it is now!  It's such a pretty design, done on 32 ct ecru linen, and I really enjoyed every stitch of it.  I changed the colours in the vase - don't remember why now, of course.  Maybe because at that time we had a blue colour scheme.  When I find the chart I might even consider changing the colour back to the original but I don't think so - I really like the colour that it is.

So there we are - I actually have several more that I hung straight up again in the hallway.  I am going to take them all down again and re-mount them, so photos of them will follow at a later date.  Now if daughter #1 would only send me the promised photo of her Christmas stocking and daughter #2 the promised photo of her 'Dreams' wallhanging!  Of course, I have no record of the rest that I have given away over the years.  And more will emerge as I continue to unpack and sort....

Sunday 23rd May, 2010

Progress on our bedroom and my workroom

Baby steps, baby steps. I must be more patient! We finally found our new bedside lamps which were packed away in boxes in the shipping container.  Well, Peter found his first.  They hadn't been packed together.  They didn't have globes so we were very conscientious and bought the power-saving ones for them.  Peter started to put the globe into his lamp - and the attachment broke.  I was rather cross - he must have been rather careless, I thought.  Several days later we finally found mine. I very carefully inserted my globe - and the attachment broke! Ooops.  My apologies, Peter.  Today we bought new attachments - and normal globes.  And tonight I am quite chuffed with myself because I have replaced the attachments, re-attached the wires etc, and put the shade back on.  Nothing major but I've never done it before so it is something new.  I insisted on normal globes because they seem to be smaller in the throat or whatever you call it than the power-saving ones.  Besides, they are brighter and I want to be able to read in bed.

It took a long time for us to decide on a colour scheme for our bedroom.  We couldn't decide what we wanted.  We just knew we wanted to get rid of the pink walls and the floral border around the cornice at the top of the walls.  It was very pretty when it was done, but is now very dated and badly needed replacing.  A couple of years ago I bought a gorgeous off-white damask-type quilt cover with matching pillows etc - the whole kit and caboodle.  A very expensive one, that was on sale for a greatly reduced price.  Still very expensive for me, but so lovely.  But I refused to put it on the bed until we painted the room.  I'm so glad I did too because our idea of colour schemes has completely changed in the meantime.  The walls were going to be a vibrant blue, with this off-white quilt in contrast.  Then I pieced together a patchwork quilt in quite different colours and we both fell in love with it.  It is in colours ranging from cream to a rusty-burgundy colour and a mixture of log cabin and hand applique.  As you can see, it has been pieced but isn't quilted yet.  That is one of my patchwork aims for this year. 

So then I thought that maybe we would go for a pale colour for the walls, and Peter agreed.  We weren't sure whether to use the same green we have used in the rest of the house (it would go well with the green in the quilt, and look great with the damask set) or to choose another colour.  After looking at the colour chart Peter suggested a colour called 'True Sand' which turned out a bit dark but after lightening is the perfect match for one of the colours in the quilt (quite by accident).  So we are going to take a bold step and try to match the rust colour for a feature wall behind the bed.

Today we bought a new light for the ceiling and last night I measured the new curtain for the window.  So I feel the room is coming together bit by bit.  It would be good if we could find our new bedding in the storage container though vbg!

And as for the workroom, it might seem strange to be bothering about putting up a curtain rail in there, but we need to do that  as a priority.  Or at least the brackets for the rail - simply because Peter will have to move the shelving units a bit to do so.  Which means I can't put things away on the shelving until the curtain brackets are put up.  And that means that the workroom is rapidly filling up with boxes and containers that I cannot unpack.  And the lounge room is also filling up with miniature containers that don't have shelves to put them on yet, because I need more shelves put up on the opposite side of the room too.  Grrrrrr. 

However, while we were shopping for the attachments for the lamps today we did buy a television aerial and fittings for the workroom side of the house, and lights for the bedroom and workroom.  And a television that I can use in the workroom too.  We were supposed to get the timber for the shelving that I need too, but we left the measurements at home.  Clever. 

And now we have the light for the workroom we can get an electrician and have it installed, and get rid of the downlights that won't stay working for more than half an hour.  They have been trouble ever since they were installed and now won't work at all.  I have had to depend on two standard lamps for light.  And it will be nice to have an attractive light in the bedroom too.

So - as I said.  Baby steps.  But we will get there, and it will be lovely.  Soon I hope to go looking for some sort of artwork to go on the wall behind the bed.  Oh - and for a bed!  That would be nice.  Photos soon, I hope, to show progress - hopefully there will be progress soon lol.