Mini Holiday - Day 1

It's a beautiful day here in Bundaberg today - quite warm but not too hot.  My friend Jan set us up with a couple of fans on our tables in the work area and we had great company with Zoe, her Tenterfield Terrier who was absolutely delighted that her 'mummy' was staying home today.

We are both starting a new project for the Fair in Sydney and want to have most of it at least, finished by the time I go home.  So today we primed the pieces of our kits with primer/sealer/undercoat.  Jan is doing the Tuscan Villa from Karen Carey, and the next step for her once the primer was dry was to fill the grooves in all the cut edges of windows etc with 'sausages' of paper clay.  It's not ready for a photograph yet - but will be tomorrow!

I am doing the English Cottage kit by Debbie Young.  I primed all the timber pieces and once they were dry I was able to do the first part of assembly.  Here's what is looked like at this stage - not the most glamourous, but it will improve vbg.


From front

Showing front door section

Rear

Left side - interior  can be viewed from three sides

Then I did the exterior with spackle.  This takes quite a while but is surprisingly satisfying.  While that was drying I was able to get the first two coats of white on to the ceiling for the ground floor.  Tomorrow I will be able to paint the exterior and hopefully start the wallpapering as well.

Jan has a lot more pieces in her kit than I do so she will assemble hers tomorrow, and then do the spackling on both the inside and the outside.  Her Villa will be wonderful when it is done - I think I am tempted to add this kit to my wish list.  Of course I need another kit - well, just in case I need a change of theme from the English type lol.

In between these steps we explored various things on the computer, Jan did lots of fetching and carrying of supplies, and we generally had a really lovely time. 

I have brought 'Toadstool Cottage' with me, and the supplies I have to fit it out inside and I had planned to start making some of those up tonight.  But after such a busy and productive day following on from the very hectic last couple of weeks - I am going to have another early night.

Keep tuned - photos of both houses tomorrow!

Welcome Josje - and I have more news to share

Welcome Josje - and many thanks for becoming a Follower of my mini world.  I sincerely hope you visit often and leave a comment - all welcome.  It is such fun to share with others who share the same interests and who are from different places all around the globre.

And I have more to share with you about Flower Pot Cottage.  It is well on the way to being finished.  The last couple of weeks have been extremely busy and I haven't had a great deal of time to spend on it, but here is a photo as of last week:

The roof looks very pale in the photos - but it is quite considerably darker in reality.  It was quite funny actually, because I followed the instructions doing my interpretation of what I thought 'coffee' coloured paint would look like, then what 'taupe' is.  The result was more of a rich golden brown highlighted with taupe than a thatched roof vbg.  Very attractive, and indeed it suited the cottage very much indeed, but not the right colour for a thatched roof at all.

Some research on the internet yielded photos of beautiful English thatched roofs, and I also discovered as a side issue that there were about 6 or so different versions of taupe, including a purplish one. 

So I mixed my own colour until I got one that matched the colours in the photos.  And then I remembered that up in the top of our son's wardrobe was a 1,000 piece jigsaw of a lovely English cottage with a thatched roof and whitewashed walls.  We dug it out and sure enough my self-mixed paint was a perfect match.

 I made a  lighter version and a darker one of the same colour and used them to add highlights and shading.  I do become very frustrated when the colours come out too pale in photos!

In these two photos you will see some white patches on the ground - that is where I will have garden.  They are larger than on the model that Bea did because I envisage this gem of a cottage with a large garden.

And of course you have noticed that the furry resident has already moved in?  His name is Garfield, after my gorgeous ginger tom who passed away just 3 years ago at the ripe old age of 19.  And his sister Tinker (short for Tinkerbelle when she is good and just plain Tinker when she is naughty) will be there too shortly, named after my lovely grey tabby who went the year before aged 18.

Here I've removed the front and the front roof.  I'm putting a small bathroom on the first floor, and it is just sitting there at the moment - it has moved out of position somewhat and I didn't notice that when I took the photo.  You will be able to see into the bathroom - just a glimpse - through the open door or look down into it if the roof is off.

The quilt on the bed is just there for the photo too - it has to be tamed yet.  If I use it, then it will be properly draped and fixed into place of course.  As you can see, I already have a fair start on furniture for the cottage (remember all those kits I made up when I did the post called 'I could open a furniture shop'?) Unfortunately apart from the rocker there's nowhere to sit and relax at the moment but hopefully that will be remedied very soon.

And did you notice the fireplace in the bedroom?  It's Bea's full brick one; I've cut it down to be shorter, added a hearth and a mantle to it.  And downstairs the aga (from Jenny Wren, through Grace Shaw of Virtual Dollhouse),. will be housed in a 'proper'  cottage kitchen fireplace.  I've already carved a super beam to go across it and am waiting for Bea's 1:24 scale kitchen book to arrive so I can downscale the one from there to use here.  I have made what I think the chassis would be but am waiting to do the bricks and tiling or whatever until I check the measurements.

And here is the start of the garden.

Hmmmmn, you can't see the hydrangea bush or the ivy well in this photo, but you can see the hanging basket of geraniums outside the window near the front door.  And of course the arbor, which will have a vine (roses maybe?) climbing over it.  But it probably won't be located where it is here. 

Remember I said I wanted a large garden?  Well, I have that all mapped out on an extra piece of board, with positions of plants marked.  It will make an extra 3" at the front of the cottage and maybe go up the side too.  With lots of flowers and lawn etc.  Do you hear that Elly - LOTS of quarter scale flowers LOL!

I've made progress in fact - on Sunday I filled the garden beds that you see above so they are no longer empty.  I have quite a supply of assembled flower kits - again, you might remember them from a previous blog post.  Now the garden has a different hydrangea bush, especially shaped to fit against the wall.  The rest of the best is filled with ageratum.  Under the window near the door is a patch of daffodils and the rest of that bed is also filled with ageratum.  The hanging basket is attached to the roof so that it hangs a bit better (though it makes replacing the front wall rather an interesting extercise).  The pot in the corner of the walls is waiting to be filled and obviously lots more ivy will be added.  Now it  looks like this:

Drat! The ageratum don't show up well at all.  They do in reality, of course, and they look really pretty against both the hydrangea and the daffodils.

Here is a closer view of the garden area:

And now the cottage will stay at this stage for a couple of weeks because - I am having a holiday!  A real holiday.  It's the trip I mentioned before, with my miniatures friend Jan in Queensland.  I flew up this morning and Jan drove over 100 kms to meet the plane - which was delayed by an hour and a half so the poor girl had to wait.  Then we drove back - the long way, because the shorter way is flooded (yes, still).  And everywhere along the trip there is water laying beside the road and on the ground - over any lower-lying area.

We didn't come straight home though.  There is a patchwork shop in one place that just had to be visited, and happened to have a sale on......and another shop that had some lovely cotton lace.....and of course by then it was way past lunch time ...... and so we didn't arrive at her place until 4pm.  But I am settled in now, my body clock is somewhat bemused by the time difference even though it's only one hour.  Probably due to the fact I had a molar extracted yesterday (never an easy thing with my teeth) and I'm still getting over the 5 injections it took to numb it, plus lack of sleep for the past week plus a big few days.

While I am here we are going to mainly MINI - yaaaaaaay!  I packed both my checked baggage and carry-on to the absolute limit with mainly miniatures and tools and things.  3/4 of my main suitacase in fact vbg.  But yes, I did bring some clothes too!

So over the next 10 days - it will be the English Cottage by Debbie Young taking shape.  Keep tuned folks.

While the clay is drying.....

The Creative PaperClay seems to take a couple of days to dry thoroughly even though the days are quite warm at the moment.   And for Flower Pot Cottage the clay on the roof is thicker than it is on most of the Petite Properties projects (try saying that five times quickly vbg!)  Parts of it are nice and dry but I'll leave it until more is dry - it goes a sort of stark white when it is.

So in the meanwhile today, in between other commitments, I decided I would work on the two shop tops that arrived on Friday.  It was a much-anticipated parcel because it also contained  Candlewick House, along with a second Corner shop.  But I do not have time to start on Candlewick House just yet.

The lady who had planned to set up the Corner Shop as her dream baby emporium 'Baby Magic', found that it was waaaaaay too small, but  premises conveniently  became available that were more suitable.  They consist of a pair of shops that have been merged into one. . A previous owner had already converted the front of one of them into a display window, and cut an opening through the dividing wall of the upstairs area, so it was perfect for her needs.  A fresh coat of paint, and  upstairs is now ready to fill with delightful things for doting relatives to buy their darling babies.

Here is the first floor of the building:

Unfortunately the flash washes the colour out a bit as usual.  Also as usual, these kits are a joy to put together!  It was just an afternoon's work from start to finish, and there are two lovely shop tops.

Here they are showing the interior.

And in this second one of the interior you can see the opening between the two buildings more clearly.  

 With a bit of work the ground floor will soon be ready as well.  One half has been given a change of colour scheme, and the flooring freshened up and the other half will soon be in just as spick and span condition.  I had already painted the shop roombox blue for another purpose, but now the colour scheme is green, the same as the first floor.  However the paint is still a bit wet on parts so I didn't fiddle with it to take photos tonight.

So my village of Ferny Creek is rapidly growing, and I am certainly looking forward to all the new releases to add to it as well.

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!

Ta-daaaaah! Drum roll please! I'm a very happy chookie today.

The village of Ferny Creek is very happy indeed.  The builders have moved out and the renovations on Toadstool Cottage are completed.  Everything is ready now for the next stage - the furniture van will be arriving very soon and stock will be pouring in any time after that.  The ladies are so delighted - a lot of work lies ahead but at last they can get going with the enjoyable part of setting up the shop.

And as for Washtub Cottage, new owners are about to move in there as well.  Necks are craning in the effort to see what is happening there - who are the new owners?  What will they be like?  Great excitement in the village that this lovely cottage will be functional once more.

You might have gathered from this that both Washtub Cottage and Toadstool Cottage are finished.  Which do I show you first?  Maybe both together - not a very good photo, they are a bit cramped on my little 'photo background' but here they are:

And now here is Toadstool Cottage:

And Washtub Cottage:

I have enjoyed doing these cottages so much, and I am so happy with the results.  And I know that I will really enjoy filling them too - so their story isn't finished yet.

Thank you for following!

Welcome Anna!  You make 50 followers.  I feel so humbled that you all have chosen to sign on here and I appreciate your interest more than you realise.  As I have said before, it is so rewarding to receive feedback from others who appreciate our wonderful hobby.  I love looking at your blogs and gain so much inspiration from your work.  And I am always delighted when you leave a comment here.  Thank you also to those who read without leaving a comment - I know from emails and comments on the groups I belong to that there are lots who do, and I appreciate your interest as well.

There's lots happening here so there's heaps to share with you - keep tuned :-)

Been quiet..... been busy Pt 2

Now it is time to tell you about progress on Washtub Cottage.  Again, I'll go day by day with bits from my Journal.

Saturday 26th February 2011

Most of tonight was spent doing the front door for Toadstool Cottage and the internal doors for Washtub Cottage. It certainly makes a difference to have them in place. The instructions don’t tell you to put trim surrounding these doors like you do on the two opening doors, but I did so anyway and am happier to have them there.  I added an extra one to the kitchen area because I want it to lead out to a scullery, and I have put it to one side to leave room for furniture on that wall - probably a nice dresser.

The two side walls of the cottage have now decided to join the fun and cause some mischief.  They have curled outwards at the top, pulling apart from the back piece, and the pavement has warped as well. So the pavement piece has been dampened down and put under the heavy books along with the front, to think about the consequences of such naughty behaviour.  My small clamps don’t quite fit the width of the house so tomorrow Peter will buy some more medium clamps for me on his way home from bowling, and I will see what I can do to teach the sides better manners as well..

Sunday 27th February 2011

Did quite a bit on Toadstool Cottage (see previous post, Been busy pt 1) and did the painting on Washtub Cottage bits (apart from the front section which is still under the books).  I'm not happy with the paint job on them though and will have to redo it.

Then I fiddled for quite a while with an open fireplace for Washtub Cottage kitchen, to take one of the Aga stoves I have bought from Grace Shaw. They are made by Jenny Wren and are just too cute for words.

Everything is ready to go further but I can’t proceed until the front is no longer being weighted down and the walls are no longer being clamped to reduce the warp in them.

Monday

Clamping the walls has worked, the tops no longer turn out like pixie shoes vbg.  I was finally able to attach the rear roof.  Let's hope that the walls have learned their lesson and stay in place now.

 

 And it was really good to be able to start painting the front of the cottage as well.

So here it is at the moment, with the chimneys in place on the roof.  As with Toadstool Cottage, I want to put flashing around the chimney before I put the tiles on.  

The front door is done and ready to install and so are the window ledges, once I am happier with the paintwork on the front and on the porch.  I won't glue the porch into place until all that is done either. 

Tomorrow I will buy the heavier paper I need for the tiling, and hopefully will be able to buy more of the particular paint I have used for the inside of the cottages.  It is called 'Parchment' and I really like the colour.  But the shop I buy it from is discontinuing most of the colour range and I am having trouble sourcing the paint anywhere else.  Naturally they have run out of this particular colour so I can't even stock up on it.  I will try some other shops tomorrw.  Fingers crossed!

Been quiet ......but been busy!

It's been a few days since I posted about the two cottages - but I have been busy behind the scenes, so to speak!  The neighbourhood is really abuzz with excitement now as the cottages draw close to being completed, and bolts of fabric are ordered for Toadstool Cottage Patchwork, the ladies are preparing to move in all the shelves and other furniture, and workmen are at the ready to install it.

So what have I been up to?  Let's take it one cottage at a time - this post I will concentrate on Toadstool. I showed you a photo of it alongside Washtub last time.  I'll just do each day as I noted in my Journal of an evening:

Saturday
I only worked on the cottages after sunset tonight of course but did get quite a lot done. The chimney looks pretty good  painted and distressed!  Adding the front door also makes a big difference.  I'm beginning to feel that Toadstool Cottage is close to being finished.

Sunday
The front pavement looks a really inviting place to sit now, I made sure it was well paved with stepping stones – more like a terrace than a path. There is room for a couple of small garden beds or planter tubs and a bench to sit on in front of the cottage, which will be a nice touch. I think maybe a vine of some sort too.

As you can see in the photo above, the front is now completed, with the ‘glazing’ on the windows and trimmed inside. All that remains is to do is the roof.

Here are some views of the  interior with the rear roof in place - it is now completed.  The distressing between the beams looks much darker in the photo than in reality.

There will be a small room upstairs to take a toilet and handbasin – the ladies have booked the plumber and builder to install this modern convenience and it will happen any day now.. There will also be a small refreshment area up there, so staff and customers can make that important hot brew of whatever type they prefer, and prepare some lunch.

There are fabrics in the rest of the upstairs area as well as downstairs, and also kits, patterns and books. And of course there’s access through the internal ‘doors’ to other sections of the shop, including the classroom area where all sorts of techniques are taught five days a week.

Monday
There wasn't a lot left to do on Toadstool Cottage today, apart from attaching the upper chimney and finishing off the terrace/paved area.  I put the upper chimney on at this stage because I want to put a tiny bit of 'flashing' around the base and put the tiles over it.  I am not happy with the paper I have and want to try and get some that is heavier or the tiles would have been done as well.  But I am very happy indeed with this little cottage. I am just so addicted to quarter scale, and to Petite Properties in particular!

Hmmmm - touch-up of the paint on the beams needed here, I think!

I do hope that plumber and the tilers arrive fairly soon - the ladies are very eager to get their shop up and running!

Welcome new followers

How lovely to open up this morning and see two new followers, Margriet and 'choupavril'.  It's a long time since I studied any languages so I won't embarrass myself by even attempting to translate your name here vbg!

Thank you so very much for taking the time to visit my blog and for signing on as a follower!  I sincerely hope that you enjoy having a look at different mini projects as well as those in progress and that you will feel free to leave lots of comments.  I value feedback very much, and love sharing my minis with others who share my joy in this great hobby.

Bendy bits....

It was very exciting this morning to feel that both the cottages were at a similar stage of progress. After attending to some things today, the plan was that I would do the paintwork on all the stone - the exterior of Washtub Cottage and the various bits I did yesterday if they are dry enough.

I wanted a photo of both the cottages together so lined them up - and oh dear!  The front of Washtub Cottage has developed a distinct bend.  So it seems I won't be painting that part today at least :-( I did take the photo of both together.  I sat the roof on Toadstool Cottage to keep the chimney in place (yes, I've put the roof together).  The pieces of Washtub Cottage are by no means sitting in their correct places.

And I also took a photo showing the bend in the front of Washtub Cottage.  Even the entry porch appears in this photo to have a slight bend - but it doesn't. 

And yes, the pavement for the front of Washtub is uneven at the front, and yes, that was deliberate - I didn't want it dead straight so squeezed some of it a bit more than other bits.  But the bend in the front makes it rather difficult to sit it properly against the house so it is not sitting well on the pavement either.

Maybe the painting will wait until Sunday now and I might concentrate on the interior doors for both properties, and other details.