A new project... finally !

 A friend gave me a little shadow box house that she found at a garage sale or thrift shop. Each "room" had some sort of wooden figure. I removed all of those and started turning it into a quarter scale house.

 The windows were made from the webbing that was on the back of the tiles I used in the conservatory. Never throw anything away! That would explain why my craft room often looks like a cyclone hit, lol.

Most of the wallpapers were printed from various internet sites. The blue floral paper was leftover from the French country house.  Somehow it works for both scales. The tiny room on the top right will be the bathroom. I got a good start on the shower. Since the last photo I've added brick to the exterior. I am still debating whether or not to shingle the roof.

Next up will be furniture. I am hoping to make it all with stuff I have on hand. Hubby is recuperating after surgery last Friday and I don't want to go out anymore than necessary.

I hope you're having a wonderful week!

Touching up on snow day#3

 Today I concentrated on cleaning up little problem areas to make the house look more complete. The living room paneling had several areas that showed up white in photos. A little bit of paint with a fine tipped brush fixed that problem. Looking at the photo below, it looks like the area over the door could use a bit more paint. Well, almost fixed.

 I added ceiling trim to the kitchen because all my wallpaper edges weren't straight. The trim is made from the plastic guards that come over windshield wipers. Cut them at the seam to make two strips of trim, paint the inside, and glue in place. Recycling at its best!

 The cowboy room had a couple of small gaps that were easily fixed with a bit of trim.

The exterior paint work was touched up and sealed with a coat of matte Mod Podge.

Even though these weren't big projects, they were the kind of detail work that makes a mini home look more like a real one. Have a wonderful day, my friends!

The roof is finished!

I have minor details to add - a lower porch bench, a lamp in the master bedroom, more family photos, etc. - but the house is essentially complete. Even though the roof seemed like it took forever, it was definitely worth doing. It didn't cost me anything but time to do and gives the house just the look I'd hoped for.

Here's a reminder of what the house would look like if I'd followed the directions. I'm so glad that I didn't. ;-) Now that I see the chimney, though, I'm reminded that I really need to put one on, and on the other half of the roof. More on that later, I guess.

Terra Cotta Barrel Tiles Tutorial - the Trash to Treasure Way

I used two shades of orange, light buttermilk, burnt umber, and honey brown paints. I just mixed the colors on the brush and randomly painted the toilet paper tubes and the valleys of the corrugated cardboard. The valleys act as the upside down tiles on a real barrel tile roof. The tubes are cut into roughly half inch by one inch tiles. Each tile is glued over two of the cardboard ridges. In the third photo, I am using chopsticks to hold the edges of the tiles down until the glue sets. This is an experiment that's going to work! That always makes me smile. :-)

Edited: Here's today's work. I've decided that painting the corrugated cardboard is not necessary. You really can't see the valleys but they help so much with spacing and shaping the tiles. Just painting the tubes, cutting into tiles and gluing them on takes a lot of time. I spent several hours working today. I filled in the corrugated board on the angled left side and finished the three bottom rows, then added two more full ones. I also added a couple more colors of paint in the brown family. I like the variation - really makes it look like aged tile. This is going to take some time but I am very happy with the way it looks.

Sometimes inspiration comes from the strangest places

I was drinking a bottle of water and all of a sudden I noticed the inside of the bottle, under the label. It was a perfect diamond pattern for making a leaded window. My daughter thought I was crazy because I'd take a drink, look inside the bottle and then do the whole thing again. You'd think she'd be used to such behavior by now, lol. Anyway, the stained glass window in the chapel is the result of that discovery. The lead lines are just Sharpie marker traced over the embossed pattern. The diamonds were filled in with glass paint.

The Dasani bottle I used also had a lovely embossed border pattern. I didn't notice it until it was too late to save it - but the next time I will figure out a way to use that part, too. Isn't turning trash into treasure fun?

From trash to treasure

So, this project started when I noticed that the cap to my toothpaste was divided like a relish tray. I sliced it down and spent some time making mini veggies. Then I remembered my friend Judy's beautiful meat and cheese board that I received in a Small World swap. That led me to think of a wedding banquet table and this is the result. I made everything except for Judy's board and most of it was from "trash."

You've seen the wedding cake before. The plates are made from milk carton seals. The forks are the pins I pulled out of the pushpins that I used for punch glasses. The punch bowl is a clear plastic lid I cut down, a pushpin and a button - it's filled with glass paint for the punch. The ladle, knife and server are cut from thin metal. The lettuce for the tossed salad is plastic snow that I colored with food coloring. The table itself is made from pieces from my wood scrap box and it's covered with a layer of white paper and then some packing sheet foam that's shiny and kind of elegant looking as a tablecloth.

This was my first attempt at some of the vegetables I made for the relish tray. There are celery sticks, baby carrots, cherry tomatoes, cauliflower and broccoli, dill pickle spears and bread and butter pickle slices (the glue isn't completely dry - I'm too impatient to wait, lol). The dip in the middle was made with white dimensional paint and some polymer clay shavings for the spices. I used those vegetables, plus some cucumber and radish canes I made another time, for the salad.