Good news and bad news

Bad news first, my blog has fallen to the wayside as I have discovered ancestry.com and it has become a compulsion.  The good news is that I may be related to all of you!  Hopefully my OCD will bring me back to my blog soon!

He's gonna be OK!

It looks like with a little more facial grooming, Yorkie is going to be fine! Touch-and-go there for a while. Maybe I'll give him a final trim tomorrow morning, when I have not had any wine ;-) I might cut too much tonight and would hate to have to wait for it to grow out.

Phelting is Phun

I really like needle felting!  I used to think it was really weird and a little gross, but I think that is because I had only seen felted fruit and soap and I could not make the connection of why wool would be involved in those things.  But animals are already made of fur, so it makes sense to make them out of fur!  right?  and besides, everything handmade has a weird aspect to it, if you think about it.  Anyhow, I made the pink, eyeless bear first.  He will have eyes, just haven't done it yet.  The rabbit was next and then the dog.  I put wire in the dog so that she can be poseable, and as a progression of learning how to do this. Hmm, too bad I did not pose her for the photos :)  My next step in the progression was going to be adding long hair, and this is where I think my success has faltered.  I have no idea what to do next with this poor little yorkie (?)  He obviously needs a trim of some sort, and eyes and a nose.  Maybe I could groom him to look like a panda!

This is neither here nor there BUT...

it is just too funny.  It is a competition where dogs are groomed to look like other animals and if you want to see more, here is a link  

Thank you Coby for the Kreativ Award!  Rarely as an adult are we awarded anything!  Cool ;-)

The rules for the award are:

1. Thank the person that give it to you.

2. Copy then logo and place it on your blog.

3. Link to the person who nominate you.

4. Name 7 things about yourself that nobody knows.

5. Nominate 7 kreativ bloggers.

6. Post link to the 7 blogs that you nominate.

7. Leave a comment on each of the blogs letting them know that you nominate them.

7 things:

1.  I am the proud owner of a 20 lb. cat.  He used to be gorgeous until my dog went on a diet and I started feeding him only at night so that my dog would stop eating cat food, which was making her fat.  He has teenage disorders such as cutting (he chews on his right leg for no reason that my vet or I can find other than neorosis) and bulemia (he eats an pukes, eats and pukes, eats his puke and pukes)  So anyhow, now he gorges himself at night and since I have two cats, I have no control over how much he eats.  He is fat and I love him.

2.  I drink 8-10 cups of coffee a day 

3.  I love all food

4.  I also love running, so it all works out ok

5.  I just tried needle-felting wool, so my fingers are full of holes

6.  My attention span decreases with age

7.  I used to be an EXCELLENT driver, but since the three kids have come along I am just awful, which sucks, since they are usually with me when I drive

I pass the award on to the last 5 comments on my blog (who do not have it posted on their blog already ;-):

Angeles

Cynthia

Norma

Rudoo

Debbie

Sunshine Award

I would like to thank Michelle for my Sunshine Award!  This is my first blog award, I will post it with pride :)

Here is a link to Michelle's lovely blog:  http://michelle-minithings.blogspot.com/

The Sunshine Award Rules...

1. Post the award on my own blog.

2. In a blog post, name six blogs that I enjoy.

3. Let your six named bloggers know that you are passing the award on to them.

I would like to pass it along to my first six followers who do not already have this award posted on their blogs:
Kim athttp://kimsminiatures.blogspot.com/
Susan at http://minicrochetmad.blogspot.com/
Cynthia at http://cynmini.blogspot.com/
Sylvia at http://lotjesdollshouse.blogspot.com/
Daisy at http://antiquedaisy.blogspot.com/
Lisette at http://lisettesminiaturen.blogspot.com/

Leftover pink icing project

I had so much leftover pink frosting, that I had to make a cake.  Actually more than one. I like the sweets, but boy are they tedious!

Cupcakes!

I made some cupcakes while watching the Olympics tonight.  The color of my picture is just terrible!  They are pink iced and I must add this is PURE trial and error, heavy on the error.  I just could not get the icing to hold any shape, so these ended up as good ol' dipped cupcakes instead of the beautiful piped creations that they were intended to be  :-)  I used tls and white and red clay  to color it and then added some cornstarch.  I think I read that somewhere, but who knows where or even if it stayed in context in my mind.  I may have created pink brick mortar!  Anyhow, if anyone knows and is willing to share how to get a texture that can be piped through a monoject syringe, I would be indebted to you and very thankful!

Ok, so now I've made the obligatory bread...

I also made some cookies, i guess in honor of Valentine's day.  My hearts seem a little more like enameled metal, than iced cookies, though.  Maybe it is the shine on the icing.  It's more like a glaze than the other cookies I've seen in everyones wonderful valentine's blog posts.  I used liquid sculpey.  I've been looking at some of the Grace clay products and wondering if I need them.  I think I do!  :-}

I tried to paint this chair

I painted this chair to match this desk. It actually used to be maple colored.  My furniture-to-dollhouse ratio is way off right now in favor of the furniture, but not a lot of it will work in the only finished house that I have. This stuff definitely will not go. I think I may try to paint more of my furniture.  I guess I could even try to make some rustic looking furniture. I've tried making everything else!

I trimmed out the sleeping nook

So, yesterday and today I stained the floor, painted the bead board on the sleeping nook (that is what I call it now that I like it) and I cut some trim with my NEW miter box and saw.  Yup, I have tools and know what to call them!  I "stained" the trim with acrylic paint because I learned a while back that real stain just looks funny on this little scale.  It just seems as if it is not deep enough to me. I also added some beams inside of the little triangle dormer areas.  Right now they are just wedged up there in the stucco.  Oh yeah, I stuccoed, is that right, applied stucco? oh well.  I used Dap vinyl spackle as the stucco with a little acrylic tan paint mixed in for color.  I had also used it on the exterior of the second floor.  I need to find a base for this so that I can finish up with some landscaping and moss.  Then it will be move in time.  Well, maybe.  I am also considering adding a wall to the left of the sleeping nook on the second floor because as much as I like the open space, I need some wall space! 

Working in the second floor

I am working on the layout of the second floor of the Orchid.  Those of you who have seen the Orchid know that the second floor is a nightmare!  The windows and the sloped roof make the layout very dysfunctional, to put it mildly.  I am attempting a false wall that will make a bed-space out of the middle window and will make wall space that is actually perpendicular to the floor under the smaller windows!  I think then I will be much happier with the space.

 

After looking through Sylvia's blog and seeing how wonderful her little chairs from Lea's tutorial turned out, I attempted my own.  I did not have any staircase spindles, so I made the front legs out of polymer clay.  Needless to say, it is a bit wobbly, but as attempts at miniature-making go, I am quite pleased with it!  Thanks for the inspiration Sylvia!

Done!

All except the signature. It always takes me a minute to figure out
where to hide that.

Oh, and I've also done some work on this

More food

Here are some more pics of my food experiments

I am all over the place with this miniature stuff!

Everything is so cool and I want to try to make it all!!!  Like I've said before, I am going to have to be stopped soon by some force other than myself.  Here is a cheesecake I made.  I also made the platter.   I have been messing around with the settings on my point-and-click camera, but if I truly want to photograph this stuff (and I do!)  I will probably have to break down and buy and SLR camera.  I have a couple of people who photograph my portraits for me, but I can't call on them every time I make a polymer clay orange.  Well, I could, but it would not last.  Anyhow, I am enjoying every bit of this and I will try to photograph more.  I finally found the cable for my camera so I will mess around with it some more to see if I can get any kind of quality out of it.  It's a nice camera, just not meant for this 1 inch detail-ish kind of work.

Boring Sunday Evening

I miss the snow gadget that I had on my blog, but it made an annoying bottom scrollbar appear every time one of those little cyber-snowflakes went off of the edge of the screen!  So, bye-bye sweet, soft, snowfall.  I'm from Pennsylvania and miss the snow.  We don't see much here in Georgia.

This is just a random pic that I grabbed off the net.

I think I've made some progress

I don't know what I've done since my last post, but here's a photo anyway :-)  I've decided, but not begun, to add false walls below the two small windows on the upper floor because that space is just USELESS!  I've got to get going on this because I've bought two more kits off of ebay; The Tennyson and The Van Buren.  Ebay + me = lots of random purchases.  I should never have installed the iphone app.  There is a super-awesome dollhouse-builder named Robin Carey http://robincarey.blogspot.com/  whom I am totally going to copy for the Van Buren.  No, not exactly, but she is a total inspiration.  Check out her "Key West House."  Not sure what I'm doing with the Tennyson.  I'm sure I'll come up with something!  I'm up for anything.  I forgot how much I love working on anything miniature.  I will probably need to be stopped at some point. I am making excuses to not get real work done in favor of completing "little" projects.

Making progress (slowly)

Two weeks left, lots to do.  At least it is starting to look like the subjects.

The Orchid dollhouse interior

Today I have begun to layout the interior of my Orchid! Hard to to see it yet, but it is going to be a bakery with a kitchen and a little apartment upstairs. I added the fireplace and turned the stairs from the kit and added a landing. I really wanted a fireplace and stairs and this was the only configuration I could come up with. I need to add a wall upstairs in order to accommodate an oven. I do not have a clear plan for that space yet. I don't really care as long as I can fill the whole place with mini cakes, pies, tarts, macaroons, cupcakes, and the like. I need to paint the beadboard before I attach it to the wall, and the baseboard and crown. I wish I was working on it now, but I have to watch 24! Again, sorry for the crummy iphone photo:

Moving on

Here is my first miniature oil painting! It's 1.5" x 2" and I stretched and gessoed a piece old 600 thread-count sheet. REALLY bad iphone pic, I know, but I lost the cable to my camera so this will have to do. I had to take a break from painting the "old people." I mean that in the nicest way, really :-)

Wow, I am having trouble...

Ok, here's the problem: these are not children. I paint children, not in-laws! My husbands parents have been married for 50 years this February!!! There will be a large, and rather involved party, and the gift from the 4 brothers and sisters will be this portrait. 1) I hope to finish. 2) I hope to finish well :-) I have a way to go...

I just bought a new house on Ebay!

Here is the Ebay picture. It was listed for local pick-up only in my town! Also, my "Ebay bucks," that I know nothing about, are redeemable tomorrow! I thought that meant that I should definitely buy it. Hopefully I can pick it up tomorrow when I am out and about :-) I know that I sound like a goob :-B

Fully shingled!

I could not be more pleased with these shingles! Whoever you are who posted the vinegar/steel-wool technique wherever you posted it, THANK YOU!

Shingles

Updated progress on the Orchid doll house

Did a lot of painting this weekend and also electrified the house with Dad. Can't quite decide on the interior design. Definitely a bakery. I want to bash the stairs to contain a landing. I am also working on the shingles. I found an aging technique that involves soaking steel wool in vinegar and painting the result on the shingles, producing a blackened look. I could not believe it worked! The end is in sight if I can make some decisions!