It's Monday again...

And I'm not at work! It is fantastic! I have been working on some 1/2" scale house and furniture kits which I hope to be able to sell someday. I was hoping to be able to cut the prototypes with my KliknKut machine but I am really struggling to figure it out. So for now, will keeping plugging along and attempting to learn my machine when patience is abundant!

I have also been making quite a few accessories for the English house and thought I'd show you. 

Here is the piano, one of the kits I made up for my very first dollhouse. I want a really cluttered look on top of it, so will add some vases with flowers and feathers, some figurines and photo frames as well. I painted the clock, frame and candelabra, and hung a very cute vintage photo of a family in a tiny rowboat, taken in a studio with painted backdrop. It's very sweet.

 

I ordered the Houseworks resin bathroom as it looked the most like a 1920s bathroom to me.

 I don't think I like the washstand, but it needs something. What do you think of the layout? I want something interesting and realistic. I will add a shower curtain and have a go at making a shower head.

I made mini leadlight glass doors for the living and dining rooms, and am really happy with how they turned out. I drew the design in a drawing program, printed it out on heat resistent transparencies and then heat embossed with a dark grey metallic embossing powder. I intend to repeat the process for the bay windows and front door, once I've got a design drawn.

I also changed the rug in the living room. I like the warmer tones better. Still needing a sideboard or something for where the hutch is (I don't think this one suits).

And lastly is the master bedroom. I've hung some pictures, finished painting and glueing the bed ends together, and made two little silk lampshades for the candlestick lamps. I should take a closeup of those, they have little bows on them and look quite pleasing. To me anyway! Not sure about the chair in the corner. It looks OK in the photo actually, but in real life, it kind of looks too chunky.

I still need to attach the bed ends to the bed base, and not sure how to go about that. 

Well, I hope you enjoyed my update and that you have a good week ahead. We are expecting rain and cold so good weather to be indoors.

Start of a new era... I hope!

I am happy - I have just started about 6.5 months of long service leave. Yay! I have been miserable in my job for a good 5 years. I would feel like crying most days, sitting at my desk. I don't think I could've chosen a less appropriate job if I'd tried. So the solution was to take almost all my long service leave at half pay, to buy some time and work on a new career. The alternative was to quit, and I wasn't quite ready for that. I will keep you updated on how I am going with my leave. So far, I'm loving having time to work on minis whenever I feel like it

Also, my husband and I recently took a holiday to Western Australia and visited Margaret River, Mandurah and Perth. I took some snaps which you may be interested in seeing, from a mini perspective. Firstly is a stove in an old lighthouse keeper's cottage.

This photo is blurry, but you can see it in situ:

The next photo is an old store we walked past in Perth. I wished I'd gone in and taken more photos. It looked like it hadn't been touched in 60 years. The store beside it was the same (they were actually joined on the left side of the photo, where a door had been partially knocked out between them).

The last two pictures are the old homestead we stayed in at Margaret River, called Baseldene Manor. Very lovely, highly recommend it if you're ever in the area.

The sunroom was an addition in more recent years, as is the building you can see to the right. The gardens were beautiful too. Rumour is that the oak tree at the front was grown from an acorn that came from Buckingham Palace. It rained a lot, so my photos are a little murky.

Maybe the beautiful stonework will inspire someone? 

Lastly, thanks for the encouragement with the wiring and positive comments. I really appreciate your interest and taking the time to make a comment. Have a great day everyone!

You win some, you lose some

Or maybe knowing when to quit?

Had a bit of a mixed day today but regardless got a fair bit done on the English house. It is rainy and cold and wintery so a great day to be tucked under the eaves working on minis. Except for all the hassles, breakages and defects.

I put some wall lights in the bathroom, which meant the usual - drill holes through the wall into the next room, pull wires through wall and attach light to wall. The thing is, I needed to drill through the ceiling and cornice in the next room to get the wires through into the roof space and into the channel to travel down the back to the switch thingos. So the wires of the  first light worked Ok after about 10 minutes of moving and jiggling and swearing. I had to get the wires through about 4cm of ceiling and cornice, so had to make the hole smooth and wide. When drilling the hole for the second wire, the drill bit got stuck in the ceiling and I split the cornice. Grrr. Took an intermission, some chocolate, pliers, more swearing and patience to work the drill bit out. Then got the light wires through the wall and ceiling and the wires snapped off the light with absolutely no way of being able to reattach them, so guess what? I stuck the light in anyway. Just like in real houses, 'the globe has blown'....

I wallpapered the bedroom next to the bathroom, which was initially painted, which I didn't like. I therefore had to do the wiring in the bathroom first. It is a little bubbly, but mostly Ok, nothing that won't be covered with pictures. The most annoying thing, which I never noticed when it was painted, was that the back wall appears to be two seperate pieces joined, so there is a ridge running up the middle of wall, and the wallpaper makes it really obvious. Strange. So more pictures, and a chair needed! You can see the light shade, which I handpainted with purple roses.

I actually was hoping the wallpaper was greener, but I am happy with it anyway. Or rather, at the end of my patience! Also, I've since painted the armoire a pretty apple green. And yeah, bedding not finished yet and just pinned on!

The kitchen is just about finished. It really only needs accessories now, which I am working on.

And lastly, the laundry is all tiled and painted. I need a scrap of cream paper for the ceiling and some sort of small moulding for the wall/ceiling joint. And the light is now attached to the wall! You can see on the floor my laundry trough, but it needs a little gap filler, another coat of paint and some legs. The laundry actually looks much larger than I thought it would be. I hope to fit a little old washing machine in there.

Hope you enjoyed my little update.Happy weekend everyone. I hope the weather is better where you are!