Life gets in the way of miniatures

Hopefully all the drama that life has been dealing me will go on hiatus for a while and let me get back to my miniatures.

I textured the exterior walls with stucco and painted them gray:

I still plan on adding a bit of age to the exterior, I'll update the photos when I do.

I had planned on doing the trim a bright white, but that didn't seem to get the old cottage feel that I am going for. So now I'm trying an off white. Hopefully, this will work. 

Well, back to work for now. Take care.

What to do ?????

Another day of racking my brain trying to figure out the best way to do the exterior of the house. I would really like to give it the old stone look with bits of moss growing in between some of the stones. I have some stucco and was thinking about spreading some of that on and then carving out the stones. I've started making a stencil, thinking that might work, but it just won't be thick enough. GRRRR.. this is frustrating.

On a good note, I went to town yesterday and stopped by a  yard sale ( I know! On a Wednesday)!  I was able to get a couple of goodies, a lite brite with the pegs and some Lincoln logs, (not to sure what I will use those for yet), and a few other odds and ends.  I was more excited about the pegs than anything else.

Well, back to the drawing board. Hopefully, I'll figure out the exterior soon.
Until then, take care!

Okay... I promised pictures... Here they are:

This is the kit, had I read the size on the front I would have known how big it was.... Oh well, it's still alot of fun.

This is the first floor: I painstakingly cut each piece by hand

Second Floor: covered up the original hole for staircase and made room for a spiral staircase.

Ceiling has been sprayed with stone spray paint to give it texture:

Wallpapered dividers:

Inside front wall:

Roof before shingles:

House sides:

Spiral staircase:

That's all I have for now. I realize that it really doesn't look like much yet, but it's getting there. I'm open for any criticism, tips, hints etc..... That's the only way to learn... Be safe!

My First

Hmmm.... This is my first attempt at blogging. Why now, you may ask? I'm getting myself into making miniature items and houses and I wanted a place to track my
progress. So here it is.... My youngest daughter and I made a dollhouse for my granddaughter two years ago for Christmas. I was soooo proud of it, and she loved it. A bit too much I guess, after a month it was in terrible disarray and unrepairable. I should have known... she was only 5 years old and didn't know the meaning of being careful, and no concept of how hard we worked on it.
Lessons learned...
 1. Wait till grandkids get older before giving them a dollhouse.
 2. Make everything age appropriate.
 3. Glue everything down.
 4. Instructions would have been nice.

I found myself at Micheal's Craft Store a few months ago and found their Creatology  dollhouses for $8.00 each... what a steal I thought. So, I purchased
three of them. Bought a few other odds and ends over the next month, (more like boxes and more boxes of stuff). Seems like I was looking at everything around me and thinking, " wonder what I could use this for"? I hope that this is a normal state of mind for an up and coming miniaturist...
About a month ago I enlisted a friend of mine who is very crafty,(Tonnie), and we set out to tackle our project.... Whoa, put the brakes on... none of the tools nor materials were organized yet.... and I really hadn't put much thought into how much space would be needed. So instead of starting our project we set out to reorganize my dining area ( I live in a hexagon shaped house, with floor to ceiling windows on one third of it, this is definitely a space problem. ) My husband was kind enough to give me one of his craftsman standing tool boxes to help organize tools and such. Yippee!!! Personally, I think I could have used more than one, but didn't want to be greedy. It was bad enough that I was taking over the dining room.
Organizing was going rather well until I decided that my tole paints needed to be in near proximity so they could be easily accessed. (Forgot to mention that I am also a painter and paint on everything from floor to wall murals. Over 300 paints needed to be in the mix of all the other "tools".) My 6' X 10' area was over grown with everything I may need for my project.
Sooooo, back to our project. I was so excited to show Tonnie the dollhouse kit that I bought. With anticipation she waited for the unveiling. I took the plastic off of my kit and it was then that I realized that my purchase really wasn't a steal. It was about priced right for the small size that it was. Tonnie didn't want me to get discouraged (as I don't tend to get excited about much), so she said, "Okay, it's a bit small but we can make it work. We can learn from this and work our way up to a big one". That sounded reasonable. We "dry" fitted it together, ( I learned a bit by doing alot of research on the net and reading other peoples blogs). And we decided to start with the walls and the floors.... through trial and errors we finished them.... Life, called Tonnie away for a few so I am left to my own devices for now. I'll try to get some pictures taken and posted soon, from this point on... I'm hoping to tackle the roof tomorrow. Hopefully all goes well...
Until next time... be safe!