I'm on holiday!

Hello everyone! I'm on holiday until the end of the year and am traveling to Australia, Morocco, Western Europe, Great Britain, Scotland, Ireland, Greece, Indonesia, and South East Asia. So I'm just letting you all know that I won't be doing any updates on my Garfield dollhouse for a while sorry! But if any of you have suggestions of cool mini places around the world to visit please let me know! I'd love any suggestions of shops, markets, displays, or anything else mini worth visiting!

Welcome all my new followers! It's a pleasure to have you and I do hope you all keep me on your reading lists until I return!

If you are interested in my travels feel free to have a look at my travel blog amyandstevensendlesssummer.blogspot.co.nz

Love Amy.

The weatherboards go up one by one hurrah!

It's a cheesy title I know but I think it is funny. I have made some progress with the weatherboards though it has taken a long time! The part inside the deck was the most difficult owing to all the small fiddly bits and oddly shaped walls. The right wall was much easier. 

Firstly I had to correct the mistake I had made. That involved ripping down a few boards, remeasuring (using a story rod) and then sticking boards back up...

This is what the wall looked like with the boards ripped down.

I began putting boards up on the left wall next. (This was somewhat easier than the wall with the tower in it but still very fiddly.)

This photo is peeping through the kitchen door.

More weatherboards on the left wall.

And the finished deck area. (Except for the corner boxes and the bits between the tower windows.)

Here you can see that the lack of corner boxes means you can see the edges on the weatherboards where they meet.

And this picture shows the unfinished tower windows.

The bit that sticks out is a removable section to allow access to this side of the house.

This is the card that I used to make the weatherboards from.

This photo shows how I use my story rod. (A bit of paper with lines spaced 14mm apart.)

Half the right wall completed.

I use a piece of paper to trace the window arches. Then I tape it to the building. After that I tape the weatherboard in place and trace around it and then finally cut it out.

I have done a tiny bit more on this wall but there are still many weatherboards to go! 

I hope you are all having a lovely weekend wherever you may be.

Love Amy.

Mini fireplaces, a cupboard, window seats, chairs, a mirror, and an update on the weather boards!

Hello everyone. Thanks to everyone who leaves me comments! I love reading your kind words. It is always such a lovely surprise to see that someone has written something! 

Thanks heaps!

I have made some mini fireplaces, a corner cupboard, and some window seats for my dollhouse. They are the ones that came with the kit. I glued all the bits together and gave them an undercoat and two top coats and here are the results.

Here is the corner cupboard in the dining room. 

Here's a close up - as you can see I need to fill the little gap where it doesn't quite meet the ceiling. 

Here's the window seat in the lounge.

And the window seat in the master bedroom. (Making some bedding for the bed is on my to-do list.)

You can see it a little better in this photo.

Here is one of the fireplaces. I didn't really want to put them against the stairwell (which is where they are on the picture that comes with the kit) but there is actually no walls that are wide enough to put them except the stairwell walls! (I didn't want to put them there because if it was a real house the smoke can't go anywhere.)

Now it is a nice cosy little reading area. I just need some books for the bookshelf, a nice rug, and maybe a cosy blanket!

Here is the fireplace in the lounge. It is looking very bare in there at the moment. I really should finish off the skirting boards and scotia boards before I put any more furniture in the house though. I was part way through doing it when my glue gun died a fiery death and I went on to something else. I have a new one now though so I should finish that job off. (It's a bit boring though compared to doing other things!)

A few weeks ago my lovely friend Emily gave me a few bits of furniture from her childhood dollhouse. (Like the little white bench in the earlier post.) She gave me two sweet little chairs but they didn't quite match my shabby chic theme so I decided to do them up.

This is what they looked like originally. I liked the gingham fabric but red isn't really in my colour scheme so I decided to reupholster them and give them a few coats of paint and a bit of a shabby up with sand paper.

Ta-da! Here is the finished result. I am very pleased with them.

You can see the fabric pattern a bit better in this picture.

I tried them out in the cosy reading area first.

But I think I like them best in the kitchen.

While I had the blue paint mixed up in such a nice shade I decided to paint a little mirror I bought a while ago and have been wanting to make shabby. It started off gold and here is the finished product.

So nice and shabby don't you think!

I haven't decided where I will put it yet.

Lastly I have made some progress on the weather boards but I've made a bit of a mistake (they are not even on both sides of the bay windows) so I am going to have to cut some of them off again!

It looks cool though aye! I can't wait to paint it. (And you will get to find out what color I have chosen.)

Bye for now. 

Love Amy.

I made a basket!

I am proud of my basket making effort. A while ago I read In the Court of the Gypsies great tutorial about how to make a mini basket on her blog and have been looking for the little basket toilet deodorisers ever since. I finally found some in the $2 shop so I was excited to be able to try and follow the tutorial. You can read it here. 

Here are the steps I took. 

I got a basket from the toilet deodorisers. 

Then I wove some skinny string stuff (I bought it from the wool department of a craft store) around and around and around...

Then cut off the extra sticks.

Next I wrapped the string round the top and stuck it down with tacky glue. (This was difficult as everything kept sticking to my fingers rather than the basket top. Eventually (with some internal cursing) I got it done.

As you can see though the bottom of the basket is still ugly plastic.

You can see the little tail I left when I started.

I thought it would look nice with some flowers in it.

I covered the bottom with fabric stuck to paper.

I think it looks much better. Yay!

And it looks lovely with the flowers in I think!

I decided to put it in the bedroom next to the cot for now.

Bye!

A whimsical tower and weather boards.

I built the tower roof the other day and it looks very whimsical now. I love the tower! It was a lot trickier to build than I anticipated however. 

First I painted the inside of the pieces white.

This next bit was the most difficult because I had to get the angles of the bits of wood right. (Which took several attempts and a bit of annoyance.) 

After that I had to put the 2 bits at 90 degrees to the original 2 bits up. (Marginally less difficult than the first 2.)

And lastly add in the other 4 pieces - which was a  lot easier.

Here's what the inside looks like.

And here it is on the house. How cute!

Here you can see a lovely little bench than my friend Emily gave to me (it was from her childhood dollhouse). I gave it a coat of paint and think it looks quite nice on the deck for now.

The next job I did was to remove all the wooden weatherboards. I used my craft knife to pry them off. (There were only a few that resisted this treatment.)

Then I cut some more out of thick card. I used a guillotine (rotary trimmer) to cut them. I made them all 2cm wide. And when I stick each one on I measure 14mm above the board and mark where the next board should go. So that the bottom boards are on an angle too I glue a small strip of card along the bottom of each wall so the board has something to overlap.

I am not sure what to do about the small gap between the tower windows...

And that is the progress to date. I might even go do some more weatherboards now...

Oh yeah, and they are not staying white... but you will have to wait and see what colour I have chosen!

Have a splendid day wherever you are!

Love Amy.