Moving right along...

Yesterday I got the wallpapering finished and started on the wainscoting.  I had to paint, sand, paint, and varnish an extra strip of the wainscot cap because for some reason I had only done one.  My brain must have been running low on that day!

On the left, all finished with the wallpaper which gave me more fits than I would have liked.  My idea of making a slicker surface for the paste to slide on didn't seem to help much.  But it's on and I am pleased with the seam at the ceiling.  I didn't really want to install crown mold and the meeting of ceiling and paper is good enough that I don't have to.  It's not that I'm lazy or afraid to - I just think with the smallness of the room, all the wainscoting, and everything I want to put in it, it doesn't really need more "trim".  I left the two blank spaces for the bookcases.  They won't be built in, but they won't be sticking out as much from the wall as they would have with the baseboard and wainscot cap running behind them.  I should probably have taken the paper all the way down to the floor though, but I didn't think of that til I had the wainscoting in.  Which it is in the photo on the right and I'm really liking it.


 

I know - all the pictures look alike but they're not.  The one on the left now has all three walls with the wainscot applied and the one up above only had 2 walls.  So that's progress, right?  And the one on the right shows the bookcases in place and the wainscot cap installed on the two side walls - still need to do the bit between the bookcases.  And in this picture the room looks deeper than it is wide and that's not the case.  The room measures about 15" wide by 10" deep and the ceiling is about 10" high.

Next will come the wiring and I've drilled a hole on each side wall and in the ceiling to start.  I'm going to use sconces on the back wall and want to try one of those on/off slide switches so that just the lamp(s?) and sconces could be on sometimes.

And totally off topic, here's what I had for dinner last night.  I haven't been doing much cooking and haven't been eating much in the way of meat and when I'm in a phase like that, I finally get to where I'm craving some beef.  So yesterday I bought myself a little filet and cooked it on my cast iron grill pan.  Already had the potatoes and I rubbed them with olive oil and sprinkled them with the seasoned salt my sister gave me back some time ago and roasted them in my toaster oven.  Had the zucchini and yellow squash also and browned it up in olive oil with some garlic and a little more of the seasoned salt.  And, oh boy, it was good!!

Tomorrow, I hope to get some actual wiring done although since I'm taking the lamp wires to the outside of the box, I may get done as much as I can to everything before I actually wire the lamps in so they won't be rattling around as I'm turning the box upside down, etc.  Guess I could always tape them to the floor...or maybe I should put an outlet on the outside of the box...no, that defeats the purpose of wiring outside - I want to solder everything so hopefully they won't just quit working one day.

Anyway, that's today's report!

I Got It Done, I Got It Done (sing-song voice here)

My pottery shop is finished.  And that's finished in the sense that I will sometime make a sign for it - thinking of either "Purely Pottery" or "Pottery Plus".  And I may fool with the arrangement of things a time or two although I'm happy enough with it right now and will wait awhile to see if I want to do any rearranging.  It's fairly frustrating work with shaky old hands.

But here it is.  Of course, when I got it placed where it will sit now, I noticed that I hadn't cleaned off the glue residue from when it was a Christmas shop and I had glued a sign on the glass to cover the window shade and "closed" sign.  So that's something else I still need to do.

And here are two close-up pictures of the window - both of them having different good and bad points, neither of them perfect.

The colors in the picture on the left are probably closest to true.  But without the light, it's pretty dark looking.  With the light on you can see the little figurines my sister gave me a long time ago and, for which til now, I've never had a spot in which to display them.  They're miniatures of a famous kind of French figurines that I can't for the life of me remember what they're called..

The wallpaper turned out to be a little dark although it does look better in real life - still kind of dark but not as dark as in these pictures.  If I call it Purely Pottery, I suppose I would need to take out the blue bottle and maybe even the figurines.  So I will probably call it Pottery Plus.

And I know I've posted pictures of the Christmas shop before, but just for comparison, here's what my magical shop will turn into come next Christmas and thank heavens that should not be quite as maddening as this project with its shelves!  I'll just put in the second back I've made and place everything like it is in these pictures.

"And I sure wish I could have realized I didn't have to tear off that wallpaper", she muttered sadly as she wandered out to the kitchen...

I've Finished Building My Kitchen/Dining Roombox!!

Mind you, it will now be an ongoing project as I try to gather up some "stuff" to fill it up.  Right now it's looking pretty barren.  But it's done and I'm pleased with it.  It's not perfect, but my projects never are and for how long it's been since I've done anything like this, it could have turned out a lot worse.

So, of course, here are pictures...

The dark wood down the sides and across the bottom is dollhouse picture frame molding so I'll be able to slide a sheet of acrylic down inside to help keep it from getting too dirty.  I'll probably rearrange the furniture a few times too.  In fact, it already is in a different arrangement that I'll look at for a while.  I want to make some kind of little chair pads at least for the two Windsor armchairs, plus I want to put a finish on them - they just bare wood right now.  And I desperately need some dishes for the hutch, a little something for on the table, pictures, etc.  In the kitchen I'm in the process of trying to get just a little piece or two of the same cabinets I put in my 1/2" scale dollhouse kitchen.  And I have various pots and pans, a few canned goods, a basket of veggies, a baguette (me and my baguettes!).  A couple of throw rugs would be nice too...maybe a cat...

A closer picture of the little stove that made all this effort necessary.  I've glued the missing plate back on.

I think I mentioned in a previous post that I had an old cookbook with these charming pictures that I thought about using to make a corner scene, where the Italy page and a facing page with an Italian recipe would be the walls.  But I found I didn't want to put anything in front of the pictures or the recipe!  So, I took these two pictures and put one on each side of the box.  I thought about choosing Germany since I lived there for a year, but I didn't like the picture as well and who knows, I may get myself to Scandinavia!


















And this last picture is where it will be in my kitchen, except I'm going to mount it on the wall to get it up off the counter.  So, that's how it will look when I walk into the kitchen and I'm just real happy with it. :)

And, guess what?  Last night I was looking at the Miniature Collector magazine and saw the ad for the IGMA show in September right outside NYC, and I thought oooh, that would be a great show.  Then I thought maybe, possibly, conceivably, Chris might want to go and we could share the cost of a room.  Cause aside from not liking the job he had while he was working there, he loved NYC and especially the Artisanal restaurant and he's fairly intrigued by miniatures himself - not obsessed like some of us get, but enjoys seeing the beautiful work of some of the artisan miniaturists.  So I called, we talked about it and this morning I get an e-mail from him saying he went ahead and reserved a room and we can take our time ironing out the details.  Is that great, or what?!  I've never been to an IGMA show and am really looking forward to it.

And, I guess that's it for tonight.  I'm over my cold and just back to having apparently sinus issues with a drippy nose, achy teeth, and periodic headaches.  But since that's how it was before my cold, I guess I can live with that.

Hope everyone has a happy weekend!

This 'n That

Just a quick post.  I got my taxes filed today finally and will be getting a little back from Uncle Sam which certainly beats paying him!  And, amazingly enough, I found a glitch in TurboTax's program.  They don't believe me, but they figured my state tax incorrectly.  When I saw the refund I was getting with their computations, it made me nervous, so I looked to see what they had done, found the difference between what I had done when I was doing a rough "draft", and went to our local state tax department to check and make sure my way was right.  It was and I've tried to find a way to communicate with TurboTax that they've got a problem there, but haven't been successful so far.  But...at least I know mine is right, although I'll have to mail it in rather than file on line cause I can't get their system to let me make the necessary change.

I decided a couple of days ago that I'm meat hungry so yesterday I bought a pork tenderloin and tonight made my apple/pork dish which I love and it was a good one.  Had it with a sweet potato this time which is probably a little healthier than with polenta.

I took a picture to put with the recipe and here it is:

And here's how it looked coming out of the oven:

Mm-mmm good!

And for all you DIY miniaturists out there, I finally took a picture today of a house I have always thought would be fun to make in miniature.  There's a gas station in town that I think that about too, but right now all I have is the picture of the house.  It's a run down old place, but must have been quite lovely in its day.  And it just looks like dollhouse material to me!

Now, I think if anyone decides to make this, they have to make one for me to!  Preferably in 1/2" scale. :)

And that's it for tonight - I'm full of good food, had a nice glass of wine with dinner so am nice and mellow, so it's loafing for me now.

A Study of the Ohio River

But first a little excitement for today...I posted pictures a while back of the start of a little half inch scale kitchen (which someone pointed out I should explain what that is - it's where 1/2" in miniature equals 1 foot in real life) and mentioned that I was going to have to do something about the fact that the table, chairs and hutch were painted country blue and the stove was cream and green.  Well, the very nice lady I bought the furniture from (and have known through miniature shows for a number of years now) agreed to take back all my pieces, repaint the blue parts for me and exchange the hutch I had for a slightly shallower one.  I got them in the mail today and so here's a picture of that.  I am so pleased with it and am all excited about getting back to work on creating the scene.  Although I think I'm going to be starting from scratch.  The longer my shadowbox "box" sat on the windowsill waiting for the furniture, the less I liked it - particularly my attempt at a hanging lamp.  But that's all right...

Now, for my study of the Ohio River.  I could have sworn that I posted pictures of the river in its normal state at some point in time but I've searched and I didn't.  At any rate, yesterday I could see from my windows that the river was looking high and since it had poured rain for about the prior 24 hours, I decided I would brave the cold, walk down to the river, and see what was what.  First of all, it was freezing!!!  In the 20's but very windy so very cold.  But I got down to the river and, sure enough, it was quite high.  This time I had thought ahead and had my camera.  So I took these pictures (thinking I would show them side by side with the normal pictures that don't exist).

Now the marina that looks like it's in the middle of the river isn't.  Normally, it's quite close to the bank of the river.  (That's Ohio across the river, by the way.)  And in the picture on the right, you can see almost two of the handrails going down a stairway that leads to a lower walkway (completely submerged now).  The portion on the left beside the stairs that looks like very deep stairs are terraces where people sit in the summer because there is a bandshell moored at that lower walkway where they have concerts.  So, even though I froze my little fingers doing it, I recorded how high the river was.

Then last night I heard one of those little teasers they do to try and get you to watch the news and they said they were going to be looking at the possibility of high water and I thought "hmmmm".  So today, thankfully not quite as windy, sunny and probably a little warmer, I thought I'd check and see if it actually was higher than yesterday.  I fortified myself first with a hotdog and chips from Sam's Hot Dogs.  Got to the river and it was higher.  I didn't do another shot of the marina cause it still just looked like it was in the middle of the river.  But here's the same shot of the handrail...

And the picture on the right is shooting down at the top of the stairs where yesterday you could see about 8 or 9 steps and today you see none.

These two are to try and show the highest I have ever seen the water.  The one on the right is taken looking up from near those submerged stairs to the rest of the stairs that take you to street level.  The high black thing in front of the building is the flood wall.  I've never seen it closed, but one time since I've been checking the river, I did see all these stairs submerged - it was pretty incredible.  There was a 1937 flood (before the flood wall and various dams) where the water went up to the street that building is on and was at about the second story level of the buildings on that street!  And then the picture on the left is up almost at the top of those stairs looking across to Ohio.  I do love this river...

Taking a Break from Baking

The baking seems to be fraught with trauma this year although I've managed to get two batches of cookies made - Chocolate Snaps and Cuccidatti which is a cookie recipe I tried probably 6 or 7 years ago and fell in love with and have made ever since.  Definitely the fussiest cookie to make but oh, so good and I love the name - especially this year...it's an Italian cookie!

Anyway, while working my nerve up to start on another batch of whatever, I decided to post more miniature pictures since people seem to have enjoyed those.  At Christmas, I have two miniature projects I've made that I only display at Christmas.

This first one is a little shop that I made in a workshop I took at Molly Cromwell's Tyson's Corner show years ago.  It was offered by Ron and April Gill and was quite a simple project, but I've really enjoyed it over the years.  For a long time, it was a pottery shop and had glass shelves going across the window with pottery that I had collected - mostly from a potter here in Huntington who did absolutely lovely pieces in different glazes, etc., but never became really "known" (not for lack of trying on my part!)  But, after years collecting Christmas miniatures, I decided to turn the shop into a Christmas shop and that's what it still is today.  I keep thinking I should think of another way to display the pottery and now that I've mentioned it, I'll put it on my list of things to take pictures of and if I can get decent ones, will post them someday.  But for now here is the shop...

I tried and tried to get a good picture and am not happy with these, but it's hard when there's that glass front.  It's a very sparkly scene which I like - I think Christmas should sparkle!  The little gingerbread house on the high shelf and the gingerbread train on the long shelf are from a couple whom I've seen at several shows.  She makes the gingerbread things and he makes pianos.  I think that's also where I bought the ornaments in the basket and in front of the basket.  The little jars are just some I had and filled with red, green and white micro beads and gold and silver glitter.  I can't for the life of me remember where I got the tree which is a shame cause it is amazing - so tiny and yet with little, in-scale, gingerbread men on it.  And if I remember correctly, the bottom gingerbread house was made by a lady from Pennsylvania whose food I absolutely loved - in my opinion, it was perfection and I've got a number of pieces by her.  I never saw her anywhere but at the little tiny show in Fairmont, WV and she always said she didn't really want to "get into it" cause she just enjoyed doing as much as she did.  Sadly, she passed away quite a few years ago.

My second Christmas project was turning a papier mache box shaped like a Christmas tree into a 1/4" scale house.  I really enjoyed this project.  A number of items I used are from on-line swaps back when I belonged to a 1/4" scale on-line group and I made a fair amount of the furnishings myself. 

I used 1" scale shingles to kind of simulate tree branches covered with snow (I used that puff paint, sprinkled with glitter that you then heat and it puffs up).  The base is one of those pieces of tree the craft stores sell.  The fencing is also 1" scale, but I thought it worked okay here.  I had to make the stairs myself.  Behind the three trees on the left you can see the lighted window of the "kitchen".  It's not really a kitchen, although I did paint a couple blocks of wood white to look like appliances or cabinets or whatever.

This is the living room/dining area and the mama and papa's bedroom.  The table and chairs (and the grandfather's clock) are from one of the sets of plastic furniture that come on cards.  The easy chair was a swap that I painted, the bookcase was a swap that I added books, etc., to.  I made the hutch, the wallhanging, the cross stitched rug and the throw on the easy chair.  Painted the dining table and chairs and I think maybe made the fireplace - I know I made the fireplace screen.  The wallpaper is gift wrap...In the bedroom, the dresser and chest are more painted plastic furniture, the slipper chair was a swap, I made the bed, the bench at the end, the round table and the little throw rug.  The hanging lights look really huge in the photo but they don't seem too big when looking at the house.  The wallpaper here is Christmas fabric.

This is the child's bedroom.  The bed was a Pam Junk kit. And I think most of the rest of the things were either from swaps or little bits that I picked up here and there.

Just a close-up of the front door which I also had to make.

So those are my Christmas minis.  My friend Peggy came over one evening this week with her granddaughter so she could see all my miniatures.  She really seemed to enjoy them even though we had to keep reminding her not to touch which made me feel bad, but, boy, those little hands were just ready to jump right in there and try everything out.  She decided that the half-inch scale house and the fabric store were her favorites.  She noticed in one of my scenes I had a set of nesting dolls and that reminded me to take out the two nesting dolls my daughter gave me a couple of Christmases and that kept her nicely occupied and "safe". :)  In fact, so nicely occupied, we had to convince her we were starving and finally it was off to Hillbilly Hotdogs - one of my favorite places and her first visit there.  So that was a big hit too.

I think I'm almost ready to start another batch of cookies - these will be a sort of oatmeal cookie but you grind up the oatmeal and add chocolate chips and I think cinnamon.  They'll be much easier than my cuccidatti, although the way things have been going, who knows what traumas I'll experience while making them!?

Speaking of Half Scale, Here's My Half Scale House!

In response to my last post showing the meager progress on my kitchen, I've received several positive responses which is nice.  One lady whom I've never met but we've been e-mailing back and forth for a while now, wrote:  "Wish you would take some pictures of your half scale house. Would love to see it.  LOVE the beams in the kitchen. Jean"  and that inspired me to take some new photos of that house.  I've had some on my website for a long time but they were taken with my old camera, the house wasn't landscaped yet, etc., etc.  So, now I've taken a new set which still aren't the greatest - I think there's a "depth of field" issue that probably my son (with his incredible photo-taking talent) could tell me about, but they're better than what's on my website (which I haven't updated since 2006!!).

Kind of a funny angle but I wanted to show the landscaping mainly because I am NOT a landscaper, so I was pleased with the results on this attempt.  I DO wish I had put a window in that bathroom wall.  This house was an old Houseworks kit, but I built and added the kitchen/bath addition and not putting a window there has bugged me ever since.  I like looking through the bay window (which is scratch built) into the cozy kitchen.

Here's the entire interior (except for the attic which is finished but has nothing in it).  I kitbashed the staircase cause I wanted that landing.  The picture over the mantle is one I cross stitched.  The sofa and chair are two of my prized posessions - bought them at the Tom Bishop Chicago show.

Here we have the dining room and the little girl's room.  Seeing these pictures sure makes me realize I need to do a little more finishing - very bare walls.  I guess I just need to start going to miniature shows again - gee, what a shame! :)  The valances in the girl's room I made using cutouts from the wallpaper border.  All the other valances I made from cardstock using those decorative edging scissors and painting them.

This is the master bedroom.  Sure would be nice if the maid would make the bed!  I keep thinking I'll make some really special coverlet for it but that hasn't happened yet.  The desk in the back of the room is a Lydia Pickett kit from Robin Betterley.  The picture of the staircase shows the mural I put on the wall - that was to cover a mistake that I can't remember now.

I'm going to keep working on the kitchen scene, but posting these pictures has given me the itch to do a little more to this house too - we'll see how long that lasts!

Instead of "Lights, Camera, Action"...

I've had way too much action, finally lights, and now, camera!

This is just to prove I finally managed to get the darned thing electrified.  I didn't want to put in all the little bits and pieces I have for it until it's really, really finished and ready for official viewing so it's pretty bare.

Never in my miniature "career" do I think I've ever encountered such problems with lighting.  And that's for a total of three lights!  One would think I was electrifying an 8-room house...But I've discovered (I think) that when you're doing sort of a "make-it-up-as-you-go-along project", that's when you're probably going to encounter the most problems and I sure did.  And I've cut my hands in a couple of places and gone through quite a few band-aids, I've broken fingernails, and I've turned the air blue periodically.  But, for the time being, my three lights are working and long may they shine is all I have to say.

I really need to not work on this anymore and get going on getting ready for my trip east to spend Christmas with my kiddies and grandkiddies.  Presents to wrap, hopefully some baking to do, etc., etc.  Plus, I have to wait now to get a 30's style refrigerator kit I ordered to put in this little scene so I couldn't get it finished now if I did take the time to work more on it.  And I have baseboard and ceiling molding to paint and fit and who knows how much more "jerry-rigging" to do.  I'm trying to decide if I want to do something else to the walls.  I didn't have any patterned wallpaper that was small enough print so I just used a cream crackle-look scrapbook paper.  Oh, and I've got to repaint all the furniture too which I dread, but it's just too strange for all of it to be blue and the stove is green and cream.   Trying to decide between brick red and black leaving the natural wood natural.  All of which I've already said, just still thinking out loud.

So that's all the news from West Virginia.  Going to watch DaVinci's Inquest now - a strange but fairly addictive show.  I can't figure it out...

Two Nice Days

Not too much to report really - no great progress on my kitchen scene.  Yesterday it poured rain all day and night and I spent a long time trying different ways to electrify my scene, none of which were satisfactory but I think I've narrowed it down to a way that will work so I'm not discouraged.  But I decided I'd better put it aside for the rest of the day so I started a little bit of Christmas decorating and enjoyed that.  Then Cindy called for a little catch up and we decided last minute to go to Five Guys for a burger and fries.  She came downtown after work, we had a little wine and looked at her pics from her visit to see her new niece and then a cruise she took between Ft. Lauderdale and Cozumel, Mexico.  Made me wish I could talk myself into a cruise, but when I look at them on line I always end up deciding they're not for me.

 So that was a nice evening and then this morning I decided I'd better do some of my on line Christmas shopping if I'm going to get it in time to wrap up and give away.  So I worked on that for a while and found out a couple of the things I could buy here in town.   Peggy called early to say she was going to bring her granddaughter to see my miniatures (we had talked about that a few days ago) so when I was done with my "shopping" I decided I'd finish my decorating and decorate the Fabric Store and my half scale house which is fun.  I did a quick and fairly sloppy job of finally displaying a little Christmas village I've collected over the years.  There's a woman who makes all kinds of little, tiny houses, stores, churches, etc., in porcelain and she even puts little holes in the windows so you can light them.  So I got out a miniature strand of Christmas lights and, way too quickly, made my little display, but at least it's there.  And it inspired me to maybe collect a couple more pieces (always nice to have an excuse to buy minis [or get them as gifts? - my son bought me one of the buildings one Christmas...] ) and get around to doing a well-made display with them.  The woman who sells them has a display at shows that is an entire hillside covered with trees and all the buildings she sells and all lit up - it's wonderful to see!  But here's this year's sloppy one:

This is looking into the living room of the upstairs apartment in my fabric store.

And these two very poor quality pictures show how the poor people living there are going to be falling off the cliff soon.  But at least you can see the lights shining out the windows!

Since I've moved into the condo, I've not had a Christmas tree but I decorate a little each year.  I didn't take pictures of everything but I did take pictures of my hallway cause I've been enjoying having my poster hanging there so much and once I put various pieces of Christmas stuff there, I'm enjoying it even more.  My nativity set is Hummel that I bought (thinking, thinking) 48 years ago!!!  That was when I had graduated from high school and got a job and an apartment in Chicago and had a wonderful year and a half of being a 'career' girl before I married.  The big angel in that arrangement is one my sister gave me one year and I think this is my favorite of all the various places I've placed it over the years.

The one on the left is looking down the hall towards the bedroom and the one on the right is looking down the hall towards the living room.  In the "real" the lights aren't glaring, of course, and it's just real nice and cozy looking.  I took the pictures so next year I can remember what I did!

And below is the nativity and angel...

The angel is large and in the photo the nativity looks tiny, but those figures are really around 6" high and don't look "threatened" by the angel. 

I like having this much stuff on these two windowsills cause I never open the blinds and I think it's adding a lot of interest to my little hallway, so I may keep them a little more cluttered when it's not Christmas.

My next entry will hopefully be to record at least a little progress on the kitchen scene.  Although I'm going to have to start wrapping presents one of these days too.

Oh My Gosh!! I've Started a New Miniature Project!

And either I'm in an ordinary "up" state of mind or the new project has me kind of hepped up.

I've not written anything about dollhouses and miniatures yet cause I've not been involved with them at all basically since I moved into the condo three years ago.  But up until then they had been pretty much my main passion since probably around 1992 or 1993.  Built dollhouses, collected  miniatures, went to miniature shows, the whole thing.  Subscribed to the magazines, joined clubs, even went to conventions.  It's a wonderful passion because anything you like to do in "real life" you can learn to do in miniature - cross stitch, needlepoint, quilting and interior decorating in my case.

Anyway, enough history.  During those years, I collected a lot of stuff and it now sits in plastic boxes in my closet.  One bit of stuff was a little stove I bought at a miniature show.  It's in 1//2" scale (smaller than the normal dollhouse scale of 1 inch = 1 foot).   It's a Roper style stove that started life as a refrigerator magnet but the woman I bought it from turned it into a delightful miniature.

 I built a half inch scale house  but it didn't work in the kitchen in that house so it has been waiting patiently for a home and I found one!

I was at Big Lots looking for cheap picture frames and there was a shadow box type frame that spoke to me.  It basically said "I think I would work pretty well for a little kitchen scene with that little stove you have" and I thought "I think you may be right."  So I bought it.

That was right before Thanksgiving and once I got back home I decided to figure out what to do with it.  Decided first of all that it had to be deeper so that's what I'm working on right now - extending the depth with sheets of balsa wood.




So, not too much to report yet.  I'll need to get busy and start choosing what wallpaper and flooring I want to use and also make a "dropped" ceiling so I can have some hidden lighting.  After I get those things done, it will just be a matter of getting everything arranged and there I'll be with a new mini!