Gimme Shelter/ Closer To Fine

You know, I have always loved working in the Gabby House. I get out there and I turn on talk radio or HGTV, and just immerse myself in my little world of miniatures. I have my tools out there, materials, and even the phone. Sometimes the cat(s)cruise on in, the dog hangs out on the floor, or just outside the door, and all is well.

It sounds idyllic, doesn't it? It is...from about the end of April until the end of September. Then it starts to get a little colder...I have to leave the(electric ) heater on all the time. I have to put a coat on to go out to the GH, and then, then(!) when it's 20* and snowing...or has snowed...I hafta practically get a snowsuit on, and wear boots to get out there. And then I get out there and I have forgotten to bring something out, or turn something off in the house...and I hafta go back??? FOR--GET IT!!!!!!! Who the *bleep* wants to go outside in the middle of an ice or snowstorm???

For the past three weeks I have been looking into buying another house. My present house has about 1400 sq.ft, really perfect for lil ole me...or at least it prolly would be if I didn't have three cats, a dog, a couple of hobbies ( non-sport trading cards, dollhouse/minis, and African violets on plant stands ) that all take up about another 500 sq. feet! That's why the GH has come in so handy for the trading cards and mini stuff. But as I've said, it's a pain sometimes to go out there; I want everything to be in the same place,so that I don't have to get all ponied up to go do my hobbies! It's actually only about 40 steps from my back door, out to the GH, but the ground around the pool is uneven, and slippery when there's ice on the concrete.

I'll prolly stay in Framingham, because I like it here.

Next time I'll have photos of the birdhouse-house, I hope. I did finish the furniture, but I didn't begin to paint the outside of the house. I did play with paint however, and you shall see the results of that too!

Long Time Gone

Hiya. I am alive and kickin', in case you were wondering. My sister has been here visiting from Indiana since Monday. She likes minis too,and has quite a collection; no place to put them, however (as in a dollhouse.) Although she prolly won't ever build or even decorate a whole dollhouse, I think I may have her convinced to try a room box. Maybe someday.

Yesterday we took a trip to Dollhouse Treasures in Braintree, which is about an hours drive from here. I usually keep my spending somewhat under control when I go there, but they have a lot of cute, gotta-have stuff there, so I always manage to put a smile on the lady's face when I go, if you know what I mean. I think my sister kicked in quite a few bucks for her own little finds, too.

I don't have any photos of recent work, because there has been no recent work! However, I have included a guest appearance from Max the cat in his zen position (his favorite)

Tomorrow I finish up the birdhouse-house furniture, and maybe begin painting the outside.

She Has Funny Cars

I went into Toys-R-Us to get a game the other day. While I was in there, I decided to look for a small doll that would go in the bird house-house. I was kind of thinking of Polly Pocket.

Although I had only noticed it once or twice before, I just was always a little fascinated with her 'genre'. I think I had even bought my daughter a Polly Pocket something few years ago, prolly cause I thought it was cute. I don't think she was thrilled with it; she wasn't ever much into dolls. She had horse fever and instead of people dolls, she had horse 'dolls.' LOL!

Now see, If I had known then that I was into minatures and the like, I would have kept that little Polly Pocket myself. As it was, it took me a few more years before I found this wonderful hobby, and DD's Polly Pocket is long gone.

When I started the Birdhouse-house rehab, I knew I would have a difficult time with ascertaining what scale to go for. 1" was definitely out; 1/2 scale was, too. 1/144 was waaay too small. That's actually why I've been making all the furniture; there is no official scale size that can go in it.

Back To Polly Pocket. I didn't know if she would fit in with the furnishings and non-scale scale, but she only cost $2.99 and came with a cute little car. I tried her out in the house, and she seems to like it. The toilet is a little big for her, but if she hangs on, she won't fall in. (I worry about things like that.)

As for Polly Pocket, man that is one confusing group of dolls. There are two sizes of Polly Pocket dolls...one about 1 1/2" and then there are the 3" ones. There are about a zillion ka billion different ones, the little ones have cars, the bigger ones are more into fashion and come with clothes. I love to read up about fun little things like that, but the Polly Pocket website is really just set up for little kids to play games. Oh well, at least I now have a human who will dwell in the birdhouse house, along with a couple of non-humans.

If You Were a Carpenter

Well,I'm not. A carpenter, I mean. I have made all the furniture for the birdhouse-house, though! Look, I don't mind buying furniture for my Addams Family house, (1"scale) and I have a 1/2" scale project for which I will be buying most of the furniture, but I think it's kind of fun to make stuff, too.

At this point in my miniaturist 'career', I pretty much stick with cardboard when I make my furniture. I seem to be cutting up a lot of small cardboard boxes because pretty much everything I've made has been square. The little square boxes already have straight, square corners, and that's a good thing when you're trying to make furniture that looks halfway convincing!

Today I 'made' my visiting son and his friend come look at my dollhouses. I am just so proud of myself for my accomplishments in this hobby; I just had to show off. When they saw the Addams family house, they thought that was cool, but while my friend's son was looking at the birdhouse house, I saw a look in his eye-just for a second, but it was definitely a look of wonder at the tiny little things he was looking at. Now I ask you , how can anybody not have a look of wonder on their faces when they see a mini scene, (especially one much more sophisticated and more highly detailed than mine?)

Paint it, Black

That's what I'm doing, painting all the nosing for the Newport, black. I've been painting all daaay, it seems! ( Today's Labor Day. How appropriate.) I don't really mind, though, because when I look at the few pieces I have put up already, it really streamlines the house; makes it look finished, or at least more-so than without it! (Gee,that was a really long sentence, wasn't it?)

OK, now it's two days later. I have finished painting, as well as putting all the nosing up around the outside of the house. Next, for the outside, I have to think about how I'm going to install the brackets, as well as the railings around the porch areas. I'm pretty sure I'm going to abandon the railing idea. Instead, to keep the creepy mood going, I think I'll prolly get some creepy looking 'wrought iron' fencing to put up along the edges. One of the Addams family movies had that kind of fencing, and since this house needs a parapet of some sort, I think I'll go see what I can find to use. Oh, it'll be creepy, for sure.

Stuck On You

I put the walls up. Yeppers, I did. That's what all the laughing in my last post was about...I bet you thought I'd put it off again, huh? but no, once I got that paper mache stuff going, and had slapped a bunch on the castle, I realized that IT WAS TIME!!! I am so proud of myself.

Now I have to put the roof tops on, but first I have to paint them, because the underside of the roofs are going to be the ceilings of the third floor, and so I have to paint all that stuff before I glue them down.

I think the paper mache as mortar was a good idea. That stuff dries hard as a rock...in fact, here's a photo of a rock I made out of paper clay a couple of years ago. See? hard as a rock! ( The official name of the paper mache stuff I use is Celluclay. )

Monster Mash

Arrrgggh, me MON-STOR HAND, and me been playing in paper mache paper clay...(not to be confused with the white Creative Paperclay)

Honestly, it just started out as an idea. I mentioned in my last post that I was partly afraid of gluing the third floor walls down because there were a couple of gaps between the walls,(and they weren't going to able to be fixed with a little spackle, either.) We're talkin' MAJOR gaps. I needed thick, clumpy, heavy-duty-gap- filler for these babies! So, I got to thinking. I had some of that paper mache cellulose stuff hanging around from when I was in my paper mache phase (that lasted about 2 weeks.) Would that work? If I mixed some Aleen's in with it, and used it as mortar?

I also had another idea concerning the paper mache. The little Fisher-Price castle I was (thinking about) working on has some gaps where windows open, or the cannon rolls out, etc, and I wanted to close them permanently. I figured the grey color of the paper mache would blend right in with the grey color of the plastic walls, so had been thinking of trying that theory out.

Well, today I got me a big old bowl, put some water in it, and then added the paper mache cellulose. (cough cough) Man that stuff is dusty, so be careful. Seriously, I took precautions not to breathe it.

And then I began to play. I was just going to fill in the little seams in the walls on the castle, smooth it out, and go on with other projects...but instead, I realized that although I could just use the paper mache to just seal all the seams up, and then paint it to look like vines climbing up the walls of the castle...I just couldn't stop putting it on the walls. The plastic walls look like stone blocks, and would have been fine if I had stuck to my original plan, but it looked even better where I had smoothed on the paper clay. And so I continued. This is as far as I've gotten. Tomorrow means a trip to A.C. Moore.

Of course, do you see what's really going on, here? The walls of the Newport. I got all that 'mortar' ready, and then used it on the castle instead of on the main project! Or, wait. Did I? let's see next time...on Mini Mumble! hahahahaha