Mom's Beach Cottage Lamp

This project was the kit from the 2013 HBS Creatin' Contest - the Charming Cottage. I had just finished the fishing cabin/lamp for my dad, so I decided to make mom's a lamp, too!

Mom loves purple, so I just went for it! Her bedroom is all antique furniture, doilies, perfume bottles, lace and flower arrangements so the purple house fits in nicely!

I kit bashed a few items to make the fridge, sink stove, and counter island. I made the stools from scrap lumber (I always have scrap lumber).

Next time I'm at mom's I'll take some additional photos. The wiring for the lamp runs inside the chimney. I bought the parts for the lamp on Amazon for around $16. I made the chimney structure out of basswood and then clad it with magic brik.

Loose Ends, Cliffhangers & Mini Project Plans...

This fall has gone by lightning fast and it feels like I had so many things going that I need to follow up on all of the loose ends and cliffhangers I left you with! Well... I guess "cliffhangers" is a strong word. It's not like you've been waiting to find out if Stefano came back from the dead (again)! But I bet you are wondering what I got in the swap! With so much left in limbo, I'll break them down into categories to help me keep my mind straight.

Family Room & Kitchen Renos

It feels great to have the family room and kitchen rejuvenated! I didn't realize just how much a lighter color would brighten up the rooms, even as we head into dreary, gray winter here in the Pacific Northwest. But even when the sun is hiding behind the thick layer of rain clouds, it still feels jovial inside!

The only things left on the To Do list are to replace a faulty 220 plug for the oven , recover the family room chairs and make some art for above the sofa. Since we are not hosting any of the holidays this year, there's no hurry to get the chairs done, and the oven still works - it just needs to be pulled out from the wall a little to straighten the cord. We wouldn't be true procrastinators if we didn't leave something on the list! Maybe January? :O)

Grandma's Hutch Makeover & Future Project

Grandma's hutch came out great - I love the serenity blue with the sage wall color, and the antiquing wax really highlights the molded details! I want to fill the shelves in the upper glass portion with miniature scenes. Marilyn suggested I make and display mini kitchens that were special to me growing up. Excellent idea, Marilyn! My grandma's kitchen was my first thought, and it's funny - I had been collecting ideas and making plans to do this for years! What a perfect place to have it displayed!

My grandma's kitchen was always active, full of family (she had seven kids) and smelling like some sort of great food or baked goods were about to be served! But by no means was it fancy. It had metal cabinets and a sink unit right out of the Youngstown catalog from the 1950's, red Formica counter tops and actual rooster contact paper on the walls in lieu of wallpaper. But boy was there a lot of love in that kitchen, and a lifetime of memories for our family! Grandma passed in 1998 but she's still in everything we do.

Here's a photo with grandma, my aunt Carol Jean and my little cousins, Teddy and Jimmy. It must have been March because Jimmy is enjoying the birthday cake grandma made. She made some spectacular cakes for all the kids over the years! See the cabinet above the stove on the left? That's not grime, it's where the paint on the metal cabinet had been scrubbed away over the years!

Here's another with the same crew sitting at the table. There was a leaf that could be added to the table, but just imagine seven kids, then later all their spouses and kids, cramming into such a tiny space! Holidays were wall to wall love, literally!

In this photo with my aunt Amy Jo and her two kids Camryn and Kyler, you can see more of the back kitchen wall. The window was east facing, so memories of  early morning sunlight and grandma singing along to country music on the radio fills my heart.

Here's one with Amy's best friend Colleen. Though she wasn't related by blood, she was part of the family! It's a good photo of the sink area and the back door to the built in porch.

I found a couple brand new rolls of the exact contact paper on Etsy a couple years ago. I made memory boxes and covered them with it for my mom, aunt and uncle, but I have lots left. I can scan it into the computer and shrink it down to scale for my mini version.

I've requested more kitchen photos from the family and am going through all my old albums and boxes of photos. Hopefully, I can begin to put all of the pieces and details together enough to make a plan. The hutch shelf is only 10" deep, so one wall will have to be eliminated. I hope to start on the project sometime in 2020.

Instagram Christmas Swap Gifts

I've shown you the gifts I made for my swap recipients, but now I get to share what I got! My first gift came all the way from Sirpa in Finland! One of the best parts to this swap was getting to meet new miniature enthusiasts from around the world! The ones I already knew, I know much better now! Sirpa's Instagram handle is @sirpa_sainio.

Her gifts could not have been more perfect! In addition to an array of generous materials to get creative with, she also made an incredibly adorable suitcase loaded with Christmas presents, a pair of charming little gnomes and a rug that she actually made on a miniature loom! The details are just precious, and I am excited to play with them in my gingerbread cottage, The Sweet Christmas Cottage.

Thank you so much, Sirpa! I will treasure your incredible handmade minis and make great use of the supplies in future projects!

My second gift came from another country, as well, but this time a little closer to home - Chrystine in Montreal. Her Instagram handle is @vintageinmontreal.

Chrystine wove for me the most amazing and intricate basket!!! It's incredibly detailed and perfect in every way! She only began making minis in April of this year, but I think she is someone you are going to hear a lot about in the future! This is going to be an amazing piece to display in my current project (which I'll talk about later).

Thank you Chrystine! I LOVE it!

If you want to see all of the participants, what we made and received, and what we all look like, just search the hashtag #christmasminiswap2019.

Linfield To Adobe Kit Bash

So on December 1st I got to crack open the Linfield kit. It was never opened. In fact, it still had the rusty industrial staples holding the lid closed!

I opened it up to make sure I had all the parts. These DuraCraft kits included everything - the shingles, the trims and moldings, Magic Brik river rock tape and mortar and even the wooden flooring strips! It also included a VHS tape with helpful instructions! I just happen to have a VHS player.

It's a really special kit. When I got to all of the trims, I saw that they were actually wonderfully milled with dovetailed joins! I realized that for me to lob off roofs and flatten out bay windows on a kit like this would be a travesty. I carefully returned everything to the box and put it back into inventory. Looks like I have a frilly Victorian in my future, and that I'll be looking for a Plan B on the adobe structure. I also remembered that all of my ideas aren't necessarily good ones. Ah, well. Such is life...

Instead, A New Project

But not to be thwarted from the thrill of a new project, the smell of fresh plywood and a swarm of tiny slivers, I cracked open a different kit! For me, idle hands are not a healthy thing, so my mind and craft table are never clear for very long. This alternate kit will house another 'Must Do Before I Die' dream that's been in the works since April of 2016. That's when I bought the kit, anyway. The plan for this project has been brewing long before I let myself buy the kit. I've been enamored with it since around 2002!

But what is the kit and what are the plans for it? I'm going to leave you with another cliffhanger here and only tell you the name of the shop and a peek at the early progress.

Welcome to Pound Cake...

Can you guess the kit? I'll share all of the fresh baked gossip in my next post!

xo xo,
Jodi

A Little About Brick Options...

When it comes to brick options, there is a whole world out there beyond the egg carton kind. The ones I am using on the 2016 Creatin' Contest build seem a little less labor intensive than the egg carton version (used for the fireplace), and I am really having fun with the variety! There are great options out there for every budget!

The type of "brick" I saw and wanted to use as flooring is a product by MBS, or Model Builders Supply. I linked to their web site so that you can take a look at all of the wonderful products they have, but many miniature stores and suppliers carry a variety of their products, as well. Mine is called Interlocking Stone, and comes in a brick red color. I purchased mine through an eBay seller. The great thing about this type of brick is that it comes in a 14" x 24" plastic sheet and can be grouted and painted. I will also likely use it on the patio (unless something more fun makes itself known). 

It was so easy to cut it to size - I just scored the line and it snapped off perfectly! Grouting it was also a dream. I just used spackle and my finger to squish it in, let it set up overnight, then wiped away the excess.

It comes with a sheet of detailed instructions and gives great tips on painting and washes. I chose a brown wash and am still working on the layers to get the desired effect.

The next type of brick I wanted to throw into the mix is a Patio Brick Sheet by Houseworks. They are available from Miniatures.com and measure 6-1/8" x 12-1/8". Each little brick is 3/8" square and 3/32" thick. They come attached to a plastic mesh backing to make for faster and more accurate installation. Instead of using them as flooring, I thought they would make a great kitchen tile! I attached them using Tacky Glue and then used the spackle again as the grout. They were pretty easy to cut - just score several times and then use pliers next to the score and snap off. I applied the same wash on them as the floor.

That brings me to the next type of brick. I wanted something quicker for the inside walls. As long as it took to do the fireplace, I was afraid egg carton bricking the walls would take forever! There is a deadline, people! I tried Magic Systems Magic Masonry Brik on a project waaaayyyy back in 2002. I really enjoyed the stuff - and have since used the Slat and Ston versions (I have not misspelled them, they really are spelled that way on the packaging).

It comes with a roll (or two if you buy the larger kit) of stickers and dry grout/mortar mix in brick red or a gray-ish white. You can use the package as a mixing bowl for the dry mortar - just add water until it is akin to frosting. I like to mix mine in a Rubbermaid container because it stays moist for a long time. If it becomes too dry while you store it, no problem! Just add water and it reconstitutes! 

The first step to the process is to paint your background color. This becomes the grout. I chose white because I knew I was adding washes later and this was a perfect starting color. I let my "grout" dry for a couple of days. The next step is to apply the sticker to the wall. I started at the base of the wall and worked my way up overlapping consecutive rows by one brick to maintain the pattern.

One note on the sticker roll. Because of my past experience with the stickers, I have found it less frustrating to remove the "waste" part of the sticker prior to attempting to peel it from the slippery backing and apply it to the walls. Why? Because not every "waste" brick wants to kindly peel away from the "good" sticker. It is difficult to stop in mid-stick to remove the pesky "waste" and it's even more difficult trying to remove them once you have the sticker applied nicely to the wall. Trust me - take a few minutes and remove them first!

For the mortar mix, I grabbed a few tools I thought I might need to do the job. I ended up really only using the large putty knife. You can give texture to the mortar if you wish, but on the small Brik it didn't seem necessary. If I was doing a Slat kit I would have definitely done some texturing. It does spread very much like frosting and is ready to have the sticker pulled away after about 5 minutes. I did mine all at once and it worked out very well. It is messy, though (or is it just me?), so have your trash receptacle handy.

The mortar does lighten up a bit when it is dry. The color might be perfect for those of you who are going for Brick Red, but you can see that it does not match the warm color pallet I'm going for here. No worries! I learned while using the Slat on the Tuscan Villa and the Ston on Encounters that it takes very well to paint and color washes. Tip: If your grout is dark, you don't even really need to be all that careful! My white grout called for a little patience. I put a little squirt of paint into the bottom of several dixie cups and added water. I dipped the tip of the paint brush into the paint/water mixture and by just touching the tip of the brush to the brick it gave me the color variation I was after.

After that it was just a matter of applying the color wash. To keep the same tone, I used the Burnt Umber wash that I had used on the fireplace and the floor. I used it on the kitchen tile brick, too! Overall, I really like the way it turned out - subtle, textural and most important for Little Pigs trying to be protected from the Deadly Hot Air spewed by the lungs of Big Bad Wolves: Brick!

A couple more washes and I can move on to the next phase which involves a rip saw, a scroll saw, faux walls and lighting. Wish me luck!

For today, though, I will just bask in all of the juicy posts I missed the over the last few weeks of work! Yippee!