Never Boring At My House!

Here I am with another project that may seem out of the blue, and on top of that, it's one that I can't talk too much about for a few weeks! I know, I know! Then why even tease you?!? Well, because, when I don't post anything I get lonely for you! So indulge me for the next few weeks and then I promise I'll get back to the bakery and back to laying all of my cards on the table...

Without giving much explanation, I can say that I have been changing gears and working on a couple small side projects. Not the southwest/Spanish style patio project - it is finished and I'll have a post about that later this week. This is a whole other commitment I made around the beginning of the year.

For this one, I started off with vintage The Daisy House Hall Table w/Mirror kits, and, making a few minor modifications, turned them into bathroom vanity sink units. I added a full shelf to the bottom and made new deeper stained wooden countertops to accommodate a sink and faucet. Adding the mirrors will be one of the last things I do as it is safer that way!

Each will have a different overall theme, and so accordingly, the accessories will be made up of supporting color schemes. Think eucalyptus and lavender. Below are the candle sets for each, and the candle and pillar tutorial can be found on the tutorials page or in the March/April issue of American Miniaturist.

What am I going to do with them? Well... I can tell you part of the story...

A lot of you know that Russ is a contractor. That means that we experience a lot of Feast or Famine depending on the work situation. Our married life has been sprinkled with a few very scary times, especially in the younger years when we often did not have two dimes to rub together or much food in the cupboard. I remember a time when our kids were really little. Russ had to have surgery and so was out of work for about six weeks. We were struggling to make ends meet and our grocery budget was dismal. In our mail box one day was a grocery store gift certificate for $25 and the name of a local food bank. I did not know our tiny town even had a food bank! The angel who sent us that help touched us in such an amazing way. It was an anonymous gift, but we knew who it was from. They were a young couple, too, and they had three kids! And yet they shared what they could with us. That amazing gesture opened up our minds and hearts to the idea of giving whenever you are able to give. This is why Russ and I support our local food bank and I encourage you, if you are among the lucky in these times, to donate food or money to yours. A little can go a long way!

When the vanity sets are finished, I'll hold a drawing for one of them. All you have to do to enter is to donate to your local food bank. If you are among the folks relying on the food bank to help you through this time, all you have to do is agree to one day, when times are better, pay it forward. More details to follow...

In the meantime, I am going to continue to make accessories for the vanity sets until I run out of materials or ideas. In digging through drawers to come up with ideas, I came across these! Looks like no boredom is in the cards for me!

And just so you know that I am serious about getting back to the bakery, I have ordered three cake kits from Stewart Dollhouse Creations! I imagine the learning curve will be a sharp one, but hopefully, you'll be here to laugh (or cry) with me through the process!

Stay safe and get busy making!

xo xo,
Jodi

New Orleans Walls + Floors + Fixtures

The next chapter for this ol' New Orleans kit was preparing the interior divider walls for installation. I needed to come up with some wainscoting for the bedroom walls. I wanted something a little more detailed than the simple bead board I used in the stairway hall. What material do I have? How thick and wide should the trim be? Is this going to impact the next steps and if so what adjustments to the design or materials do I need to make? How will this meet the next wall and will the trims work nicely together? Luckily, I was able to find suitable materials, and even more luckily, I didn’t make a mistake and leave myself short like the stairwell boards, which hopefully, have been camouflaged enough that it won't be noticeable.

Once I had the basic design and confirmed I had enough materials, the rest was pretty straightforward and methodical. I made panels for each section of the bedroom walls from 1/16" basswood, then made a frame overlay using 1/16" x 1/4" wood strips. The bottoms got 1/16" x 1/2" so they'll make perfect sized bases for the baseboards, which will be installed last. To the centers I added fancy Greenleaf door popout panels (leftover from the flower shop projects) and more Unique Miniatures embellishments.

I constructed the basic boxes for the built ins on either side of the balcony door, then gave the right one "doors" using Houseworks wainscot panels and the left one faux drawers with more UM embellishment frames.

Here's the test fit with tops made on the built ins. I am still debating about shelves for the left side, and have since painted what will be inside the built in recess the teal wall color (in a later photo). I also installed the hardware, gold to match the chandelier to be installed later, and the door handles. I won't install the wainscot top cap or the doors until after the walls have been installed.

Once the bedroom walls had been finished as far as I could go I switched my attention to the bathroom walls. I cut the faux brick subway tile wall panels and wainscot trim, then set up the back wall and side wall on my cutting mat to test the fit. Once I was happy, I hand painted the tile panels with white chalk paint three times, sanding really smooth in between. Then, on three consecutive days, I layered on the triple thick spray glaze to get a nice tile shine. I won't install the panels to the walls until they've had several more days to cure.

I've been saving an idea for the cabinets and sink for a long time, and am excited to finally be getting to work on it. I have a Town Square dining room hutch set and I'll be using the two side pieces from that for the cupboards, one on each side. The Bespaq dresser will be turned into the vanity sink.

They all need to be painted and customized, so against all common sense, I took them apart. What we won't do for an idea!!! On the cupboards, I removed the mirrored backs, glass door inserts and the glass shelves, loosening the glue with my hair dryer. For such nice pieces, the glue job was truly sloppy. It took a long, patient while to carefully remove the glue from everything and sand smooth again.

For the vanity sink, I removed all the drawers and doors, then loosened the top with more heat and a gentle force. Because the piece's countertop is already at 3", I decided on an undermount sink. I cut and sanded the hole, checking all along the way for fit and center. I am going to attempt a faux marble top like I did on some of the vanities I experimented with last year. The sink, a bisque bowl, will be painted white and then get the triple thick glaze sprayed on in several layers. I'll add the drain as I did with last year's vanities, too.

For the bathtub, I am using yet another Chrysnbon bathroom kit, though I have a different toilet to use this time. I have not found a suitable alternative bathtub in style, authenticity or price since I began collecting for this project in 2016. I played with the idea of a shower, but every mock up made the bathroom close in on itself, and to place a tub/shower in the back meant losing the closet and the vanity impact - viewing it from the side just would't look as lovely. So I will place the Chrysnbon tub in for now, and keep replacement options open in the future. Kristine - please design and offer a fabulous tub in your Shapeways shop, will you? My little TinkerCad program is way too limited for something that curvy!

All of the bathroom pieces are getting sprayed with black satin. I have the first couple coats finished and drying, but this time of year have to take things slowly. It's been a cold and wet week!

The last big project for the second story is the flooring. I made the template for the areas getting Houseworks walnut wood flooring, same as what I used on the first floor, and then got that installed with the stinky Quick Grip. I like using that better than E6000 for the flooring because you only need to apply it to one side, which makes it easier to adjust if your first lay down attempt isn't perfectly aligned.

I'm adding tiles to the bathroom floor as I get a few minutes to work on it, but I can tell you my tile job is not going to be perfect. I guess since it's my first time with this stuff I'll give myself a break and hope the really noticeable mistakes will be under the fixtures!

Some experienced mini builders may have noticed or wondered why there will be wood floors under the walls. I'll have the answer, and hopefully, an ingenious  alternative to those annoying and unrealistically out of scale thresholds on dollhouse doors in my next post.

Hope you have a wonderfully fulfilling week!

xo xo,
Jodi

Good Works

Hello dear friends! I hope all of you are well and that those celebrating Mother's Day had a lovely one to remember! Just getting to be the mom of my two amazing kids would have been enough for me, but Natasha (33 in July), and Ande (31 in July), went out of their way to make sure I felt loved and appreciated!

Ande came by for a hug (the first one I've gotten from him since social distancing started) and brought these beautiful roses, gourmet cinnamon bears from Tacoma Brothers (a wonderful local grocery store), and let me keep my grandpuppy Rosie overnight.

My daughter Natasha, who is known to spoil me rotten, got me a 3D printer! The learning curve is going to require a lot of trial and patience, but I am so excited to get started actually printing my own miniature designs in the future! What thoughtful people my incredible kids have become! There is no gift greater than that!

When I last posted about the vanities, I had found a silicone mold making kit in my "someday" stash. I had a lot of fun working with the stuff and got great results with almost everything I tried!

The process is simple enough: Mix equal parts of an "A" and "B" liquid substance, place your model into a container, pour the combined mixture over the piece you want to mold (pot life 50 mins). and wait about 4 hours to demold. I used a couple Unique and Falcon Miniatures pieces that I had to experiment with.

The mold will end up the size and shape of the container you used to hold the model, so it is good to have one close in size to the item you are molding. It is recommended that you fill the silicone about 1/2" above the piece you are molding so that it is strong enough to handle many future casts. I used cheap dollar store plastic storage tubs as my model holder and they were wonderful! I need a little practice on my level filling skills, but it was easy enough to clean up the opening with my Xacto knife after the mold had cured.

I cast many brackets using the leftover colored resin from the tiny product bottles I was making. This is great because one of these brackets alone costs around $5. If you need a lot of them in a build, molding and casting is the way to go! With a coat of gesso and then paint you'll never know there is colored resin beneath. The detail is amazing!

Speaking of product bottles, I made a mold for those, as well. The mold has 5 bottles in three sizes.

I experimented with different mediums to color the resin including alcohol ink, chalk and paint as I have always done. But just to broaden my horizons, I'll be ordering a set of mica powders to try the next time I do resin work. The chalk was pretty good, but the paint and alcohol ink were difficult to get the exact color I was after. In order to achieve lavender I had to mix red and blue inks. If I'd had a purple it would have been easier to achieve, The mottled ones below were a combo of chalk with a little white acrylic paint mixed in. It took a lot longer to cure and not all of the bubbles came out. If you're going for a scrubbing body wash or a bubble bath this can work in your favor!

One mold did not work well at all. In fact, I broke the model piece just trying to remove it from the mold. This type of intricate and thin model may require a mold release agent, which I did not try this time. I think I can still use the mold, however, if it is in a setting where I want the detail to look as though it is old and has seen many layers of paint over the years.

These are what I ended up with the first time through with the bottle mold and colored resin. Not perfect, but not bad. I have some ideas to try out which I believe will perfect the method, and I will keep you posted! I found and ordered better bottle tops from Bindle's, too, so that should help the overall appearance to be more authentic. I need to improve the scale of the labels, too. Maybe use slide decals instead.

While I had the resin out, I took the opportunity to use the excess resin in an Architectural Flourishes mold I picked up from AlphaStamps a while back. These came out beautifully, and it makes me want to do a small project just to use them!

Now let's get to the other accessories for the vanity sets. You remember the candles and pillars (tutorial here)...

I also made baskets based on Casey's Very Easy Basket Tutorial, only adding some 1/16" silk ribbon to the top and bottom and painting in coordinating colors.

And filled them with towels I made up and printed on fabric. Here are the towels and rugs for you to use if you like.

Then I was on to the arrangements for the vases that will sit on the vanity countertops. I made eucalyptus branches from an SDK kit and lavender based on the We Love Miniatures tutorial on YouTube. I had enough left over to make up some heart shaped grapevine wreath hangings, too.

Next I made some framed art with the eucalyptus and lavender theme using free art found on the internet. I used the Cricut to make matting and back covers, then painted 1-3/16" x 1-7/16" frames in coordinating colors. Here's the art if you'd like it, too.

In looking at the vessel sink height, I decided to raise up the faucet unit by adding a booster piece beneath. Now the faucets are at a much better height to function. I finally added the mirror material too!

The sink itself is a bisque bowl painted and then given a gloss coat. For the illusion of the drain, I use a flat washer topped with a round nail head stud. This is supposed to look like the more modern 'push to toggle open and closed' type of drain plug.

Now it's back to work on the product bottles to see if I can make them better. I'll be back soon with the perfected vanity and accessories for the giveaway! In the meantime, I encourage you to see what ways you can help those in your communities. Food banks are great, making masks is great, or even bringing a batch of homemade cookies down to your local fire station. It'll make a difference, I promise! And it'll make you feel so good!

xo xo,
Jodi