Sleeping Dreams Do Awaken...

Around five years ago I became obsessed with ideas for doing a beach house. If you've been doing minis for any length of time, I am sure a beach-y style house has made it onto your bucket list, too. At that time, I purchased the Real Good Toys Beachside Bungalow kit from Hobby Lobby, on sale, and then used the 40% off coupon. I began making elaborate plans. I made renderings in my design program, designed a complete kitchen and then ordered it in kit form from Elf Miniatures. I began collecting beach themed minis, designed and had my own fabrics and wallpaper printed from Spoonflower, and then like a lot of my "on fire" plans, it got circumvented by another idea. In 2019 I ended up using the Elf kitchen cabinet kits and appliances in the New Orleans kitchen. The Beachside Bungalow kit, still new in the box, sat on my shelf waiting for it's turn.

Kit photo, front.

I had no plans to begin on it any time soon. In fact, many times I wondered if I should just sell the kit to make room for newer dreams. And then, it happened. As I was reaching the end of Tasha's kitchen I began to get a little itchy. What was I going to do after that project? I have Pound Cake and the Storybook Cottage in process, but neither of those projects was speaking to me. Suddenly, I came across a photo of a completed Beachside Bungalow and my mind exploded with ideas. None of them involved the old fabrics, wallpaper, color scheme or layout that I had planned for the first time. In fact, my new ideas were a radical departure from any of those plans. As usually happens when I become obsessed with a new idea, I gave my craft rooms a deep clean, got Tasha's Kitchen tidied up and safely stowed, and then cracked open the Beachside Bungalow kit.

Kit photo, inside.

There are so many finished Beachside Bungalows - I think it must be one of the most popular dollhouses among miniaturists at all skill levels. It is so much fun to look at photos and see the wildly diverse visions people have had for the kit. And it seemed like a huge (and fun) challenge to come up with ways to make it singularly unique. That is what I have set out to do - incorporate innovative ideas while keeping to the original footprint of the kit and while trying to use all it's components in creative ways. I am also going to try to use the majority of supplies, furnishings and accessories from my own stash. It could get very funky! I'm going to chronicle the progress here, but in keeping with my usual weird order of operations, will deviate from the instructions here and there. I'm not trying to be a rebel, I am just always thinking of how to make things easier on myself!

Original kitchen cabinet design.

Enough with the long winded justifications. Let me tell you where I started...

I cracked open the kit, read the instructions, checked off all the components, and then kind of stuck to the instructions for the first couple pages. That involved gluing the foundation, assembling the porch posts and attaching the porch floor to the foundation. 

I scribed boards into the porch floor using my poor metal file set. Did you know that metal files were meant only to be used to file in one direction? Me neither. Until I wondered why mine were so dull. Then I did a Google search of how long cheap metal files are supposed to last. The answer was a long time, apparently, as long as you use them correctly. Which I have neglected to do, resulting in them being pretty dull. So this old Harbor Freight set is now dedicated to tasks where they will be abused. The new set will be saved for metal and will be used properly. I swear!

I taped a 1/2" board to the porch floor to use as my scribing guide. Once I had a pretty good line scribed in with a pointy file, I removed the board and then deepened/widened the gouge with a triangular and rounded file. The I cleaned it up further with sandpaper. The ending depth is about 1/16". I followed this procedure all the way across the board. Then I added in the vertical lines every 6".

Then I primed, sanded, painted light blue (a couple coats) and sanded again.

Speaking of colors, here are the color chips I think I have settled on for the project. They compliment the scrapbook stack I'd like to use for wallpaper and patterns in the project.

For the porch posts, I thought it would be fun to try making stack stone with cork. I've seen some great examples of this method - in fact, Kristine from Paper Doll Miniatures has a great tutorial. Below was my inspiration photo, and here is the cork I purchased. It is about 1/8" thick and worked really nicely. I cut 1/4" strips, using a piece of basswood as a guide. Then, I just cut the lengths and gouged and roughed the individual stones up as I applied them. I attached with hot glue because I did not want to wait for glue to dry. Or babysit to make sure the stone stayed where I put it while the glue dried. I think hot glue gets a bad rap but I love it in the right circumstance!

Here I have painted the stones. At this stage they look a little cartoon-y and one dimensional.

Here, the first wash has been added to the post on the left. It tones down the paint, adds dimension and begins to look more like real stone.

Here are the colors and glazing medium I used. I wet a sponge with water, squeeze most of the water out, dip in a couple light paint colors on various spots on the sponge, then pick up some of the glazing medium on the sponge. Then I just pounce it on the stones until I like the look. I kept going with this process a few times until they looked "finished".

Here they are on the porch foundation. Not attached yet. Just in place so that I could get the lattice and trim attached. The lattice was something I had originally planned for the first time I planned for this project. This time I decided to stain it rather than paint. I am seriously rethinking the blue porch floor, though. Maybe a light gray would be a more cohesive look with the stone? I'll live with it while I get the walls in dry fit, and then decide.

Anyway, I hope this will be an interesting project for you to follow along with. I may post some progress over on Instagram and Facebook, too. It'll be weird after Tasha's Kitchen to not keep my project secret this time!

xo xo,

Jodi

P.S. Our final Pfizer shots went well, so far. A little tired, a sore arm and a bit of a headache but nothing too serious. Good times, here we come! :O)

Tasha's Kitchen - Nearing The End

No matter how many dollhouse projects I've done over the years, I always seem to forget just how long it takes to make the accessories. It feels like I can have an entire structure built in a week, but as soon as I reach the accessory stage, my progress slows to a crawl. I must remember in my subconscious, somehow, because I always seem to leave myself ample time for projects with a deadline. Since it's only the end of May, and Tasha's official birthday isn't until July 22nd, I think I can keep adding new ideas right up until it's time to wrap. Here's an assortment of what I've been working on, so far...

In keeping with the magnet theme in this project, I decided to make the window cornices attach to the wall with them. I built the basic cornice boxes with a strip of magnets imbedded into the wood supports, and a corresponding strip of wood with magnets to attach to the wall above the window. I made two so that Tasha can have a couple different colors and patterns and change them out as she gets the urge to play. 

One version is teal, her favorite color, and the other navy to keep with her original vision of her dream kitchen. I think I've mentioned a time or two how much she loves all things octopi. I hope she's tickled when she sees these!

I added faux corresponding blinds with complementary patterns to the cornices.

Here's the magnetic wood strip that is attached to the wall above the window frame.

And here is each of the cornices in place. These magnets have been so much fun to work with in this project!

I made a wee coat rack shelf to fit between the wet bar and the ovens. There's a couple hooks and a shelf where she can display framed art or kitchen accessories. I made a couple aprons to hang on the shelf, one in teal and one in blue.

I also made her some cookbooks. I got her an Insta Pot pressure cooker for Christmas year before last, along with a book that had tons of recipes. She loves it and uses it all the time. I knew I'd have to make one in mini for her kitchen, too. I bought the Matty Matheson cookbook for my son last fall as a "just because you're awesome" gift. He loved it so much he brought it to Tasha's and they cooked the steak recipe together. She said she'd never cook steak any other way again and ordered the cookbook herself the next day. The other two cookbooks are very science-y, which she will love. She is getting the real life sized Science Of Spice book for her birthday, too. Don't tell! ;O) I made one of them open and with flipping pages that she can use to set up scenes in her kitchen.

Thanks to Megan, I got the courage to put the hydrangeas in a vase with "water". She reminded me about UV resin, and I had forgotten that I had a bottle and the UV flashlight waiting for a turn in my supply drawer! Thanks Megan! This task was done and perfect in minutes, no sweat, no mess, no worries!

Next I made up some linens - these can be placemats and napkins or dish towels and dish cloths depending on how you hem and fold them. I'll let Tasha decide how she wants to utilize them. I also made one more apron that Tasha can wrinkle up and lay on the counter in a cooking scene.

I knew I wanted to include a variety of octopus art that Tasha could display and exchange on the shelves or walls. Once I had them found, saved and printed, I needed several frames.

Once again the 3D printer came to the rescue! I made a variety of sizes and each has a recess in the back so that the art seats inside the frame.

Some are printed on watercolor paper, some on canvas paper, depending on the desired effect. I also put some in bold colored frames, and some in white to let the art be the star.

While I was making some wee plant markers for the herb pots, I decided to make a simple paper towel holder in the extra space. I took the measurements of a simple design from Amazon, then converted them to 1/12th scale.

I painted them in different colors so Tasha would have a variety. I had some cardboard straws in my stash to use as the centers for paper towel rolls, then just had to make them. I cut the cardboard straws into one inch lengths, cut real paper towels into one inch wide strips, glued the "cardboard tube" onto the end of the strip and then carefully rolled them up, securing the end with more glue.

In thinking how best to present the project to Tasha on her birthday, I decided it would be the most fun for her to open the kitchen room box absent of accessories. Then she can open and marvel at all of the wee items individually. She can decide how she wants to set things up in her kitchen, and together we can have an epic mini play date! I can teach her how to grab things with the tweezers I am including, and how to stick them with the mini hold wax I am including, too! I'll definitely get pictures and share them on the blog, and Instagram and Facebook since I won't have to be sneaky anymore.

And in other exciting news, Russ and I were able to get our first shots of the Pfizer vaccine on Mother's Day. They had us drive the car right inside the Tacoma Dome! Now, I have been to one of Tasha's graduations in the dome, RV shows, Monster Truck shows, concerts and even a gun show with my dad. But never did I ever think I'd be driving my car inside to receive a vaccination for a pandemic. May we all live in interesting times, right? Rusty and Woodson even went along to lend their moral support!

We go back for the final dose on May 29th. Two weeks later we'll be celebrating life again with the whole family at a big ol' barbeque! I expect we'll be squeezing each other just a little tighter and a little longer than we ever have before!

Hope life is resuming again, too, for all of you! 

xo xo,

Jodi

P.S. I have temporarily turned off most comment access due to being hit on several pages over several days with escort service spam. Hopefully, they will get the hint and slink off to other dark corners of the world. I will turn the comments back on on my next blog post, which may be next week. Life is crazy busy right now and I have not even had time to catch up on everyone's posts myself! Hopefully, this weekend!!!