!

YAY! I finished most of the kitchen. :) There's a few pieces I want to fill in with stained wood at the top of the front wall, in between the brackets.

But the rest of it is done! (Except for the windows, but I'll do those all at once.)

One wall done!

woo-hoo! It looks better than I thought!

Kitchen update!

So our New Hampshire weather went from sunny and early fall-like yesterday to rainy and awfully dreary today. *sigh* I am spending the afternoon with a cup of tea, listening to music, and working on the kitchen of the Glencroft.

Here's what I came up with so far.



As you can see, the paneling is in. :) It's actually stained cardstock (I use Olympic Wood Stain in Early American) and cut into strips (using an X-acto and a ruler on a cutting mat). I glued them in with tacky glue and did one more stain job of the whole thing.

I sprayed shellac on the wallpaper I printed out. (This was fun as I was trying to stand in the doorway on the porch, trying to avoid getting shellac in the house, while also trying to avoid getting wallpaper wet with rain.)

Next, I am going to cut the wallpaper to fit the walls, and then install it. After that, I plan to put the trim in for the windows and doors, and then add the chair rail to cover up the raw edges between the wallpaper and the panels. :) Can't wait to see how this is going to look!

YAY!

The weather here in NH is strangely like that of early September, when the summer weather becomes less humid and the air is crisp and clean. It's my favorite weather, but unexpected for July. *shrugs* Oh well.

Anyway, I am getting a new addition to the dollhouse family.

YAY! I just won it on eBay. I am very excited as this is pretty hard to find and definitely one of the cutest houses on my wishlist. :)

Plan of action: Glencroft Kitchen

As I mentioned earlier, I have yet to do the windows and doors on my Glencroft. But first, I want to touch up and redecorate the rooms, one at a time.

I am starting with the kitchen. I was looking online yesterday for some wallpaper ideas and found a few I really like. While I am not a huge fan of wallpaper in general, I did find a great wine-country style with wine labels all over it. This lead me into imagining the kitchen with richly stained wainscoting below a chair rail, with the wallpaper above.

Here is a sample of the wallpaper. I took what I found on the wallpaper website, put it in Photoshop and repeated the design. I am going to print this out on heavier paper and spray it with fixative before I hang it up.
With the lower half of the walls stained and this wallpaper on the upper half, it shouldn't look too busy. :) Here's to hoping!

Here are some 'before' pics of the kitchen (as you can see, it dreadfully needs some help, at least it's primed already!!):


Here's the wallpaper inside the kitchen. I like the neutral tones that it adds to the kitchen. My house is loud enough on the outside as it is, so I'd like to tone it down a bit in the interior. LOL
Let's see how far along I get on this today.

Oh yeah: Happy July 4th to my fellow American readers!

Name change!

FYI: I changed the name of my blog from "My Little Obsession" to "Linda's Minis" :) I wanted to personalize it. Also, I didn't want to get it mixed up with My Small Obsession, which has some great tutorials, by the way!

Battery's charged, so here come the pics

Here's the Glencroft bedroom, currently. I haven't done a thing with the ceiling yet...I am trying to figure out how to finish it and whether it should have trim (my thought is yes, it should).
I got this little brass bed with a mini lot of furniture. I am very pleased with it, but I think I will paint it...now to figure out how to do that. I will also add a piece of foam to make a more lifelike mattress and dress it well.

Also in the lot was this highboy. It provides a lot of storage space, but I haven't figured out which room it belongs in. I am tempted to put it in the bathroom as I have no cabinet.

What I really like about it is that it matches the hutch I had posted about earlier (the one I got at Reed's Antiques in Maine).

I've finished putting the chimney together. Now to figure out how to finish it...brick? stone? hmmm.

The brackets are on. The one thing I thought I'd have covered are the holes in the shell...I assume that Greenleaf assumed one would stucco this house? Time to get the wood filler and repaint.

Thanks to the new sheet 13, I was able to finish the half-timber on this side! :-D

And now for something completely different: I fell in love with Re-ment. Look how adorable! Newbury Comics sells these items in blind boxes. I got a breakfast set, sushi set, grocery set, donut set, and cookie set. Now, some are the right scale, others are too big...strangely enough, this variation happens in one box. *shrugs* I am keeping a display on a shelf in our dining room. Some of the 1:12 scale stuff may find its way into the dollhouse when it's finally completed...we'll see. I just adore the cuteness. :)

Our local Barnes and Noble carries Miniature Collector, issues of which I do have. But when I took my sister and nieces to Earth and Tree last Wednesday (a week ago? Really?), I picked up an issue of each Dollhouse Miniatures and American Miniaturist. One of the magazines has an adorable chaise lounge which looks easy to make.

And our local used bookstore had this treasure:
This is perfect because my project for HBS will require me to make a garden. ;)

Oh my - so much to do, so little time!

Okay, I am waiting for my camera to charge but I really wanted to blog so you, my dear readers, didn't think I became dust and escaped into the atmosphere. I just want to comment on all the projects I've suddenly found myself involved in, on the mini side of things, at least.

First, there's my dear Glencroft. I just put the window box, brackets and chimney on it over the weekend. It still needs windows, doors, and the front yard/fence added. I am considering doing that over this long holiday weekend. But I can't decide if I should fix up the inside before I put the windows in. I am not happy with most of the paint job on the walls, and would like to fix that. I am not super crazy about wallpaper, in general, but I may need it to hide the slots in a few of the walls. I think a trip to Michael's or AC Moore is in order. (Well, I always think that.)
On top of all that is the problem with the gaps in a few places. I think adding extra trim could be very useful, so that's what I will probably do. I think it'll help. I also want to varnish the floors, they're looking a little dull and I put far too much work into the flooring for it to look boring.
And how the heck am I going to finish that chimney? So many decisions to make! Imagine if I had to build a 1:1 scale house...gah. LOL I am picky enough with 1:12 houses as it is.

As for the shop, I am always looking for more goodies for "sale." I am adding lots of stuff to the shelves. When my sister and nieces came to visit last week, my older niece made some cool stuff out of clay which I am proudly displaying on the shelves, including candles, witch hats, and even a broom. She also made a cute clay hanging flower pot complete with a plant. She's getting pretty good at this hobby! I think someone may have returned home with a bit of a mini-bug! :)

And lastly, I have my HBS Creatin' Contest entry. I am trying to keep it a secret until the deadline (not 'til Dec. 15, thankfully!) but it's hard. I've developed some pretty nice ideas since even the last time I wrote here. I can't wait to get started on it, but I really want to finish the Glencroft first. Gah. We'll see. I think my best bet is to work on the project I feel like working on at the moment. That's the only way it'll get done well.

Oh, by the way, I want to applaud Greenleaf for sending along another Sheet 13 so quickly after I requested it. As I mentioned before, the first one was not cut through completely and was impossible to work with. They also sent me the new glossy of their dollhouses (one of which is brand new and I would really like to add it to my collection...)


You know, the collection that is inevitably going to include the Westville, the Harrison, RGT'S Lincoln Home, and one very possibly for-real addition soon. ;) I might add that I've made a bid on eBay for a little treat - let's see if I get it. I'll know in a little over 4 days.

We'll definitely need a bigger house.

I think that's it for now. When my camera battery charges, I'll take pics of my accomplishments on the Greenleaf, and possibly a few more mini-related things. :)