Swap November 2012

In November I was in a few swaps with the Yahoo Swap group but I am just going to show you one here. 

It is the Diner swap.  It was a 1/12 scale swap and had 10 swappers.  I plan to one day make a miniature Diner. 

This is what our amazing swappers made.

Diner Swap

Here are the items that each individual made.



Coke sign, bag of ice and two
cans of coke
Crystal D. (me)

Soda machine
Diane B.



2 slices of pizza and 2 menus
Alicia



Napkin holder, spilled coffee and sign
Dragonicelady



Napkin Holders
Barbara M.

Pizza
Jane P.



Burger, pizza slice and 2 bags of chips
Nicole W.



Cooker with burgers cooking
Shirley P.



Bottle of coke and 2 hot dogs
Dolores G.

Ketchup, Mustard and 4 glasses on tray
Barb K.

Swap October 2012

In October 2012 I was in the 1/4 scale Garage Swap.  It was a small group of 6 swappers and everything was great.  This is the great selection of items received.

1/4 Scale Garage Swap - the dime gives you some idea of scale

Here is what each individual sent in.

Stack of tires, and some signs for
the garage
Crystal D.  (Me)

Box, garbage can and recycling box
Barb K.

Carpet roll, wallpaper roll and
paint cans
Fern R.

Dollhouse prep board
Sheila B.

Heavy duty paper towel roll and
spare roll
Barbara M.

Plants and bird cage
Janice S.

Road Block

I've been sitting here for a couple of days now with the Tea Room, empty, waiting for me to start putting some furnishings and decor inside.

When I started this project I had a clear vision in my head of how I wanted it to look.  So far, it looks nothing like I had thought it would. 

I wanted to spend as little money as possible on this project, by using things that I already have, and making others. 

So far, that seems to still be the plan, although my diy skills are not greatest. 

I want the upper floor in the Tea Room to sort of be like a lounge.  With a sofa and chair and have a bit of a living room feel.  So if there are any ladies having tea that don't want to sit at a table on the main floor they can go upstairs for a more relaxed environment.

Many years ago I picked up a furniture set from Dollarama.  It's one of those tab & slot sets that you put together.  It looks something like the photo below.  A little different, but this was the best picture I could find.  So I plan to paint and distress the items to have a shabby chic look about them.  



When I pictured it in my head, it was very pretty with nice fancy furniture, but because I don't want to spend a lot of money.....or do I have the money to spend, this is going to have to do.  I will make the best of it.  Hopefully it turns out nice. 

So far all I have done is glue the sofa and chair together.  Next I tackle painting and then get some fabric on there so it's a little more comfortable than just the wood. 

Well, that's all that is going on with this project so far.   I will post more as things progress.

The Primrose Tea Room

I know I don't post to this blog often, life gets in the way.  However I think I will be posting a lot more now that the winter is here.  I'll be in the house keeping warm, making some miniature treasures. 

Quite some time ago I purchased The Primrose.  It's made by Greenleaf (corona concepts), and can be made as an add on to the Laurel, or can be a free-standing house. 

The Primrose

 

I decided that I was going to turn this little house into a Tea Room.  In the summer of 2012 I visited my mother in Port Colborne, and there was a charming little Tea Room there, and it inspired
me to make my own, in miniature.

Earlier this week I decided to start working on the project.  Because I had tried to use this house for a previous project (that did not work out), I had to first scrape off the rest of the old wallpaper to prepare it for it's new decor.

Once that was done, I decided to wallpaper all the walls before putting it all together.  I used scrapbook paper for wallpaper.  Very inexpensive, and I usually have a ton of paper on hand.  The pattern that I decided on for the first floor was rather large, but I do enjoy large prints.



I love this pattern, and went with that colour scheme for the whole project.

For the upper floor (attic), I decided on a green patterned paper, that unless you look closely just appears to be solid.



This paper is also scrapbook paper.

Here are some photos of the interior of the Tea Room.





It was a really quick build, however I messed up the original door that came with the kit, so I had to create my own door, which didn't turn out great, however it looks better than what I did to the original.



Here are some exterior photos.  I decided to "stucco" the outside of the house.

 



 

 

Front and side of the Tea Room
 

Now I have a lot of great little items to make for the inside.  Keep tuned for more to come.



Christmas House - Work Done

Last night I spent some time working on the Christmas House.  I wallpapered Santa's office in a red coloured wallpaper that has a textured look, and gave it some nice green carpet.  Very Christmasy !

This is going to be Santa's Office

I also wallpapered Mrs. Claus' sewing room in a red patterned paper.  I don't even know how to describe it, but I thought it would go with the other papers on the upper floor.  She has a red/burgundy coloured carpet in there. 


This is going to be Mrs. Claus' sewing room where she makes
all of Santa's clothes and the Elves clothes.

The Bedroom I left the way it was but added a white coloured carpet.



The bedroom carpet was a little small but I am confident
that you won't be able to see that once it's filled up.

I also spent some time working on the kitchen.  It was yellow with wainscotting, that had a really pretty yellow/blue wallpaper in it.  I decided to just replace the wallpaper with something that had more of a Christmas feel. 

Here you can see me replacing the wallpaper.  The left is what is
in there now, and the right is what it was.

I also added a floor in the kitchen.  It's black and white checkered....and it was just a piece of peel and stick shelf liner that I got at the dollar store.

I like how it turned out.  I just need to put some trim around
the window.

In the living room, I had the big dilemma of whether to change the wallpaper.

This is what the wallpaper looks like in the living room.

I think I may end up just leaving it, and decorating with Christmas stuff, which should make the wallpaper a lot less noticeable. 

This is what the living room will look like when I put the fireplace in.
I made this a few years ago when I had made a Christmas Scene.
The scene got taken apart but I kept the fireplace.  I'm also
going to put in some white carpet.

Well, today I am going to work on the house some more......I'm very excited about this project.  I have a lot of Christmas accessories that I never knew what I was going to do with, and now I have something to put them in.  This is the full interior so far.

Don't mind the mess in the foyer and living room.

Well I do hope that you enjoy following me on the adventure.  Please keep coming back for more updates.

Christmas House

Earlier this week on the Canada Minis group that I belong to, there was some discussion about Christmas themed dollhouses or roomboxes etc.....

Which got me thinking about one of my dollhouses, that is not exactly my favourite.  I sort of gave up on it.  It's the Acorn from the Little Dollhouse Company.  It's a nice house, and it was a gift from my husband (way before he became my husband), so I didn't want to give it away or sell it or let it continue to collect dust.  So, to make a long story short, I have decided to turn it into a Christmas House.  I can bring it out each Christmas for me and my family to enjoy.  

The house itself is in pretty good shape.  All rooms had been wallpapered.  Most of the exterior had been finished, with the exception of the shingles......Next to putting up wallpaper, shingling is my next least favourite thing to do.  So this is what it looked like before starting.  I plan on painting the outside and decorating it to fit the Christmas theme.


Exterior of the house

 

Interior of the house

What I am going to do is turn this into the Claus' house.  Make it a nice little home for Mr. & Mrs. Claus up in the North Pole. 

I decided to keep the middle room on the upper floor as is.  I really like the wallpaper, and feel that it will fit in with the rest of the house.  This will be the Claus' bedroom.  The two side rooms on the upper floor will get redone in a more Christmas theme.  One will be Mrs. Claus' sewing room, where she creates all the elves clothes, and Santa's too.  The other room will be Santa's office.  No toys get made in this house, that happens at the workshop......There might be some toys in his office, you know like prototypes..... OH.....that awful blue carpet will be leaving the building. 

The main level nicely done, but I am going to make a few changes.  The room on the far left will be the kitchen.  I'm going to keep it the same as it is now, but I am going to put Christmas paper in place of the existing paper in the wainscotting. 

Which brings me to the foyer, and the living room.  The foyer right now has a blue colour wallpaper, which I pretty much think needs to go.  So I just need to figure out what is going to go in it's place. 
The living room is what is giving me the most stress.  I love the wallpaper that is in there right now, and I did such a good job of putting it in that I don't want to cover it.  However, it's not Christmasy at all.  It's floral, with little pink and purple flowers.  I'm not sure if I want to leave it and let the rest of the room speak for itself or change it.....maybe you can leave a comment saying what you would do.

If it wasn't for the lovely people in my mini group, I probably would never have decided to go ahead and work on this house.  So if you are a Canadian Miniaturist, and would love to chat with other Canadian Miniaturists......feel free to join us at http://ca.groups.yahoo.com/group/CanadaMinis/

Stay tuned for more on this house......

Quarter Scale Villa

Well since I don't have anything recent to post, I thought I would share with you all a project that I worked on last year.

For Christmas 2010 my wonderful sister in law gave me The Villa from Suzanne & Andrews Minis.
It's a beautiful quarter scale kit.  I had always wanted to try 1/4 scale but was always scared of it.  So this was to be the first quarter scale house kit that I would work on.  It was very challenging, but I am so in love with the finished product. 

And here it is......drum roll please........The Villa

This handsome lad is my son holding the house to show scale.

 

 

Front of the Villa

Side of the Villa

 

In later posts I will go through the rooms showing more detail.  I am done the house and the interior but I do still need to work on the landscaping.....maybe a project for a rainy day.....just not THIS rainy day.