Progress On Bruion!

Hey everyone!!

I hope you've all had a good week and a constructive weekend!
I've been extremely busy this week with college work, hense why there's been no progress to post up... up until tonight!

Today I had a bit of a wobble over the brick work on the bakery. Thankfully, yet again the lovely folk on the DHE forum helped me see that the brickwork was authentic, and they told me to stop expecting perfect.. not in those words, but it was a general hint in some of the posts! So I soldiered on with the stencilling and now leaving the brick work to dry over night, ready for sanding and finishing tomorrow. So I wont show you now, as it doesn't look anything special, but I will show you hopefully tomorrow if all goes to plan!

Now onto the real reason for this post... Bruion. I've finished the painting on the inside, and outside. So today, while I can't do much else on the bakery, I decided to glue on the beams.

Here's what it looks like so far on the outside:

Ignore the gaps in the mossy roof... I have to buy some more mossy stuff to finish off the otherside of the roof and then I can fill in the gaps. Looking pretty good so far is it not? :D

Well, considering I was on a roll... I decided to go ahead and make something else. Now you all know I am terrible with wood, but I just about managed to make some windowsills. They were easy to make and took about 5 minutes! Fabulous stuff :D

Here's some photos of how they turned out:

You'll have to excuse my dad there! hehe

I'm currently making something else wooden. Considering I'm on a roll tonight, why stop? I might just carry on until I have no wood left!

See you tomorrow

Bits of progress, here and there.

Hi everyone!

Okay so it was Tuesday since I last posted. That's so long ago! And I have to be honest, not an awful lot has happened since then.
I'm still poorly with the cold. I've been sneezing and blowing my nose a lot today, so I think I'm starting to get it out of my system. Yay! Kind of wish my nose was a body part I could de-attach and leave somewhere while I worked... but then I'd lose it and look pretty strange for a while...

Anyways, enough of that. In between studying, sneezing, sleeping and sniffing Olbas oil - I've been doing just odd bits of work on The Bakers Dozen and Bruion. Not an awful lot, but every little helps - or so Tesco says.

I've been painting the outside of The Bakers Dozen gray, ready to do the brick stencilling. It still needs a second coat, but I can do that in the morning. I've also painted the inside of the extentsion. Here's a photo:

 The Georgian's didn't have many colours, not until the Regency times anyway. I found this shade of colour on a website that showed you different colours the Georgian's had. I thought this would look good in the bakery part. It's a colour that will open the room up a bit, as it isn't very big. Everytime I think about furniture, I have to remind myself it's not as big as The Olde Post Office kitchen. I really like this colour, although in some lights it can look too pinky. It's a homebase brand tester post (I never get the big tins or the expensive stuff!) and I think it's called Ballet. I might have to dirty the colour up a bit as I go along with the project, I don't want it to look too new and fresh.

Last night I painted the roof of Bruion. I've had a change of plan. My original idea was to thatch the roof, but during my research, getting some inspiration, I came across a few fairy dwellings that had mossy roof's. I've been doing that staring thing again. Looking at Bruion with unusually wide eyes while my tea gets cold and I've decided Bruion would look a lot better with a mossy roof. It would look more woodlandy I think... I hope anyway.

Here's the painted roof photo:

This colour is a Wilkinson's tester pot and it's called Oak Leaf. I usually use Wilkinson's colours and they are so unbelievably cheap and I'm usually in that area of town. This is actually a really lovely colour. I'm not usually a fan of green, but this colour is very calm and pretty.

Tonight I grabbed the bag of moss I found in Homebase and thought about sticking it to the roof. Only problem was, the moss was more like thin string. No. Didn't like it. So I put it back in the bag, gave it to mom as a late Christmas present (not that she appreciated it much) and dug out some other stuff I'd bought to use as grass for the downstairs part. Here's a photo:

Much better! The box I had filled just under half of the roof space and I pulled it apart and did it bit by bit. I'm really pleased with the effect so I've sent my mom to the model shop tomorrow to buy some more. This stuff is actually used for bushes on railway models. My brother got a model trainset for Christmas. I took him to the model shop to spend his Christmas money and found this. I don't think it'll make good grass though, looks a bit thick. But it's perfect for the mossy look! What do you think?

Tomorrow, I hope to get the rest of the roof done, and the second coat of gray paint on The Bakers Dozen.

See you tomorrow!

The Big Clean

Hi everyone!

I'm so sorry that I didn't get round to post yesterday. Real life got in the way, pain in the bum when that happens! I didn't get any work done on Bruion which has upset me alot! I've also got to mention to you now, that I have changed the name of The Enchantment. I've changed it to Bruion, which is Gaelic for Fairy Dwelling. I thought it fitted the property nicely and has a mystical ring to it. So there's my bit of news concerning my newest property.
I still haven't been able to do any work on The Bakers Dozen. I haven't been able to get to my local DIY store to get the Bostik I am needing to do the brick stencil work.

So yesterday, in between the RL issues that were taking place (nothing bad or serious, don't worry - just organising a New Years night out!) I decided to have a huge clear out. My room had all of a sudden become a big mess. I've always said, my room isn't messy - it's an obstacle course designed to keep me fit. It had gone beyond this.

I took this photo after about an hours worth of tidying up and trying to find a space for myself. You see that patch in the floor? It used to be small enough just so I could sit on the floor and play around making some mini's that would never come to anything. I'd managed to clear enough room so I could rotate in my little space.

I took this second photo after another two hours of cleaning and tidying. It still wasn't finished but it was getting there. I could lay roll down and roll around in my little space if I wanted too! Not been able to do that before! :D

And then I came downstairs for a cup of tea and a snack. I decided, because I had to go out and I didn't have enough to do anything constructive with Bruion, I'd try and make something from clay. So I went to my room, managed to find all my clay stuff straight away without spending another ten miniatures searching for the clay box itself!
I sat down at the dining room table. My mom screaming at me to cover the table with heaps of newspaper after I PVA'd it the other day! Eeek.
I found myself getting frustrated when I couldn't find the clay I wanted, or my nail polish remover or the embossing tool I needed. So I thought about having a clear out instead.

Yay! I'm so pleased I did. Here's a photo of my now tidyish clay stuff:

Doesn't it all look good? My clay tin is all organised, I had lots of little bags filled with clay that had obviously been mixed up and saved for a later date, but I hadn't a clue what clay was for and so took a deep breath and threw it away. There was a lot. Trust me. It was horrible, but it had to be done. Now my tin looks pretty empty... clay shopping me thinks! One-armed-Greg (we all call him that now as he lost his arm when I tried to make him a pj top) sat and watched me tidy everything up with interest. He was relieved. He's not in the cardboard box containing my blades, embossing tools, tweezers and all things pointy when I'm not working. Poor guy.

Take a look at my beautiful new blade set. My dad came across these and thought they'd make the perfect Christmas present for me. They are fabulous and I'm so happy with them! There's nothing like a new, clean blade to cut your clay with! Thanks Dad! :D

Here you can see my organised clay tin, and the bag of scrap clay. There doesn't look like a lot in it from this photo, but there was, it was bursting.



So, my New Years resolution regarding my clay stuff is:

To not allow for so much scrap clay!
To fix Greg's arm
To keep all my clay stuff clean, tidy and organised!

One last thing before I leave, I'd like to make a huge welcome to all my new followers! Thank you so much for following this blog, I appreciate it very much!

See you tomorrow!

The Enchantment, progress!!

Hello again everyone!

As promised, piccies!!
Today I went to town and picked up a few supplies that I was needing over the next couple of days. Came home and did nothing but painting and staining! Here's the result:

I apologise that you can't see the true colours very well. I will take the next lot of pictures in the day light tomorrow so you can see more clearly. If you click on the photo, it'll bring it up a bit bigger and it's a bit clearer to see the colours.

I wanted to get the outside beams put on, but it got too late. The windows are taped up so I didn't get paint on the inside, I'm very clumsy with paint!

Tomorrow I plan on painting the inside, adding the beams and hopefully I might be able to do the downstairs area.

I hope you like the progress so far, I'm sorry it's a very short post but it's late now and I'm very tired!

See you tomorrow! :)

Progress Made on The Market Cross, plus new name revealed!

Good morning everyone!
I have an apology to make. I promised you that I would show you the progress I made yesterday, but my camera died and I couldn't find the battery charger. This morning, before doing anything else I found that charger, allowed the battery to charge for all of 2 minutes - just enough to snap up a couple of photo's for you!

Yesterday, Thomas and I got the room piece all glued together. It looks fab now! Here is the building all standing and looking fab. I'm yet to put all the beams around the outside on, but I'm going to do that after I've painted it.

I put some wooden flooring inside the room yesterday too. This was very quick and easy! Still needs sanding down to neaten the edges a bit, but I'll do that today!

Over the past few days I've been thinking about what to call this project. I don't like calling it "The Market Cross" or "MC". The lovely people on the DHE forum have been helping me think up some ideas. So far we've only got The Enchantment. Thank you Joe for your suggestion!

I was thinking long and hard about it last night, and I really think The Enchantment will work! So there we go. I'll hopefully be back later with some more progress made on The Enchantment!

See you tonight!