It's been so long!!

Hello everyone!
Blimey, it's been a while, has it not?! I'm sorry I haven't been here for a while, but real life has been getting in the way pretty badly just recently. Hopefully this weekend I've found myself some time to get some mini-ing done as I'm missing it so much!
I have a couple of things to show you this morning.

A few weeks ago I was making a trap door for the inside of Bruion. Making the trap door was simple enough, and if you would like a tutorial posting up on how I made this - just let me know! It's pretty self explanatory though by the photos.
Glueing the door into place, however, was the most tedious task going! I had to hold it in place for hours on end while the wood dried to the flooring and the string dried to the sides. If I moved just slightly, the glue untacked and I had to start all over! Eventually, I managed to find something that would hold it in place and it's been left like that for about a week. It's well and truly stuck now! Here's a few photos for you.

                                      

Please forgive the bad lighting!

 Those hoop hooks? Yes - there's another little something I'm in the process of making. I've made it once already, but I'm not happy with a part of it, so I need to tweak it until I'm happy. Then I can show you what the hoop hooks are for!





So anyways, in my depressed state last night - having finally snapped and deciding to forget real life and college for just a couple of hours, I went ahead and made a start of the "grass" effect for the downstairs of Bruion. Here's a photo:

As you can see, I've finished painting the stones and I've added some stepping stones and random stones here and there. I still need to add a second layer of "grass" to thicken it up a bit but I'll get that done this weekend at some point, hopefully!

So there we have it. You now know I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth! I'm still mini-ing and I'm still making progress.. just slowly! Hopefully, I'll be back later on to show you some more progress!

Also - I still have my 20% discount going at Diddies! :D

Have a good day!!

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!

Brick Work Completed On The Bakers Dozen Extension

Hi everyone!

Today, I've been working super hard to get the brick work finished on the extension to The Bakers Dozen! I'm really pleased with it so far, as it was my first attempt at using the brick stencils from The Brompley Craft Products supplier. I used their flemish bond stencil and their red brick compound. It's come out beautifully.

Here's a photo of what it looks like now:

The window and door is not glued into place yet as I still have to paint them. I placed them in just to give you, as well as myself, a general idea. These will be painted white. I also placed the roof on to give another general idea. I'm going to be applying roof slates to this so hopefully this part of the bakery is going to look pretty swish.

Over the next couple of nights I'm going to be painting the rest of the bakery outside grey, ready to do the brick work on it on Friday. I'm also going to paint inside this part of the bakery if I get the time to do so.

Hopefully, if college work is kind to me, I'll be able to add some tiles or wood flooring to this building at the weekend!

I'm at college on Wednesday's and Thursday's, so I only have time to do mini work in the evenings. I'm suffering from the cold that's going around and the nights are dark; living in a cottage you can understand lighting isn't always great. So please bare with me!

Fingers crossed, I'll be back tomorrow!
Good night
xx

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!

Building The Market Cross!!!

Happy Boxing Day everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and I hope you got everything you wished for!

Today I've had a very busy day. Actually, it's surprising I've managed to find five minutes to post this!
I've spent almost the whole day searching for masking tape. I needed it for a reason I'll show you in a moment. Last time I saw the tape, I'd used it to tape down the lid to the box for Rachel's gift a few weeks ago as I couldn't find the cellotape! Haha.
Anyways, it wasn't in it's usual place, where I always put it - in the washroom. So off I went on a four hour search looking for masking tape. I went EVERYWHERE! Eventually, my mom piped up and told me it might be in a carrier bag in the garage after she'd cleaned out the washroom the other day. She was right. Hurrah!

So I set to work on the reason I needed it.

Remember a few weeks ago I told you I was getting the Market Cross from the Dolls House Emporium as a Christmas present. Well I set to work on building it. I got half way through dry building, masking taping it all together and then decided to just go ahead and glue it!

My brother is wonderful at building model items of all sizes and kinds, so he helped me. We got everything set out and ready and we set to it.

Here's how what we've managed to do so far.

I glued the base and the arch ways while Thomas set to work on the roof. The room piece you can see next to Thomas is just dry built.

The roof was fiddly. The instructions need updating. It should tell you in the "Equipment Needed" section that you need an extra pair of hands! We managed in the end, with a bit of help from dad!

We made lots of mess with scraps of masking tape. We got little wooden pieces strewn all over. We took up the entire dining room table. And we got lots of wood glue on our mom's precious table. Whoops. Anyways, the results are great!

Tomorrow, Thomas and I are waking up early to get the roof finished, the top room part glued together and then the beams glued on. If all goes to plan I'll be back tomorrow to show you the finished build!!

See you tomorrow!

Extension Finished!!

Good evening everyone!
It snowed. Humph! (I'm not a fan of the snow to be honest.) Everyone else seems to have snow, and I was kind of hoping we wouldn't have any snow for quite a while... but nope, the weather man predicted snow, we got snow. Grrr!
I planned on taking a drive to a dolls house shop I've found that's not too far away from where I live, but I've only been passed my driving test for 3 weeks, or about that, anyways, and so didnt fancy a drive in the snow to somewhere I've never been before...

Not all bad though, this snow business...

I convinced my dad to get the extension to the bakery finished..!!! (This is where I stop rambling on about snow and get down to the dolls house bit!)

After a few moans, grumbles, coffee's and head scratching he came up with this::

(Click the photos to see them larger!)

Now please, bare in mind this is the first dolls house related piece of woodwork my dad has ever done. He didn't have any fancy tools. Had no real idea of what he was doing, just my word for it. And ta da! It now has a door, a door I can open to get into and the roof is stuck on, but comes off! I'm thrilled to bits with it!!!

Today, I also realised that I went ahead and showed you photos of the new extension a little while ago without telling you what it was or why I was doing it... Bad huh?

Okay, I'll come clean and explain everything now. Well this part is going onto the back of the Bakers Dozen. The room part is going to be the actual bakery. The bit that just looks like my dad forgot to cut it off, will be a dirty, back alley which I'm just going to have a lot of fun with. I've not researched what Georgian alleys would've been like, so this will be my personal touch.

That leaves the orginal building empty, not for long though! This part will be the shop floor and the inside tea room.

Adding the extension gives me that bit of extra space to work with and means I can cram all my ideas into this project without having to hang most of the furniture from the ceiling and pretending the Georgians could fly...


So I hope you all like the progress so far, it's slow, but steady. I'm going to a dolls house fair tomorrow so I plan on picking up a few bits to start the messy work on the bakery next weekend!

Happy mini-ing
ShellbyFay
xx

The Building Work Has Begun!

So, as promised, this weekend the building work for The Bakers Dozen, has started. My dad and I drew out the templates on paper, for all the different pieces of the building. Then copied the templates onto the MDF. Then my dad cut all the pieces out individually and made sure they all fitted and matched.

And this was the result:

It's not all glued together and it doesn't have a door in it yet, we're still discussing what wall will open out and whether or not the roof will come apart, and then there's the "which door!?!?" issue - too many to choose from! Haha.

So there we go, work has officially started on The Bakers Dozen and next weekend, hopefully, the building work will be completed and I can get started on the interior and exterior decorating!

Getting Into The Christmas Spirit

This is the first Christmas I've had to be given the oppertunity to decorate and prepare my dolls house for the winter celebration! This week I've been eagerly making plans for decorating The Olde Post Office and drawing up plans for the new building work that will be done on the Bakers Dozen.. yes, I did say "new building work." You read it correctly.
Hopefully, fingers crossed, if the weather is dry tomorrow, my dad and I will be spending the day outside cutting pieces of wood and preparing the new part that'll be added onto the bakery.. so watch this space!!

So this week I've started the process of preparing The Olde Post Office for Christmas. I've decided that the kitchen, although not fully completed yet (will be for Christmas do not panic!), it'll be fully decked out with a Christmas feast on the table, garlands here there and everywhere and food keeping warm on the aga. I set to making a dent in the food making, and here's a photo below of what I've managed to make so far.
(Apologies for the dreadful lighting. It's only 5.45 here and it's already very dark and the lighting is not the best in this house.)

You can see in this photo the gravy boat, a couple of candy canes, some peas, a hot chocolate with a candy cane and marshmellows (i got the tutorial for the hot chocolate from one of the AIM magazines, can't remember which one though) the carrots with the turkey and if you look closely at the back of the turkey you can see a couple of roast potatos poking round the corner there. There is also some brussel sprouts round the other side of the turkey, but you can't see those. I will take a better photo when I've got the whole Christmas feast completed.

Hope you're not all suffering too badly from the horrible, cold weather and that you are looking forward to the festive season!

Happy Mini-ing
ShellbyFay
xx
 

Flowers :)

So the past couple of days have been pretty busy, so I haven't been able to do much. Plus I don't have much else that I can do considering I'm still waiting for things that I've ordered to arrive...

But anyway, I managed to make some flowers last night. Here's a photo for you:

I'm really pleased with how the flowers for the vases turned out. The vases in white with pink roses are Dolls House Emporium vases I got a while ago and they are in the living room. The other vase is from a set I got from Minimum World.. I think.. and that'll go in the kitchen.

The bouquets turned out okay, I'm getting better at doing the paper bit but I'm happy with how they turned out anyway. These bouquets are for the shop - fresh flowers!

So there's my bit of progress on The Old Post Office, for now. Hopefully more to follow soon. I can predict that there will be at the end of November when there is another fair here so I'm saving up the pennies for that event! :)

Happy mini-ing

Shellby Fay



Books and Nursery Items!

Aren't I doing well with all these posts!? Certainly making up for those long gaps!

Here I have a couple of pictures for you of just some things I finished off today. I'm not sure, but you may have seen a couple of these items already dotted about in previous pictures. Today I just finished them properly.

Here are some books I made. They are mainly children's books but there are a couple of other books that I made for the study and to put on the parent's bedside table. You can make out a few of them. If you click on the picture it'll become bigger so that you can see them more clearly.

Here are some games and pictures I found for the childrens bedroom. I have taken a few childrens drawings from Google images and the picture of the colouring book. I also found the image in the picture on Google too. I made the blackboard myself, but I think I might re-do this as I'm not totally happy with the picture.
I found the jigsaw and the chess box on Jim's Printable Mini's. I cut the missing jigsaw pieces out with a blade and you can just see them next to the colouring book. There are also a couple of colouring pencils there too.

So not an awful lot to show you, but they have filled up the study and the children's bedroom quite nicely :)


Also, today I have been further inspired to make my own dolls for the Georgian bakery, The Bakers Dozen, which is my next project. If anyone has any helpful pointers they could share with me, I'd be ever so grateful!

Happy mini-ing
ShellbyFay

Progress!

Here's some more progress photos!!




This is the bathroom. Today I stained the corner unit and I'm really pleased with how its turned out and how well it fits into the room. This room hasn't taken a lot of work, and I'm really pleased with how it's coming on. It's nearly finished, just the last little bits to add!

This is the study. Today I stained the bookcase, desk and the chair that Harry is sitting on. Harry would say "hello," but he's insisted that he's far too busy writing. He's a book writer and on the bookcase you can see a few of his books - the brown ones. I'm not a particular fan... but sssh don't tell him! This room is also almost done. I just need to add stairs and a few finishing touches here and there.



  And the shop! Wow I am seriously pleased with how it's turned out. I was up early this morning and decided to add the items to the shelving. The shelves aren't full yet - therefore the shop isn't complete. I'm also searching for a customer for the shop. Penny is picking up the post and putting it into her bike basket. She's fussing because someone has really bad hand writing. Ernie is just setting off to deliver the milk! Hurry up Ernie I want a cuppa!

And my most favourite man of all! Malcom! He insisted on having a close up, he's, um, had a "hair cut" apparently. Not that there's a lot there to cut anymore, Malc my old pal. Behind him are some jars of sweets that I made. Also some different types of bread. Behind him are some loaves (You just had to get in the way Malcom!) And to the right (our right!) are some seed packets. On the counter are some tea cakes and some newspapers.

So I hope you all really like the progress so far, I do! And I promise there will be more to come shortly!

Happy mini-ing!

ShellbyFay

Flooring!!

I am a very bad, bad blogger aren't I!? I have been reading everyone's blogs and have found lots of wonderful pieces of inspiration - for current and future projects; but I can happily say that the reason I have not been blogging is because I have (honestly!) been working on the Post Office!

Here's the progress I've made in the last week:



Post Office Flooring. I made this with fat lollypop sticks, mahogany wood stain and stuck them to the floor with Tacky Wax!



Kitchen flooring. I decided I didn't like the card tiled flooring, so I made some wooden flooring just the same as I did with the Post Office. Only this time I stained the lollypop sticks with "Pine" woodstain.

So, no new furniture. You've seen the fireplace. That candle has fallen over. So whats new? Have you noticed the stairs? And the skirting? Yup - they weren't there a little while back :) A friend helped me cut the angles in my skirting, because it's wood and you know what I'm like with wood - I mean heck, God knows what came over me when I managed to make that fireplace!



So haven't I been a good girly :) I doesn't look like a lot has been done, but this was in a week - and now that I'm back at college that's a lot for me! I do have some more progress to show you, but I'm making sure I've got those tiny details sorted and then I'll post up some piccies!

Also, I would like to welcome all my new followers! Thank you so much for following my blog and all the lovely comments; they are greatly appreciated and really make me push to upload my progress for you! You're all stars.

Now, I've got some research to do for my next project - The Bakers Dozen, which is going to be done in the Georgian Era - so if anyone has any pointers they would like to share I'd be very grateful.

So, bye for now!!

Shellbyfay

Hello everyone, been a long time!

First of all, I am going to get on with all these followers that I have sadly not had time to welcome. But before I do, I would just like to say that I have (and always do!) look at your blog(s) and find them all very interesting and inspiring. Unfortunately today, I have a whole list of miniature projects to do so for most of these links I have not left a description - but that does not mean that I don't find your blog interesting..

So lets cut to the chase and give a big welcome to!:

Julie
Marions Miniatures first blog, where you will find links to her other blogs. I urge you to check them out, they are all lovely!
My Reality
Otterine
Karin doesn’t seem to have a blog, Karin if you do – please leave a link below and I will post it up
Marivigano
Lara
Minnie Kitchen
Monique
Lainie’s Little Things
Rosella - I love the music that plays when you visit this blog!!
Wanda
JessicaPooh

I hope you all enjoy reading my blog :)

So to explain my absence... um... I'm sorry there is no major explanation. But I have been extremely busy. If you've read that little description.. juuuuust - there>>>>>
you'll know that I am a student and we students who live here in the UK are going back to college next week, well I am anyway. So I have been busy preparing for that.. fun aye?

But in between that I have been doing a few bits and bobs, including some miniature stair painting and building, some miniature cake and sweetie making and cutting up bits of wood to make skirting for the houses - don't worry there will be pictures of progress shortly! And on my to-do list today, I have to finish the skirting and finish the fireplace... wish me luck - it's wood, I'm not good with wood. Haha.

Oh yeh - and before I forget the last reason that I have not been here blogging away - is because I have bought my first car :) It's a little metallic black Fiesta and I have been driving here, there and everywhere these past few days! Now just to pass my test and then those 'L' plates can come off! Whoop!

A very quick post!

Okay, first of all I have a some apologies to make.
First - I am very behind on the welcomes, I must remember to do these soon, but welcome to all of my new followers! I have had a nosey at your blogs and I very much enjoyed them all. I will have a better look at them when I have more time, and therefore give you a better welcome. :)

Second - I know I'm one of those people who post nearly every day, it is the college holidays and I have had heaps of time to concentrate on my miniatures, but there have been a number of real life issues that have side tracked me from posting up and updates recently.

But I have one for you today. Photos of the progress so far on my dolls houses :)

The kitchen is cluttered now with new buys from the fair and it's crying out for the stairs to be installed. The living room has some candles waiting to be placed out and wine bottles are in need of a stand too. Skip there is posing for the photo! And up in the master bedroom - some new carpet :) and some candles and some perfume bottles need putting into place also.

There's more on the shop below this photo. So moving upstairs we have the study, which as you can see still has no furniture! Grrr. The door I bought at the fair still needs to be painted and fitted. The bathroom is looking pretty bare. I need to make that room a little more 'lived in.' And up stairs we have the children's bedroom. I took the carpet out of the master bedroom and put it in here because I thought it would look nicer here. As you can see there is a big mess on the floor - children aye! No, this is me :( I will tidy this up soon, I pinky promise.

Now onto the most exciting bit!

Malcom was so excited about all his new shop furniture he had to get inside quickly for this photo! Penny the post lady claim's she more mature, and would rather all this 'mess' on the floor was cleaned up first before she set foot in the shop. Malcom doesn't call this 'mess' he calls it 'work in progress!' But the shop furniture arrived this morning, I've been staining it all afternoon. Look's alright I think :) Although the post office counters are a different colour - but Malcom say's they are new installments and I say these were bought this colour.