I'm done . . . .

No, I haven't finished the Oriental Folly already, but I have finished my full scale redecorating and am looking forward to getting some serious work done on the folly soon.  Another week of little (okay, no) progress on the Oriental Folly doesn't mean nothing interesting happened in my miniature world.  A package from the delightfully talented Nickycc arrived in the mail.  Inside was Billy the Gremlin clutching a bottle of fairy ink, an assortment of sheilds and a pair of glass jars.

The jars were a free present from Nicky.  All these items are for the Old Castle when I get around to renovating it.  Billy and the jars will go on the shelves in the Magician's Cave while the shields will be decoration for the Great Hall or perhaps the Armoury.

 I've also been continuing the hunt for Oriental inspiration for the Folly.  About the only real building in town with any sort of oriental influence is the Golden Sea Dragon resturant.  I snapped this photo from the car while stopped at the traffic lights:

 I really like those windows, so I cut some in the side walls of the top floor of the folly.  Hmmm . . . can you spot the problem?

 Yup, I cut hexagonal windows when they should have beem octagonal.  This means that adding gold strips to form a square in the middle as they've done on the original windows won't work.  As there isn't enough room to adapt my windows, I'll just have to come up with a cunning plan B for them.  The other parts of the building I'm taking inspiration from are the roof tiles (I'm thinking drinking straws and lots of air dry clay) and the Foo Dog sitting by the door.  I'd love to have a pair of these dogs, but thus far haven't found any the right size and price.

And finally, here's what I've been working on that's kept me away from miniatures for the past couple of weeks:

This entire wall, including the chimney breast, has been painted with a metallic paint and given a swirl or a fan effect by going over it with a wide paint brush while still wet.  The metallic paint is expensive (albeit less so than wallpaper) and I'm really, truely, incredibly pleased with the finish.

The remaining walls in the room have been painted a browny-beige.  All the door and window frames have been painted white and I liked the metallic so much and had enough left over to paint the doors in it too!

Back to the metallic wall.  Hmmm . . . Maybe I should have taken the sock off the top of the Dragon's Maiden tower before taking the photo?  The Dragon's Maiden is another miniature that needs some TLC.  Whenever it gets hot, the glue holding the tiles on the roof softens and all the tiles start to slide off.  I'll fix it as soon as I can think up how.

 Here's the Dancing dragon showing the join between metallic and beige walls.  Yes, this room is a repository for dollshouses past.

Another metallic door.  There are three in total.   All the ceilings were painted too.  Twice in fact.

And finally, another metallic wall in the funny hallway between the door into the room and the room itself.  Technically, I still need to paint all the skirting boards white to match the rest of the woodwork, but that can wait a week or two (or three . . . . or four).