King of the Castles

Most nights I hear a rustling from the corner of the bedroom.  It's the sound of three quarters grown kitten Charlie scrambling onto the top of the Dancing Dragon Inn for a nice nap.  The Inn is made out of foamboard.  Nice, soft, going-to-collapse-under-the-weight-any-time-now foamboard

Durring the day he prefers the top of Highcroft Castle's tower.  Notice the centre window on the main castle is broken?  That's due to it being constantly impacted by a cats back feet as it takes a flying leap onto the top.

 For evenings, he likes the top of Dawncrest Castle where he can chew on the soft balsa wood crenellations.

 Now, remind me again, why exactly do we keep cats?

When not following Charlie around with a camera, I played with fabrics and had the polymer clay out this week and was busy making dozens of little bits and pieces for Bellerose House.  Most of these pieces still need painting, embellishing or otherwise finishing before they go into the house.  The fabrics are piled up in the various rooms as I try and decide what I like in which space.  In short, the house is a bit of a mess without much noticable progress.

Most of the change you can see is in the kitchen where preparations for the evening meal are in full swing.  On the right one of the cooks (currently invisible) is tipping a bowl of beaten egg whites onto a base of lemon curd to create a lemon merange pie for desert.  On the left is a "copper" fish kettle complete with fish ready for the oven and a saucepan of peeled potatoes ready to be boiled.  A "copper" kettle is boiling on the hotplates and the ice box finally has some handles.

 In addition to hand made accessories, there is a scattering of new shop bought ones too.  In the Dining room there is a new vase and a pair of ornamental ladies.  These items were all made by the Dolls House Emporium and they all had truely appauling paint jobs.  Having repainted all of them I can tell you that it isn't easy to paint such small items, but I would have expected a big name supplier like DHE to have higher standards in what they produce.  As you can see in the close up of the trophy vase for the Dining room dresser, my paint job is far from perfect but it is an immeasureable improvement over the original.

In the main bedroom, I've made a start on dressing the bed.  The pillows and cushions still need to be stuffed and I want to add a throw over the foot of the bed.  Given the frantic pattern of the wallpaper and the designs on the bed itself, I tried to keep the bedding as simple as possible.   You might notice that the door now has a handle.  This is another of the few polymer clay items that has been installed.

Next week, there will be lots of new things ready to be unveiled (at least that's the plan).