Christmas Gingerbread House

I've finally made and decorated the gingerbread house I wanted to do.  All in all, I could have made a house as wonky and unsofisticated when I was ten, but the experience was fun never the less.  Here's the result of an afternoon's work:

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all my followers. However you celebrate I hope you have a wonderful time and keep safe through the holiday season. Ginny the cat is certainly enjoying herself by ensuring all the tinsel is properly flattened. Put anything that makes a rustling noise down in my house and it gets sat on, laid on and slept on! (And tie the tree to the wall or there will be a very loud crash!)

In miniature news for the week, the Inn is still plodding along very slowly. The roof still isn't quite right, but is probably going to stay as it as (at least for now). I've started to make a bed for the "high" bedroom and hopefully I will add a photo to my Flickr account over the next couple of days, so keep an eye on the Flickr thumbnails to the left for it to appear. I really need to pick up the speed on the Inn as this morning I broke down and ordered Cumberland Castle!!! I've put in an order through Fairy Meadow Miniatures' website, but included a message saying not to worry about posting it until next year. That will give me three kits to play with once the Inn is finished, so the Inn needs to get finished because I want to play! Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post - it is partly due to your lack of discouragement that I took the plunge and bought the kit. I know I am going to love it and will adapt my plans for the Tower of Magic to suit. Have I explained about the Tower of Magic yet? I know I've mentioned it before, but have I told you exactly what it is? Oh well, I'll add another post soon with more info about it for anyone whose been wondering what I've been rambling on about.

Aaarrrrrgggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh no.  I've just been over to Fairy Meadow Miniatures website and found they've added even more DHE house kits.  Worse, they now have Cumberland Castle and more terribly the East Wing extension too.  It was always a wish of mine that they get this kit in stock so I could get my hands on it, but can I justify buying it now when I've only just bought two other kits and still have an Inn to complete?  Can I buy it and still eat?  Can I afford not to buy it now and risk it selling out before I am ready to purchase?  Oh dear, oh dear.

At least I can be reasonably sure the castle won't sell out until after the 20th of January as FMM will be closed for Christmas from Saturday until then.  That's a whole month to think about it . . . but what if the shop burns down over Christmas and they don't restock an C. Castles?  Or what if they sell out before this Saturday?  $600 is really too much to contemplate spending on top of the $400 I've only just forked out.  Isn't it?  It could be turned into the Tower of Magic, it would be a perfect Tower of Magic.  Acutally, it would be two or three TofM's all joined together.  The real magic involved would of course go in finding somewhere to put the finished castle.

When I bought the Retreat and Stratford B. I said how fortunate it was that they didn't have a Cumberland or I'd have bought that too.  If I knew they were getting Cumberlands in stock, and so soon, I may have skipped the other two kits and just bought this one instead.  Maybe if I complain about how unfair it is I'll get a discount on the Castle?  Probably not.

What to do???  What to do???

Welcome New Followers!

Warmest welcomes to Alienora and Anna Amnell, the newest followers of the blog.

Alienora blogs about her own dollshouses on her blog at http://alienora74.blogspot.com/

Anna Amnell is a Finnish author of historical novels and you'll find her blog here : http://amnellanna.blogspot.com/ Anna has also turned her hand to dollshouses, some apparently based around her novels. I first found some photos of her dollshouses about eighteen months ago and love what she did with her DHE Gateshouse kit. You can find some pictures of it on Flickr here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/amnellanna/sets/72157594290018836/ and here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/amnellanna/sets/72157594420412213/

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Fourteen

It's another week with not much to report progress wise. The Inn's roof has been given about four layers of paint. I decided to try for a earthen tile/terracotta colour. I haven't quite got the colouring right yet, so there will be at least one or two more layers of paint to go until I'm happy with it. You can also easily see in the photos many patches that are still white where I've managed not to get paint. In my defence most of these are invisble to the naked eye and most of the rest are under the wonky ridge capping that still needs glueing down properly. Once this is done, the exterior will be finished, barring a few little details like covering the orange paint under the eaves and tidying up a few bits and pieces. Hopefully by Christmas I'll be able to start working on the insides again.

Australia Post have set some speed records this week, delivering both my purchase from Fairy Meadow Miniatures and the delightful giveaway prize from Linda at http://lindasminiaturehappenings.blogspot.com/ after only a few days.  The reason for this amazing speed is probably because they work seven day weeks in December and maybe hire extra workers to cope with the Christmas rush.  I have to wonder if they can do it in December, why not be so efficent all year round?  Anyway, here is a picture of the lovely little things from Linda:

Thanks so much Linda, I just love every piece.  I hate to say this but despite the fact that they are gorgeous, I don't think I can use them in the Inn.  They're just the wrong style for it, so rather sadly I'm going to have to store them away until next time.  On the plus side I do have an idea for which they will be perfect, I just have to get around to doing it.

The two kits from Fairy Meadow Miniatures arrived early Monday morning.  I should mention that I was wrong earlier when I said I'd bought DHE kits made in England.  Boldly printed on the boxes was "Made in Thailand".  Silly me assuming an English company would have it's products made in England.  That makes them very well travelled houses - from Thailand to England to Sydney to Tasmania.  I spent Monday evening eagerly opening up the boxes and ticking off the contents to make sure all the bits and pieces were there.  I started with The Retreat and found all the bits were not only there, but easily identified. 

The Stratford Bakery was another matter, despite the smaller parts being separated into bags marked bag 1, bag 2, etc, and the list of contents listing the contents bag by bag.  The problem was that a lot of the pieces all look the same, some varying only very slightly from others.  The most worrying part is that when all the contents were checked off as present, there were still half a dozen unidentified items out of bag two that bore no resemblance to anything in the diagrams.  Are they extra pieces that shouldn't be there or are they necessary parts not listed in the contents?  I guess I'll find out when I do a dry build.  For now both kits have been squeezed into a cupboard until after Christmas when I will hopefully find the time to dry build them and take some measurements.  Then they'll be going away again until after I finish the Inn.  Maybe.  I could probably make room to work on the Retreat along side the Inn, it's only small after all . . . . . . .

And to add a little bit of seasonal cheer, here's a photo of how my present wrapping and decorating is going.  I'm quite pleased with the boxes.  They were painted red, green and white and then had fabric pasted over them.  The bows however are all wrong and at this rate are going to be replaced with dull shop bought bows.

Welcome Follower No. 63 and Links

Ginny the cat helping build Highcroft

There's something odd happening with my followers lately. First there is a new follower I can't find on the list, now there is another new follower who has appeared seond on the follower list instead of first where the newbies normally go.

I think (but can't swear to the fact) my newest follower is Karin Corbin, whose blog can be found here: http://karincorbin.blogspot.com/ Welcome Karin, I hope you enjoy following my blog. I have just signed up to follow yours and know I am going to love it!

I've also found a couple more websites to add to the Links page. All three new links can be found on the links page under Aussie Suppliers.

http://www.adelaidesminiatures.com//
http://www.enchantingminis.com.au/

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Thirteen

I've done such a good job of side-tracking myself this week that I'd almost forgotten to do this week's post on the Inn.  I've been browsing the internet for ideas for the Christmas Gingerbread house I want to try and make.  How about one like those pictured here?  Yes, maybe that is just a little ambitious for my first try, but wow, aren't those some works of art?  Mine will be small, crooked and if I leave out where it can be seen probably nibbled by a cat, certainly covered in cat fur.  As I've already blogged about I have bought a Retreat and a Stratford bakery kit purely on the basis of extreme greed.  Hopefully they should arrive before Christmas so I can take some time over the Christmas break to dry build them, take some measurements and start coming up with plans for what to do with them - and then put them neatly back in their boxes until after the Inn is finished.  Cough.  Maybe.  Christmas is actually a bad time to start working on projects in Australia because stores often close for Christmas and tend to stay closed until the end of Summer (Jan-Feb).  This means that it can be hard to get your hands on vital supplies.  It's much better to work on existing projects you've already bought all the supplies for.

But I'm supposed to be talking about the progress on the Inn I've made this week.  The good news is that I now have all the shingles/tiles on the roof.  Next up I need to decide what colour they ought to be . . . a terracotta/clay tile colour . . . a grey slate colour . . . a faux wood look?  I'll have to try a few different colours on some leftover tiles and see which looks best.

My number of followers has gone up to sixty-two, but 62 must be a private follower as I can't see their name/icon anywhere (or maybe it's in plain sight right in front of me and I just missed seeing it).  Anyway, welcome to follower no. 62 whoever you are, I hope you don't get too bored or confused by my occasional ability to waffle on and on and my tenuous grasp of the English language (ain't a governement funded education great?).

I've Been Naughty . . .

I just bought a Retreat kit and a Stratford Bakery kit!  I don't need them - the Inn should keep my busy for a long time to come and I have lots of plans for future projects built from scratch, but what the ****.


Both kits are made in England by Dollshouse Emporium and I bought both from Fairy Meadow Miniatures in Sydney.  Now DHE tends to stop making all the kits I like and FMM can only carry so much DHE stock and when they run out, they often don't get the same item back in stock again.  So buying while they have the kits in Oz instead of waiting until I need a new project and discovering there are none in Oz and DHE have stopped making them is a must.  At least that's how I justify this expensive Christmas present to myself.  It's just lucky FMM don't have a Cumberland Castle kit while I'm in a mood to spend money or I really wouldn't have any left at all!

And a quick note to other Australians who'd like a new dollshouse this Christmas, take a look at ebay.  There are some fantasic houses up for auction at the moment, but all pick up only from what to me are far-away places but might work for some of you.  There is a F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S partly finished house made from (I think) a Greenleaf kit in the Sydney area and the bidding is currently at $71.00.  Now that is a bargain!

Yipee . . . I won!! I won!!!

I got a shock when I sat down and checked my emails this morning.  I've won Linda at Linda's Miniature Musings' giveaway prize!  Just in time for Christmas too!  Luck isn't usually with me when it comes to competitions and prize draws, so actually winning something is a decided shock and then to win something so lovely . . . well, it's a good job I'm fit and healthy.

Linda is also the newest follower of this blog so I'd like not only to offer my thanks for her generosity in holding this lovely giveaway, but also to warmly welcome her to my blog.

I was planning on holding a giveaway of my own before Christmas, but it turns out Christmas is only three weeks away (that scare anyone else?) and I'm just not going to get organised enough to prepare the prize in time.  The giveaway will be held sometime in January next year instead (I hope), so please keep an eye out for it in the new year.

Hats and Horses Don't Mix?

Followers of this blog will know I often use dolls I have on hand to model my works in progress.  After several comments suggesting it would be more tasteful to use clothed dolls, I decided to get Naked Neville something to wear.  A suit being auctioned on ebay by Lesley's Miniature Knitting looked like it would work on Neville when I finally get around to making that Edwardian era roombox for him.  The auction included shirt, trousers, jacket and a hat.  When it arrived in the mail I was disapointed to find the hat had been crushed.  It might have been Australia Post's fault or it might have something to do with the fact my mail is delivered by the postman, who then puts the mail in the dog's mouth, who then delivers it to me.  Not only is my mail usually damp, it occasionally has tooth-marks in it as well.

Making the most of the situation, I had a bit of fun coming up with the story of how the hat ended up in such a sorry state.

Proud and dapper in his new suit, Neville promenades along the street.  An errant gust of wind blows his new hat into the path of an oncoming horse.

If only the horse had a rider, they might have been able to miss the hat, but the horse's rider was too embarrassed to go out with the horse because she is still naked.  Neville pick up the hat and surveys the damage while the horse looks on bashfully.

The horse, apparently a close relative of Mr. Ed, says how sorry he is and asks if Neville will forgive him.  Neville would like to be angry, but can't help thinking the horse has a long enough face already.  Neville says they can call it even if the horse will give him a lift to the nearest hat repair shop.

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Twelve

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Twelve
Originally uploaded by Alennka

There's not a lot to say about this week. In fact the photo says about all of it. I've made a start at tiling the roof, but have only managed to add half a dozen rows of tile on two sections of roof. There are a number of reasons why I've not made a great amount of progress this week and here they are:

Firstly, to make the tile involved marking out tile shapes on a piece of cardboard and then cutting them out. The marking out was fairly easy (aside from when there was a cat sitting in the middle of the cardboard trying to catch the ruler) but the cutting was a different matter. After a while not only does the sound of all the bones in the back of my hand popping as they move about indepentantly (shouldnt they have all fused together by the time a person gets to be 28?) really start to get annoying but it also starts to get sore and worse I get a semi permenent scissor handle shaped depression in the flesh of my thumb. So I can only cut so many tiles at a time before I have to stop and do something else for a while - such as read a chapter of a book. The problem here is that I was reading one of Terry Pratchett's discworld novels and they don't have chapters so I tend to just keep on and on reading rather than just reading a chapter and going back to something vaugley useful.

The next reason why the Inn hasn't progressed that much this week is that Christmas is coming - only 29 days more! That always means a lot of work. Cupbaords need to be cleaned out so that there will be room to pack them full of Christmas goodies, there are boxes to be decorated so that presents can be put inside them, my Grandma's silver teapot needs it's annual polish, etc, etc. My mother pulled up the carpet in the front room and has set my father to laying a laminate floor and of course someone ended up helping to clear out the room first. I'm sure everyone reading this is familiar with the bustle that is December. So in short, there isn't a lot of time left over for working on dollshouses. And it's only going to get worse between now and Christmas.

I will try to keep up work on the Inn, but frankly, I doubt I will even get the roof finished before Christmas. I will (try) to keep the blog up to date and add some seasonal posts such as pictures of the Gingerbread house I want to try to make (if it turns out to be presentable). If however I get behind, I appologise in advance.

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Eleven

  

There have been no dramatic changes to the appearance of the Inn this week. The front has been finished off with the addition of a multitude of wooden strips, not only on the fronts, but also on the sides of the building. I'm not sure I'm happy with the look of this - I think the tavern level in particular is a bit too busy. However, it's too late to change now, so this is how it is going to remain.

The other addition this week is the windows. It doesn't show up well in all the photos, but all the black holes in the walls now have acetate "glass" filling them in. I used some faux leadlighting outliner on the clear acetate to create the look of a leaded window with a multitude of small paynes comprising the whole. This leading was done in a vareity of patterns in the hope of giving the Inn a bit of an "added to over time" look.  I suspect when the Inn was fiest built none of the windows had glass and this was added over time as the proprietors could afford it.  Certainly the Inn must have been doing a roaring trade to be able to afford to glaze all it's windows at once.

The window that opens on the balcony by the Inn's front door was given a bit of extra attention. Some time ago I downloaded an image of a dragon from a free online colouring-in site and printed it out in a range of sizes to use when I make the signs for the inn. I still haven't made the signs, but have added the dragon image to the front window. I simply placed the acetate window over the printed image and "traced" it using the outliner. I then added a pattern of leading over the whole window and when the leading was dry, coloured in the dragon and parts of the leading with Gallery Glass paints.

Once all the leading on the windows was dry they were glued into the prepared frames of the Inn. Mostly, these are simple rectangles flush with the front of the Inn. The window in the removable section of the tavern front, as well as the window in the side wall of the tavern overhanging the stairs from ground level are both built out about 3/4" and the two large windows on the top floor jut out to make a two payne bay window.

The next task to be tackled is the roof. I have been through various plans for this, including thatch and clay tile. Last week was to use terracotta air dry clay to make indivual tiles to cover the roof. Needless to say that plan has changed; I've come to the conclusion that making that many tiles is going to take from now 'till Christmas . . . 2011! Not to mention where am I going to put all those tiles where they can lie flat while they dry? So the revised plan is to cut tiles from some thick cardboard and paint them to suit. I would have had to use paint on the clay tiles to get the right effect anyway so hopefully the finished effect won't be too different. The final rationalisation for taking this short cut is that without the aid of a stepladder, most of the roof is kind of hard to see anyway.

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Ten

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Ten
Originally uploaded by Alennka

This was one of those weeks when I seemed to spend a lot of time busily working away on the Inn, but with very little to show for it at the end. My goal of the week was to make the front panels and finish off the exterior of the Inn, excluding the roof and windows. As you can see in the photo, the Inn does have front walls now, but they still need work, namely the addition of more decorative wooden strips/noggings and securing to the building. At the moment the fronts are held in place with either clamps, pins or luck. I'm not sure whether to try using hooks and eyes to hold them on or to try and find some form of magnetic catch. One would be visible on the outside while the other would be visible on the inside and neither would look very pretty.

The tavern level has a single removable front wall with a single large window (or at the moment a single black hole). It is cut from foamboard to fit between the wooden posts at either end of the opening. The panel was then given a thin coat of pollyfilla to create a rougher surface and it was painted in a pale green. Balsa wood strips were then glued to the front of the panel overhaning both sides so that they completely covered the supporting posts. These pieces cover the slightly wavering edges of the board to give a nice neat finish.

The remaining floors have three front wall sections each, one for each room and one for the hallway between them. They were made in the same fashion as the tavern panel with the exception that the wood strips on the inside edges of each of the side panels are wide enough to cover the supporting post and the edge of the centre panel. This means that the side panels hold the centre panel in place so only the side panels will need securing to the building.

Finally, I started adding thin balsa strips to decorate the fronts. I started by framing the holes for the windows and made it as far as almost finishing the fronts of the first bedroom level. I still need to work on the levels above and below this one, plus do all the sides which at this point have been painted to match the front panels. Then figure out how to permanently, but removably attach the fronts. Then made the windows. Then make the tiles for the roof. Then cover the roof. I think saying I will be ready to start working on the inside by Christmas is really quite optomistic, especially if making roof tiles is going to be as horrid and time consuming as I am expecting. Perhaps I should go back to plan A, thatch?

Drawing Room - Week Nine

Drawing Room - Week Nine
Originally uploaded by Alennka

At long last the room has a rug for the floor. It's not oval as I originally intended and I'm not sure it's exactly Regency, but at least it's a rug. I can always change it at some point in the furture if I ever find something I like better.

I'm still not sure about the furniture in this room, somehow no arrangement or subsitution seems to work quite right. However what you see in the photo is how it is going to stay, whether it looks right or not. To tell the truth, I am simply sick of fussing with this room. In the time I've spent fussing with this one single room I've built an entire four story Inn!

I think at this point I'll take a few weeks off this project and come back and finish it off later. The only main feature the room is missing at the moment are lights. These will of course be dummy (non working) lights which I will have to make. Right now I think I'll wait until the Dancing Dragon Inn is ready to have it's lights done and do the two at once.

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week Nine

For some reason, Blogger isn't letting me add photos this week, so until I get this sorted out, please take a look the the photos on my Flickr account here: Dancing Dragon Inn

The final floor of the Inn was added this week and topped off with a roof.  As with all the other levels, this one started with a piece of foamboard cut to size and a hole cut in to allow the stairs to pass through.  The under side was given a skim coat of pollyfilla and painted off white to create the ceiling of the bedrooms below while the top side was covered in more popsicle stick "floorboards".  Once I has a floor, I added the walls to the sides and back of the floor.  These walls were only 3" high as most of the height of this level is under the sloping roof ontop of the walls. 

The exact shape and design of the roof is something that had been under debate in my head for weeks.  There were all sorts of ways I could have made it, but many of them left me undable to access the rooms within, made the roof too high or created low points where the mini residents would have to duck to walk underneath.  Finally I settled on a compromise mix of a few different ideas.  The result is a roof with three peaks, their ridges running back to front with the central ridge slightly lower that the two either side.  Like the walls, the roof was made by making a frame out of balsa wood and filling the sections created with foamboard.  At this point I made a discovery.  Peel the plastic-paper outer layer off the foamboard and you are left with a rough, off white surface that imitates a rough plaster finish reasonably well.  As this floor is where the cheapest rooms of the Inn are located, a cheap coat of "plaster" seemed like a good finish for the walls and peeling off the layer of foamboard was much easier than going over it with pollyfilla and painting it.  Strips of balsa wood were then added to the walls for some extra decoration.

The exterior of the roof still needs to be covered in tiles.  A quick measure of the roof I'd created gave me an area of 480 square inches that need to be covered, requiring approximately 2000 standard twelth scale roof tiles.  Having seen the prices of roof tiles (and adding on the fact that I'd have to get them shipped from the UK or US) there was just no way I was going to finish the roof with pre-bought tiles.  Now I have two choices; use a sheet of preformed tile effect cladding or make my own tiles.  The preformed cladding sheets do look quite economical (even though I still can't find any in Oz), but every tile it perfect and identical and having seen other miniature tiled roofs (rooves?) around the internet, the roofs with cracked and slipping tiles absolutely look better than those with neat, orderly rows of tiles.  Acheiving this means using individual tiles, so I'm going to have a go at making my own.  The plan is to use terracotta air dry clay, roll it flat and cut it into tile sized rectangles.  I have a feeling the plan may be a simple one, but that it may take weeks to produce enough tiles to cover the roof.  The thought of what is sure to be time consuming and tedious work making tiles is why I'm thinking I'll work on making the removable front walls next and finish the roof off later.