Painting On Silk.....

Kathi asked to see a close up of the flower paintings from yesterday. I decided to go all out and show you more.

Here you go, Kathi! The little ovals of silk were wrapped around and glued to illustration board ovals. The frames are some of the metal miniatures that you can get and paint yourself.

To do the paintings, I used tube acrylics and thinned them down like watercolors. I started with a light pencil sketch. Then I did the paintings lightest colors first and finishing with darker colors and in this case, I did a few details with Pigma brand Micron Pen .005. They are archival and don't run or fade over time. Very fine.

This next one is the very first one that I did. It is a copy of a Japanese painting. This one is all painting. no pens.

I did notice that it is "foxing" up in the right corner. That's OK. It just makes it look old. If you enlarge this one, you can see the weave in the silk.

The last one is the desert dweller in the Southwestern Room Box. She is done with a little more oil painting technique than the other ones. That is, there is thicker paint on this one and less watering down of the paint in some areas. Some layering of the paint in other areas.

Here's a closer look at the top half of the painting. Her face and cowl are completely covered with paint, as is some of the mountain. The mountain is a kind of stylized version of my favorite Arizona mountain. It is Picacho Peak. It is between Tucson and Phoenix. Picacho means peak in Spanish...So it is a bit redundant....Peak Peak....I always wondered who named it.

I am still working on the real house. For some reason, I get in the mood to clean out cupboards and closets this time of year...Maybe it's because I think that I am going to get a lot of new stuff to fill them when Christmas comes.....If I'm good...No comments please...I really do try...Honest....

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Still Slogging Upstream......

The never ending laundry is chugging away and I am off on another tangent whilst it chugs.

Last night, Walter and I heard a clunking noise and we both thought that one of the cats had gotten into mischief.

Actually, it was Tessie's Townhouse getting into mischief. I have been trying for ages to get up enough courage to break apart the two pieces of the bay wall that were supposed to be a door on the front of the townhouse.

I put it on and immediately took it back off. I absolutely hated the hinges on the corner of the house. I decided that it wasn't going to open.

In order to make it fit right without the hinges, I needed to have it back in two pieces. The townhouse fixed itself. I went to investigate the noise and lo and behold, the piece that I had taped in place had fallen to the floor and the two pieces were no longer together. Maybe the townhouse is trying to tell me something....

Anyway, back to the stream of consciousness. It seems that it even applies to miniature rooms. I was putting things back where they belonged this morning and when I put a few books back in this corner box, I decided to dust it and re stick some of the pieces. I noticed an example of one of my other upholstered back wicker chairs. That lead to Tessie wanting photos taken.

This box was made in the nineties. I know because the shelving unit on the right was done at an Arizona State Day in Phoenix one year and I made the corner box for the shelving unit.

I am going to have to work up a similar piece for the blog sometime. It is easy, but it looks fancy.

The drawers don't open and the legs are just Houseworks.

The reason that I took the photo though, was because of the chair. This is one that I made at the time. It also has an upholstered back. On this one, the pad is only partial.

The two paintings above it are some that I painted on silk. I was on a kick at the time of doing that technique.

I came up with it when I did the Southwestern Room Box. The portrait over the fireplace is done on silk. That was the first one that I did. It was one of those "I wonder what would happen if I did this?" kind of ideas. And it worked. I wrapped and glued the silk to a piece of illustration board. Then I went to work with watercolors. and Prismacolor fine point, water proof pens.

Anyway, the stream of consciousness is still going strong and I just heard the dryer quit. Time to jump back in.

See you tomorrow.

What To Do With An Ugly Chair......

The white chair is as done as it is ever going to be. After I finished weaving and trimming it, I positively hated it. There were not enough ribs in the center section of the back and it looked sparse. Now I know why, on the real chairs, they put double reeds where there is going to be this much open work.

It looks like a drunken spider did the work on the back. Oh well. I guess that they can't all be perfect. You get to learn from my experiments.

I decided to turn it into one of my chairs with a padded back. If you can't live with it, cover it. That's my motto for the day.


Not wanting to waste materials on this thing, I went and got a piece of the foamcore that I bought at the dollar store.

It is more like 1/8' than a quarter, so I used two thicknesses of the stuff. Then I put some of the low loft batting on top. I wrapped the whole thing with some cotton calico fabric and glued it on the bottom.


Then, to cover the ugly, I cut a piece of card stock the size and shape of the center panel. I covered this with a piece of low loft batting and then with matching fabric.

I haven't decided if I want any other trim on it or not. I am leaning towards leaving it as is and putting a fancy pillow on it. We shall see.

Meanwhile, I am doing "stream of consciousness" house cleaning now. That's where you pick something up in one room and put it away in another. While doing that, you see something that needs to be done in that room... Example... Carry tweezers to bathroom....pick up two rugs that need to be washed and put them in the washer. Notice that the laundry closet could use a good straightening...Find the missing Windex bottle in the process. Then take it to the back door and clean the window.... Through the window, I see that the bird feeders in the back yard need to be filled...Fill the feeders and then stop to re pot a couple of plants on the back porch. Talk to the woodpecker that hangs out in the backyard. Then realize that the rugs that I put in the washer earlier should be ready for the dryer. Put them in the dryer and go to the kitchen for a load of towels.

I decided that the furniture in the living room could use some lemon oil. Went to the hall closet. It needed a good straightening. While doing that I found some wrapping paper and wrapped the first Christmas present of the year.

I could go on and on, but then I wouldn't have time to do the rest of the stream.... I found the computer in the middle of the stream and checked to see what was going on in Bloglandia. The towels are still waiting in the washer....I guess it's time to go back to wading through the messy house.

See you tomorrow.

I Am Now Officially a Basket Case....

No progress on fixing the links from one page to another. I did find that, if you start at the beginning or the end and keep pushing older posts or newer posts at the bottom of each page you can navigate that way. But if you go to a month in the archives, it still only leaves you the choice of "home". So....You will still have to follow the instructions in yesterday's blog. Bah Humbug!!!

On to more important things...Iris http://itsalwayssunnyinminiland.blogspot.com/ asked about two specific basket styles that I haven't shown before. The first one was the ecru basket to the left of this photo. Both of these baskets were woven at about the same time....Very early in my wicker career. It started out as a sewing basket on legs, but somewhere along the line, I broke the legs off. So it is now just a sewing basket. I noticed that I am going to have to replace the tassle. It started out as bright red to match the silk interior of the basket. The other one is some of my first hand dyed thread. I used Dark Green Rit dye on that.

Anyway, they are just wicker baskets done on Woodsies bases.

If you want to dye thread for weaving, here's the process. First, in order to insure an even dye job, you have to unwind the whole ball of thread and put it into a loose hank. You have to tie it loosely in about four spots to keep it from tangling. Follow the instructions on the package and leave it in the dye pot until it is a shade darker than you want the finished thread. It will dry lighter.

Then you have to reverse the process and wind the thread back into a ball of some kind, so that it doesn't tangle while you are working. I am thankful for the niddy noddy and the ball winder that I found in the thrift shops every time I do this. The niddy noddy makes for unwinding the thread and putting it into a skein very easy. The ball winder puts it back where it started much faster. Those two tools make it much easier than doing either process by hand.

I threw this one in for good measure. A friend of mine made the egg basket years ago by using hardware cloth (wire screening). She simply cut an x shape and folded up the sides. Then she put a wire handle on top. By the way, the eggs are small white beans.

Iris was particularly interested in this one. It is a bent wood Shaker style basket. I cam up with making these out of the infamous Japanese calendar wood. I haven't put it on the blog before because I don't particularly like making them. When I first started doing them, back in the 80s, everything country was in style and they sold like hotcakes. The only trouble is, they are messy and smelly to make. I soaked the sticks in ammonia for a day or two so that they would be flexible. Then I would bend them, glue them together, and let them dry another couple of days. I lined each one and put angel lace between the lining and the outside of the basket. Then I hand painted the outside of each basket to match the lining....Lots of work for the price that I got at the time. This is the only one that I have left.

Tessie finds it handy to carry around bits and bobs of sewing stuff. I do think that I will easily resist the urge to make more though.

I am off to knit more socks now.

See you tomorrow.

Do You Want to Play a Game....?

It's called "See if you can get to Tessie's first appearance on the blog in less than 15 minutes." I will even tell you when it was.

Tessie first showed up here on January 10, 2009. Next January, she will have been here three years.

She is however, much older than that. She was born in London England in 1593. But that's another very,very long story.

A few days ago, there was a comment on the blog, saying that the reader couldn't get to that day.

I thought that was strange and started investigating. It seems that most all of the archive pages in the side bar lead to only part of any given month.

As you know, the newest entry is always at the top of the page. I went to January, 09 and scrolled down....It went as far as the 19th and then there was the bottom, where the "newer posts", "home" and "older posts" buttons are supposed to be. Those navigate to the next section.....However....There is a problem. Right now, the only button there is "Home". That takes you right back to this page. GRRRRRR.....Frustration abounds!

I went and checked. The posts are still there. I got through to them through my "edit posts" page.

At that time, I thought that it was only the one section that was being strange. Then last night, I caught Tessie bouncing around on the keys and she discovered that all of the pages were like that, with the exception of this one.


We played with it for a while. We first went to the January 2009 page. We went to the last entry and selected it by poking the title. That brought up January 18, 2009... One problem. In order to get back to January 10th, we had to go to the bottom of each one and poke, "older post"(singular). On each entry between.

After investigating a bit more, in the same manner, we managed to get to January of 2010. By that time Tessie was opening the Tea Shop and Zar was there helping.

I wrote a question on the Blogger forum about how to fix this. Evidently nobody else is having the same problem. No one has answered on there.

This morning I put a question on the "help" page. I am, so far, not hearing anything about it being fixed.

This year in January, Tessie was turning her cottage into a millinery shop. She had high hopes of moving into the townhouse....It's not ready yet....

If you need to get to any old entries on the blog, these the only ways that I know how to do it.

You can do it by "label" or you can take the long way around as I described above.....

You can always start at the very beginning and, one at a time, work forward.....Very few people are that patient.

Hopefully, I will get it straightened out soon. Wish me luck.

See you tomorrow.

Long Live Rock and Roll!!!

At the present, Tucson Museum of Art is featuring a show called "Who Shot Rock and Roll?". Since Walter had the day off, we went down to see what it was about. It consists of photos, candid and posed of rock and roll from 1955 to the present. Very interesting. Some I would love to have hanging in my house. Some others, not so much.

While Walter was intent on seeing the photos, I wandered off a couple of times into other galleries because something caught my eye elsewhere. Leave it to me to see this out of the corner of my eye and run for it.

It is a Chinese Ancestral Shrine, about the size of a Barbie house. It was beautifully carved and real tiles on the roof. Unfortunately, all we had to take the photo was Walter's cell phone.

Wouldn't this make a wonderful backdrop for Chinese miniatures?

When we got home, Tessie was ready to make me feel guilty for taking a couple of days off from miniatures. I walked in and there she was, sitting in a half finished wicker chair on the thread that it would take to finish it.

I ignored her and went to eat leftover turkey lunch. Then there was no excuse.

I booted her out of the chair.
Here you can see how far along I was in the weaving. Not very....

I had the front edge woven and turned down. I had done some experimental open work and even wrapped the legs and finished the bottom edge.

Here, I am starting the first row of the top. I always do two rows of overhand loop stitches to start, just like a lot of the real chairs have. It looks much better than when you just start weaving.

I though you might like to see the positioning of my hands. I support the wires with my index finger and hold the chair with the rest. That way there are less bent wires to contend with.

In the last photo, you can see what progress I have made so far this afternoon. I don't think that I am going to be doing many more of these. Personally, I prefer working with either natural or darker colors. The white can't be worked with bee's wax. It discolors the thread after a while. And believe it or not, I find the open work more fiddly to work with. You have to hold the crosses in place whilst wrapping them. You have to hide threads in places and you keep having to tangle and untangle wires when you cross them. It's easy enough, just not really much fun.

I think that Tessie should let me off easy. After all, it's a holiday weekend and I want to do something fun. Hmmm.... Pumpkin pie with whipped cream sounds like much more fun than weaving a chair...Maybe if I offer Tessie a piece too, she will consider a pardon for good behavior.

See you tomorrow.

Someone Call the Turkey Police!!!

When you don't have time to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving, what do you do?

I don't know about you, but Tessie and Zar solved the problem by thievery. The took the food from the Christmas Kitchen Island. Tessie is zapping it all to make it replenish able for Christmas, so I guess that there is no need for the Turkey Police after all!

Happy Thanksgiving! See you tomorrow.

1-2-3 Stitch....

What with all of the pre cooking I am doing for tomorrow, I only got six of the baskets stitched.

Anybody can do this. All of the stitching was done with either two or three strands of floss.

The piece of canvas that Tessie is holding shows the basic stitches. The simplest is the running stitch on the bottom. The first half (left side) is simply done by weaving the thread over and under the vertical rows. The second half was done by doing it twice. The second pass was done to fill in the in between stitches.

The second row is a diagonal stitch. Basically, this is the first half of a cross stitch. The second section shows the crosses that happen if you just go back the way that you came.

The third (top) row is diagonal stitches on every other X of the canvas. If you do this both ways, you wind up with a rickrack pattern or a simple line of hills and valleys.


The top row and the two end baskets on the second row are the ones that I did this morning. They definitely take up a lot less space than they did as components in the plastic bags.

I still have eight to go.

I thought that you would like to look at some of the finished ones in the basket shop.

If you enlarge the photo, you will be able to study the patterns. The only other stitch that I used is a back stitch for the edges of the two oval baskets on the bottom shelf. The white part is back stitch. Two threads forward and one thread back in front.

Now you know how easy it is. you can either do the stitching before you glue the canvas to the basket. I do it both ways...It just depends on the mood I am in when I start. There is another tutorial on these baskets elsewhere on the blog, under the heading "baskets". I think that it is about the first one, so you may have to go back a ways to get to it.

You can also use any stiff even weave fabric to do this. The bases are Woodsies. Have fun.

See you tomorrow.

Baker's Dozen Plus One....

I am still whittling away at the drawers in the workroom. This morning I ran across some old kits that I had for classes and sales a while ago, for Penelope canvas baskets. To be specific, fourteen of them.

Tessie, in all of her wisdom, suggested that I finish them. According to her, "You might as well have useful finished baskets, as a bunch of plastic bags full of junk!"

Actually, that made sense. Someone please tell me that I am not starting to think like Tessie!


I sorted through them and realized that there were really only two types. Not wanting them all the same, I cut down the side canvas of some of them. I then trimmed them and glued the bottom edge of the canvas to the base. I had cut them to size, with just one group of threads overlapping at the starting point.

I took this photo of Tessie when I was half way done putting them together....OK....So I took a few minutes out to look at the new beading magazine that I purchased along with the groceries this morning. Hey! I have to take a break once in a while.

When I got to the back cover, I had to put it in the photo. See that tree? It's all made out of copper wire and beads! I am now wondering about a beaded garden in miniature.... Very pretty tree....

Anyway, back to work. I have completed the assembly of fourteen baskets. Now I can start the fun part. They will all get a woven design with two strands of embroidery floss.

Tessie is pretty good at that part too. We will be stitching this afternoon.

I have to go dig up the boxes of floss.

See you tomorrow with finished baskets and instructions on the stitches I use.

Above and Beyond....

I'm talking about six loads of wash....And getting on a stepladder to take photos of what's behind the stuff that you saw yesterday.

Actually, the first photo is of the "attic" plant shelf in the bedroom. There's a hatbox that was, at one time, a finished hat shop inside. It needs renovating.

Next to it is an intriguing box that my father in law found somewhere. It has two separate lids, split down the middle. In front of that is an old jewel box. All three have possibilities.


Now for some of the stuff behind the front layer of the plant shelf in the workroom. It is so nice to have a place to put a step ladder so that I can get up there to see it all. I am keeping the floor all uncluttered!

Tessie had to get into the act. Behind her is the Sundance Saloon movie set. That is April's. She asked me for it soon after I made it, but she doesn't have room for it right now. Unfortunately, it is going to have to be completely re done. The window that you see that is broken is on purpose. One of the actors just slugged a guy for cheating at cards and he went right through the window.

Tessie is standing on one of the unused boxes and behind her is another pile of boxes that will be used in the future....I am getting tired just counting them...Maybe some of the tired is from doing laundry and cleaning house. I started cleaning kitchen cupboards. It is Monday again....I vote that we eliminate Mondays. All in favor, say "I".

Meanwhile, Tessie is still harassing me about the unfinished aprons. That's all I got done in mini today....I finished the one that she has on. One down. Three to go....

Tuesday will be better. No laundry. Just three more aprons. I am eyeing the 1/4" castle. I went on line searching for Tudor scullery photos. I found some wonderful ones of Hampton Court kitchens and sculleries by putting in "Tudor scullery" and pushing images.

If any of you are interested in this period, these photo collections are outstanding. http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarge_schultz/1672279511/ and http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1052249601031312462OoTffd Very interesting detail photos in the second group.

I am off to finish the laundry now.

See you tomorrow.

Not Really Procrastinating....Honest.....

It is called more like "Doing forty things at once." It's almost the end of the year and I am taking stock....See these five photos, all done up in a neat little frame?

Since one of my first jobs carried the title "Inventory Clerk", I have a bad habit of counting things that shouldn't need counting. For example, this morning I looked around the workroom and in just these five areas, I counted 33 various kinds of either unfinished or never been started room boxes, vignettes, houses, birdcages, and other unusual containers for mini scenes....We are not talking about the ones that aren't showing.

This is serious enough to make me want to tiptoe out the door and lock it until after Christmas! I won't. But I do reserve the right to tiptoe out once in a while and work on something else.

For example, knitting. Every year I knit socks for April and Seth and if I have time, I do it for other family members too.

I am making headway on the pile that I showed you the other day. I finished the first pair and am up to turning the heel on the second sock of the next pair....However......The other day April requested a stocking cap. So....I went and got a skein of yarn and started that this morning. That won't take long. While I was looking for needles, I also found a diagonal patterned scarf that I started earlier in the year. Make that two....One of them is not in the photo.

I somehow think that there is a pattern here. The six year old's attention span is alive and well...Tessie is not being of much help. Now she wants socks too. She insists that she is part of the family and NEEDS socks.

The six year old is going to be very busy, jumping from one project to the next. If I finish the hat today and a sock tomorrow, will I do all of those minis? Don't worry. I will squeeze them into the lineup somehow.

See you tomorrow.

Gone, But Not Forgotten....

I couldn't bear another shingle or brick. Sorry Claudia, I am not going to be a bad influence anymore. If you start your Fairfield, it will be of your own volition....Maybe if you do start, I will got back to mine, but for now, it is back in the workroom.

I did leave it down on my grandma's stool, where it is to be seen every time I walk in the door. Of course, I can always turn my head as I walk. It is so nice to have a clean floor now. I won't even trip when I turn my head...

It didn't take me but a minute to carry it into the workroom. Very lightweight and portable. That's one nice thing about 1/2" scale.

But then, so is the Milliner's cottage...By the time I had walked back into the bedroom, Tessie had whisked that one into the space on top of the jewelry/needlework chest.

As I strolled through the house, looking for a replacement, I noted that the milliner's cottage was missing....Of course it was.

When I arrived, Tessie was in the sewing room with a pile of fabric. As I neared, I started getting very nervous. I realized that was all of the unfinished aprons that I had hidden there a few months ago. She didn't know about them and I had forgotten putting them there.

Guess what I am going to be making for her now? She counted four aprons in various levels of completion. Luckily, two of them only need fasteners on the waist.

Meanwhile, she and Zar have settled into the main floor. She zapped the kitchen table and chairs from the townhouse over there to sit on.

She has figured out that this is an advantageous point for directing my work... She announced, "You will now address me as Madame Project Director!" Yeah....Right....

I figure that, what with the large pitcher of bug beer and all of that food, both of them and Spike too, will be ready for a long nap in no time.

Then I can go to work on something that I want to do.....Not aprons....Not today....

See you tomorrow.

Another Way to Get Around It....

This morning I realized that it is just a bit over a month until Christmas is here....Again....As I am still not in the mood for the half inch house, I needed another excuse....

I wouldn't want to be a bad influence on Claudia by encouraging her to start another house before she finishes her first house, so maybe I should put it away for a while....

Last year, about this time, I started thinking about doing a Christmas living room with Santa inside. Somehow, that just didn't thrill me. It has been done so many times.

I got out the box of Christmas Minis, and as I passed through the house, I spotted the gazebo that I did a few years ago. It is now pretty boring and stale.

As Tessie dug through the box, I remembered that, when I was little, it was a tradition to go somewhere to sit on Santa's lap and tell him our Christmas wishes. There are still stories of the first time my parents dragged me into Sears to sit on Santa's lap and I screamed bloody murder because they wanted me to sit on the lap of that strange, scary guy with the white beard. I never did live that down. I still got presents, so I soon figured out that Santa was a myth.

I think that Tessie has had that figured out for a long time. She still sat on his lap in the Christmas box and asked for a long list of gifts. He finally pushed her off of his lap and stood up so that she couldn't ask for more.

I seem to remember that one year the "real" Santa was set up in a gazebo of sorts and it was more fun than just Santa sitting in a big chair in front of a fake backdrop. Sooooo.....I put two and two together.

With the help of Tessie, Zar and Santa, we whipped it into shape in no time.

Here's the old version.

Basically, I painted over the lavender flowers that were on the trim. I changed out the wicker for an easy chair and footstool for Santa. Oh, and a rug in Christmas colors was installed.
This is the new version.

I used the sparkly chenille stems for wrapping the posts. I installed a few bottle brush trees. After all, this is Arizona and we don't do real pines as much as other parts of the country. You are just lucky that Tessie didn't plant prickly pears and saguaros around the outside.

See the slight sprinkling of snow on the ground? I raided the pantry and used some Kosher Salt. After Christmas, I will just dust it off. Critters and bugs don't like salt, so I am not worried. Not that I have critters and bugs. Just a statement of fact that it won't attract them....

Santa is now ready and open for lap-sitting. Of course we all know which person is going to be first in line. I am not sure how she managed it, but she already has a package in hand.

I will probably go back and do something with the bases on the bottle brush trees in the front. More railroad greenery, coming right up.

See you tomorrow.

I'm Revolting....

This morning, I couldn't take another shingle or brick. I have been house bound for the last three days. So I revolted! I went to the antique mall. All I got was two old handkerchiefs and those weren't even exciting enough to take photos.

So, when I returned, I went in a completely different direction. I decided that I needed to take an inventory of the Christmas sock situation. All year long, I knit. One sock here. A half a sock there....

I cleaned out the knitting basket, where I store all of the half done socks.I found these five pair in various states of unfinished-ness...I know that's not a word, but it describes what I found. I am not saying which socks go to whom. That way it will still be a surprise. Kind of.


Then what happens? Tessie has to be a blabber mouth and show you what is still in the sock basket. Rats! Foiled again!

Just for that, I decided to change courses again and clean out the tatting box...

Darn! There, I found all of these pieces in various states of undone-ness...I am, after all, just practicing. I am getting better at needle tatting. I am now to the bead adding stage!

Having not tatted for years, I am remembering it quickly. In fact, my bead knitting box has now changed into a bead tatting box/bead knitting box. Notice that the bead tatting box comes first in the title...

My only problem is, Tessie keeps following me around and telling on me. This time she sat in the box of thread and kindly pointed out, "There sure is a lot of thread left in here. I could use a couple of doilies and maybe a bedspread or two...". Somehow it always come around to the task of making something for her.

Don't tell her that I bought the hankies for her. I am not happy with the stiffness of the dress that I just made her.

But since I have vowed not to do any minis today, I can't tell her that or I would be breaking my vow.

I am going back now and finish at least one pair of socks. That's my goal for today. The second pair from the left only need a toe knitted. I can at least do that much before Tessie finds the hankies. Wish me luck!

See you tomorrow.

A New Technique? Maybe....

This morning I started bricking the chimney with egg cartons....As I worked, I kept trying to think of an easier way to do all of the brick and stone work that I do with egg cartons....Light bulb over the head moment....

I stopped cutting tiny bricks and started playing. Mad scientist experiments are much more fun than bricking.

I have done bricks and tiles with illustration board, just cutting groves for grout into the board with an Exacto knife. I wondered if I could do the same thing with egg cartons?

First, I tried just doing half inch brick in the egg carton, rough side, with a tiny stylus. It kind of worked, but not as well as I wanted. I don't think that 1/2" scale will be possible because the egg cartons aren't as hard pressed as illustration board.

Next, I tried 1" scale stone work. First I painted a mottled, all over pattern with my Hippo Gray and Trail Tan. I left some egg carton showing through.

Then I took a NEW BLADE in and Exacto and started cutting a V shape into the carton for grout lines between the stone. Not bad at all for a first try. If I do it again, I will probably draw the lines on the painted carton first. I think that I am happiest with this application.

To take the experiment a bit further, I decided to carry on to bricks in one inch scale.

The first one is the lighter red. I just painted the egg carton with shades of brick and then carved the mortar lines in. Unfortunately, if you don't let it dry thoroughly, the lines can be a bit ragged in places. It looks pretty good though.

The third try was the darker brick. I first flooded the piece with hippo gray. Then I painted over that with the dark red. Again, I carved too soon. I was anxious to see how it was going to look. I like the mortar better, but next time I will soak it better. The gray didn't penetrate the carton as deeply as I would have liked it to go.

I am going to try again and wait impatiently for 24 hours before carving. As with the stone, I will mark the lines before cutting for the next try.

You MUST use a fresh blade in your knife for this technique to work. The egg cartons chew up blades quickly. I probably should have changed blades between the second and third example.

When I do the bricks with illustration board, I go through a LOT of blades. The tile floor in my Southwestern Roombox is done with this method and I think that I used 3 or 4 blades just on that floor.

I need to go back to work now...More experimenting....

See you tomorrow.

"Halloween Is Over!!!"

That was Tessie's pronouncement yesterday afternoon....She followed it with, "I am sick of trying to bend over with a bat stuck to my stomach.

I'll bet that you thought that I wasn't going to work on the house....

I only stopped long enough to shut Tessie up. She insisted upon going back to her dress/apron combination. I didn't fight her much, because I knew that I wouldn't win.

She is now happily back in her normal white dress with apron.

She announced, "Now I can get some serious work done!"

I looked around to see who had cast the "work spell" over her. Hmmmmm...Nobody....But she was in a good mood, so I wasn't going to question her too closely.


This morning, I made the final decision about the roof. It is definitely going to be slate.

The first step was to cover the stain with Hippo Gray and some smudges here and there as I went along, of Trail Tan. That knocks down some of the bluish tint and makes it more compatible with the walls.

Here you see it with just the paint.

Then I started shading.

With Tessie holding the extra pencil, that went pretty fast. I used the silver Prismacolor to shade along the top front edge of each row of shingles. I laid the pencil on its side and ran it along the edge.

Then I used the Burnt Umber to run under the edge at the top of each row. That makes the shingles have more dimension.

I took both pencils, still on their sides, and ran them down the length of the roof lightly, here and there.

When I finish the whole roof to this point, I will then go back with a couple of other metallic colors of the pencils. This will bring the whole roof out into the sunlight.

I am still administering shingles to the side that you can't see. One...At...A...Time. Someone said that I should use a paper template. I don't like that method. For me, the paper in between the shingles and the roof adds thickness that I don't want. It also changes the character of the roof. If you do it directly on the roof, you can see how it is going to look as you go. I just prefer the long way around. So it isn't as fast, but I think that it looks better when I finish.

One other thing to report...I have EVERYTHING up off of the floor in my workroom. Most is in the proper drawer or receptacle. Notice, I didn't say that I had finished cleaning out each and every drawer yet...I do however, have several empty drawers and a couple of shelves that don't have anything on them....I count that as progress. I may just have to have a workroom warming when I get done....No. On second thought, Tessie and friends aren't partying in my workroom! I would have to start again from scratch! No way!

See you tomorrow.

One Down....Four to Go.....

I am still working on the half inch house, but at Tessie's insistence, I am also finishing off the 1" scale wicker pieces that I found in the drawer.

I am nothing, if not sneaky. I picked the plant stand. It was the closest to done.

All I had to do was finish wrapping the legs, trim all of the wires, braid and then put the braid around in three places.

That doesn't sound like a lot. But then the braiding takes longer that you think.

I speed it up quite a bit by using a clipboard.

It also helps when Tessie keeps reeling in the finished braid. The clipboard is like a third hand.

Ta da! One down! Well really it's not down yet. This just means that I will, at some point, have to pull out all of the flower making materials. I like this type of planter with nice bright geraniums.

Tessie already has a spot for it. I am afraid that all of the unfinished pieces are going to show up in the townhouse or go in Tessie's stash...

I stained the roof on one side darker this morning. It still needs a lot of highlighting and other shading if I go with this color. I am almost tempted to turn it into slate...

I have to think on it for a while...

See you tomorrow.