Stop Barking!!!

I need a break.  I have been  barking about two hours...

This was the first one that I did.  It definitely looks like wood.  So I shall keep going until I get all the way around... With a few breaks.

 This is the pallet that I am using.  Black, white, terra cotta a light brown that is no longer made. Burnt umber, red iron oxide, another unnamed red color, and trail tan Ceramcoat. That is circling the black and white. Going counter clockwise.

This side is a long way from being finished.  I am going to try to make the building disappear, with the exception of the bathroom window....

This should be interesting if I can do it. 

Wish me luck.  I am going to need it!

Back to the painting.  See you tomorrow!

Dumber Than a Box o' Rocks...

I'm sure that you have heard that phrase... That doesn't apply to my family.  They are very smart.  I have them trained to pick up rocks for my mini landscaping and weeds that pertain also.

This was my Mother's Day present!  I loved it!

They cheated and also got me an Amazon gift certificate.  That wasn't nearly as thrilling as the Box O' Rocks!  It will all be put to good use in the Forest Fantasy.

But a Box O' Cat is a different story.  This cat tree was left over from when we had reasonable sized cats.  Did I mention that Kota is between 161/2 and 17 pounds?

He has taken to sleeping in the top of the old cat tree... If we want him to get out of there, we run and find the shoe horn...  He kind of spills out over the edges..  Is that smart? Not necessarily, but it is cute.

OK.  Enough stalling.  Yes. I am working on the  Forest Fantasy Cottage. I have all of the trees covered with gesso. It will soon be ready for painting.  I do want to do some of the inside before I do that though. 

Jumping around?  Sure.  It's more fun that way.  All I have to do is decide what I want to do next... Decisions, Decisions, Decisions... That's the hardest part.

Back to work. 

See you tomorrow.

Tessie's Waiting...

OK.  I think that I have enough Reindeer Moss and other green stuff to do the roof now...

Thanks to Dollar Tree.  They have started carrying all kinds of good stuff in their floral department.

I am not sure about Floral Garden, but I know that Crafter's Square is a pretty well known brand and have used it from other sources before this.

I am thinking that eight sacks should be enough and if it's too much, the stuff lasts from one project to the next...

I also got this four pack of floral foam at Dollar Tree too.  I usually have to pay about four times as much for a block that is not much bigger than this.

I am going to cut it up, so I don't care that it is in four blocks instead of one large one.

 I don't know how long Dollar Tree is going to stock these floral supplies, so I tried to buy enough to finish the job.  Wish me luck!

As soon as I started dragging this stuff out of the bag, Tessie started planning...

I am going to have to break it to her that we aren't doing the roof until I finish most of the inside. 

I need to be able to reach in and work and being roofless will just be a lot easier.

Maybe I can pacify her by letting her paint walls or lay flooring...Or my other option is to lock her in the workroom for the duration.... I hate to say it, but the second option sounds like a better plan. She might just get the cleaning bug and do some straightening in there... I can dream, can't I?

See you tomorrow.

A Tiny Bit to the Right...

OK.  I decided that one middle tree would suffice. 

I finished that this morning.  Then I had to go to Walmart for more glue.

Making string trees takes a lot of sticky stuff.

After I got back and started working again Tessie showed up. 

She started with adjusting branches here and there... By that time they were pretty well dry, so not much adjusting needed.

When that didn't work, she grabbed a few of the branches that I pulled from the back yard and started putting in what she referred to as underbrush...

Just a little bit ahead of the game... The wall still needs to be painted.  The foundation stone that I just put on needs to be painted... The dirt needs to be put in ...Etc. Etc.  Etc.....

I have to go now and pull up the weeds that she planted and get back to work.

See you tomorrow...

Two Tiny Gremlins...

Slowly but surely I am getting there...

I think I am spending more time washing and peeling glue off of my fingers than I am building trees...  Maybe that's why they say that only God can build a tree...

Don't bother suggesting that I use disposable gloves.  Those are even worse.  They stick together and to each other when working with both hands...

Work five minutes.  Wash hands for five minutes... The time is about equally divided...

On the last side, I am trying to decide if I want two more trees in the middle...Probably... It depends on my stick-to-it-ive-ness... Hush!  I can hear the groans from here!

You can tell that I get distracted when I am not having a lot of fun... The gremlins come into the picture...

Literally! I am not sure what they are up to, but when they start appearing in my drawings, I have to put the pencil down and go do something else...

I did manage to get one of the branches on the left to come out towards the viewer.  I am going to do more when I see if the thing is steady when the glue dries.

I used copper telephone wire.  I wedged one end into the string of the trunk and the other end got glued to the rafter that sticks out. 

I will probably do it in a couple of other places if it works.

I am pleased that the windows still open and close with the branch coming across the center.  I have to do another one of those on the other side too.

"Strung out." is the phrase of the day...

See you tomorrow.

Rounding the First Corner...

But first I had to fill in the blank...

The bottom of the wall between the trees, that is.

It was easier to do it after the trees.  Not so much to fill in.

OK. With that done, I could go on to putting a second coat of gesso on the trees.  They don't look much different, but there are less holes and cracks in the trunks.

My supervisor insists that there are still gaps in the trunks.  I find that I can also add extra string as I do the gesso.

I will probably go back and put more on after this coat dries.

I did round the first corner and I am pleased with the way it turned out.  It is not a square tree.  That was the one thing that I was worried about. 

Nobody likes square trees!

Anyway, I have to get back to work or this will never be finished. Actually, this is a lot of fun.  I am up to my elbows in gesso...

See you tomorrow.

Roots...Not the Book or Movie... The Blog...

Remember where we last left the corner trees? I cut them straight across the bottom.

The cottage was not glued to the board.  It is now.

So... I had to do something about the one dimensional roots.

Tessie did NOT help.  She plopped herself down in the middle of that side, with her plate of tacos. 

Evidently, Eskiaga has an endless supply of them.  I think he probably bribed her with a carry out plate if she would go home...

He didn't specify which home... So there she sits, right in the middle.

My other problem is Zar.  He has decided to vie for ownership.  He contends that I didn't finish his Clockwork Cottage.  Therefore the Fantasy Forest Cottage should be his...I think that I have him on that one.  He has the Clockwork Trailer.  That is finished!

I am holding my breath.  Legally, Daisy could claim ownership for the same reason... Oops!

I have way to many unfinished projects.  Losing interest is one of my specialties. 

Sooner or later, they all get finished.  Some just sooner than others.

Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Having Babies...

No.  Not Tessie.  She is just here to show you a preview of the front steps...

Yes, I know that there is a hole next to the second step... It is there for a purpose...

The steps won't look like this when I finish... Just wait.

My other project for the morning was the babies. 

The cacti and succulents have been fooling around and are full of little, soon to be, baby cacti and succulents. 

Each of the little balls on this prickly pear are potential new plants.  I am going to have to stick at least a few in mini pots and put them in different mini rooms.

This is what happens when you prop a leaf up in the pot with the stem end in the dirt.  I will have to cut the leaf off and plant this one soon.

I don't think that this one will be suitable for mini planting for more than a week or two...

The momma plant is gigantic with two to three inch long leaves.

Color me happy!  My tomatoes are taking off this year.  I already have several yellow tomatoes that will be ripe in a few days... There is nothing better than a fresh tomato picked and eaten right off of the plant.

Meanwhile, I am going to go do some more to the Forest Fantasy Cottage.  I have trees to build!

See you tomorrow.

A Firm Foundation...

This morning, I let Mr. Dremel  chew off the edge of the drawing board that had the clips on it.

I still had plenty left for the surround of the cottage.

It worked out well.  The cut edge is at the back of this photo.  It's the uninteresting side of the building.

The window edge has the most footage for the forest floor.

I wanted the back open edge to have very little ground.

Therefore the edge with the hole for carrying the board is beneath the floor and will never be seen.

Please ignore Tessie.  She has taken to peeking out of the bathroom window to make sure nobody is sneaking up on her...Paranoid? Just a little.

I cut out a couple of pin boards for curtains from the new ceiling tile and while I was at it, I cut the scraps into pieces to try out the steps.

They will be shaped differently than this, but this gives you some idea of what is going to happen in the front area.

OK.  So I didn't do any more trees yesterday.  That's why I need to get back to work. 

I have to go to Wednesday Witches' minis this afternoon.

And away I go!  See you tomorrow!

Just Around the Corner...

I am all strung out this morning... Pardon the awful pun.

I have been building trees.

The window side is finished.

When I get the building mounted to the board, I will add more tree trunk parts.  As they are now, they don't look like they are growing out of the ground.

The back is finished.  I keep thinking of the window side as the front of the building, but it's not. 

I am saving that until last.

The back got a smaller tree to cover the wall of the bathroom. 

I will still have to add string here and there, but this is a good start.

I continued on to the third side and then decided that I needed a break.  Of course Tessie disagrees.  She wants it finished NOW.

I guess that Daisy got tired of her nagging and kicked her out of the time machine after one trip. They got as far as Phoenix and not even in a different time period. I totally understand.  Remember?  We have taken her along on several short vacations. She tends to take over all travel plans. It's most irritating.

I probably will try to finish the string part of the trees today.  It is really messy and I want to get it done while I am in the mood.  Back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Half a Wall...

Is better than no wall at all...  Plus I got the ceiling painted!

I still have to put a frame around the window, but that will have to wait until the roof is glued onto the building.

I got one side of the back wall treed! 

I had to let that dry, so I turned the ceiling over and gave it a first coat of paint.

The third wall in the workroom will have to wait just a bit.

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, this is happening.

This is the orchid that I bought last year.  A few months ago it dropped all of it's flowers.  So... I cut it down to just above the first node on that stem. 

Lo and behold, that particular web tip worked.  This one and another one shot out new stems.  The other one hasn't bloomed yet, but it will.  It has all of the little bumps for blossoms.

I must have done something right for a change!

Back to the other tree.

See you tomorrow.

Roughing It Out...

OK.  Laying out the interior walls and floors can be fun.

First I cut two walls for the bathroom and kitchen. 

The bath will be six by seven.  There will also be a door cut in the wall between there and the living room.

Logically, the bath will only have a shower, toilet and sink.  And a window for Tessie to exit, in case of trouble...

The kitchen will have a recessed wall behind the fireplace.  That will give a little more space for cupboards and appliances.

 The curve in the foam core was made by slashing it about every half inch on the outward curve.

This is not exactly like it will look. The floor will sit on top and somewhere, there will be a slide out bed.  Not sure where yet.

Here you can see(kind of) what it will look like when you walk in the front door... Yes... I shrink myself down and walk around inside to make sure that everything is where it should be.

The final walls won't be black.  I just happened to have a big hunk of black foam core left from some other project.

Spike showed up earlier this morning and wanted to know if I could make him a slide out bed too...

I'll have to think about that one...

See you tomorrow.

Nominated For...

Ugliest roof in the universe...  And it won!!!

I'm working on the HBS kit roof today.  I am doing a lot of running around in circles...

I wanted to frame out the skylight... Then I remembered that, once on the building, the roof will curve from front to back. 

That's what all of the groves across the roof are for. 

Therefore, wood won't work, unless I want to do a lot of curved cutting... I don't want to!

I am going to cover the roof with greenery anyway, so it really doesn't need a frame on the outside.

I went and dug through my rolls of tape and found some of the aluminum insulating tape.  Hey!  It's not pretty, but it bends!

And anyway, it will be painted.

I wanted a mottled green...I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams...

Would you believe that that is a combination of an old and new bottle of Ceramcoat black green?

What is scary is, the new bottle didn't have nearly as much pigment as the old one.  It was more a forest green color.  Less pigment means less cost for them...

Anyway, it is just a good thing that the roof will be covered with greenery.  Otherwise I would have to start over. No starting over today... It is going to be a cover up!

Sorry for the boring entry.  Tomorrow we will get back to the fun stuff.

See you then.

Raise High the Roofbeam...

I cut my first hole with my Dremel Trio.  I have had it for quite a while, but didn't use it because I couldn't find the little wrench that goes with it...

I can't say that it's the best hole I ever cut, but it was fun trying and the edges will be covered anyway...

We now have a skylight in the roof.  I found the cover of the box that my iPad came in.  Perfect size!

I also found another treasure at Goodwill yesterday.

It's a huge Masonite drawing board. 

At first I tried getting the clips off with a pair of pliers.  Didn't work. 

What to do?  Move the cat and cut the end off of the board... or maybe it would be better to leave the cat there and move the board...

Anyway, I think that the size of the board will be just fine if I cut the edge with the clips off.

I will have a couple of inches on each side for landscaping.  That's all I need.

OK.  Next job is cutting.  I think that I had better get old Mr. Dremel out for that job.  I want a straight line.

Back to work.  See you tomorrow!

Momma's Little Helper...

Have you ever had unwanted help that was so cute that you didn't have the heart to stop him?

I went out this morning to do some errands.  When I came back, I started messing with the trees on the HBS kit again...

Kota, it seems, cannot resist a good cone of string...

When he finally started gnawing on it... That was the end of the helping... I kicked him out and got serious.

You saw this corner the other day, but I decided it needed a close up.

It will be covered with gesso and paint.  I may also use some finer crochet cotton here and there.

I did get the other side of the opening partially done with Kota's help...NOT!

I still have some more stringing to do on that side to make the tree look more rounded and natural. 

That's about all I am going to do today... Kota keeps coming back for more!

I quit!

See you tomorrow.