Hunter's Cabin

This little house was supposed to be a run-down cabin in the woods, but things kept getting nicer and nicer (especially in the bathroom) so it's become a hunting cabin in the woods that the hunter is slowly renovating so (s)he can retire and live there one day.  But, for now, many aspects of the house are still rustic, and the hunter is basically living a glorified camping lifestyle when hanging out there on the weekends.

The kit was a Real Good Toy's Keeper's House (aka Cape Cottage Jr.) that I modified to have a foundation, a chimney, and some ridiculously small front steps.

Originally I thought I would finish the kitchen and foyer area today (thanks for the snow day, Mother Nature!). But I ran into an issue - mostly being that the stove was too big and too nice for the kitchen.  So I need to find a more rustic, smaller stove (like a Coleman camping stove).  So, I worked on finishing the shower instead...

About a decade ago I had created this shower stall out of balsa wood:

I installed it into the house:

At some point in time I even wallpapered it with "tile", painted the room, and installed flooring!  It just needed a shower head, shower valve (the handle to control the water coming out of the shower head), a rod, and the shower liner.

I had an old broken whisk that had the perfect wire for the shower curtain rod.

Used my wire cutters and needle-nose pliers to cut and shape it more into a curved rod.  My next issue was finding a fabric that looked like a plastic shower liner.  But nothing really looked right.  Fabrics look like fabric (and we know fabrics and I don't always get along!).  I really wanted something that had the slick, plastic look of a vinyl shower liner.  So why not use actual plastic?  I cut up a plastic grocery bag into a 6" x 5" rectangle and put a piece of tape over the "top" edge to reinforce it.

Used my paper punch to create little 1/16" holes at the top, strung the liner onto my rod, and used an earing rubber stopper to hold liner in place.

Since I couldn't fit my drill into the bathroom (years ago some genius went and glued the shower in place already) I had to use a tack to make my holes and stuck the rod into the holes.

I always have and use the best tools. LOL

So the shower liner and rod are in place! (Technically it needs a tiny piece of sliver where it goes into the hole so I have not glued it yet so I can add that when/if I find something that will work.)

Glued the shower head and valve in place and THE SHOWER IS DONE!

As you can see in the photos above, I turned on the electricity once the shower was done - to discover that at some point in time in the last few years, the fireplace stopped lighting up.  And of course the wiring for it involved me sticking my entire head into the dollhouse and turning my head at odd angles.  I eventually gave up trying to access the wiring in the chimney and drilled a hole to beneath the house and ran the wires to the tapewire accessible right by the junction splice (much easier to get to!).  After an hour with the fireplace wiring, I did get the flames working again.  Now to attempt to make a Coleman camping grill for the kitchen, and work on creating a proper mantle to hold the TV, DVD player, sound system, and PS4 that I want to make for my hunter....

Puppy is so happy his fire is back on to keep him warm on this snow day!

Miniature Snow Days

Even though our county is Distance Learning, we still get snow days off from school!  So when Mother Nature blessed us with a few inches of snow, I got two days to play with miniatures!

I've been wanting to make a partially eaten pan of left out mac and cheese for years. It's for my hunting cabin: I could envision my hunter making a mac and cheese casserole and then eating it straight out of the pan (why dirty another dish?).

First I had to make the elbow macaroni:

Used "Champagne" color FIMO to make the noodles. Then I added some yellow and orange chalk to the liquid sculpty and made the cheese sauce...

I was so happy to finish this little project that has been in my head for years now!  Now I need to bring out my Hunter's Cabin and work on that for a bit so this left out mac and cheese can be put in it's place.

Next up I wanted to make some candies for my candy shop. Using a Ruth Stewart mold (Stewart Dollhouse Etsy Shop), I created a handful of wrapped candies to go in a glass jar on the countertop in the Cottontail Confectionery (the candy shop).

Naturally, since I was playing, my kids wanted to join in. My youngest made some Madelines (also from a Ruth Stewart's mold). She makes these cookies in real life and now she's made them in miniature.

My eldest daughter had to play too so she made me some swirl stick lollipops for my Cottontail Confectionery (the candy shop).

Then she played around with the clay and the exacto knife, and she created mini bits of coral! Perfect for a fish tank!

I had purchased a mold years and years ago from Vilia Miniatures (Vilia's Etsy Shop) and decided to play with it today:

I was not particularly impressed with the strawberries, but loved the raspberries, blackberries, cherries, and blueberries (forgot to photograph them) that I was able to make with the mold!  I will be using these on a cake I want to make in the future.

The other food project I had rattling around in my head for years has been the dessert waffle.  I have seen some pancakes and waffles with syrup before, but in my mini world, I want my waffles with ice cream, chocolate sauce, and fruit (hmmm, maybe some of those fruits I made above need to go on a waffle....).  I had purchased this waffle mold a few years back from Ruth Stewart (Waffle Mold).  This was the perfect day to play with it!

I made some scoops of ice cream by just rolling a little ball of white FIMO and wrapping it with a snake of white FIMO.  Then I used a pick tool to create the lumpy marks on the snake part to meld it in with the scooped part.

Not everyone likes dessert waffles though, so I made a few "traditional" waffles - just needed a few pats of butter!

Used Ruth Stewart's syrup (Link To Purchase the Syrup) to create the traditional waffles.  Although my friend says there needs to be a lot more syrup on them. LOL

My dessert waffle with chocolate sauce and a cherry.

And as long as I was getting to play, I had a mold to make mini legos and a 3D printed lego blocks that needed to be painted.

Perfect for a toy room!

It was so nice to get a few little projects done - it's been a while since I got to play with my minis.

Rumor has it more snow is coming later this week so I brought my Hunter's Cabin up from the basement to the dining room so I can work on it if we get some more snow days off from school!