Ballroom (Ceiling) Dancing

Getting the Mansion's ballroom ceiling painted has been quite a dance and an effort in patience.  The house is upside down so that when I glue the ceiling panels in I won't have to clamp them in place (I'll let gravity do the heavy work for me :) ).  Plus the ceiling panels could lay flat on the ceiling in between the times I had available for painting them (i.e. they didn't take up space on my dining room table when I wasn't painting them).  I used Unique Miniature ceilings (needed 3 of them to fill the giant ballroom ceiling space)!

Cut the panels to fit

Painted everything a light ivory

Realized when I was cutting the ceiling panels that the ballroom will have crown molding.  And crown molding won't fit up against the ceiling since the medallions make a drastically uneven surface.  So I had to install a filler piece of stripwood for the crown molding to sit on once it's installed.

Burgundy painted stripwood for the future crown molding - it will go all around the room, even the stairway opening.

Started with the burgundy accent paint on the ceiling (view looking in the window)

Just ivory and burgundy, looking a little plain...

Added some light blue!

There's blue there, honest!

Tiny swirls of blue on the corners and blue diamond points in the burgundy inset

Beige accents (can you see my fingernail? That's roughly the size of these medallions I'm painting!)

View looking in from the window....

3 colors (burgundy, blue, and beige) in addition to the base light ivory

Time to add green!

Looking good, but still needs that last touch of color!

The design is not only small, but in several places the tiny details in the design were not fully imprinted/cast so in some areas the design details are simply what I painted to give the illusion the design is there.

There's the gold!

Ceiling was finally sort-of finished!

After weeks and weeks of repeated attempts to paint neatly, followed by repeatedly going back to touch up paint as I didn't paint as neatly as I wanted all the time, it only needed one more final review (in which I discovered 2 medallions I had forgotten to paint the green sun rays on one side, an entire row I forgot to paint the green circles, 2 swirly bits I missed with the blue paint, and a few gold half circles in the center of the medallion I had not painted).  Out of 100 medallion designs I am not going to beat myself up for having missed these...at least, I won't beat myself up as much about it anymore (it's been a few days since I discovered and painted/fixed them).

All done and with stripwood crown molding spacers/fillers in place

I have not glued it down yet - there is a gap near the back wall that I need to fill in with plaster and paint light ivory to blend in with the ceiling and I think some of the crown molding stripwood fillers need to be trimmed slightly...But it's almost done!  So close!  And once it's glued in, the house can be flipped right side up again and the exterior finished!

With sample of crown molding in place

Using 2 pieces of crown to create a larger crown molding

Future vision of ballroom (ceiling part with furniture, flowers, flooring, and wallpaper):

Crown molding wasn't painted the exact shade of burgundy I decided upon but this was my brief "put it together to see if it all works" staging.

In the meantime, my beautiful curtains (made by Designs by Janet) arrived and although I was very intimidated and nervous I would mess them up, I did finally get them glued into place in the lady's sitting room and bedroom!

Curtains in sitting room bay window

Right side of sitting room (opposite the curtains)

Whole view of sitting room (although I had removed the wing chair and forgot to return it for the overall photo).  Like my note reminding myself to not glue in the door trim (or else I'll accidentally glue the door in which will make wallpapering the next room very difficult)?

However, when I went to glue in the bedroom curtain, I realized that the bedpost will hit against the curtain and if I move the bed over a bit it crowds the rest of the furniture in the room.  So the bedroom needed to be rearranged...

Trying to fit the curtain with bed in the corner (old furniture arrangement)

After rearranging:

I like this arrangement better than what I had before!

Not liking the walnut window pane trims being seen with the rest of the room.

I believe the Lady's bedroom needs some ecru sheers on the window too -- I don't like seeing the gold window trim and walnut stain window parts.  So ecru sheers are being purchased soon....and I have to find a new spot of the rug (currently under the bed mostly) so it's seen more.

But Mansion is getting some love right now.  As are some other projects!  I'm hoping to do an update, once a week or twice a month (depending on how busy I get), regarding other projects I have going on this year!  Hope everyone had a fabulous New Year!  2019 is going to be a very productive mini year (I hope)! LOL

Snow Day: Bunnies and my Peeps! (Ruth Stewart kits)

Mother Nature decided that Northern Virginia needed a little Winter decorating so our little icy rain weather became 3" of snow and a cancelled school day (and that means I don't open the store)!  So today just became: Mini Play Day!!!!

We participated in the Molly Cromwell miniature show last weekend and my little shadow (my youngest) joined me to help out...

Crammed as much as I could onto our little table :)

While at the show she took the children's free class and LOVED every minute of it - and she did a great job decorating her witch's table and assembling the 2" high paper house!

I love how she glued her book upright and the bat on top!

She added "smoke" (cotton ball) to the chimney when we got home

And now she is hooked and wants to help me with everything mini related (however, she is still not allowed to help paint the mansion's ballroom ceiling. That's my fun project!).

So last year my friend and I attended the Philly show (Philadelphia Miniaturia show) and I purchased several little FIMO mold kits from Ruth Stewart of Stewart Dollhouse Creations (Stewart Dollhouse Creations website)....

Wonderful, easy, step-by-step directions and photos!

I have been waiting for a play day to make them!  And now I have help too!

Squishing the clay into the mold

Scraping it level in the mold

So easy a 10 year old can do it!

I'm playing with the chocolate mold...

Teenager wanted to try too.

Popping them out of molds once they were cooked

Other teenager had to try it too

They were so excited to pop the minis out of the molds

Our "mini" mini collection.

They still need eyes painted on, but our little chicks are so perfect!

Love the little peanut butter cup chocolates!

Chocolate bunnies were the hardest to squish and level in the mold, but once the bows and eyes are painted on, they will look fabulous in my Cottontail Confectionery shop!

Little bits to put on a tray

I even attempted to free-hand make a cake.  It'll need icing. And it will have to be buried in the back of the shop. LOL

Made the gingerbread, cakes?, and icing blobs from a different mold I'd bought two or three years ago. Need to get Stewart's gingerbread men mold cuz these ones were too thick.

So I'm hooked and looking to see what other kits she has and what other supplies will make it easier for us to play, er, I mean, create more fun things!  My kids and I thoroughly enjoyed our snow day!  Thank you Mother Nature!

Customer's Little Fixer-Upper

This home came in needing some obvious repair work (mostly shingles and window work)...

Before: back of house

Before: front of house

You can see where the shingles on the back roof needed to be replaced.  As well as some on the side and front roof that needed to be replaced...

Before: Back and side roof need replacement shingles

Before: front roof missing a large section of shingles

I found some left over shingles from another project and did some painting to match...

The shingles in a row are from the house

They weren't quite the same shape and the new painted shingles were a flat finish whereas the old shingles had a faded semigloss coat on them, but overall they blended in well enough.

Back and side roof now shingled

Front roof is now shingled

Customer wanted the shag carpets removed (she wants to pick out and install new carpets herself).

Customer also wanted us to remove this carpet, which I had already begun to pull up before I remembered to take a pic

So it doesn't look particularly pretty, but floor is ready for it's next carpet now.

I also removed all the broken window panes and installed one plexiglass pane in each window opening. And I reattached the front door with a tape hinge (door is too thin for a hinge and customer didn't want to spend an additional hour of labor it would take to install the hinge onto the door and house when child will probably just break it off. So I opted for a tape hinge so door still opens/closes but quick, easy fix for mom when it breaks off again after excess use.)

Overall this quick little job gave this "good-bones" house a much needed fix-up.

BEFORE: back of house (Once more)

AFTER (overall view of back of house)

BEFORE: front of house (again)

AFTER: front of house

I cannot believe it is November already!  Have two more customer houses coming in this month for work so I need to get some more of these houses that are still here finished!

2 Year Water Anniversary!

Can you believe it's been 2 years since my water experiment? (First blog post on water effects)

So it's time to check in....and I'm happy (bored?) to report: absolutely nothing!  They appear to be exactly the same after 2 years!  I lightly dusted them with a wet rag (had to dab on the Scenic Water one as it is a gel consistency as opposed to the others which have a solid surface).  And inspected them.  And I didn't see any significant change in two products, and only a minor change in the other one.

Here they are (Then and Now photos):

THEN: First few days of the water effects

NOW: Water effects as of today...looks pretty much the same.

THEN: Day 1 of EnviroTex Pour-On in Painted Bowl

NOW: EnviroTex Pour-On in Painted Bowl is the same

THEN: First few days of EnviroTex Pour-On

NOW: EnviroTex Pour-On is basically the same as it was 2 years ago...

THEN: Day 1 of Solid Water, cloudy issues starting at bottom

NOW: Solid Water did seem to react some more with birdbath color/material or it has yellowed a bit.

THEN: First few days of Scenic Water

NOW: Scenic Water still there, bubbles and all...

NOW: Noticed pock marks in the surface but I can't recall if they were there before.

Solid water had a noticeable, yet still minor, change this time.  Two years ago, Solid Water had an immediate reaction (to either the paint or material the birdbath was made out of) and the "water" has either continued to get cloudier or the "water" has begun to yellow.  It is hard to say which/what is happening, but there is definitely a difference with this product.  And Scenic Water has pock marks on the surface; but I suspect they may have been there before and I just didn't notice them as clearly until now.  EnviroTex Pour-On continues to be the front runner with no noticeable changes after 2 years!

In fact, I had made a pond that took 3 different pourings of EnviroTex to get the depth I needed (as you can only pour roughly 1/8" or so at one application).  After 1-1/2 years of sitting, no cracks have formed, no pulling away from the edges, no issues whatsoever!  So even my deep water example is good (except for all the bubbles that were in it as I poured it)!

My little pond, complete with fish and bubbles...

...so many bubbles.  Bubbles!  BUBBLES!  My bubbles. (It's a "Finding Nemo" reference for those of you who aren't crazy like me.)

From a distance and without direct light on it, you don't really see the bubbles though.

So we will continue to wait and monitor the progression of the water effects...check back next year and we'll see where they are at!

And for those of you that have made it this far into the blog post: Yes, it's been several months since my last post.  Things got stressful over the summer and I spent more time at the doctors than I would have liked, but I'm back and fairly healthy, so I'm attacking my miniature projects again!  However, the many summer weeks with more mental energy than physical energy did add two more personal projects to my mental list of projects I want to do and I will be working on them this winter!

Meanwhile, I still have my Mansion to work on!  Mansion is currently flipped upside down so I can paint and install the Ballroom Ceiling (sneak peek pic below).  Need to get the ceiling finished and flip the house right side up again so that I can then finish the exterior of the addition!

I have a lot of these little bits on the Ballroom Ceiling to paint in the next few weeks.

And I have 5 customer houses in right now that I should be working on as well as 3 other small projects I want/need to do by Nov. 8th for a friend's birthday!  Busy month ahead!