Printer Acqusition=Great Progress!

On Tuesday, while out and about, I finally got around to getting a printer. It was a simple $30 thing at Walmart that would do what I needed it to do. It is a scanner/copier/printer and came with the ink cartridges ready to go. I was so excited! I did lots of printies right away. *dancing* So, this sparked new found inspiration to work on the Highland and I managed to get a whole lot done on it yesterday and today. I spent Tuesday evening up late installing it and printing out several pages of goodies. You will see several of them in the new pictures down below. I'm glad I got a lot accomplished, because mini's will have to go on the side for the next few days. We have lots of things planned with the kids for Halloween including 3 different trick-or-treats and parties, plus we still have to carve the pumpkins. In Florida, you really have to do that sort of last minute because of the humidity. Carve them to early and you have rotten piles of mush come Halloween!

So, I managed to do some fabulous printie brick work on the outside. I ended up doing this to cover up some problem spots on the side and it looked pretty cool. After applying them I had to do some touch up with the plaster and then another coat or two of paint. It looks pretty good.

The roof was completely shingled the other night. It is 150 grit sandpaper, painted black and cut into 1" squares.

The deck got covered in wood veneer strips and stained walnut/cherry.

I cut out a bunch of printies for the garage and have it nearly finished. It still has a few little things I would like to add (tools, jack stands, jack, spare parts, shop rags, hangers, laundry basket...). James would like to add a 1:12 scale motorcycle since it appears to be too small for a car. :) The tool board in the back is a picture of an actual tool board that is shrunk to size. The individual tools have a couple coats of clear nail polish on them to make them look 3D. That is something I learned from Kathie B of Kathi B's Minis. She used that technique in her fabulously awesome quilt shop. (Check out the supply rack behind the register)

The large table and tool box are made out of balsa wood and the small table/hanging shelf are parts of a dismantled potting bench.

I also made a hanging wall planter for the outside. It is made out Sculpey and is filled with ferns from floral tape and small flowers. Other than the railings and the garage door, the house just needs a few exterior touch ups and landscaping. Then I can move on back into the inside!

Enjoy all the eye candy below!!

Home Depot to the Rescue!!

I wanted to finish the lamp the other night, but apparently I am daft when it comes to electrical stuff... I blew the breaker several time, nearly elecrcuted myself and freaked out the family... so I ended up calling it quits for the evening and began a search for new, not faulty, parts. For some reason it never occurred to me, Home Depot carries the stuff to make a lamp for only $10. I bought one, and briefly considered getting more to make some snazzy lamps out of some really cool old bottles I have... but that is a later project.

ANYWAY, the point of this post is that I FINISHED!!! Hooray for me! I think it looks pretty awesome and that I should get a cookie for said awesomeness. :)

Here are pictures of the finished product:

A Christmas-y birthday!

James' mom's birthday is on November 4th and I wanted to get a good gift for her. Nothing seemed to be right. ... until I had a spark of genius to make her something in miniature! I decided it would be cool to make this lamp out of picture frames and I had a bunch of really nice, fancy, ones that were given to me that would work perfectly. I also had old spare parts for a lamp laying around, so all I needed to do was make the mini stuff.

I still have quite a bit to do, but here is what there is so far. The Highland has once again been wayside because I have a deadline for this project. The lamp base consists of six (6) 5"x7" frames. One, upside down, acts as the floor; four, as the sides; one, also upside down, as the roof. I made the floor by cutting out a piece of cardboard to fit the exposed area and then covered the cardboard with wood plank sticky tile that I got at Home Depot. It is the same flooring that I used in the study/den of the Highland. I picked this particular flooring because she had expressed that she really like it and the way it looked.

Three of the four walls are covered with ivory card stock and the windows are trimmed with balsa wood painted a greyish sky blue. The wall with the fireplace, has a sample piece of life-size wallpaper on it and the chimney breast is covered with the same ivory paper. The ceiling was sponged with white and the lightly sponged again with the same blue used on the trim.

The fireplace itself is from Hobby Lobby. I painted it, stained the mantle and added some height to it to make a raised hearth. The hearth is also made from balsa wood. I indented it to look like stone and gave it a few washes of gray, white and blue.

The wreaths and swag are made from a green terry cloth wash cloth. I will put up a tutorial for it after Halloween.

The stockings are construction paper and cotton and they open to put stuff in. I would like for them to be fuzzy, I think. I may attempt to make another out of felt.

The flames in the fireplace are pictures of actual flames and I love the effect that they have. I plan to sprinkle some red and gold glitter in there to give them a good sparkle when the light is on.

The picture above the mantle is the family portrait we had done after Charlie was born.

The chair is one I already had, but I redid the cushion to that nice gray fabric instead of the pink valuer that was on there.

The table has open Christmas cards on it and will get a plate of cookies, too.

The windows will get candles in them and one of the windows will sport a winter scene on the inside and a picture of the kids on the outside.

There will also be a stack of logs, a better tree, presents of course and perhaps a rug.

I have a wonderful round white shade that I will decorate to match the theme and it will be seated in the ceiling space. I have a chandelier that I will hang down inside, too. I think it will be a wonderful project and I love that it's all hand made. I think that is so personal! So far, all I have needed to purchase for it is the green wash cloth and that is big enough to make several wreaths and swags. :)

I will post final pictures as soon as I finish it.
I need to go work on the horribly boring poinsettia right now.

But Moooooooooommm, we don't wanna goooooooo!!!

That is how the night ended on Saturday as we were trying to convince the kids that we all needed to get going from Roger's Farm at 10:00pm. We had been there for nearly 5 hours!!! To say the least, they had a blast and certainly did not want to leave the fun or each other. There was lots of stuff for them to do and they never got bored.

First they took a ride on the "Cow Train" which is a tractor pulled contraption that looks like a string of cows. The "cows" are barrels on wheels.




Upon getting out, Cayce stopped to tell us how cool the tractor was and riding a cow is fun. :)


Then there was a mad dash over to the petting zoo. I always get excited when events advertise a petting zoo, but I am quickly disappointed when we get there. Many years ago, when I was a small child, petting zoos were big tents where all the animals wondered around and you actually got to pet them/feed them/pick them up. Those had everything from chickens to sheep to pigs.. and that is what I always expect. Somewhere down the line, I am certain that some dingbat parent didn't pay attention to their kid and this form of Petting Zoo is no longer allowed. Stupidity of adults irritates the crap out of me. <_< style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1nLxArL5rg5fi9oPPq7sogXz-6d9QHLXqnA8uN83fms_-dv-5RydPbo3CsfNZQ5z-ZCyz5Az6DMnKdyuSxJF4jcSROJtOVgt0tUJ9HVW1BNbnmHXldqqM9y2i0R6zBmfqQ3BDESJt1-o/s320/PA160463.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5529800695893997874" border="0">






Then we washed up after petting the animals and went down the haunted trail, where we took a couple pictures with the scary stuff. We pointed out the the 3 big kids the Ultimate Time-Out Zone and they tried very hard to be well behaved.





Next was a "quick" run through the 10 acre maze in the corn field. The boys found an open dirt patch and ran around and rolled in it until they were ridiculously dirty. I got Cayce to hold still long enough to take a picture with me!









We took another run past the animals since a lot of them were now active and near the fence to pet. This time Cayce got to pet the pigs and the sheep, and he fed the goats. He also took his first pony ride! He has gotten over a lot of fears and anxieties this year. Just 6 months ago he wouldn't ride on a pony or pet any of the animals at the Circus!






To finish things up, we took a hay ride around the farm and went to get pumpkins. Charlie really liked sitting in a little pile of hay. Cayce picked out his own pumpkin and then found the weensiest one for Charlie. I tried to get their picture taken in front of the hay display, but there was too much going on and Charlie kept trying to eat his pumpkin!








Then it was back on the hayride to the festivities. They both seemed to thoroughly enjoy their pumpkins!


We let them take another run around all the fun stuff for them to do and snacked on some expensive carnival food (fries and corndog) before we called it quits for the night. They probably could have kept going, but the adults were whooped and ready to kick up our feet for the night. :)