A New Venture

I still haven't had a lot of time to work on dollhouse anything.  It sucks soooooo much. My schedule has just been filled to the brim, and a lot of the time, overflowing.

Part of it was from working on a project that will be announced in the Spring. Part of it is the kids in school and volunteering for TWO classrooms and heading up TWO of the committees on PTA. A lot more of the time goes to all the homemaker stuff-sometimes I wish I could just not feed my family and they could all be naked.  I feel like 99% of my time is spent doing laundry and being in the kitchen cooking/cleaning.

The last couple of months, every spare moment has been spent drawing.  Doodling if you will.  Lots of doodles.  Placing lines just right and filling in pages...Then grouping all the pages together to publish a coloring book. My first coloring book!!!!

And now it's available!  That's right!  I hand drew a coloring book and self published it, and now you can buy it on Amazon.com and Amazon Europe!!!  What?!??!  Yep!  Just in time for Christmas and I know everyone has seen at least one article about the benefits that coloring has on mental health.

I'm so excited about it. Here are some sample snippets from it!

You can click here and buy it directly on Amazon in the USA, or you can click here and buy it from Amazon Europe!!!

I will have to get back into the swing of things at some point.  We are planning on moving in the Spring, so I need to cull the horde of stuff.  Be on the lookout for that!

Thank you for all of your love and support. Hope to be back soon!  <3 p="">

Drab to Fab

I went on vacation last week, to visit my dear friend, in Destin, Florida.  It was faaaaaaaaabulous.  Beaches, pools, sunshine and relaxation.  Well, as relaxed as you can get with at least 5 kids running around and screaming at any given time. There was also lots of tequila.  HEEEEEYYYYY, margarita!!!

Returned this week to finish up the dining room furniture makeover.  I cannot stand that red cherry finish that seems to be so prevalent in the miniature world. I do, however, love when older furniture is revamped in modern colors and fabrics.

Grey chalk paint-my own mixed color-and grey leaf fabric.  I think Brae has used this fabric before, or one very similar.  If not, I legitimately chose it because it gave me a happy feeling and reminded me of her.  Cue the awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwe.

I pulled out the red velvet inserts and reupholstered them with the new fabric choice.  The chairs were painted with the chalk paint and then sprayed and sealed with Modge Podge Matte.  The table was painted in the same way, though I'm not sure about the top.  I think it might get a more rustic look-carve in planks of wood and paint it white.  I do really like the grey base and the darker grey details.

This is where you learn just how important lighting is!!!  A few of my lamps died and I haven't had time to replace them. See the difference here?!?!

The china cabinet was painted eggshell blue, by Krylon.  I love spray paint.  Makes life so much easier sometimes!!!

Then it all dried and I popped it into the house!  I'm planning on the window frames next and following that up with some curtains.  This corner needs some color.....

Oooh. If I leave the table top dark grey, it might need a runner..... :D  I love the decorating process in miniature.  I really do.

What do we think?  I love the transformation here.  :D  Makes me happy!  Onto the windows!!!

Open Concept

Many of the dollhouses that I have seen, and the ones that I have built myself, have had very closed off rooms.  I generally look for a way to fix this immediately.  Although, I am not always sure how to arrange the furniture in an open concept floor area, I do know that I like how they look.  I've always liked the flow and the fact that everything can be seen from one vantage point.  No need for mirrors, cameras or running around like a maniac to find out what a noise was.  Must be a natural maternal instinct?  I digress.

Back on track!  When building this house (last summer) they tell you where to put the additional walls to make the six or seven rooms....yeaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh, I wouldn't be doing that.  This was the first house that I've built that achieving an open concept wasn't going to be a headache!  I have one, pretty much, in Mt. Ollopa Lodge, but this would be a more modern take. More Jonathan and Drew Scott approach.

So where did we leave off last time?  The floors!  The floors had been done.  I love them.  So glossy.  So colorful.  Sooooooo beautiful!!!

I have now put up the wallpaper in the big open room.  The majority of it is a pale grey green called "Old Paper" by Jim Holtz and Ranger-the Distress Collection.  It has a wonderful texture on it that I just love.  The bay window, where the dining area is, features "Weathered Tin" from the same line.

The door trim and baseboards are all basswood that I painted with Americana White Wash,

The kitchen set is from HBS and I painted the counter tops black granite.  I plan on putting in a fun back splash.  I also chiseled off all the fake looking kitchen stuff-stove top, fridge stuff, microwave... and plan on adding my own, more realistic looking stuff.  All of the kitchen cabinets will be glued into place.  I plan on not keeping this monster of a house and building it to be suitable for an older child.  I want it to look nice, but still be sturdy.

The dining room set is the one from Melissa and Doug-it was a gift from James.  I plan on refinishing it.  I'm just NOT a huge fan of the red stain and red velvet.  Too gaudy for my taste.  I'm leaning toward white and grey.  The hutch may become an accent piece in a different color, but will also lose it's original red finish.

The only custom furniture I plan for the area is in the living room. These are just place holders in the mean time.

Now I have furniture to make and paint.... ceilings to address and windows and window frames... and the next room over.  I have already chosen the paper for that room.  A beautiful shade of blue, from the same line of papers.  :]  I will actually be using the Jim Holtz line throughout most of the house.  Hope to be back soon!  Kids start school in 5 weeks!!!!!

Happy Independence Day!

 Happy birthday United States!
I have things I'm working on, and hope to share soon. Until then, I finally put up the 4th of July decorations that I got two years ago from Dale Chimel. The house looks festive! Picture quality isn't awesome, but I don't think you guys will mind. ☺️ I wanted I do a little vignette for the holiday with a traditional picnic scene, but never really got motivated. Maybe next year!

Have a fun and safe weekend, my American friends.

Just Call Me Tony....

Tiger. King of the Flakes.  The frosted variety, of course.

I know, I know.  I am the flake. What can I say.  Life got stupid, schedule went nuts, people were demanding, my emotional well being has been on a roller coaster of doom.... and instead of working through it with art, like I have for years-I packed a picnic basket of woes and went into hibernation.  But Spring is almost over, summer vacation is days away and I have forced myself awake.  Enough wallowing!

I started off with a major clean and purge of the studio.  Finally accepting that there are things that I will just not get to right now, or anytime soon, so better to let them go and be of service to someone else.  I also really accepted that I love to make minis and build them, but I don't really want to keep them.  That being said, I will be listing the Art Studio, the Pool House, the Tennyson and the Coventry Cottage within the coming week.  I also went through the minis and will be listing them on ebay as well.

I'd like to get my etsy shop up and running again, but there have been MANY changes there while I was in the dark and twisty place so I am totally lost.  We will see.

Since I finally cleaned off my work spaces and could actually do something, I played around with the layout for a bit, until I found something I liked.  Haven't decided on the room, other hallway or attic area yet. There are pictures, unedited ones-I was afraid that if I took the time to edit, I wouldn't actually get them up!

I'm going to attempt an open concept kitchen/dining/living room combo!!

The bathroom-I need to adjust the right wall. It wasn't cut properly and there is a gap-hence the light in the back.

A fireplace! This will be a no-tv house. 

Dining nook with china cabinet

Kitchen with island.  I have to close up that window over there.

Small office area in the nook and a laundry room under the stairs!

And I got back to putting in the floor of the cottage (HTJB).  I love this flooring.  I really do!

It's the sample sheet from Formica.com's 180fx line glued to some strip board and then cut into half inch wide strips.  I then cut those strips into varying lengths. It feels so good to have glue on my fingers and to be putting a room together.

Seriously, LOVE these floors!!

Yay!  So the plan is to be back.  To stay back. And to get back to what I love doing and not just I feel like I HAVE to be doing.  :)  See you all soon!!

Holy Moly, Ravioli!

Hiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!

I'm SO sorry that I have been gone so, so long.  I had an incredibly hard time adjusting to both my kids being in school and then had a personal crisis that stuck me into a deep, dark funk....I didn't go into my craft room for a looooooooooong time... if at all the rest of 2014.

But I am starting to crawl out of it now and I am feeling the creative bug come back.

I'm hoping to get back into my minis soon, but for now, to ease back in, I've been doing some good old fashioned real life painting.  Some of it to try something different and new techniques, and then some to just work through the emotion.

I fell in love with space painting.  So relaxing. 

These were done with spray paint!

 

Sometimes, the best thing to do is paint it out.

I have done a bit of lurking over the past few months though and have tried to keep up on everyone's new work. I'm impressed with what I have seen!  Especially those that entered the HBS Creatin' Contest!  WOW!!!!

Anyway, my apologies again and I hope to have something new to show you soon.  :)