You are currently browsing the archives for December 2018.
Displaying 11 - 15 of 15 entries.

a tiny sun room

  • Posted on December 16, 2018 at 5:19 pm

in the closet of my craft room were a couple of glass lanterns/terrariums that i thought would make nice sun rooms for my ‘pukis.

this is one i picked up at michaels a year or so ago, and then like many other things, stuffed it in my craft room and never did anything else with it. i’m starting with this one because it is smaller and should be a quick project.
mini greenhouse

i wanted a tiled floor, and didn’t want to spend a lot of time on it, since most of it will be covered with furniture,anyway, so i trimmed and added paper, test the fit, trimmed and added more till i got a perfectly fitting pattern for the inside floor. i marked the front. then printed off tile from my saved file on the computer. the pattern was traced on the back, carefully cut out, then just a quick couple of coats of sealer later, i had this
mini greenhouse tile

voila, a tiled floor
mg floor tiled

attaching the door

  • Posted on December 11, 2018 at 8:10 am

this probably doesn’t deserve a separate post, since the door is just glued together then glued on the caravan, but my time has been a bit tight lately and it took two days to get it done!

after the paint dried, i glued the details to the door first. it turned out the window frame was slightly too small to match up so i didn’t use it, but there is enough detail on the door that it didn’t matter.
door glued

then glued the door to the caravan.
door attached

i was being lazy and didn’t want to take all the bedding and stuff out of the caravan again so that i could turn it on it’s side, so i ended up having to sit there and hold it in place while the glue set, only a couple of minutes so not too bad. luckily i also like to read, so it wasn’t a problem just sitting there.
the size is perfect. i kind of wish now that i had made the top wood paneling covering extend to the edges,i think it would have looked better, but it’s too late now and it is what it is.

a door for the caravan

  • Posted on December 10, 2018 at 9:05 am

i ordered an 85 mm door for my realpuki caravan a while back, but due to the mail strike here, it just arrived. it was worth the wait though, the detail is fabulous.
they’ll have to stoop a bit to get in, but the size was the right fit for the caravan. and since i am putting it on the back wall, it won’t actually open anyway 🙂
here’s how it came. the details were actually in a square but i took the outside edges off right away. it was nicely packaged and arrived safely in spite of the intricacy
fairy door

here i have separated out the parts i plan to use. the notice for the door is cute, but doesn’t really fit my caravan, so for now at least i’m leaving it to the side.
fairy door parts

and here are the pieces painted and waiting to dry.
fairy door painted
i painted the door itself with a light coat of translucent blue. i brushed it on lightly trying to leave unpainted any part that might have worn off. the ironwork was first painted solid black, then dry-brushed with brown stain to mimic rust. my puki’s really ought to take better care of their caravan! 😉

ageing the wheels

  • Posted on December 9, 2018 at 2:47 pm

finally got a chance to try and fix the wheels on the caravan. several people had suggested just trying to make them look dirtier/more worn to fit the rest of the caravan, so i thought i would try that first. i put the caravan up on a couple of paint jars, so i could access all the edges at once, and then with dark brown stain did a combination of dry brushing, smudging and painting on a very watered down version till i like the effect. i think the wheels fit in better now. what do you think?

front
ageing the wheels

back
ageing the wheels

from a “distance”
ageing the wheels

christmas lights… wow!

  • Posted on December 4, 2018 at 7:43 pm

that is my son’s comment every time he sees lights. since it is december i promised him we would set up the tree, but life intruded and we just haven’t done it yet. as a compromise i decided to add lights to the mini tree and put them out on the table. he seems happy for now.

i had dental surgery today and apparently did some rather odd things while under the sedation, but i’d recovered enough by tonight that meg said she would help me untangle the lights. i was grateful for her help because they were rather a mess. the little tree wasn’t too bad. it was 16 feet long, and while it uncoiled like a spring when we took it off the cardboard, it was at least in more or less a straight line. we wrapped it round the tree, looping around the branches and the length was pretty much perfect!
small tree with lights
the lights can be either white or multicolored and have an option of several different patterns solid, blinking, fade in and out etc. the lights on colored mode are a little pale, but i like the concept.

the larger sting was more of a challenge. it was 33 feet long, which i figure would be about right. but they had wrapped it double around the cone so first we had to untwist the whole length which was springy and kept trying to re-twist. then get it wrapped evenly around the tree without tangling again! the whole thing reminds me why our full-sized trees are pre-lit. these one are going to get stored pre-decorated as well.

finally after much work, and several cup of cocoa on megs part, and ice-cream fudge bars on mine (dental surgery, remember, no hot liquids 🙁 ) we were done and the results were definitely worth it. the string would have been perfect if it just had 3 more lights, but i doubt anyone will notice, other than meg and me.
meg with tree
this tree has lots of different patterns in the lights as well, but they are always colored, since the covers give the color not the leds. as a result they are much brighter.

when i am feeling better, we plan to set the tree up in front of the fire place and try and corral the littles for some christmas pics (if we can get them out from behind the tree where the controls are!)

in the mean time, we’ll leave you with one last picture of our lovely lit trees
reflections