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Wallpapering Woes

So, I found this adorable woodland animal scrapbook paper that I want to use in the kitchen of my dollhouse. I carefully cut everything to size and when I finally glued it onto the wall of the dollhouse the paper buckled so horribly that there was really nothing I could do to smooth it down properly. Of course initially I am just really ticked off, I rip the paper out of there and I fume for a while before I decide to try it again. This time I planned to apply the glue to the wall and then smooth the paper on. At first it seemed to work fabulously, there was no wrinkling or buckling at all, but then as soon as the paper becomes damp from the glue, it’s buckle city AGAIN, and AGAIN I had to rip the paper out. Of course by now I don’t have enough paper left to finish my kitchen and I’m a mix of angry and sad.

As things stand now, since there is a snowstorm raging outside, I just have to stop working on the house. I only have one more sheet of the paper left, and I’m not going to try papering again until I know I can secure enough paper to finish the room. I did start experimenting with a few of my trimmings scraps though. I tried using modpodge on the test strip, and it spreads better than other glues, but it’s still really wet, and after turning away from the paper for a minute it started buckling again. I did have a more promising experiment using Tacky Glue Gel formula, but since I am only testing with a small strip, I am still suspicious. Either way, the gel glue is a pain to spread, but it stay pliable for quite a while after, and doesn’t seem to dampen the paper very much. I think I am going to try to seek advice on a miniature forum that I found. I’m just so frustrated and upset right now that I feel like chucking the whole damn house down the stairs. XP

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Dollhouse Progress & Using Fabric Hinges

I’ve been making more progress than this on the dollhouse, but a lot of that has been spackling, sanding and painting, all of which don’t make for the best of progress pics. I did however finish my first window finally. Because I really don’t like those tiny brass hinges, and I can’t use pins because of the way the house has been constructed, I decided I would try out using fabric hinges. I had read about fabric hinges online while looking for dollhouse related tips while building my last dollhouse, but there wasn’t much in depth information about how to create/use them. Anyway I’ll go ahead and share my experiences here, if anyone else is interested in trying out fabric hinges to see if they work for them. Just keep in mind I’m doing this on a 1:12 scale dollhouse, not playscale, and I’m not sure how it would work with playscale.

Read on behind the cut

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My Little Brownie Arrived! :D

Yay, she’s finally here! Today I made sure to be awake for the postman, and then much to my dismay, she was not delivered! So I carted off to the post office with my pick-up ticket from yesterday, and thankfully she was there. 😀 I didn’t have much time to take pics since I had to run off and get my hair cut, but I did manage to snap off a few box opening pics.

Check out the box opening

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Dollhouse Rehab, Missed Dolly and etc…

So my big news of the day is that the postman attempted to deliver my Brownie today, but sadly nobody was home and I was asleep at the time so my package was taken back to the post office. 🙁 Since my car’s battery is currently dead and charging, I begged my brother to take me to the post office in the late afternoon to see if I could pick it up yet, but sadly our mail carrier was still out on their route and so I couldn’t even pick up my little Brownie. It’s really very frustrating to know that the object you want is so darned close, but you can’t get it yet. XP

I’ve also been feeling a little lackluster today. My stomach is a little crampy, and I’m so very tired since I didn’t sleep well last night. So the progress on my dollhouse was slow. I did get most of the window frames painted though and I’ve begun assembling my first window. I ran into a few “technical difficulties” while planning my casement windows, mainly because of the design of the original window boxes on this thing which disallowed my casements to swing out. Of course I want to keep as much of the original as possible because my grandfather made it, so I had to figure out a way around that and some other problem areas. I think I’m on the right track now, but I can foresee a long slow process ahead of me since I decided to make nearly all of my windows casement windows. I know it will all be worth it in the end, but right now I have those “ugh” feelings about the whole thing. I just hope I don’t run into too many problems with the window sashing next since I’m having to use some very thin pieces of wood on it.

So, I guess my goals for tomorrow will be to complete at least one of my windows, paint the attic white, and since it should be simple, go ahead and get the attic window attached which will be non casement. Well that, and get my doll of course! Going to get to bed earlier tonight so I am sure to be up in time to get her, but I’ve also told my family to keep an eye out too. Hopefully we’ve got this covered!

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Dollhouse Rehab – Day 3

I got all of my spackling and sanding done today, and currently as I type this, the first coat of paint is drying on the exterior of the house. I thought I would share a spackling tool tip though. It is something I kind of took for granted in having being as I am an artist, but the artist palette knives you can get at any art supply are really excellent spackling tools for those hard to reach spaces. You can see my palette knife on the right in the above pic, resting next to the red handled spackling knife. You can get palette knives in varying sizes and they are also inexpensive. I got my palette knife for a couple bucks or less. Of course some art supply stores have better prices than others.

I also decided to start sanding down all of the exterior window trimmings and I wanted to start planning to put them together, which brings me to my next tip. When dealing with custom windows and you have no plans to go by, you can always take a sheet of copy paper, and using a firm back board, hold the paper up to your window hole and trace your window in pencil. This makes a great guide for you to sit at your table and put your windows together. Of course for this house I think I will have to do each window separately seeing as there seems to be subtle differences between each hole my grandfather cut.

You may also notice in the picture that a bit of the old decal is showing through from the bad paint-over I did a long time ago….The yellow color you see is actually how badly the clear part of the decal yellowed, so yeah, it was not a pretty sight. I plan however to at least attempt to re-create those designs using my acrylic paints. We’ll see how that goes. I did manage to find a picture of this dollhouse from the planbook online, so I will use that as my guide for the detailing.

And here is a full progress shot with the dollhouse all taped up and ready to be repainted. I bought a warm beige color from Lowes the other day. I think it will be a tick darker than the last color on there, but when I looked at it in the store it provided nice contrast for both the white and dark brown trim. Well, I can see from here that my paint is dry enough to take a second coat, so I shall be heading off to do that now. I’m note sure what tomorrow’s goal will be, but I imagine it will be window related. 😉