Monday, February 17, 2014

Coming Soon........

Hello my dear friends.  I apologize for not posting for so long, but unfortunately real life stepped in and I had to let some things go for a while until I could find my way back to them.  I thank you for following the building of the Hedgewitch Cottage and I will return to finish building the cottage and blogging about it in April 2014.  I have not had a chance to touch the cottage either, but am ready to get back to it!  Thank you again for following along and I will see you soon!  




Friday, June 28, 2013

Hedgewitch Cottage Continuation....


Welcome back to the continuing of building the Hedgewitch Cottage!  I am working on this cottage as I can and posting on my blog along the way.  I am showing how I am bashing an inexpensive dollhouse kit and making it look totally different from the original design.  And I'm showing that you don't always have to pay the highest price to have a nice looking finished house.  It's all in the imagination!  That's half the fun!! 


When I left off last time, I had cut the upstairs floors and was in process of doing a dry fit.    Plus I had painted the ceiling side of the floors and was getting ready to stain the upstairs side of the floor.  

Before I put in the upstairs floors I worked on putting up some trim around the two front windows and door inside and out.


Yes, the windows need cleaning.


Here is it is with the upstairs flooring/ceiling for downstairs all painted and stained and glued into place.  You'll see I used a jar of jellybeans to put a little weight on it where needed while drying :).  






I placed a beam underneath the joining of the two upstairs floors to give added support and the jar is sitting there to put some weight on it while drying. 

View from underneath.



Below you'll see the tools I couldn't live without whenever working with wood.  



Once all of the flooring was completely dried, I started adding some trim around the edges to make it look nicer.  I clamped each piece until completely dried.


Now that I have the upstairs flooring in place I can start to work on the roof!  Which I've been anxiously wanting to do since the beginning - but everything in it's time, right?  You really have to catch yourself and say "wait a minute, I need to do this before I do that in order to make it easier"  So here I'm painting what will be the ceiling side of the roof, putting a base coat on for now and will do touch-ups later.


Now, before I go any further with the roof I'm doing a dry fit for the dormer windows, doing a little painting and then gluing them in place.  Clamping them good until they dry.



At this point, I sill have some painting to do inside and out plus I'm putting in window panes and have to stain wood for that.  You can see where I had to cut out a notch on upper side of roof for the chimney to fit.  Which, is something else I have to finish after the roof is done - I have to finish putting stones on the chimney above the roof line.  





This is as far as I've come for now.  Thank you once again for following along on my blog!  

Monday, June 17, 2013

June Give-Away Winner!

Welcome all my miniature friends! 
Today is the announcement of June's give-away winner!
 
 
This month's give-away is a dollhouse miniature potion bottle that has been handcrafted by me and I call it "Fairy Wishes".  It is 1:12 scale and would look great in any fantasy miniature scene!







 So I won't keep you in suspense any long than necessary!  Below is the winner of the June Drawing!



Congratulations Brenda Carter of Arizona!!  I will be contacting you shortly for your shipping info!

To everyone who was a part of the give away - please continue to follow along with my blog and perhaps you will be the next winner!  

New posts and pictures on the Hedgewitch Cottage build will be coming by the end of this week.   



Thank you all again for following along either here or on Facebook!  
 

Monday, June 10, 2013

June 2013 Give-Away!

As promised... I am starting back my monthly give-away in June!

  
Below is a hint as to what the June give-away is... 



This month's give-away will be a dollhouse miniature witch potion bottle, handcrafted by me. I love to make miniature potion bottles and wanted to share one with you!  




The winner of the June give-away will be getting the potion bottle you see above - 
'Fairy Wishes'.  
This bottle is done in 1:12 scale and will fit in great with any haunted, witch, Halloween, fantasy scene you may be working on!  You can never have too many potion bottles!

The winner will be announced here on my blog and on my Facebook page.  All you have to do to be included in the drawing is to be a follower of my blog and/or a friend/follower on my Facebook page!  It's that easy.  Drawing will be held on June 17, 2013.  




Thank you for following along with me here and on Facebook.  And be sure to check out all of my haunted miniatures in my Etsy store - www.etsy.com/shop/minimaker22
Also, you can purchase items here on the blog now - just look for the link in the column on the right.



See you back here soon!

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Hedgewitch Cottage - Phase II




Hello my friends!  Welcome back to the building of the Hedgewitch Cottage!  As promised, I am getting back to my blog and posting my progress along the way.  


I have separated all of the cottage pieces that are left, thought carefully about my plan of attack, and am ready to go forward!





Today I am focusing on getting the second story flooring put in.  I've decided to only have a loft above the downstairs living area.  It will have a small walkway and a small area just big enough for a small bed.  Also there will be extra storage area above the additional room that I added to the side earlier.  
So I checked my measurements twice and cut out the floor.  I am quite pleased with how it is looking  I did a dry-fit to make sure everything was lining up.  And yes, my side room is still crooked, so I have a crooked top floor too! :)





 Now I am ready to paint the bottom side of flooring, which will be the ceiling for the downstairs rooms.  I have chosen to paint this the same color as the rest of the cottage because I thought staining the wood ceiling might make things too dark inside.  

 
After the paint drys, I will do a second coat of paint as this wood really soaks it up!  After the paint is dried I will stain the other side to look like the flooring downstairs.  Then once everything is completely dry, I will glue the two floors together and put in place and glue all around for a good hold.  I am still using Aleene's Fast Grab Tacky Glue for the entire cottage.  I love the way it really does grab quickly.
  
My next post will be all about painting the underside of the roof before putting it on.  I've already cut out the roof for the side room addition and have plans for the rest of the roof.  Of course it's not going to look anything like the original house plans calls for - I have to put my own twist on things!  LOL!




Thanks for stopping by and following along with me!