N.A.M.E. Day Crafting Table

This year's N.A.M.E. Day project was a crafting table "island style." 

(N.A.M.E. is the National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts.)

Every year, I buy the N.A.M.E. Day kits and I never make them. I just add them to my growing kit pile. So this year I signed up for an online NAME Day where I met online with other NAME members of the NAME online group and made the kit. 

I love NAME events. As usual, there were drawings for prizes. I won the grand prize--a 1/144 dollhouse for my crafting room.

I'm so happy I actually finished it and I love the cherry wood.  It was a beautiful kit cut by Tom Walden. 

Now I kind of want to work on building out my craft room. Years ago, there was a NAME online houseparty where the Thursday night project was a craft room, so I have a little craft room, but this table won't fit in there. 

But I'm supposed to be working on my restaurant kitchen, the castle and my bookstore. And I want to make a Halloween scene too. 

Dilemmas, dilemmas.

I hope everyone has a great week!

Making a "stainless steel" kitchen counter for my restaurant

I am just so excited to be working on my restaurant!

It's the only restaurant in town, so it serves everything, including delicious pizza.  It has an Italian/ beachy/nautical atmosphere.

First, I had to make the kitchen counter with a sink in the corner. (I did debate NOT having a sink so I'd have more counter space to display food, but the kitchen should have a sink.)  I think I have enough space, though.  

I wanted a stainless steel counter top, so I had to find my craft metal. That took me some time. I looked on Amazon and it turned out I had purchased three different pieces, so I had some hope that I should be able to find one of the three :). (And I told myself I could not just buy it again.) 

I purchased them back in 2017 so it's only taken me 2 years to get to this :) 

I had used some to make the mail slot for my Malibu dolls house. 

I finally found all three pieces together. I wasn't sure if I could cut it with a scissor, but the reviews said I could. And indeed it cut very easily. It was very easy to work with. 

I cut out the shape I wanted in matte board and then I bent the craft metal around it. See below.

My sink is a jelly container. I have a very fancy aluminum sink but it was too big.

Here's my playing with the various patterns/colors. I am thinking of putting that subway tile on the one wall, and the blue tile on the floor. I used the fruit picture for my daughter's small pizzeria, and made one for myself as well. I just came across it again and it works better than I expected here as well. I had planned initially to have only white tile. 

Then with guidance from Julie Warren's book on making kitchen furniture (also used for "Cool Beans" in this post), I made the bottom shelf of the kitchen cabinet. I used the shape of the top stainless steel counter and then I cut out spaces for the legs. The back is a solid wall.  I glued that to the shelf first. Then I marked on each leg the distance to the floor and glued the legs in.

I put the partially glued cabinet into the restaurant kitchen space to make sure it fit.

(the Reutters pizza oven is in the corner)

But then I couldn't resist playing and added some pizzas, plants and pots.  And the tray I made of miniature pizza fixings.

The playing made me realize I should add some more shelves, one for pizzas waiting to go into the oven. I have purchased so many pizzas over the years while preparing to make this.

So below is the counter cabinet right before I "varnished" it.

While that dried, I made a shelf for the pizza waiting to go into the oven.

My kids made this pizza so I'm very fond of it.

 I also wanted to hang a dish towel, so I glued wire to make a railing on the other side. 

Meanwhile I had bought a faucet from #PaperDollMiniatures (check out her blog) on Shapeways. (And I hadn't lost it yet). So I spray painted it. I wanted a stainless steel look, but I must not have been paying attention when I bought the Humbrol Metal Cote spray (last year) because I bought "polished steel" --  which came out much more black than I was expecting.  But in the end, I think it looks rather nice with the tile artwork behind it. And maybe a stainless steel spray wouldn't have matched the counter.

The dishwashing soap is from Sue's Little Things on eBay.

The tomatoes on the cutting board are by Sharon Harbison. The knife is from TYA Kitchen.

I glued the sink and the faucet onto the top counter (before I lost them). I love the detail on them. I also bought the pot filler.  

I still have to glue the counter top to the bottom cabinet, but I started playing again. I had bought these dirty dishes so I put them in the sink (while I wait for an eyelet from my friend to make the drain. Or I find a snap). 

 The frying salmon is from TeenyPerfections on Etsy. The metal stove is by TYA Kitchen in Japan (@minichuubouan_tyakitchen on Instagram). I bought the fried cutlets at the Chicago International Show, but I can't recall the name of the vendor.

The spaghetti is from Teeny Perfections on Etsy. The Italian Chef spoon holder is from aMusing Miniatures on Etsy. I think I bought the olive oil and pasta at a show. 

And dinner is served. All the food is by Teeny Perfections from Etsy.  

Have a great week!

Castle Second Floor WIP

I have painted, wallpapered and glued in the walls on the second floor. So there are now three separate rooms. My son gave me his thumbs up approval :) 

(The bathroom is now on the top floor--in the battle area. Which may be appropriate.)

The rooms are still all to be decorated. He's only just started.

This is the boys' bedroom. My mother-in-law made the blanket. One boy looks like he's having a great time on the gingerbread cookie couch.

Above is the boys' playroom. My son chose the colors. But I love them too. (At first he wanted orange, so I was quite happy when he switched to this one.)

I love the door handles by Olde Mountain Miniatures. My son decided he liked the look of the wood and didn't want to paint this wall.

And above is the parents' bedroom. I found the wall hanging on eBay. 

And then we ordered a new dryer (Hurray! So happy to have a new dryer) and the styrofoam packaging was perfect for the back wall of the top of the castle. Isn't that amazing? 

(You can the bathroom in the box. We will try to insert that under the back wall.) Next summer, I can work on adding the stonework. 

And also probably next summer, I will do the front wall, but here is the preliminary layout of the windows:

I am wondering if we should paint them a royal blue, even though that won't match the bottom windows. These windows don't match the bottom windows anyway, as I found these fancier windows after I'd already installed the bottom windows.  Apparently the bottom windows were modernized :)

But I may just stain them cherry so that at least they match in stain color.

Have a great week!

Castle Kitchen

Here is the kitchen castle.  It's been modernized :)

The tile floor is from HBS/Miniatures.com.

And I framed the door. I still have to frame the window, but I've run out of wood out here. 

And above is a summer sunset. 

Progress on the Dollhouse Castle

I'm starting to make some more progress on the dollhouse castle for my son. He is getting impatient (understandably).

(My mother-in-law made the flag and the outfit for the knight doll. The catapult is from http://ketsiaelie.blogspot.com/) The cannon is from my mom.)

I finally installed the bottom front wall with hinges. Initially I hadn't accounted for the hinges taking up so much space, so the two sides couldn't close. I had planned to saw off part of the wall, but I just couldn't do it. (I was afraid I'd saw off too much or it would look really messy.) So luckily I found a piece of wood (after several attempts) that I could attach to the side of the house to give the necessary space. See below:

I glued a door handle from Olde Mountain Miniatures on the front door. I love it. I added a screw there for the kids to use as a real door handle.

And I finished wallpapering one bedroom. I used tacky glue so it's not perfect, but it will do. (The wallpaper is from DollsHouse Emporium. The bed is from eBay.) I was hoping this would be the parents' bedroom, but my son likes it so much, it's now the boys' bedroom.

Here's the top all ready for battle:

Now I have to work on the kitchen, painting the walls and doors. My son keeps asking me when we are going to glue in the walls.

Have a great week!

Library Diorama for the Public School Library

My son's elementary school has an "Everybody Reads" week where authors and others come in and talk about reading. 

For the event, I made a little library diorama for the library. The librarian usually reads to the children from a rocking chair, so I found a rocking chair in my stash.

I learned that I had to tacky-wax the books in.

As Sheila said from http://shenandoahandstuff.blogspot.com/, it looked like the tiny librarian had a temper tantrum. Or there was an earthquake. Or as others said, it looked like the mess their kids made when they were younger.  Which reminded me of the time it was too quiet, and my daughter and her friend had moved all the books from her bookshelf into the bathroom. (Why?  I am not sure. I took it as a good sign that they thought they needed books in their hide-out, even if it was a lot of work to put them all back). 

But it definitely wasn't going to cause much joy if someone had to keep putting those books back. 

My friend Ketsia Elie at http://ketsiaelie.blogspot.com/ gave me most of the material to make both the wood structure and the books. Thank you Ketsia! I used her techniques of using little foam pads for the books as well as cutting up magazines. 

I bought the white bookshelf, but I made the other two shelves on the side walls.

She also gave me many of the book covers which she had made from the internet. 

My children also eat waffles for breakfast often, and L'eggo waffles over this past summer was giving away Scholastic books if you bought a certain number of packages. They featured the book covers on the waffles box.  They were even proportionally right! This was perfect as it featured many of my children's favorite books like Dragon Masters.

It's fun overhearing the children in the library find some of their favorite books displayed like Owl Diary or The School of Good and Evil or Harry Potter.

Hope you have a great week!

Happy Easter 2019!

Happy Easter!

I made the one Easter basket out of coffee stirrers and cut a strip from a paint color sample card for the yellow handle. 

The crayoning book and crayons are the pre-order gift for ordering The Book of Mini by @dailymini. I bought the pink Easter basket at the First Annual Garden State Dollhouse and Miniatures Show in New Jersey last weekend (so much fun!) from the table of Whimsies Dollhouse Shop.

I also made the little bunny and purple bowl of eggs out of polymer clay - as you can undoubtedly tell. Unfortunately, the bunny's ear broke and the pen color smeared when I glazed it, but I still like it.

I bought that fabulous red lamp in the corner from Mitchy Moo Miniatures. It fits my living room perfectly.

The distressed truck with the bunny and eggs is from Mini Fun Times on Etsy. 

Yummy, yummy cookies. I bought these from Little Things by Anna.

The bakery has been busy baking spring cakes. I received this cake as a swap gift from one of the National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts Online swap. I think that the theme was spring. It's so beautiful. My photograph does not really do it justice. It has very shiny chocolate frosting.

The bakery has made a varied selection of cakes and cupcakes from which to choose!

I made the cake in the middle out of polymer clay from a tutorial in The Dolls House Magazine, although I did make the flowers a little too big. The cupcakes in the front are from HBS Miniatures and the cupcakes to the left are from Ruth Stewart. My daughter bought the little lamb cake at the chldren's table at the IGMA show. 

Now the bakery is busy making bunny cookies:

(also bought at the show from Whimsies Dollhouse Shop)

Meanwhile Waterside Way Apartment 2 managed to find and put out its Easter egg wreath.

Hope you all enjoy your Easter or your Sunday!