Paint it White

 I’m This part of the project reminds me of the scene in The Devil's Advocate where the two main characters get to see their apartment for the first time. The woman down the hall explains why they have the apartments painted white so you can see the walls naked so you can choose your palette.

'Before 

.

After 

 Well....now I have a lovely blank canvas. My hands are all painty but who cares.  However, this is a really sad way to spend New Year's Eve in Vegas. There's a law on the books here 

that says you are required to go out and party party party. If you don't abide by this law, you get a steep fine. 

Yuck!

My library glue smells rancid. I mean really REALLY rancid.  It smells like hard boiled eggs that have become rotten with a slight whiff of roadkill. How does that happen to glue? I guess I should go to the craft store for a new bottle because it's something I can't live without craft-wise. I also use it for it's intention---it's great for mending books. 

No longer a lean-to

I received a brand-new teevee typewriter for Christmas and I'm still working out some of the quirks, not to mention login info.  The townhouse took a bit of a backseat so I could work on some other projects. I went to Lowe's and bought a couple of 2 X 4's and used Liquid Nails to adhere them to the dollhouse so hopefully the leaning will finally be gone. I'd hate to have it lean-fro. 

I have included a photo of the Liquid Nails application just for posterity. 

Unfortunately I overdid the Liquid nails on some of the floors so I decided to use spackling paste to make it look like plaster walls. Plaster walls give the appearance of an older home in the days before drywall. I plan on spray painting the entire house white with the paint that adheres to plastic. Soon I'll be able to decide what color paint each room should be. 

This is where the fun part begins!!

You're My First Mate

I'd like to give a thank-you to my father and stepmother for instilling my DIY ethic (the other woman in the photo is my Auntie Em. Yes, I really have a wonderful Auntie Em. How Wizard of Oz-esque!!)

They taught me how to do things by hand such as having me out early in the morning in the front yard mixing cement. They gave me guidance when I was stripping the white paint off my first Heywood-Wakefield chair. I basically learned that there was virtually nothing out there that couldn't be restored.  This is my favorite quote from "The Lovely Bones": 

  

Susie, hobbies are healthy,

they teach you things.

Like what?

  

Like if you start something,

you finish it -

you don't stop until

you get it right.

If you don't get it right,

you start over again...

and you keep on going as long as you have to.

That's the way it is, that's what you do.

It's perfectly normal.

You know Granpy taught me to do this,

and now I'm teaching you.

We're creating something here, for us.

Something special.

- I know

You're my first mate, Susie Q. 

One day, all of this all will be yours. 

I *heart* gluey messes!

I woke up at 4am today which is not unusual for these past few months. Now, instead of trying to sleep and tossing and turning I just go with it and get out of bed. I'll tell you this, though---being up at 3am-6am is really peaceful. You accomplish quite a lot. Not to seem trite but our sunrises are really gorgeous and I get to work on my dollhouse while basking in the sunrise. 

Lydia Lunch once said "I like to {get up at 6am} because the first four hours of the day .are the most peaceful. No one's calling you on the phone. I can assure you of that. NO one's knocking at the door, and even the mailman doesn't come 'til noon. So I  like to get an advantage on everyone else:; have some peace time." 

Anyway, I decided it was time to dismantle the dollhouse and re-assemble it with the PVC pipe and the Liquid Nails. I put in a dvd of the first season of Dexter and by the time that particular disc was finished, I was covered with glue. By then I realized I should be wearing hair dying gloves. Whatever. What's done is done. I finally got tired of redecorating the house. I need to buy a giant piece of paneling so I can start painting rooms and hanging art. 

The following are photos of my progress:

This is the patio I've constructed. I constructed a sauna that's more size scaled to the rest of the furniture. I have the cedar benches inside sauna and the small dish of rocks. I need to secure the little pull mechanism. I've also planted three pots of rye grass which seems very hardy and adds a little bit of realism to the project. 

  
This is a full view of the house. I made some wonderful discoveries at Michael's Crafts. Once I decide a color scheme for each room I''ll be able to paint the furniture. 

This room has a funny backstory. It's the top half of one of those ladder shelves from Target. I was trying to scoot it over and forgot it was bolted to the wall. You can only guess what happened. I was covered in books. I was able to buy another and assemble it. Anyway, I thought it would make an interesting little apartment-type room. My grandmother's basement was like this. It had a seperate entrance, a kitchen, a laundry room, a bathroom and several bedrooms. I would like to imagine it as a little living space for an older teenager or a young woman living at home. 

 Check out the shelf I made! I've been saving tiny makeup containers. 

 This is the office and it's one of my favorite rooms mostly because of the color scheme---orange and green. To me, it's kind of mod. Do you see the rye grass in the corner?

 I'm a total sucker for vanities. I have two in my own house. The Barbie statue was a Christmas ornament. The other figure is a Shriner from Archie McPhee. 

 This is the master bedroom and it's one of my favorite rooms. To me it looks like something from West Elm. 

 This is the interior of the new sauna. 

Piso Mojado

The house has been totally dismantled to install PVC pipe. I didn't post a photo because, frankly, it isn't terribly interesting. I did, however, score some awesome pieces at Michael's Crafts.. Hey, like I said, I'm a finder and good at repurposing objects. I'm not a builder.. 

The Baron told her that only art meant anything

Since the structure of the house is still giving me fits, I thought I'd display the art that is ready to be hung on the walls of the house---as soon as I build permanent walls. 

One of my Jack Kerouac pictures may have bitten the dust. I mounted it on a sheet of  that homemade scrapbooking paper and when the moisture of the glue hit the paper, it wrinkled up and couldn't be saved. 

When people ask me where I get my clothing or where I get antique/vintage items in my house I generally reply by saying "Everywhere." This comes across as sounding glib but it's true. I find items at thrift stores (although I haven't thrifted properly in years), estate sales, tag sales, eBay, gifts from people who clean out their basements (that's how I acquired several 60 yr. old Gucci purses) as well as alley rummaging. Before I get labeled as a hoarder, let me add that I constantly have a box actively used for items that need to be taken to the Salvation Army. Some may look at my house and see clutter. I see collections that make me happy and that I love showing people when they visit. Every item has a zone (Dia de los Muertos zone, incense collection zone, pink pottery zone, Mertens Kundst zone, antique henna boxes zone) which actually makes my collections LESS cluttered. 

That being said, my favorite bidding items on eBay are the lot auctions under the search parameter of  "antique ephemera lot." You can bid on literally pounds of paper items which include old postcards (my favorite), photographs, maps, brochures, autograph books, diaries (another favorite), old greeting cards, and antique playing cards (my favorites are the deco playing cards which I collect and frame together). 

In the first photo, there are two Edward Gorey sketches from one of my old day-by-day calendars from a few years back. The other three items will look good in the bathroom. I'm particularly proud of the Fedrazil bookmark which is really and ad for cold medicine. The other two items are playing cards. 

I mentioned the Kerouac photo and the Velvet Underground photo. The latter was snipped and saved from an issue of Star Hits magazine. Anybody who was into British Invasion/new wave-type bands in the '80s probably knows what Star Hits magazine was. 

The photo with the two girls is actually a photo I  found at a house that my ex husband and I rented. One of the girls in the photo was our landlord's mother. THe reason they're making believe they're drinking beer and smoking cigarettes is because they came from LDS backgrounds. 

 Items such as these antique photos are commonly found in paper ephemera lots. Since they're smallish, I figured they'd make nice dollhouse art. 

 The pink/purple graphic was packaged with some items my ex husband brought back from India for me. The navy floral item is a tag from a dress and the circular Steampunk-esque item is actually a playing card. 

These are just stinking cute. One of them is a New Yorker cartoon mounted to a piece of magnet. The dad is telling the little boy to go ask his search engine. The Busy Book was in a box of Cracker Jacks. The blue card and the tiny photo are from my baby book. The "love rock silly" drawing was something I found in my classroom and kept. The Bunny Foo Foo item was something I did when I was little and the orange item is actually something I was using to test pen color a few weeks before and noticed that it was like Rorschach test. The two items before are for a dollhouse office. Note the "Five Truths of Life." Isn't it the truth??

These are from the same Edward Gorey day-by-day calendars as the one above. These are from his "Neglected Murderesses" book. I'm not sure where they'll go but trust me, I'll find a place. 

I don't know where some of these items are from. The milk graphic is a playing card. The Gore Vidal quote is from a notepad. The other two items just seem to have appeared in my art supplies. I figured all of these would look great in a dollhouse kitchen. 

How to Make a Dollhouse-Size Mac

I’ve been having intermittent computer issues which have prevented me from posting updates in any semblance of regularity. In fact, I’m taking a chance by even trying to write this entry. However, that’s what MacJournal is for. 

Before I begin my tale of creation, I need to mention that this little Apple miniature took forever to complete.  Hence, it should also be known as the “Waiting for Glue to Dry” project.

I’m sure my little replica isn’t a 100% accurate version of a real Mac, but hey, I did my best with what I had on hand which is pretty much the guideline for the entire project.  I found these little computer cutouts meant for scrap booking and figured out they might be useful for my project. It was one of those instances where you didn’t know you needed something until you saw it. 

The big challenge is that when you fold it down the middle to make it a 3d object, it creates a strange angle that you have to correct. I secured the fold with library glue which is like Elmer’s glue but with a lot more flexibility. This part took quite awhile because to stabilize the fold I had to keep adding more and more library glue. 

Since the cutout wasn’t really meant to be folded and glued, even with the library glue it still had a strange divot in it (for lack of a better term). It’s like when a sidewalk settles and one part of it is lower than the other parts and you wind up tripping over it. I attempted to even out the divot with magnet sheeting. I totally tried my best to cut out the magnet in the shape of the computer but last night when it was finally time to start gluin’ the shape of the magnet wasn’t the shape of the computer. Now I’m trying to figure out how to correct it. 

To really transform this little scrapbooking computer into a Mac is to add the familiar Apple logo. I tried looking online with no luck. Apple seems to keep their logo under lock and key so I did it the old fashioned way--through cut and paste. I took the larger silver Apple from the boxes of IPhones and IPods.  The smaller black ones are from the pages of software instructions. I tried tracing the logo onto a sheet of overhead transparency but it requires a relatively steady hand. If you want to try it, go for it. For me, it was like trying to do pinstriping. 

(sotto voce) Mmm....taffy.

I’m in the home stretch on these little tee-vee typewriters. I glued silver tissue paper over the white areas on the back. At any given time, I have about two packages of silver and gold tissue paper. It’s my favorite background for pictures in frames and for projects like this. I also like to use old maps and I have a mess ‘o maps in my craft room.  Guess what I’m waiting to do?? Yep....I’m waiting for the glue i used to adhere the tissue paper to dry.  

I decided that the finishing touch on this project---especially since now that they're glued to that small piece of wood that keeps the computer from falling over, there's a strange area where something needs to go. I decided to make a mouse out of a pooka shell and I made a wrist pad. The first try, I used cut out latex "tentacles" from one of those bouncy balls that Walgreens carries. I tried using rubber cement to secure them and it made them into a big mushy gushy mess. Instead, I used slices of museum wax.  

So, there you have it! Obviously, I made two. One Mac is in the house office. The second Mac is in one of the bedrooms that I'm turning into the room of a 17 yr-old. To perfect THAT room, I need to figure out how to construct dollhouse size crumpled fast food wrappers and Big Gulp cups.. That being said, this 17 yr-old is going to be super-cool because I made two Jack Kerouac framed photos and a Velvet Underground poster. 

The time invested was worth it, especially since I have nothing but time these days. Any questions will be welcomed. 

Don't threaten me with a good time

I heard this quote today on television. It was one of those reality shows full of the hunting of wild animals and it shall remain nameless because....well....it's embarrassing to admit it. 

Its usage would be something like this:

 "I'm never taking you to another employee softball game. Ever."

"Don't threaten me with a good time." 

I've spent many hours today trying to correct structural damage, not to mention sagging floors. 

What did Barbie do when she bought this house? Maybe it's like the way she's portrayed in those cartoon movies in a floaty pink peignoir singing "I'm Wishing" from the Snow White soundtrack. 

I've already dealt with reinforcing the floors because her subflooring was completely gone. I mean...who doesn't notice a thing like that? I've had to deal with foundation problems. I've been using shims and a small wedge and that works, or seems to work, however, when I examine it, it still seems to be sagging. It sags on one side and I insert a few shims. Then I look at it from another angle and it looks like it's sagging on the OTHER side. It's like the Sneetches with their Star Off machine.

I knew this wasn't going to be a quick project. I used to tell my students who hurried through writing projects announcing to me "I'm finished!" after 5 or 10 minutes. I always said, "When you think you're done, you've only just begun."

On a final note, I need some more real estate. I wanted to have a backyard but the house takes up the whole table. Perhaps I can employ a small telephone table or something similar where I can display my gazebo. 

The face of grandiose delusion is slapped by the cold fish of reality

This is proving to be more difficult than I thought. The scale of the furniture to the size of the rooms is all discombobulated. Also, this dollouse really is a conversation piece. The thing is massive!  

(Oh, and the title of this post is a little tribute to Edward Gorey. )

I'm all twitterpated!

 I'm twitterpated because the prep work is finished and now I can start doing the fun stuff like putting it together and filling the rooms with furniture and tiny dessicant cylinders masquerading as canned food. 

I painted over the '70s backdrop and I used white paint (as in house paint) instead of spray paint. It was truly a rookie mistake and the paint caused the cardboard to crinkle. Sigh. 

Also, if you look at the last photo you can see that the backdrop has taken quite a beating. I think it looks like some mice have had it for lunch but I guess it could be wear and tear. At any rate, I glued some posterboard on all of the worn spots. 

I'd had a lot of trouble deciding where to put the finished product. It's around 60 inches long so I had to find a place for it. I didn't want to bury it in a bedroom because I want it to be a conversation piece. Fortunately, I found the perfect place on a bench/shelf in the picture window. I'll post photos of the progress which is sort of the point of this blog--ha ha

Carpenters rock!

Everybody needs a carpenter in their lives be it Jesus or the union variety.  It turns out that posterboard or matting just wasn't going to cut it (ha! cut! as in cutting with a saw). Matt the carpenter and I took a trip to Home Depot and found some sheets of particle board. I can't recall the name of the wood but it's the kind that's commonly used for dresser drawers. 

I'm glad I enlisted his help because he said that it was pretty complex and he's been a carpenter for around 20 years. We (well, he) carefully marked the measurements and used a circular saw and a circle bit. Then, he used Liquid Nails to adhere the wood to the plastic. It made a huge difference. I dont have to worry about the plastic floors bending and breaking. 

Thanks for your help, Matt aka "Thew."