Gramophone Records

These little records are all an inch in diameter. I found a stack of cover and label images on the net. Set them all up in Photoshop. The records are just made from black cardboard cut out with a hole punch. As always finished up with a bit of a dirty wash. The water helps the paper to 'age', it shrinks and crinkles.

I have just added these to my Etsy Shop. You'll find the link over to the right.

A Lavender Dilly Etsy Shop!

I have just opened up an Etsy shop of my own. I will be slowly filling it with all the things I make and show from time to time here. I am in the process of making a lot of brooms, mops and dishmops. I am free for commissions and there is a link for that in the shop. You can find a link to my shop just to the right. Enjoy!!

Beautiful Plates

I came across this idea from Carolyn's Little Kitchen blog. She has a great tutorial on how to do these plates. I found the water decal paper on ebay. What would I do without ebay?!! Google image search provided all the images an my faithful Adobe Photoshop allowed to organise them all to print. It was a little nerve racking at first but once I overcame my fear of making a boo-boo I was off! I ran out of plates, phooey. Will have to wait for the Postie. Oh one thing I did learn from error. That is to know how exactly your printer feeds paper. My first collection of beautiful plates ended up on the backing paper. Erk.
Big thank you to Carloyn!!!!!!!

Old Worn Fireside Chair

These chairs can be picked up for very little dollars on ebay but the luminous red of this chair that is supposed to be mahogany is awful. I like the red padded velour cushioning but the timber had to be changed. So I needed to pull it apart. Fun!! To loosen the glue I put the chair in the microwave for 15 seconds. Careful lot to loosen up too much glue holding the timber together! The glue softens and then the fabric panel came off very easliy. I hit the timber with the paint stripper and washed it off. I wasn't to fussy in getting all the stain off. Sat it in my warm oven for ten minutes to get it to dry out. We are actually having a cold winter here this year so I've taken to drying things out in my oven. I gave it a light sanding all over paying attention to rounding off the edges. I didn't want it too dark and I'm generally lazy/impatient so instead of tackling a can of wood stain I used dark tan shoe polish. Just rubbed it on with a cloth let it sit and went over it again to make sure there wasn't any excess left. I wanted the velour to be worn and rubbed back. Velour is cotton so when it is burnt it doesn't melt like polyester but singes and falls away. So I hit it with a flame on the areas that would be typically worn with age. Sometimes it does catch alight but I just blew it out. Keep moving the fabric over the flame to stop it catching alight. When it cools off just rub over it with a cloth and the blackened cotton comes away leaving the even weave underneath. For a more frayed look just keep having small goes at it till it comes away. Then just glue it all back in place.

Easy Mini Books

I came across this simple idea in Jane Harrop's 'Thirties and Forties' book. Simply a book jacket printout glued to a piece of balsa and aged with a wash of dirty brown. I adpated it a little bit. But it goes as follows. I found a heap of book covers via Google books. You can find entire libraries online with complete books. After saving the image I change the resolution to 300dpi and re size them to fit 1 inch scale. Increasing resolution gives a finer detailed printout. I do it all in Photoshop. Print them out and then to set the ink I give the paper a spray of matt. Then cut out. To a length of balsa I round of one side by rubbing it along sandpaper to give the look of a spine. I use a Bostick glue stick all over the balsa and glue on the printie. Along the page edges I use a round needle file to rough up the balsa and it gives the appearance of pages. Plus adds the convexed look of a large book. If you don't have a needle file I reckon a small piece of sandpaper on a toothpick might do it. You could also use the pointy bit of the pick to 'scratch' the balsa. Then a quick going over with a very watered down raw umber and pat down. I found the process of scruffing up the balsa can sometimes curl up the paper cover giving a great dog eared look. I use different thickness balsa as well. 1mm through to 3mm. I've got a printout of an old Bible I will use 5mm for that. Great for using up my containers of bits of balsa. That's it. These look great stacked together. I have just completed 100 printies!!! Argh. Took two days. The weather isn't too great and good for sitting in front of my PC. They are printed out and waiting for pages.

Homemade Furniture

This is the little cupboard for the upstairs attic. Didn't really know what it was for but felt the room needed something. Most probably for clothes as I can't have a wardrobe or chest of drawers. Need a perpendicular wall for that. I haven't painted anything yet. Wanted to wait to see how everything fits before I go and add colour.
A kitchen table with a drawer. Still undecided about drawer knob. Pantry cupboard I can fill with jars and cans etc. The bottom cupboard will have painted tulle in it to look like wire.
The kitchen sink and cupboard all made from balsa. The water pump bought ages ago on ebay no doubt. The sink is made from balsa as well and then given several coats of gesso. It's great for filling in gaps. The pipe is the plastic stick part of a cotton bud and a metal bead fitted perfectly as a joiner. The plate rack is made out of balsa and the fancier toothpicks. The little cupboard is for upstairs. That's why the funny back, so it fits up against the sloping roof.

Flooring.

For the flooring of 'Warm Thatcham' I used 2.5mm balsa. It's cheap, can be cut with a craft knife and I can easily get my hands on it. I cut into lengths 1/2" wide. For this house I wanted to really capture the idea of it being a real floor and I wanted light from above and below to filter through the cracks. I laid out a grid work of beams first. I used 9mm square balsa. I whittle the edges with a craft knife and sanded it a little. For the effect of peg type nails I used a round needle file to put a hole in the ends. Pushed in a satay stick which I cut of with bullnose pliers. Stained them and then glued in place. Beams around the interior on the first floor line and then crossbeams on those. L shaped cut out on each end so it would sit flat for the floorboards to sit on above. I laid lighting wire along grooves I cut out along the top of the beams all the way over to the chimney which is where I was hiding all my wires.
Floor boards cut into varying lengths. I made knot marks in some by going at the wood with the round needle file at an angle. Then stained them. Laid them down on the supporting beams and pierce a small hole where a peg would go. Where it would go through to the beam if it were real. Holes made with round needle file but used toothpicks this time as pegs, again cut off with bullnose pliers. Glued them in place. Occasionally checking that it was fairly straight. Allowing a little wonkiness and cracks. Worked my way across and cut the ends of when all done.
I love the effect. While it is easy to do it is the most time consuming. This was a small floor area to work on so I went a little bonkers doing it. For the Coventry I used precut timber flooring. I got them from ebay. Yay ebay!! $7 for a bag of 100. It's oak and are very thin. Easily cut with scissors. Cut a heap in varying lengths and glued them on straight to the ply floor of the house. Went along after and filled in the gaps. Cutting around corners and allowing for doorways etc. Gave it all a light sand then quickly painted on the stain. I left it darker around the edges, rubbing it off more where people would walk. I have found here in our tropical climate that after high rain and humidity the floorboards curved a little. I loved the look but I think to stop that from happening I would have to cover the entire timber strip piece in glue and work in sections. Placing something heavy on it to keep it flat and let it dry out. But I loved the curled look. I did the same for the first floor. This method is so much quicker and easier but a different look. Way to go with larger areas to cover.