Almost a month

It’s been almost a month when I posted the last entry.  These 2-3 weeks were quite busy, we have a new addition to our family, this little kitten.

He’s just about 1,5 months old, very cute, very active little boy. So the last week I spent hours with him. He doesn’t let me do anything but playing with him all day long. I guess I  don’t need to say that I couldn’t finish a thing in my dollhouse, just some basic fixes – floors and windows. I hope I’ll be able to post some photos this week. Stay tuned!

The Roof – fixed

When I was posting this picture I thought maybe I shouldn’t write anything:) I was choosing the decoration for the roof for a week, I didn’t like anything – it was too easy or too difficult and time-consuming. I was worrying too much, then I realized that this is my first big project, and if  I mess something up it’s no big deal, I can fix it later, or don’t fix at all but I always gaining some experience which is the most important for me.
I relaxed a bit and started fixing the roof. And it’s working now!:) You can open the facade without problems. I want to thank Karin, Caterina, Tom Pouce and Sans for great tips, in the result I used fabric as hinges (I forgot to make a photo, sorry, will do it next time).
Some more pictures, I’m really sorry for the quality, I had to use my hubby’s DSLR, and I’m not used to his camera, so they are a bit blurry.

Three pieces you see above will be used for wall decoration.  In russian it’s called (“причелина” – pree-che-lee-na:), hehe, sounds and looks funny in Latin letters). This is the part that covers the corners of the house. I hope to make them tomorrow, and I’m moving to interior. It’s going to be fun!

Small update – first but not the last problem.

I’ve finished gluing the veneer on the pediment, and the main part of slope of the roof is done too.

This week I need to decorate the roof and the rest of the house, then I’ll be able to move to interior part. And now I have a problem, I was going to decorate the roof  this way (well, something like this):

But the slopes of my house are longer (it’s ok, depends on the house really). So when I open the facade part of the roof is blocking it.  Here’s what happens when you haven’t planned it all. So I had to think of something. First of all, I thought I wouldn’t decorate the roof at all and do only pediment,  like this (the pediment or should I call it  tympanum, is great here):

Then I thought it would be ok, if I still decorate it the way I wanted before, but with one trick. I need to break it in parts, and the part that is blocking opening of the facade would be on hinges, the smallest ones or I think it would be ok to use some sort of fabric hinges. So when I open the facade part the part of the decoration goes up – well, I hope you get the idea. I think this will go. Anyway, I’ll post the results this week, so we’ll see.

The problem with roof – photos

Yesterday I posted about it, and Karin offered her help, so I’m posting the photos. Here it is, on the slope of the roof there should be decoration, about 1” wide (i used here  paper pattern):

So when I try to open the facade, the decoration is blocking it:

Because the slope is too close:

So my solution would be, one part to the right is glued and not moving, another that is blocking should be on the hinges, something like this:

Windows – finished!

Yay! I’ve finished the windows, now when I look at them I cannot believe I did it.

Quick update

I haven’t posted anything for a week – my hubby and I caught a flu, not N1H1 fortunately, so I couldn’t do anything but staying in bed. Sadly,I didn’t finish windows. Just the table (sorry for the pictures):

The legs are made of pinewood, the rest is oak. My husband was helping me, he became interested in miniature more lately. So we started from the simple things. The only problem was to fix the legs – somehow it’s almost impossible to find four-sided glue jig in Moscow! Maybe we are looking at the wrong stores.
So, we thought of another way to glue the legs and stringers (do I use the right term?).  Tricky trick:

Couple of new links – scroll saw basics.

My hobby is less than a year but I’ve learned so many things, bought so many things!:)  And I’m more than happy to share the things I learn with you. In my recent posts I received several comments about working with scroll saw. So I decided to share some links that helped me a lot, hope you’ll find them useful.

First of all, and I think if you were looking for information about scroll saw basics you know this link already, but still:

Steve  Good has his own channel on Youtube, so check it too, I was watching a lot of these videos, it doesn’t matter if they were about building shelves or puzzles – just watch them and  you’ll get a lot of great tips. Besides, you can find Steve’s blog  here –http://scrollsawworkshop.blogspot.com/.

And about blades ( @Texas Belle: That’s what I meant in my comment, forgive my English, sometimes I forget the easiest words!:))  – good link – general information, but worth reading – http://www.woodcraft.com/Articles/Articles.aspx?articleid=411.

I can’t recommend any books, I have some on the subject, but I’m lazy, I love pictures and videos much more;)

Decorating windows – concept.

Hi everyone!

Sorry for my long absence – I was finishing  my yearly essay. Though this weekend I came back to working on the house. This time I have to finish decorating windows. This will be the most difficult part, I think, because Russian houses have the most beautiful windows in the whole world!:) Just kidding.

It is still difficult. Just check this great site:

http://shushara.ru/windows/tree.php?TreeID=218 .

On this page you can see house decorating details, they are grouped by the type. All these beautiful decorations are used in traditional village houses. Unfortunately, in the big cities you won’t see much of these. Sadly, the tradition is slowly dying.

But in my house you’ll see all of these details, as I’m absolutely in love with them.  Besides, it’s village house after all :).

As I said before, I’m lazy. So cutting all the details with scroll saw sounded like very bad idea. First of all, I tried cutting veneer – bad choice. It’s very friable and you have to choose the easy patterns. Oh, btw, I used these patterns:

Then I thought it would be easy to cut the details on cardboard. Bad choice again, at least for me. The result was horrible, maybe, well, definitely I don’t have enough skills to cut out the whole thing neatly. I even tried pyrography! 🙂 It was fun though.

In the end, I looked at the scroll saw and realized I had no choice. Some pics of the first window:

The left part isn’t finished, but I decided to show it so that you could understand the whole idea of it.  It isn’t glued, painted, sanded, besides, I need to fix the edges too.

About the technical part – I used 4mm plywood ( I was too stingy to use mahogany for this, and oak is too hard to work with, especially with such small details). Usually I use paper pattern and glue it to the wood with spray glue. But here I had to use transfer paper – check the left part:

One part is taking about 10 minutes or less, so the whole window would take about 40 minutes if you are not as lazy as me.  So, I need to make thousands 20 parts for 5 windows. The first window is not perfect, but I’m learning and trying to improve my skills, so I hope the last fifth window will be the best, hehe.

Shopping

On Friday I’ve found some great books about the history of trade in Russia:

The left one is about Moscow in 19th century, the second one is quite serious research about history of trade in general.  I have already finished reading the first book, amazing stories and good illustrations:

Also I bought two dolls:) Guess, why!:)