Finally - An Update!

I do hope everyone had a very happy Christmas! Ours was very nice, but I have to say that having another week off after this one is very welcome.

I have found some time to work on Rosehill Cottage, although since it's been three and a half months since I last posted about it I am sure it doesn't look like I've accomplished much. I've been working on the bay window in the back of the living room, and trying to figure out how to do windows with mullions. I would love to use individual panes of glass, but just don't have the skill for it. This example is plastic with the mullions painted on - cream on the inside and green on the outside. This was just my prototype, and my final ones will be much neater.

Here's a view through the bay window to the front door.

The item I am most excited about is the blue velvet ottoman I made. Actual velvet or velveteen would be too much texture for the scale, so I used some dark blue quilting cotton and "colorized" it with Prisma pencils. I was going for the shade of aqua blue on the one from the film, so I used a combination of turquoise, royal blue, aqua green and white to give it the uneven texture of velvet. The cushion itself is made from balsa wood covered in thin batting. After covering the base with the blue cotton I pushed tiny steel pins with painted heads to match the fabric through the cushion to resemble buttons, and clipped off the excess with a wire cutter. The underside was then covered with a thin panel of stained balsa wood. The legs on the film version were turned wood, but after an attempt to carve a dowel with my Dremel (and a small flesh wound) I resorted to black glass beads glued onto a pin and pushed into the balsa center of the cushion. I think they do a good job posing as ebonized wood!

It is apparent to me that I enjoy making accessories much more than the actual structure, and you can tell from the patchy look of the unfinished sections that I have no idea what I am doing. Thank goodness for balsa wood - so easy to cut through and fix. You will never know when I am done and the surfaces are covered in Paperclay how spotty my construction is.

Here's to a very wonderful 2012 for all of you!