Lucky Winner!

Legos and Other Little Things....

A Few weeks ago, Dear Readers, I was lucky enough to be the Winner of Noelle's giveaway on her blog Nono mini Nostalgie! I could not believe my good fortune to win her teeny tiny mini Lego set! My sons' favorite toys were Legos (and we still have a big box of them!) so I was enchanted to see them in mini on Noelle's blog. But for some reason our emails would not connect to each other... so after a couple of tries both ways I put my mailing address on her comments so she could send me the prize. It worked and the little package arrived last week in my mailbox. I tell you, I am always amazed that a little parcel can cross the Ocean and reach its destination without mishap!

But here it is!!! 

The little box itself is a tiny wonder...!

But the contents are beyond amazing!

Can you believe how perfect these tiny Legos are?

I feel so Lucky to have them!

Thank you, Noelle, for sharing your treasures!

They are Awesome!

And in another way I also feel very lucky, Dear Readers,

 because I have had a few alarming set-backs

 with my stone floor for The Dollmaker's Studio....

which might have turned out alright after all!

You might recall that I had showed the floor

 with the newly applied grout all dry and ready for "dirtying up"....

The pale color of the dry grout was too new and

 clean looking for such an "old" stone floor!

So I mixed up a watered down acrylic mix of brown and black

 and began to brush it onto the floor, 

planning to wipe most of it off the stones 

but leave the grout a darker shade.

I started in the back corner where it would naturally be very dirty...

and quickly realized I had not swept off the dry grout residue

 from the original application.

 It would be too gritty if I didn't clean it first.

So I did a little careful sweeping... 

only to realize that the grout was lifting out of the cracks...!!

Yikes! That was not supposed to happen!

Since most of the grout was still in the cracks,

 I decided to go ahead with the "dirtying" process... 

and fill in gaps later if necessary.

You will understand if there are no pictures of this part of the process...!

As I brushed on the dirty water.... 

the grout just melted... 

apparently it had dried to dust!!

 It was really very alarming....! 

So I just "dabbed on" the color... 

and wiped it off with a paper towel... 

and where the grout "lifted" I smeared it back into the cracks 

with the wet paint mixture...

And then I let it dry.... again....!

I could not get the paint tones to mix carefully.... 

it was scrub and dash and smoosh and dab....

Yikes!!!

Here it is part way dried....  

At this point I couldn't be sure

 if I was going to have to scrub it ALL off and start over.

So the next morning I had a closer look

 once the "grout" was dry again.

I was planning all along to add a sealer coat of matte varnish, 

and decided to give it a try

 in spite of the gaps and the uneven colors..... 

it is supposed to be an Old floor after all.

Of course, the newly applied varnish 

just adds a milky looking glossy sheen.... 

so it is really hard to tell how it will look when dry....

But at this point I was telling myself 

that I could just  cover the whole floor with a carpet....

(possibly part of the plan anyway...!) 

so who cares how it looks?

(Yes, I Know.... I would know anyway....)

So I let it dry and refused to look at it for a couple of days!

And when I did look at it again,

 I scuffed the tiles a bit with a scrubbing sponge.....

 and decided that they might not look so bad after all!

There are a couple of spots where I will 

"repair" the missing grout with a paintbrush....

 

Somehow, Dear Readers,

 the floor seems to have turned out alright....

and I guess I am starting to feel like 

I'm a Lucky Winner after all!

Sugarplum Studio.....

Shedding A Little Light.....

Some of you, Dear Readers, might recognize this picture as it was the setting of Last Year's Christmas Card, but that is not why I am showing it here now. It is simply a way of showing you the challenges I face with Lighting my own Studio in order to get good pictures of my projects. This room I call my large studio is really meant to be the living room in my small house, but I have it set up as the dining room because it is the only room big enough for the dining table and the hutch (which is off to the right in this picture). And a "dining room" in my life has always ended up being where I work because the table begs to be used! And after a while it just becomes my studio and I no longer pretend to have a "dining" room! And because this house is an older house with limited electrical fixtures... the only "overhead" light in this room is the candelabra you see... yes, it really is only candles! I have one old table lamp on the table and one old standing lamp that can be repositioned depending on where I am working. I also have a couple of old clamp lamps which sometimes are used to add light to dark corners... but they are tricky to manage as they sometimes un-clamp themselves in dramatic ways. I have one small point of use table lamp for the cutting mat work area to ensure good light in close detail work. And that is pretty much it for the light in my studio! As you can see, it is dark in all the corners and the "pool" of light under the standing lamp is the primary available light. And at this time of year, while the days are lengthening noticeably, it is still dark in the evenings when I might want to take photos of my work progress. So I hope you will understand, many of my photos are just not well lit... but I might only have that picture to show my "progress".

And I have been making some progress!

The "stone" floor of the Sugarplum Studio got a coat of primer.

And then I painted the first coat of color....

 a light gray that I use all the time.

I also started to position the rafters,

(which you can barely see overhead)

 but they are not attached as they will just get in the way

 while I am working on the floor and walls.

Here you can see I am testing some paneling options...

I have had these panels for years and there are just enough for this project!

 I will be using a different color on them.

And you can also see that the Sugarplum kit is a Small kit!

The main room here is only 9 inches deep  and 14 inches wide.

(Hmm... I just realized those dimensions 

are similar to my RL studio room dimensions!)

But the first task needing to be finished is the stone floor!

I began painting the dark gray into all the cracks

 and adding some "brushing" of  dark texture on the stones.

Again, these are the same two grays I have used for years

 to make the "stones" in my projects... the Castle in particular.

And I realized that I have a natural tendency to think stones are gray...

 rather than yellow-ish or red-ish or brown-ish..... 

because the rocks in New England are mostly

 gray slate and gray granite.

(I wonder what color the stones are where you live?)

 

Next I started to dab on bits of ocher and red oxide and burnt umber

 to create some variance in the "gray" of my stones.

(This picture is terrible... ! )

But you can see I was very rough and random with the dabbing.

Then I began with the next layer of gray... the lighter gray again.

This time I dry-brushed it lightly over the whole stone

 and then used paper towel to smear it and remove excess paint.

 I didn't want the light gray to completely cover the under colors.

I have only done the stones in the left hand corner in this shot.

I think this shot is slightly better....

You can see that the gray paint is changing the tones, 

making them more uniform and lighter.

The stones on the left half have been done here.... not yet on the right.

Here the stones have all been "grayed" ... 

(but the lighting is terrible!)

That's much better!

I am not going to over-work these stones Dear Readers,

 because it is only a small floor which will probably have a carpet

 and be hidden by the furnishings too. 

But I wanted a relatively uniform look

 to the stones and a over-all gray-ish tone.

And  because I am planning on using grout with this floor,

 next I added the first of several coats of varnish to seal the paper surface.

Of course, it makes the stones look way too glossy.

But I am fairly confident that the grout will scuff up the glossy surface

 and it is better to add enough protection 

for the paper "stones" before trying to grout them.

And that's as far as I got, Dear Readers, 

working on the Sugarplum Studio floor. 

But I feel as though I'm finally making a little progress... 

And I hope I have shed enough light for you to see it!