Signage

Now that the roof is all done, I started thinking about a sign. I knew I would need a thin piece of wood for the base so dug out my box of punch-outs. Whenever I build a dollhouse kit, I save all the punch-outs from windows and doors and keep them in a box. These come in really handy for small projects. I found a window punch-out with a rounded end that looked like it would work. I traced around the curved part and made a pattern for the other end.

After some careful cutting, I thought it came out pretty good!

For the supports, I used some of the roof supports from one of the other minion houses that I didn't use. I needed to trim them to adjust them to the angle of the roof

and then glued them to the back of the sign.

For the print-out, I looked online and found a sign from a small company and stretched it and shrunk it in my Microsoft Word program and printed it out.

Since it is on printer paper, I was wondering what to glue it on with and decided on a glue stick. I will see how this holds in the long run; I might have to use something else in the future. The wood base was painted black and now sports a copper colored edge. Glued the paper sign on and then glued the whole thing to the house.

This came out great and was out of scrap wood! My kind of project! LOL! I still have to figure out what to do with the wire from the interior light, then this can be glued to the base and landscaped.....Woo! Hoo! Have a nice evening!

Everything's a Little Fuzzy....

Woke up this morning to hoarfrost...and fog too! We don't see hoarfrost here very often, but it is always interesting to look at...everything looks like it has a fuzzy coat on.

So as I was admiring it, I heard someone clear their throat behind me. Slash was wondering when I was going to get a move on and shingle the other side of Buns & Roses. He knows I've been busy with Twice Across America, but really, where are my priorities! It's all about the minions around here! So I got settled down to shingling and completed the roof in a reasonable amount of time.

Shingling seems very boring to me, but the end result is worth it.

While waiting for the glue to dry, I wanted to show you the minions trying out their new fart blaster.

When they heard S was back home from the hospital, they gave her a 21 blaster salute. I just put a clothespin on my nose. Once the air cleared, a couple of the pirate minions approached me with a request.

Since Vincent and Slash have chosen names for themselves, they have chosen names too. They are now Larry and Louie. They introduced themselves and I immediately forgot which one was which. They suggested I glue a feather to the hat of one of them to tell them apart, so I got to work.

Turns out I glued the feather on Larry and it was supposed to go on Louie but at least I can tell them apart now. While Larry was drying, I asked him what his idea was. He said that Louie and himself would like to open a landscaping business. Something with natural materials and not harmful to the environment...I assured him that his carbon footprint was not very big at all, but I would see what I could do. They even have a name already...Larry & Louie's Landscaping. It's even fun to say! LOL! I told them I would pencil it into my schedule but with all the drinking and gluttony going on in the Minion Village lately, I think the next build will be a church! But landscaping Buns & Roses will be next...maybe I'll give Larry and Louie a shot at it...Have a great day!

Shingles and Blasters...

Started the day adding some "wrought iron" trim to the peak of the roof on Buns & Roses. I used E6000 cement and there is no getting that off!

Shingles next! Since I had to cut each strip to length, I ended up having to paint the ends before I could glue them on. The strip shingles are really handy in this kit, I think doing individual shingles in this scale would turn me into a fumble-fingers. I used two lines of white glue and held them in place on the ends with clothespins and pressed down on them with my fingers for a few minutes until the glue started to set.

I had just enough painted shingle strips to do one side so I will be painting more later.

While all this dried, I pulled out the fart blaster and my box of tiny watch gears to see what I could come up with. When I looked down at my bench, one of the gears had pierced my pencil!

Be careful with these, the pointed ends can be sharp! I tried out a few different things and this is what I came up with.

Also used part of a snap fastener for inside the bell shaped end...seems to look more business-like this way.

I'm not sure how it ended up being a Steampunk Fart Blaster, but it was fun to make! LOL! Now I have to make sure the Captain over at the Steampunk Summerhouse doesn't "catch wind" of it...;) or he will abscond with it! Since there is supposed to be a big storm coming sometime tomorrow, I am going to head off to Walmart to join the throngs who will be there buying milk and bread....the only thing is, I'll be buying black craft paint and glue...have to have the essentials! LOL! Have a great afternoon!

Do you wanna Build a Snowman.....

Had a busy day yesterday editing a video for my other blog, Twice Across America. I am new to editing, so it took me several hours. So today I am playing with minions! Since it is snowing here, a few of them wanted to go out and make a snowman so I bundled up and went out to give them a hand. The snow was a little hard to work with, more like ice pellets, but we managed to get one going.

As the snow got deeper, the Crominion was having a ball making snow angels but the others were rapidly getting buried in the ever-deepening snow.

Since it was almost lunchtime, we came in for tomato soup and toasted cheese sandwiches! So bad for you but such great comfort food. We wondered where the rest of the minions had got off to when we found a note that said they went down to the tropics to spend some time at the Banana Farm. They came back a few hours later a little sunburned and had pictures to show everyone.

They even had a photographer do some old timey shots of them.

I asked how the Banana Farmer was doing and he had sent along a crate of bananas for everyone. After checking to see if Buns & Roses was open for business yet, (it wasn't) they went over to Outback Steakhouse again today. Twice in one week! Maybe I pay them too much....
Not a whole lot of progress otherwise today. I did get more shingles painted

and I metalized and embellished the Steampunk Fart Blaster just a bit.

I know, it needs some gears, just being lazy today! I can smell those steaks over there at Outback, now my tummy's growling! Have a great afternoon!

Flower Boxes and Cold Weather!

Since we got the teeniest bit of snow this weekend, the minions wanted to go out and play in it. Not all of them have fur or a winter coat, so I took a picture of these two.

They didn't want to stay out long! We had a little more snow overnight, so they were all excited about going out and perhaps building a snowman. I checked the thermometer, "Sorry guys, it's only 19 degrees out!" They decided to all have lunch together at Outback Steakhouse instead.

That sounds pretty good to me too...I can dream can't I? LOL! So while they were lining up to have lunch, I got out the sheet moss to cut the rest of the pieces for the remaining 3 window boxes. It sure is messy stuff!

I glued the boxes to the house and while that was drying thought about the translucent paper for the windows. Why was I doing each window separately when no one is going to see inside once it's done? Since I had plenty of the paper left, I just cut large pieces to cover each wall.

Faster and fewer gluey fingers. So here is each side with the window boxes and windows done.

I guess we can start the roof! I painted the edges white since they will show once the shingles are on

and glued the first one to the roof. I made a small notch in the top edge of the remaining piece of roof for the interior light. Once the light was positioned inside at the level I wanted, the second roof piece was glued in place.

The shingles were next. Since I wanted them black, I checked the instructions to see if there was any problem with this. The instructions said to seal them first if you are going to paint them. Well, since there are so many in the box, I thought I would just try painting three with just the paint and see what happens.

They dried nice and flat and even and it looks like they will only need one coat.

So looks like I will be busy painting more shingles this afternoon! In between laundry that is.....Have a great afternoon!
P.S. Here is what it looks like lit up! I'm having way too much fun with this! LOL!

More Window Boxes!

Slash was very impressed with the first window box and the rest of the minions loved the colors of the flowers. The flowers actually took their attention away from all the baked goods in the window for a few minutes anyway! LOL! So I was inspired to start the remaining 3. This time, I decided to do all the cutting, glueing, and painting production style. I started by cutting each of the base and side pieces

and glueing them together.

They dried quickly and I glued each set to the back of each piece of plastic fencing.

I knew this would take a little longer to dry, so pulled out the parts for the fart gun I was thinking about. This started as a small plastic trumpet that I had in my stash.

I had used the mouthpiece as part of a hookah for Sherlock awhile back.

I thought I could use nail polish remover to take the gold finish off of the plastic, but it just removed the gold color and I still had a shiny silver finish left. So I used a piece of fine sandpaper and lightly sanded it all over, then used some black spray paint on it.

I know, forgot my glove again! LOL! Now it's time to let the paint dry and go back to the window boxes. I brushed black acrylic paint on the wooden parts and set them aside to dry.

Tomorrow we will add the moss and flowers and glue them to the building! Have a great evening!

Shutters and Window Boxes...

I'd been thinking about Slash's idea of window boxes. Kept me awake last night so there I was digging through my stash at 1 AM trying to find something unusual that would work. Came up empty and gave up and went back to bed. Started this morning working on the remaining shutters; more sanding, painting, and glueing. But it's coming together nicely.

Then I got an idea. I dug out a couple of pieces of plastic fencing and started playing around with them.

I got out my little wire cutters and started cutting away the pieces I didn't want. This is what I ended up with

and I tried them out on the little building.

I think I'm onto something! I cut some pieces of wooden stir stick to box in the back, glued it together

and painted it black. I cut a piece of sheet moss and glued it to the back, then glued it onto the building.

Of course, there was alot of drying time in between these steps so spent some time thinking about building a for-real fart gun for the minions....:) More to come on that one! LOL! While the glue was drying, (why do I feel like I've said that before...) I went through my ziploc bags of fake flowers to find something for the window boxes that the minions would like.

Yellow with a touch of blue seemed just right.

Now I just have three more to build....Have a great evening!