Flooring and Just a Few Gears...

I wanted to get the floor painted so the plywood would be sealed in preparation for the flooring paper.  I was busy helping my mom that day so when I came home I found Mr. Skellie had painted himself into a corner!

He wanted to surprise me and have it all done by the time I got back. He was complaining that his feet were sore from standing in the corner since noon. "Noon?!" I said. So I told him to go soak his weary bones and I would finish the job.

Once it was finished, I dragged myself off to bed where I slept like a dead person. The next morning, I cracked open the new tub of border paste and spread it on the floor. I read that suggestion somewhere a while back and now I prefer doing that to trying to put paste on the paper itself. The border paste looks like thick Elmer's glue and I use a full size paintbrush to apply it. Positioned the paper and it was done!

It had a few little ripples show up, but as the paper dried, they settled down. Can't really do anything else until it dries all the way so I thought I would show you some keys I found online.

Not sure what I'm going to make with them yet, but some of the small ones in the upper left of the picture look like they would make great door keys for the Summerhouse. Rose was hinting around that she would like one on a chain to wear around her waist so I will be hunting for chain in the garage tomorrow. When I was done poking around with those, I decided to cover the pencil sharpener hole in the helm with some of the gears and tiny watch parts that have arrived. It had been awhile since I steampunked anything so had to play around with some different ideas until I got my groove back. I was pretty happy with the finished product

and when I unpack all the other pieces, I think I will be adding a little more detail to them also. Next up will be wallpaper! Then trim and lights! I'm getting excited to see this coming together at last. Oh, and the workshop will be getting a surprise tomorrow! I'll put up pictures so you can see too. Thanks for stopping by!

Chain Reaction...

It's funny how you start a project and it then depends on something being done before you can finish. Then, while you are waiting, you start something else and it seems to go on and on at times. But that's okay, miniaturists tend to be long on patience and have plenty of odd bits to work with. I wanted to put the floor in with some border paste but when I opened the one I found in the garage, it had separated and smelled like rotten eggs! Ewww! I got a text from my daughter that she was at Lowes so asked if she would buy me a new pail of border paste. She sent me a picture and brought some home for me.

The first thing I wanted to do was glue down that flooring...then I remembered, I have to paint the floor first!

Let's see, what other trouble can I get into...I'm beginning to sound like Mr. Skellie! LOL! A while back I found a ship's throttle online and needed a base for it to make it a little higher. Going through my plastic pieces, I found a purple plastic piece that looked like it would work. I also had a helm piece that was a pencil sharpener that needed some work too. I rummaged through my cabinet, now tucked in the garage, and found the flat back crystals that I used for rivets. I started gluing them on both pieces when I heard the Captain groan, "Not this again..." as he left the room.

The first time he saw me gluing crystals on things he was wondering if I had lost my mind. Then once they were painted and put in place, he calmed down. I just chuckled to myself and kept putting more of them on. I remembered having a partial can of hammered texture spray paint somewhere so made another foray into the garage. Found it!

It even had some left in it; and I had a pizza box left over that I could use to spray paint the pieces on. The purple piece was first,

then I glued on the ship's throttle...came out pretty good!

So next up was the helm. I still had plenty of paint left, so went back outside and had a go.

Some of my grandchildren were outside too painting their radio controlled cars so we were all having fun crafting away! I put the ship's wheel on to see how it would look and was really happy with it.

I think the ship's wheel needs some painting details so will fool around with that while I wait for the floor to dry. Thanks for stopping by!

Furniture storage and Flooring

Now that I have all of the Steampunk furniture repaired, I was wondering where to store it to keep it safe. I remembered that I had a roll of quilt batting in my daughter's garage so pulled that down off a shelf and carried it back to the motorhome. I brought the box they were all packed in too as I had an idea. I put down a layer of the batting, some of the Steampunk pieces,

folded the batting over it and added the more fragile pieces, then folded it over them

and ended up adding a couple of more pieces that I found at the back of my bench. Now that they were all safely packed, where do I put the box?! I was going to put it back in the garage but realized there was a certain amount of risk involved in that decision. So I decided to put it under our bed in the back which is a great place to store things. I moved some things around and it just fit!

Now, on to the flooring project! I started with a couple of pieces of lined paper and cut and taped it together until I had a good pattern.

With just a little bit of anxiety, I traced the pattern onto the flooring paper and cut it out.

With  a little trimming here and there, it fit in quite nicely and Rose just wanted to sit there and admire it.

I remember what I wanted to use for wallpaper upstairs but not quite sure what the downstairs was going to be. I looked back at all the posts about this build and I didn't talk about it so I guess I will have to just decide! I started on the upstairs pattern last night and didn't finish it. When I came out this morning, Mr. Skellie  was examining my work and let me know that there was a big gap in the pattern

and since when did I think I could install flooring....blah, blah, blah. I finished up the pattern and of course, he wanted to take all the credit.

He was breathing down my neck while I was cutting the flooring piece, which is scrapbook paper by the way. After it was fitted in place, he exclaimed that he needed a break so I let him chill.

Now I have to decide if I want to glue this down with spray glue or use the border paste I have...any suggestions? Thanks for stopping by!

Sticky Fingers...

One good thing about heartburn, I'm here spending time with you! Got a few things done since we last talked...I received my order of watch parts that I enjoy using in my steampunk creations. So in diehard fashion, I sorted them with tweezers!

After getting googly eyed doing that for an hour or so, I was curious as to where the back door to the Steampunk Summerhouse was located. Mr. Skellie had been poking around in the garage the other day and stumbled across a box marked "steampunk furniture". I was hoping I was smart enough at the time to put the door in the same box. Plus, I kinda didn't want to wait until the house was done to open it! LOL! So went out to the garage and found it and hauled it into the motorhome. Once it was open, here's what was inside.

As I carefully unwrapped each piece, my heart sank just a little as I saw that there were quite a few repairs to be made. It's hard to tell in the picture, but just about everything needs at least one thing glued back on.

I went off to bed and decided to tackle it all the next day. When morning came, I noticed the difference between my kitchen

and my craft area...

guess I am a messy crafter! LOL! I got to work and got out my different glues, that I had found a couple of weeks ago fortunately, and started in. I was actually enjoying myself putting these things back together and had to check old pictures on a couple of them to see how things went. After a couple hours work, it was time to let the glue dry. So here is everything drying nicely.

I think I will line a box with a few layers of quilt batting to store them until I get them placed in the summerhouse. So in my next post, we will be fitting the flooring into the summerhouse so we can make some progress! Oh! And The Captain and Rose came back from Figi just in time!

Thank-you for stopping by, see you again soon!

P.S. I found the door too!

Home Repairs...

Debra and the Big Guy were busy sawing wood back in the bedroom and I was tossing and turning in my drawer. I figured I may as well get up and start trying to fix a few things around the Summerhouse. The electrical contraption that was on the tower was bent and broken and had all come apart.

This was a cool thing to watch when it was going...operated on lightning I think. So I thought I would surprise Debra and get it all put together again. The superglue wasn't co-operating so I had to re-design it a little, hope she doesn't mind. I think it came out pretty good and I managed to get my handsome self in the picture too! 

Next up was the air vents;

somehow, these were snapped right off so I had quite a time hoisting them back into place. I hope Debra appreciates all the work I put in around here. Did a little paint touch-up before I glued them back in...

then voila! All fixed!

Then I noticed the clock on the front...Look Ma, no hands!

I just crack myself up sometimes...if Debra was awake, she would be rolling her eyes for sure! After digging around on the workbench, I actually found the clock hands! So glued those in place too. Since it's always tea time at the Summerhouse, I set it at 4:00.

Sounds like the snoring has gone down a few octaves back there so I think I will drag these old bones back to bed. Thanks for hanging out with me!

New Paints and the Summerhouse...

Here it is late at night and Mr. Skellie is snoring over in his drawer. He's all tuckered out from putting all my bottles of paint into the paint holder. Yes, all the paint arrived from Michael's at last!

He couldn't wait to open the package and start organizing the bottles.

He also helped haul in the project on the craft table....and....it's... the Rolling Brickpile Steampunk Summerhouse! It looked so sad in the box in the garage gathering dust that I just had to bring it in the motorhome and try to bring it back to life.

For those of you that have followed this blog for quite some time, you will recognize it; for anyone unfamiliar with it, check out the Labels on the right that will lead you to the many posts about building it. Since the Captain and Rose have been in Figi for quite awhile soaking up the sunshine, I thought it would be a good time to finish up their summerhouse as a surprise. Once I got it out of the box, I noticed the broken and bent parts that will need fixing.

I was originally going to electrify it with tape wire but Rose thought that it would be less mobile that way. So for the last couple of years, I've been buying battery operated lights every time Hobby Builder's Supply had a sale. I have about ten lights so far; fortunately, I stashed most of them in the same box as the summerhouse. Repairs, wallpaper, interior trim, and lights and then I can open the box with all the steampunk furniture in it and see what awaits us there! I found some border paste for the wallpaper too, so will work on finding the wallpaper when our repairs are done. Thank-you for joining the journey!

P.S. Also found my little chop saw up in the shed...Woo! Hoo!

Debra is getting distracted...

Mr. Skellie here. I suppose you're wondering what on earth Debra is doing. She has that nice craft area and hasn't done much in there yet. You'll never guess what I caught her doing the other day...digging in the dirt! What is up with that! I know with all the changes in her life that she hasn't worked in the garden for several years so it was actually good to see her out there. So I let her do her thing...isn't that big of me?! She even managed to get me to help her...I think she used her feminine wiles. So here I am checking out the irises:

some tulips that sprung up in the lawn,

and I even helped her transplant some teeny rosebushes. You know, those miniature rosebushes they sell on Valentine's Day that always die eventually; well the Big Guy bought her one and she was determined that it would live. So what do you do when you want to find out something? Look on the internet! There were actually 4 in the pot, so she planted each one in it's own pot and even used some Miracle Grow dirt.

I think there was some prayer involved too...not sure. So here I am after all that hard work.

Now that the shop is a Reader's Digest Condensed Version, I live in a plastic drawer. I asked if she could at least find my rug so it would be a little more comfy for my bones. She grumbled a little but went on a search through the garage to find it for me. After alot of bumping and paper rattling, she found it and dragged it back to Motorhome Central.

She also brought more of her crap...I mean craft stuff in too; not sure how much more can fit in here. So far, the Big Guy hasn't said anything but I think she has reached her limit.

I remember those pink butterflies, I hope she doesn't put those on all the cabinets, the mermaids are bad enough! Now she has to do this thing called "chores" which is good I guess as the place looks a little better around here when she is done. I told her I would cheer her on and she threw a sponge at me...missed! LOL! Thanks for reading!

P.S. I almost forgot, here's what the outside of Motorhome Central looks like: