Promised chimneys!

Hi everyone,

I'm on holiday this work from my job, therefore have had more time for doing the dollhouse :)  I have everything set up in our outhouse, but it is getting cold!  I have a gas fire that I have on, it soon makes it toasty, but I do find that I have to steal myself to get down there.  Once I've taken the plunge, I want to spend as much time as I can and begrudge having to do RL work:) It is great though because I can make as much mess as I want, and don't have to clear the things away after I have finished.  Perhaps I'll take a photo of it at sometime and you will see what a mess I work in:)

Do you find though, that you feel a bit guilty for doing something for yourself, instead of the housework??

Anyway, when I left off yesterday I said I would show you my chimney's that are ready to be fixed to the top. So here they are -

Sorry again about the photo, I took it with my phone, and can't be bothered to go and take a decent photo!  There I'm honest anyway....

They are made from wooden blocks and I attached the brick slips that I bought from Romney Miniatures.  They are really easy to use as they are self spacing and you can also get ones to go round the corners. Glue them on with PVA glue and then make sure you mix some PVA with water and paint it all over the bricks before grouting.  This prevents the grout sinking in to the bricks and discolouring.  I bought the grout from them as well.  I have to say they were very helpful to a novice!  I met them at my first outing to the Miniatura fair in Birmingham in March.  I had no clue what I needed, how many etc, but as I say, they were extremely helpful.  I also bought the clay chimney pots from them. 

I didn't really know what to do with the tops of the chimneys so I did a Google search and found a model making forum, sorry, I can't remember which one it was now.  Someone had suggested making material for model scenes by mixing baking soda with PVA glue.  I just started to pour the soda into the glue and it really reacted very strangely, it sort of curdled!  Anyway, I added grey acrylic paint to it and piled it onto the top, as I said it was very strange and I wasn't at all sure what was going to happen, but when it dried it was very hard and stuck solidly to the brick.  Sorry, I should have said I glued the chimneys onto the top before putting the strange stuff on!  I think it turned out really well though and I would use it again for other things.  I think it can also be made white to represent snow.

The little topiary's in the middle of the chimneys are something that I made as well.  I had some polystyrene from some packaging which I shaped into the balls.  To do this I had a melon ball maker (wont' be used for melons anymore!) and held it over the gas stove to heat up then plunged into the polystyrene.  This made semi circles and then I glued them together.  Of course you can buy ready made balls but I didn't have any and didn't want to spend money on them.  I then threaded them on to kebab sticks, painted with PVA and sprinkled green glade grass that I bought from Games Workshop.  Again there were some really helpful chaps in this shop, it is more of a shop for model war game makers, but they were fascinated when I told them what I wanted their products for!  It is really nice stuff, nice coloration in it and I have loads left for other things!

I painted the sticks and planted them into the little pots I had bought from Miniatura.  I'm afraid I can't recall the name of the people who sold them.  To make the soil I used dry tea leaves.  I did dry out some that had been used to make a cup of tea, but found they went very orange in colour after brewing!  (My son made the mistake of asking what an earth was sitting on the kitchen window sill, as soon as I started to tell him, he laughed and said he wasn't going to ask anymore questions when he saw strange things laying around!)

Right, I think I have waffled on for long enough now, this blogging lark takes time doesn't it!

I'll be back another day to show what I else I have done, I have a lot to catch up on!

Bye for now.

p.s. I forgot to say, I have managed to add links to giveaways on sites that I love to visit, thanks to Plushpussycat's excellent instructions.  I have another to add which I will do in a mo!