Hundreds of Tiles Later...

Last time I promised to show my dairy project when I finished the tiling the walls. Well, it only took me about two weeks and 650 tiles!  Let's just say that I won't be using tiles again anytime soon.The tiles I chose aren't really appropriate for a dairy (they are much too elaborate) but I figured that for all the work of the room, I might as well use tiles I really liked.

There's still a lot to be done in the room, but the basic shell is finished. 

Please forgive me if this post is a little picture heavy. I'm so happy to be done with the tiles! I made so many tiles I thought for sure there would be extras, but I only had four border tiles left over at the end.

The stone floor is made of paper clay. It's looking a little too brown with all the blue and white. I may repaint it a little more grey.

I was very worried about keeping the tiles straight, so I tiled the walls first,and added the floor after. I made the mistake of gluing the door in first, and it ended up a little too far to the left, which made problems with the fit of the tiles. You can see that I had to add a tiny strip of partial tiles to the right hand corner to fill in the gap!

I'm still working on the door. I just repainted it slightly creamier white, and still need to add some subtle aging. I also need to add some sort of door latch or knob. The hinges I made out of thick paper. I was going to paint them to look like iron, but once I got the stone floor in I thought black hinges would look too dark in the room.

I also used my brother's pocket knife (don't tell him!) to widen the cracks between the boards. The "moulding" I used to make the door casing is just two pieces of layered cardboard.

The gallery room box I took apart to house my dairy had a really terrible gold frame. It was painted three different shades of gold, some matte and some shiny. But the paint job was hiding a decently shaped frame. So I taped off the inner most bands of beading, protected the inside of the box with a  piece of cardboard, and sprayed the frame mat black. I couldn't believe the difference it made!

Before...

After!

A Small Scene

This gold room box is started out as another commercially produced room boxes, like the one I turned into a dairy. Mom made two of these room boxes a number of years ago. She sold one, and I kept the other.

All the wood in this box was aged using watered down acrylic paints. The plaster walls are just white paint, thickened with a little baby powder.

The stone floor and steps was made from tan polymer clay, since we couldn't find paper clay. The clay was textured with wadded up tin-foil.

I keep this room box above my workspace. I've never decided on a permanent display. For a long time, it just held a random assortment of miniatures that I didn't want to get dusty. That seems to be a common theme of my room boxes, unfortunately! Now that I've cleared it off all the junk, I'd like to add a few details to finish out the scene. It won't take many accessories, but finding just the right ones may be a challenge!

I'm on the fence about the gold frame. I don't hate the gold, but I think painting it black (the way I did with the dairy) may make the whole thing that much better. Would you paint the frame or leave it gold?

Feeling Blue (and White)

 I've been working on another project for the last week or so. For a while, I've been unhappy with the look of my gallery roombox, which sits on my worktop. I really threw the box together, and some of the shortcuts I took looked really bad. It was also in constant disarray. Usually, it had more paintings waiting to be hung than actually on the walls. It was definitely time for a change.

Since the gallery roombox idea hadn't worked out, I decided to try something completely different in the same box. I decided to make it into an old-fashioned dairy,with tiled walls and stone floors, such as you might find on an old English estate! I'm taking a few liberties with the design, but hopefully it will capture the feel. 

I'm not going to show the room yet. Suffice it to say that I have a long way to go. I'm still working on tiling the walls, and I'm undecided about the best way to get the look I want for the floor. In the mean time, I thought I'd show how I'm making the tiles...

First, I found images of old tiles I liked online.I re-sized them to be 1/2" square (the border tiles are 1/4" by 1/2") and fiddled with the colors until the tiles were approximately the same shades of blue and white. After that, I printed the tiles on watercolour paper. This particular pad of paper had a little too much tooth for my miniature paintings, but the heavy texture creates a realistic ripple effect in the tiles.

Next, I needed to create an easy system for "glazing" my tiles. I glued plastic 'pony' beads to a sturdy old piece of cardboard. I spaced the beads approximately 1" apart. Once the glue had dried, I placed tiny pieces of poster putty (aka blu-tack) on each bead. You can see the green putty on the bead in the background.

After that, it was a simple matter to cut the tiles apart one by one and stick them on beads. I used a drop of gloss medium to 'glaze' each tile, and let them dry for a few hours.When they were dry, I glued the tiles to another sheet of watercolour paper, using a square to keep the rows relatively straight.

 

The Best Projects of Wasting Gold Paper: 200 Posts!

Today is my 200th post. I started Wasting Gold Paper in 2009, the summer between my senior year of highschool and freshman year of college.  It's been a crazy couple of years, and to be honest, I'm starting to forget half the posts I've written. So I thought I'd do something a little different today. I've gone through the blog archives and picked some of my favorite posts and projects to share again.

 



 Hope you enjoy!

 

Way back in 2009 I posted about this decoupaged screen. While it hasn't stayed in my dollhouse, I did make another which is in the parlor right now.

 

I've written more than one post about my micro (1/1728th scale) dollhouses, including the tiniest chateau in the world.

After I made the 1/144th scale garden cottage with Nell Corkin at the Guild School, I built a few of my own micro structures.  I also made this secret 1/144th scale room hidden in a book.

 

I've posted a lot of Mom's dolls over the years. But this one was one of my favorites.

 

These vintage paper toys were lots of fun to make, but the joints on the dancing dolls nearly drove me over the edge!

 I made over 600 tiles for this dairy room box, which is still waiting to be furnished.

This dummy board, painted to look like our dog, was a Christmas gift I made for Mom.

About a year and a half ago, I started painting furniture. More recently, I've started 'dressing' some of my painted furniture with accessories.

I noticed while I was going through my old posts how many oil and watercolor paintings I used to post. I guess it's time to dig out my art books and work on some more!

My Beaded hand bag tutorial has been one of my most popular posts. In addition to the original tutorial, I also posted some 'Tips and Tricks' .