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Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse Episode #8: Painting the Exterior

July 9, 2023      2 Comments

Please note this post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links I earn a small commission but it doesn’t cost you and more money.

Happy Dollhouse Sunday!

I am so excited to share this post with you all as I am finally painting the exterior of the dollhouse!  If you remember in last week’s episode I primed the exterior. In all I did 2 coats of primer. For the white, I forgot (again) to bring the trim paint we had at home to the studio so I used acrylic paint instead and it worked great! It has a nice gloss which I liked for the scallops and the trim and it really pops against the soft pink color.

I know I have mentioned a bunch of times that the pink I am using is the same color of my studio walls and I just love that this dollhouse will have a piece of my first ever studio with it for years and years to come.

I began by trimming out the excess siding from the inside of the windows using my craft knife (affiliate link). I know I ended up taking a bit of the wood with it as well but I am not worried since I will be building my own windows along with the interior and exterior trim.

Once I did that I began with painting the scallops white. I also painted the underneath of the roof that hangs over and all the currently brown trim.

If I were doing this over again I would probably wait to attach the scallops and first paint the color on the lower part, then paint the scallop pieces and then attach them. It was a little fiddly painting where the scallops and the siding met but not at all hard and it came out really nice when I used a smaller brush.

I also noticed that some of the side pieces weren’t glued down the best so I added some more wood glue and attached them with some clamps to dry overnight. This worked perfectly!

I then moved on to the siding and painting it pink.

For the purposes of the video I just painted the front but for you blog readers I will give you some sneak peak information. I have (as of writing this) completed the whole exterior painting and it looks amazing!!! I am beyond happy with how it turned out. In the end it was about 3 coats of paint on top of the 2 coats of primer. I think if you were using darker colors you wouldn’t need as many layers but what’s really nice about the cardboard is it dries so quickly. By the time I finished both sides I was able to go back and paint the front and then move back to the sides. It worked really well and went much more quickly than I expected.

Here’s how it turned out:

The best part is that I can now move inside the dollhouse! I still have lots of finishing touches for the exterior-along with a fun idea for the “walkway” that wraps around the house on 3 sides-but some of those will require purchases I can’t make just yet. Instead I am going to move inside for next week’s video and the first thing to do is figure out how I am going to lay everything out inside which means deciding on the stairs. That also means building a template for the stairs so I can move it around and see where I like it best. I have an idea on how to do that so here’s hoping it works!

Well that’s it for this week. I hope you enjoyed seeing how the dollhouse has progressed. I am just in love with this hobby! I can’t see how I could ever be bored with it 🙂

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse Episode #7: Scalloped Siding for the Dollhouse

July 2, 2023      2 Comments

Please note this post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links I earn a small commission but it doesn’t cost you and more money.

Note* Sorry if you checked out the video last night and it wasn’t complete-my internet went out and apparently the full video didn’t load. Thank you to one of my viewers for bringing that to my attention!

Happy Dollhouse Sunday!

I have been so excited to share this week’s blog post with you all. I was able to get the scalloped siding finished and I am really happy with how it all turned out. I used my trusty cereal boxes to make the scallops. I had some of the siding pieces I cut for the lower half and I just used those for the scalloped side. These were cut to 3/4″ (1.9cm) wide and I used a plastic cap to trace the shape of the scallop.

I put 2 marks on the cap that I lined up on the edge of the cardboard so that the sizes were pretty close to the same. The nice thing is it wasn’t very noticeable if the shapes were off a bit here and there.

I glued them on with my Gorilla Wood Glue (affiliate link).  I was able to easily cut the pieces along the edges by creasing them and then coming in with my craft knife (affiliate link) once the glue had dried. I still need to go in and cut around the windows which I will do before I paint.

Once the siding was done and dried I went in with some primer. I used a primer called Triple Thick only because we had some left over from a house project but any primer you have would work. I wanted to prime the siding to hopefully give the color a better surface to adhere to and to give me more even coverage.

I might do a second coat but I am going to see how the first one dries and take it from there.

In other dollhouse (and book club) news I started reading “The Miniscule Mansion of Myra Malone” by Audrey Burges (affiliate link).  I hope to have it finished for this week’s update and I’ll share all about it with you then. I will say that I recommend it as the story is really unique.

Well that’s it for today’s blog post! I hope you enjoy watching the video and if you have any questions about how I did anything feel free to comment below and I will do my best to answer.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse Episode #6 DIY Siding out of Cereal Boxes

June 25, 2023      Leave a Comment

Happy Dollhouse Sunday! Today we had an amazing day at our church picnic and then took a trip to the store to finally buy our anniversary present! We celebrated 21 years married a few weeks ago and were trying to decide on a gift and finally settled on a new grill! Our old grill is about 15 years old and really needed replacing. We have been really enjoying cooking and eating outside so it seemed like a perfect gift. That combined with a lot of really nice family time has me uploading this week’s dollhouse video a bit later than I planned-but I think it’s worth it!

I originally planned on spackling the siding where I removed all of the decorative elements, sanding and then painting-which I did but I wasn’t happy with the results. The wood is in pretty rough shape and so I came up with the idea to “vinyl” side the dollhouse.

If you watched my first video you know that I am looking to completely change the look of this dollhouse and add a bit of cape cod feel to it. I think the siding along with a scalloped peak, will really make this house beautiful!

Since I am always trying to use what I have available or to hand I decided to give it a shot with cereal boxes. If you have spent any time on my blog you know I love cereal boxes from dollhouses to making journals. I wasn’t quite sure how it would look with the paint or even how it would take paint so I did a sample piece and it really came out nice! With the sample piece looking like a winner I decided to go ahead and start siding the whole house.

I cut my strips to 3/4″  (1.9cm) high and as long as the cereal box. Then I marked a line 1/4″ from the top (.64cm) that was my guide for lining up my pieces. I began gluing from the bottom and started to work my way up.

Since I was able to use full strips along the bottom I did and once I got higher I made sure to stagger my seams so they wouldn’t end up in a straight line. So far I am really happy with how they turned out. I am going to continue working this week so that next week we can focus on the scalloped peak which I think is going to be so much fun!

I hope you enjoy the video.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse Episode #5 Painting a Textured Roof

June 18, 2023      Leave a Comment

Happy Sunday! I hope your weekend is going well and maybe you have had some time to indulge your love in all things mini.

I am so excited to be bringing you this week’s episode as I am finally painting my cardboard dollhouse roof! I have been thinking this one over in my mind a lot and I am so excited to share the process-and results with you today.

I started off by mixing up a gray with just some basic craft acrylic paint. I wasn’t too worried about getting the same shade as I worked on the room because I knew I wanted variation but if you are going for a consistent look make sure to mix up enough of your color to do the whole roof.

Once the first color was down I went back with a little lighter gray. I used some foam packaging I saved as sponge to dab on the paint and give some automatic texture. Once that was done I did the same with a bit of black and can I just say how happy I am with it?

The whole thing turned out way better than I imagined and it is looking like a real roof now!

I hope you enjoy this week’s video. I would love to hear what type of miniatures you are working on so please leave a comment below. I will be back next week when we tackle the front facade of the dollhouse.

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante.

 

Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse Episode #4 Creating Roof Shingles from Cereal Boxes

May 28, 2023      2 Comments

Please note this post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase using these links I earn a small commission but it doesn’t cost you and more money.

Welcome to Dollhouse Sunday!

I have to start off by saying, “thank you” for all the lovely comments and new subscribers to my channel. It has been so much fun reading everyone’s suggestions and thoughts and I am so happy I decided to share this journey!

I also learned something very interesting about my dollhouse from Kathy McNeely at My Mud Life Studio. Turns out that she has the same dollhouse! She rescued it from a yard sale about 15 years ago and apparently there plans with her dollhouse. It seems they were plans you could purchase which is really fun for me to know. I knew it was made by a family friend for me but beyond that I really didn’t know much about it. It’s amazing the wonderful things you can find out from the creative community!

So this week I am really excited to share my shingle project! I had been thinking and imaging this process for weeks and I finally decided to give the interior wall paper scrapping a break and work on the roof.

Using cereal boxes for chipboard I measured, marked and cut my pieces to size. The shingle depth is 1 3/4 ” (or 4.445cm) and the length of my cereal box. I then marked 1/4″ (0.635cm) from the long edge to make a straight line so I would know where to line up the second row of shingles to.

The ridge vent was the length of my roof and 2″ (5.08cm) wide. I marked a line right down the middle and then gently folded it over the roof to get the crease started. Once that was done I used a bone folder to make a nice sharp crease. I applied Gorilla Wood Glue (affiliate link) to the chipboard and then applied it to the peak of the roof. I held it down for a bit while it took hold but it really came out very nice! It is so satisfying to see a project come to life like this.

In next week’s post I am going to be spackling the front of the dollhouse and painting the roof shingles. I cannot wait to share that with you.

I hope you have a wonderful week and thank you for visiting my dollhouse.

 

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

Video: Dilettante’s Dollhouse: Episode #3 Interior Demo

May 21, 2023      Leave a Comment

It’s Dollhouse Sunday! In today’s video I am starting the interior demo of the dollhouse. I remove the divider walls and start with the attic to take down the paper I put up when I was about 12 years-old. There was a stubborn spot that I just couldn’t remove and while I was scrubbing at it I remembered putting up the paper. I remembered how there was one little spot that wouldn’t stick and for some reason I was determined to glue it down. I worked on it for a while to get it to finally stay down and apparently I did a great job! It was nice to have this memory come back to me while working.

I then went on to the other rooms taking out the carpeting. Some of it crumbled and I had to scrape it off but when I finished that I moved on to the rest of rooms. I was just using plain water in a spray bottle and a scrapper to remove the paper and I will have to go back and sand the walls as the paper was stuck on pretty well.

My next step on the interior will be to sand the walls. Before I start any decorating though I will be sure to sketch out my interior and determine where the rooms are going. And stairs, *sigh* I need to figure out stairs. If anyone has any idea on how to build them I would be happy to hear! If not, we will have fun learning together.

I hope you enjoy watching Episode #3 and have a wonderful weekend!

Until next time…

-Michele, aka The Dreaming Dilettante

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