Outdoor Touches

In the blitz of dollhouse attention this past week, two more ideas came to fruition!

The first brainstorm happened during a trip to Hobby Lobby many months ago. They had both of these items on sale for half price:

I knew I wanted the little jars for other ideas I've not yet completed, so I snagged a bag. Just above them, I saw the glow in the dark pieces, but I didn't know what I would do with them. Fortunately, I had My Girl with me who immediately said, "Fill the jars with them to put on the porch in the Summer."

BRILLIANT.

And, so, with a little help from a folded paint chip to get them in the wee jars ...

... that's what I finally did!

These look very cool at night, but they certainly do not photograph well! So, you know. Your imagination will serve you well here!

The other little project accomplished this week is peeking at you in the background! That's right: FLOWERS!

So, no, I didn't make any of these flowers. But, they did get a makeover! Here's the original batch:

What's cool is that Michaels puts out a bunch of these flowers for their Spring line of fairy garden decoration, and they work perfectly for the house! And, they go on sale early and often. 😁 The smaller ones are from Michaels, and the bigger two are from Hobby Lobby in their fairy garden section. Long story short, after buying the first one or two, I acquired the rest for their "bones" (and clearance prices) because I wasn't interested in all of the flowers being pink. I like pink, but, in the garden, I love variety! (I once heard on a home and garden show, "You don't want your flower gardens to look like a crayon box," to which I said to the tv, "I don't ?!")

Anyway, I love the flowers, but enough was enough of the monochromatic situation. So, close to midnight on Friday, I pulled out my acrylics and changed most of them:

I chose the best-looking pinks to keep, and the rest got the paint! Now when I see them, I just smile!

That door really needs a doorknob.
Flowers! Focus!
Note the glow in the dark bottles, too!

'See the purple flowers? I LITERALLY JUST FOUND ANOTHER ONE IN PINK IN MY STASH OF GOODS! Oh, Michaels and your deep discounts on end-of-season things ...

Ohh ... the color choices swirl in my mind ...
(The camera flash makes this look weird.)

Anyway, here's where the red batch wound up for now:

The white pot has flowers that came with my estate sale nab a few months ago. And, the furniture up here might stay, or it might go down by the dining room doors after I get that part of the yard fixed up (you didn't think it was going to stay one, big green space, did you?!).

While we're up here on the sun deck, here's a current overview shot:

Little Holly Ann is up there having a tea party with her pals.

CUTE OR WHAT?!

These creatures scrounged the house to find the Triscuit box, Oreos, a can of sweet peas and a can of vegetable beef stew. And, a Coke. And, pretend tea. 😊

So, that's a wrap on all recent projects! But, the outdoor efforts continue! Stay tuned ...!

This Year's Red, White and Blue!

Let's dive into what made the great outdoors at least a little festive and pretty these past few days, shall we?! I'll start with the obvious red, white and blue decor!

Please ignore the Christmas Tree lingering back there. Or,
don't because it's cute!

I had a vision of what I wanted for the posts in terms of  the post decorations, but what I wanted required wired ribbon. And, I didn't have that. And, I didn't want to buy that. So, I followed a tutorial to create the ribbon I actually wanted and manipulated it to make it work for what I had! I did not picture this kind of ribbon at all, but I love the way it looks!

The first step was to simply stack a length of ribbon on top of itself back and forth accordion style:

I eyeball-measured the diameter I assumed I wanted. No measuring here.

From there, I took the really sharp, precision scissors and cut slits on each side of the middle:

Just up to the white on both sides did the trick. And, you can
see it's not perfect as the ribbon slides a little while cutting if
you pay as little attention to that as I did.

After that, I tied a piece of string as tight as I could around the middle. The string fit in the slits, and the knot was simply a little double knot.

I don't seem to have a picture of that. But, I
do have this picture of Lizzy making it really
difficult to pull the ribbon I need as she plays
with it.

When I pulled the string, it flared the loops out quite a bit to help create the circle formation. I twisted the loops back and forth at the point where the string holds them together to allow them to move as much as possible which helped create almost a complete circle. Where there were gaps between loops on the ends, I used a little hot glue to bring them together.

From there, I cut some velcro strips to use around the posts. The piece of velcro I had was quite wide, so I cut it in thirds lengthwise. Then, I stuck 'em on a piece of ribbon so they were "finished."

After cutting them apart and trimming up the ribbon, they got hot glued on to the back of the ribbon decoration:

I made four and figured that was good.

I could have made more, but you will not there is not yet grass on the plywood. So, I was kind of itching to get a lot of things done at one time! So, up they went!

Here's how the Velcro situation turned out from behind:

Cool, huh?

You can see I also sort-of-swagged some ribbon across the railings. My secret to success to slap that up fast and keep it up is the Elmer's putty stuff:

A little dab under the ribbon keeps it in
place and can be removed when it comes down!

And, in time-warp picture mode, I made just a few yard stakes with star buttons, toothpicks and Quick Grip glue:

I'm already anxious to make about a million more of these for next year!

Here are a few more views:

Ahh ... 

And I'm proud to be an American - Where at least I know I'm free - And I won't forget the men who died - Who gave that right to me - And I'd gladly stand up next to you - And defend Her still today - 'Cause there ain't no doubt - I love this land - God Bless the U.S.A.  -- Lee Greenwood. Gets me every, single time.

Mulch Never Looked So Good

One of the bigger finishing touches to the yard is most definitely the landscaping, and I was excited to create some planting spaces!

A few weeks ago, I found this at Michaels on clearance which I used for the mulch:

I hadn't yet figured out how to create these spaces, so this on-clearance container of mulchy-dirt-looking stuff seemed it would do the trick!

I had a number of thoughts about how to create this space, but I didn't really work that hard to sort them out. I sort of mushed them all together and created something that would address everything I wanted. Why compromise on the fake house?! The thoughts:

1. I don't want it to just be flat. Dimension in some way is needed.
2. I don't want to be locked in to having to create a border for it. That's not to say I won't do it, but that is to say I don't want the immediate requirement. So, it needs to look finished without it.
3. (And, probably most important, hahaha) I need to be able to create and use yard stakes for decorating.

With those thoughts in mind, I found lying around our house a piece of super-basic (non-water absorbing) floral styrofoam, and I just started hacking into it with a serrated knife to create bedding strips:

I had no idea how much I would be able to create with the piece I had on hand, but I figured it was a good place to start. I didn't cut the surfaces evenly to help create some dimension.

From here, the process wasn't as smooth as I thought it was going to be, so I didn't stop to take pictures. First, I took my pieces and fit them around what I considered the most important places to have them as I knew I didn't have enough to go down the sides of the house. In some cases, I had to cut very, little, odd pieces to fit holes. What you see in the picture below are some such pieces as well as others that are cut-aways from fitting the big pieces around the perimeter:

After laying it all out, the messy part began! Piece by piece, I schmeared glue all over the top and front side of each piece. From there, I covered the glue in the brown stuff as best I could before dropping a few dots of glue on the bottom of the piece to put where it belongs next to the house. 'Sounds reasonably simple, right? Hmm ...

The tricky part was getting the mulch to stick without it sticking back on my fingers. That it is such a light product (think fluffy) made it difficult to get down *in* the glue. After doing the left side pieces, I finally got wise. I got the glue on a piece where it needed to go, glued it to the ground, and then I took large pinches of the mulch to pile on to the glue. This allowed me to really cover it and press it down into the glue without glue seeping through and sticking to my fingers. In other words, the more mulch, the merrier. This particular adjustment to my process made this whole project way easier!

After it dried for a little while (less than an hour for those counting), I used the vacuum hose to very carefully lift away the majority of the stray mulch to see where things were at. Interestingly, most of the front pieces had a gap needing filling. Why? I really don't know. But, I knew running a bead of glue and throwing more mulch on it overnight would fix most of the issue:

This morning, I used the vacuum about an inch from all of the surface of the mulch to get rid of excess and reapply as needed. There were just a few places that needed some TLC both from where it meets the grass as well as on top. Those are now all tidied up as much as is needed for yard work!

And, here you can even see a few yard stakes I made!

I'll get into the details of the decorations scattered about next, but, for right now, let's just revel in the beauty of the mulch!

The Grass Is Always Greener On the Other Side Of the Room

The family across the room in the beautiful, yellow house was not without an outdoors to celebrate the Fourth! TA-DA!!

Oh, to finally have a yard!! Woohoo!! There are a number of projects displayed here, so I'll share them in their own posts. Let's start with -- you guessed it! -- the green!!

If I'm being honest, this turned out to be a little more involved than I expected. The good thing is I had a solid sense of the steps before taking them on, so I just kind of started the process without thinking about what it would take. That helped keep the mental game positive!

So, in my stash of stuff, I have had a roll of green "grass" that I bought way back in the winter with a 70% off coupon at Michaels. What I assumed then was that it was too small for what I needed, but I was reasonably sure I could eventually get 2 and make it work. I unrolled it, though, and I didn't like that the piece looked bent in different places. These were creases that I really didn't think I could fix. And, I while unrolling it confirmed I'd need another, I realized I would have to very carefully plot and plan exactly where I would have to create walkways to cover the seams before I had a chance to step back and visualize the space as it "grew". I didn't really like either of these factors and immediately started Googling to find another option.

What I landed on was this roll of grass from Hobby Lobby:

50" x 100" oughta do it!

I certainly knew this was entirely more than I needed as the width of my yard is 64", but it took having to intentionally cover seams out of the equation. SOLD! The next smaller size was the same as the one I already had anyway. So, go big or go home.

The first hands-on step to this process was creating the template. There was nothing exacting about it. I just placed paper on the plywood, folded it up against angles and taped it all together on three sides of the house:

Then, after heading out and buying the only roll of the grass in stock (whew!) at my local Hobby Lobby, I unrolled and taped it down to the only non-carpeted space big enough in our house to receive it:

I didn't really think that part through before
buying it, either, but I was confident in
figuring it out!

From there, on went the template!

I cut around the template being sure to tape down where I just cut, or the grass would want to roll up under itself. Not only would that be annoying, but I really really really didn't want to screw up the cutting here!

After getting the main piece cut away (and working hard to get the roll back in the plastic casing with My Girl because that sucker did not just slide back in), I went back to trim to size:

Placing the piece on the plywood ended up being a two-person process. This happened mainly because of the rolling factor of the grass. Even though the "roll it backward" method works for, like, wrapping paper, I didn't want to over-roll it fearing creasing it in a way that it would look WHACK on the yard. We cannot have a WHACK yard. Rather, I utilized my people. My Girl helped with the initial run of it as she held one end while I taped going around:

She held it so it simply wouldn't fall and pull it off the table.

The next step of the process was untaping, gluing and reapplying the grass. I got out the Aleene's Tacky glue and just started from the left undoing the tape, smearing glue as best I could and weighting it down for a bit with a book and a hand weight on top or just with my hand pressing down. The back of the grass is a paper that doesn't allow the glue to seep up through the grass. But, it does wrinkle when it gets wet. This is where Aaron had a genius idea to use the Pampered Chef roller thingy:

I watched my mom wallpaper like crazy when I was a kid. I
was surprised I didn't think of using something like this!

This was a life saver as it got out ridiculous wrinkles with ease! I don't need the yard to be perfect, but wet paper wrinkles tend to pattern in unnatural ways. So, those had to go.

I untaped and glued section by section as it seemed fit. There was no measuring or real planning. Once I was convinced the glue was dry enough to keep pressure off of it for the grass to stay stuck, I moved on. This did put a few pauses in the process, but I realized that I couldn't keep taping or it would possibly lift the grass off its paper. And, it couldn't sit and dry completely if there were wrinkles to get out. So, hitting pause while slowly moving around the house was worth the time!

Might I throw in a "Holy crap, the piece of grass fit the table and around the house exactly!"?!

And, I'm thrilled with the outcome!

The yard, though, is far from finished! Keep going for the next step!

Two Miracles In One

I'm just about to embark on another big step in the dollhouse process, so I thought I'd catch up a few details first!

To begin, I felt the need to update something that should have happened from the very beginning:

Up until this weekend, the corners of the yard platform were a perfect 90 degrees. And, let me tell you, I've been concerned about that every, single time I or anyone else passes by them because those are gonna hurt if hit just right.

And, two weeks ago, one of them was hit just right by My Girl's head, and, in a step-behind move, I finally cut them all. It took trying three, different saws to figure out what would go through the plywood as it's more than a half an inch thick. And, the inside of the house looked like they'd gone through a small earthquake when I finished. But, I got the job done. It's a job that would make any industrial arts teacher shudder, but, it's finished nonetheless. All edges all the way around the entire yard are now sanded, too, so, GO ME.

The other update has been long in the making as it's about interior trim. Oh, heavens, all of the trim in this house just about undoes me after a while! I mean, it's LOVELY when finished, but the process has become a bit of bore. This project must have heard me be bored, though, as it added some excitement.

You see, I discovered a reasonably large stash of unfinished trim a few months ago in my "haven't yet used this/what are these pieces" container. I didn't look too closely at it before determining it must be the trim for the lower level doorways. Thinking nothing more of it than, "Oh, I should probably finish that," I got all of the pieces painted.

Fast forward to this past weekend, and I figured tackling that project was probably a good use of my time while waiting for lattice to dry. Plus, it was all painted and ready, so, how hard would this really be ...

Well, it's really hard to trim doors when what you seem to have is a stash of window trim! Whuuuuuut?!

All of the pieces had been pre-cut to angles for the windows. And, they were really long fitting only the windows in the dining room. But, the rub was that all ... and, I do mean all as I checked and rechecked ... of the windows are already trimmed! What the ...?!

After a "Heavens to Besty" moment, I decided to just cut the pieces down to fit the doorways and call it good. The spoiler alert is that I ended up only trimming the kitchen sides of the doorways leaving the rounded corner cuts in the family and dining rooms. I could tell you that was completely on purpose as a design decision OR you could know that I cut one of the long pieces too short and pretty much ruined the ability to trim all of the openings. You make the call.

As it turned out, it was better that I wrecked one because I needed to completely adjust all of the normal doorway measurements to create trim without an actual door. When installing doors, their frames take care of finishing the interior framing. See?

Without door frames, the trim around the opening needs to be wider to be flush with the wall. Like so:

That line toward the right is the addition
of the trim.

By the way, I love the lighting in that picture. It's like the early evening sun is coming into the kitchen ... ahhh ...

You can see how the very top piece of trim on the kitchen side actually falls below and is not flush with the top. In truth, I didn't even realize that happened until I took this picture! (Have I mentioned I'm amazing at finding all details that need tending?! 😆 Oh, well. No one will see that. It's been days, and I certainly haven't noticed! I'm not sure that's saying much, though ...) Anyway, that's what all of the trim would look like without custom-making it to be wide enough.

In the end, it all worked out, and I love the outcome!

These are the final outcomes of the trim
project. One is for each opening in the kitchen.

Up it goes! tape-tape-tape

That pup's all, "Who cares about the trim,
gimmee some goodies. I see 'em up there!"

Okay, really? HOW did that piece in the
upper left corner move before setting in to dry?!

That's nothing a little wood filler can't fix.
TAKE THAT, TRIM!

Touch it up with some paint, and no one
is the wiser. Except for everyone I tell.

The last picture is to show the family room side. As I was experimenting with what to trim, I realized I wanted to create a little picture collage to go around the doorway, and that would be cooler to me than just trimming it. So, there you go. I suspect I'll decorate around the dining room opening, too. And, there's always the option to, someday, get some more trim and do that if I change my mind! Right now, though, I'm very happy with it! And, no one really believes that I'm going to voluntarily trim another doorway or window in this house. (I'm talking to you, Cindy.)

So! It's FINISHED. I'm done talking about trim -- until I tackle the exterior house trim hahaha! Before that, though, we're diving into the yard! Get excited!