Greggs Miniature Imaginations- (Ever After Cottages)

I had to share the new project I have been working on the past 2 weekends.  It has been one of the funnest projects yet.  I was inspired by a picture at the bottom of this post of a Tudor House someone had built.  I decided I would try to recreate it as close as I could.  I have listed the pictures in the order of me building trying to recreate the house.  I hope you all like what I have accomplished in the past couple of weekends.  Have a Terrific Week Everyone!

                                                 

          This is the picture that inspired me to try and recreate it, but with a few of my own personnel touches.

                      

Once the cement dried I applied some red brick color that was diluted allot with water, then I brushed on some watered down brown paint to darken it to make it look older and worn out.

 I spent about an hour with quick dry cement applying it to the base.  I know that it will make the house to heavy but I wanted the cement look.  I will probably have to have the house and the base be separate so it can be carried easier.  I believe the base is about 20 pounds with the wood and cement.  I loved my first experience with cement, it was fun, and I only had about 5 minutes to work on laying out the cement before it dried.  LOTS OF FUN!...

The process of me applying paper clay to the sides of the house for the stucco look, again I love paper clay and had fun making the bricks on the side of the house in areas.  I am still teaching myself how to make them look like bricks, but that is the fun of it, trying to teach myself how to do it.  I truly believe there is no such thing as perfection and that you can just cover up an in perfection with something else.

I had just finished applying the quick dry cement to the base.

This was a learning point for me building this house.  After I had stained the house to a color I wanted the beams to be. It turned into a night mare.  The house house is nailed together, but I glued down all the exterior beams on the house.  Well the DARN stain dissolved all the glue that held the beams on.  When I went to wipe some stain off they started to fall off.  I didn't cry, but I went into the house and had a cigarette.  Then I almost decided to scrap the project since I spent over 10 hours adding all the beams and distressing the beam supports with rocks.  I then ran to Home Depot and bought 1/2 in nails for my nail gun, and nailed them all on and the ones that fell off, over 3,000 nails and 2 hours extra of work.  Thus it now threw off my interior walls with nail holes poking through and making a bump in the wood.  But I will hopefully cover it up with light weight plaster.

I love the little gates i found cheap, they sort of make it look more french then English.

                                                          The back of the house.

This took my a while to cut out two matching curves to make the wall of the balcony, I kept making one to short. 

I had allot of fun cutting out all these little pieces of wood for the stairs. Then I hot glued them all in place, and at this point I am getting excited to cover them with cement. 

Oh My Goodness it took me 7 hours to hot glue all the shingle on the house as fast as I could go, and a couple blisters on my Hot Glue Gun Trigger Finger.  Plus over 100 hot glue sticks. 

Just finished adding all the timbers to the side of the house.

I'm so excited at this point the house is starting to look like the picture, but then I soon realize the base is about 3 to 4 inches to short length wise, and I had to come back to add another box to the left of the left tunnel.  That why I love just creating it doesn't have to be perfect or completely match the picture, its your art work and your design,  that's the fun of it all.

Me laying out the windows I had on hand to make work for the house and deciding were to place them, then draw out where to place them, then drill holes in each window area and then cut them out with my jigsaw. 

I didn't have the exact matching windows for the right look of the house, so I broke apart some that I had to make them work.

I think I only spent about 1 1/2 hours cutting out all the needed pieces for the house per my design.  I did realizes at this point the little picture I was using as a reference point was almost usless at this point since I was just guessing at the sizes.. Lots of modifications to my plans.

Me in my garage starting to build the boxes that will soon become the new house.  I spent about 2 hours sitting watching a movie while I drew up the house design on paper and then onto plywood. 

This project all started when I found this picture on the Internet of this miniature house someone created. 

I had to share some photos of the Miniature Convention I attended this weekend.

Two wonderful Lady's that joined me and my co-worker Jennifer from my job for Lunch.  These Lady's were so sweet and wonderful.  I had a wonderful time talking about my houses with them and their hobbies. 

My houses on the far left, and my first time.

Me being a dork for the camera, and feeling very proud of me taking a chance at showing others in person my houses. 

Me at the Denver Miniature Exhibit, "Mini" Tales of Travel

This was my first time I have shown anyone in person the houses that I build.  I was so nervous.  But it turns out I was the Hit of the Show.  Everyone loved the houses and wanted to find out how I built them.  I felt sort of like a movie star.  I wanted to go shopping in the miniature sales floor the first day, but spent over 6 hours just talking to everyone about my houses, and meeting the President of the Denver Miniature Museum here in Denver, and about how excited they were about my houses, and that no one has seen houses like mine.  Plus everyone at the convention wants me to teach a class next year during one of the many classes held each year at the convention.  My nervousness soon left, and I blushed for two days of the wonderful things everyone said to me.  Plus I sold my first house because of the Show the newest one I had completed the Abandoned house, to a lady from Wyoming I hope she enjoys it. 

My new Friend Cindy the Chairman of the Denver Miniature Museum, who ran the Miniature Exhibit Convention this past weekend.  Which the Museum would love for me to have an Exhibit at the Museum of my houses.  This was such a wonderful lady, that made me feel so good and introduced me to everyone in the field and all the other great miniature artist. 

                                     This is one of my favorites that Ed painted.

This is Ed who paints each of these miniature oil paintings which you need a magnifying glass just to see each brush stroke.  They sell for around $500.00 each.  He says each is a work of love for his Wife, who helps by making the frames and stretching the canvas on the frames.  It takes him between 180 to 200 hours to complete each oil painting.  He is world renown for his work.  I hope I could try to reach that leave one day.  But I am happy just to create like Ed is.