I had to just show off my new baby- the 2012 Chevy Camaro SS !  They had just washed her at the Dealership. 

Me getting ready to drive her home, at the end of a very long day of car shopping.  I have a pefect driving record and I never thought I would ever own a sports car.  But I love her, shes  very fast with 426 horse power, with automatic and stick shift, and on the Windshield display, you never have to look down at your gages.  I think I want to get persoanlized plates, some of my ideas are- OMGMOVE, XSSTASY, SMRT4SS-It says smart for my SS, (but means im a smart ass), REDDVL. 

I finally finished the Gnome Mushroom House!

I appologize for not getting anything posted in so long.  It has been a very busy month.  The weather here in Denver has been wonderful and like Summer Time.  My OCD got me involved in a variety of projects, in which I wanted to post updated pictures everyday.  But I was exhausted by the end of the day!  I jumped from working on the Mushroom House to working on a new House Display for my office at work.  I also ended up repainting my Master bedroom after I finished remodeling my Master bathroom.  Then I went car shopping one weekend and now I have a new Baby for my Garage, ive got to post pictures of my new Baby!  I do that next.  Plus this weekend we are building a Gazebo for the back patio area, thats why im blogging now, I dont want to go outside and start working, im exhausted.  I hope you like the pictures of what I completed on the new Gnome Mushroom House!  Thanks to all of you for the wonderful and inspirational comments on the miniatures I have been working on. 

I went to the $ STORE and found some wood place mats and I cut them up and used them for the flooring and walls, which I think was a very inexspensive way, and pretty good looking for this little Gnome House.

I stayed up till midnight last night taking pictures to post, and I noticed that I forgot to finish the bed and make a matress.  That will have to be a project to complete later. 

I think my favorite are the little clay mushrooms I made.

I just completed doing a simple remodel on my Master Bathroom.

I had to share what I completed over the past two weekends. 

I'm sorry I didn't make any progress on finishing the Mushroom House.  But I disliked my Master bathroom very much and decided to redo the cabinets and repaint and redecorate.  So I spent the past couple weekends hitting every thrift store to find pottery and items to decorate the finished bathroom.   I hope you like what I just completed.  I absolutely love the new Alure flooring which is so simple to install, and Love shopping at Home Depot for all the needed supplies.  This time i also didn't want to have curtains in the windows, but the windows looked out of place without something.  I hung up valances above the window but i didn't like the look, so I found some extra floor molding and i cut them into picture frame shapes and nailed them above each window and painted dark brown paint in each, which i think sort of makes it look like a valance, but more clean look and it also makes the windows look taller.  

 I promise Ill make more progress on the new Mushroom House next weekend.

I love having cabinets at arms reach to store everything, instead of just drawers.  I thought the cupboards on the counter would be nice, sort of what I did when I remodeled our kitchen.

Plus the wall behind the mirror was a little damaged removing the large mirror which the builder glued to the wall.  So I got a bright idea and put the flooring I used for the floors on the wall behind the mirror, that what the bathroom seems to flow nicely.  Plus I love using kitchen cabinets in the bathroom, instead of the shorter bathroom cabinets which are typically used.  For someone tall like me i LOVE the counter being higher. 

I love my two ducks.  I found them at the thrift store years ago and decided to make them into my towel holders.

The original bathroom that was standard in all the homes build here 10 years ago.  I hated the bathroom and it had no storage.

Old bathroom and hard to clean tile.

My first drawing of what i wanted my Master bathroom to look like.

Just another drawing that I sort of wanted my bathroom to look like.

Gnome Mushroom House, lots more comleted.

Hi everyone, I actually made alot of progress during the week on the new Gnome Mushroom House.  Everynight when I would get home from work I would add a little more piece by piece.  I ended up not liking the original spots I had put on the top of the Mushroom.  So I tore apart these little round green decorative balls that you can still see part of them in the front Gardens around the house.   Once I tore apart the decorative balls I added them to the top, since it sort of made it look like grass, or Mushroom like spots.  I also was able to finish the electrical this week also.  The two front porch lights I made out of two old Christmas Street Lamps from a Christmas Village, I just tore them apart and then added new lights to the inside and then just cut of the top of the street lamp and the turned them upside down to make the porch lights.

I think my little cheap porch lights I made turned out adorable,  Since the original street lamps were bright green, and I hate painting, I used a black permenant marker to paint them black.

Last Saturday Night I made this little brick fire place for the new Mushroom House.  It turned out to be a little of an ordeal.  Once I was done adding the bricks to the balsa wood form I made.  I added really runny plaster to fill in the cracks, but then the plaster immediatly dryed to the Darn Bricks.  So I ended up spending over an hour scraping off the plaster, and carving it out of all areas.  It was completely white with plaster at one point and I almost gave up after this mistake.  But I think it sort of turned out OK.  I think it looks like a 400 Year Old fire place.  So I go with that, since Gnomes and Smurfs are supposed to live for Hundreds of years,  the fireplace can go along with that theory. 

Today Denver Colorado has gotten about 1 foot of snow and we are expecting about 1-2 more feet of snow.  So i finally get to stay at home and work on my Mushroom House.

 I'm still working on the Mushroom House.  Its been a learning experience, in which i ended up having to cut a corner out of the top of the Mushroom to be able to put the house on hinges so it would open. See Pictures Below: Plus lots and lots of drying time.  The window idea with the bolt nuts did not work out so well.  By the time the windows dried the thin pieces for the window panes cracked and split open.This cost me about 3 more hours of work cutting out the window panes.  So I'm doing an open window concept.  The paper dries as hard as cement and makes cutting very difficult.  I ended up antiquing my roof, I didn't like the bright red color seen below, and it took forever to cut open the door, and to make a hidden hinge in the door and to open the house with.  The hinges are hidden under more applied paper which took a couple more days to dry.  I cant wait to start putting in electrical and designing the interior.  I hate waiting for things to dry. 

Ive learned that i could not make a very easy mold of this house, and that i will still need to rethink making a mold in a different way.  I thinks i have learned that i will still to need to be very creative on designing a mold to be able to create a Mushroom Houses with a design that would allow me to split the house and be able to open it on hinges. 

I can still make each House different even with a mold, i just need to be able to save time with a basic shape that can be added to.  Hopefully in the next year i will figure something out.  Between working two full time jobs, my House Projects usually only get worked on once or twice a week.  

I hope you all have a great week. 

Then this morning i still didn't like the bright red roof even with the spots i added, so then in the above picture i antiqued the red so it didn't stand out to much.

I think my OCD is slowing me down creating this House.  I added the red ground up ground cover to the roof, but i didn't like it to well.  Then i added some white spots with paint and then some green ground cover with glue to clump it to make it a spotted mushroom.  Plus i ended up not liking the white part of the main mushroom so i washed it with a brown paint to make it look aged.

The side I cut out of the roof, to be able to open it on the hinges.

This is the picture of once i finished covering the area I cut out with paper.  Then 5 more days to dry, with a fan blowing on the house the whole time.

It took me about 2 days to think about what to do to be able to open the house on hinges.  So this is how I ended up cutting it, then i glue all the areas and re-added more paper to re-shape the area I needed to cut out.  This wore me out trying to be creative and not to make the house look to ugly.