Moving right along: Bricking

 And so it is now time to cover up the ever so irking upside down siding!!!  <-----  Do you see it??

I used a homemade paper mache clay recipe and then used a fondant stamp to push the bricks into the clay.  Really putting the clay on the house took longer than making the bricks!




No more upside down siding! Yay!





After the brick laying was finished I went back in with a knife and cut the mortar lines just a little bit deeper in a few places.  I was hoping this would give the effect that they brick was old enough that dirt had built up around a few of the other bricks.




Here's the house with they clay on... I let it dry for a good two weeks because the clay has water in it and I didn't want any chance of mold if I painted it too early!

After waiting to weeks I put a really dark bast coat on because I wanted the mortar cracks to show boldly.

Here you can see how the brick wraps all the way around the front to the front door.  It was touch getting the clay just right under that porch.

I then started layering the colors for the bricks one at a time.  I just used a paper towel to dip into the paint.  I figured a paper towel would be more flexible for me than a sponge.

Color order was: Dark grey (for the mortar), white, red, brown, and then another light layer of white on top.

Here's the finished product with the wood cleaned up a bit. 

Question time:  Do you think the bricks make the shingles look out of scale now?  I dunno... it's been bugging me and I have an idea of what to do about it but I wanted to get your opinions as well!

Thanks for looking!  Will take a big picture of the progress so far with my nice camera soon!

Ara

 Here is the continuation of the work I have been doing on my clue project lately.....  The Windows and the railing of the whole house were very plain and not the look I want to be going for.  I was thinking about trying to rip it all off.... BUT.....  that would be a lot of work and maybe a lot of needless destruction.

So I decided to use puff paint to jazz up the window sills, columns and banisters.  It was a lot of work too but relatively low cost and very much like icing a cake!  It was fun until my hand started getting tired!

Now I am slowly making my way around the house painting all the white areas with puff paint and then over with brown to make it look like carved wood.

I know the brown makes the whole house look darker but I plan to paint the siding a lighter color so I think it will look nice in the end.  It is a slow process but I am happy so far!

This is my first project that was previously built and its kind of fun figuring out ways to make it change into how I want it to look!  Hugs to all, Ara

It's only Been 30 months....

30 Months!!!  HolyCow!  Poor little neglected project!  Well I am trying to make it up to the clue house by paying LOTS of attention to him! 

I made a list of things I needed to do and I just threw myself into it.  It also helps that my parents got my a huge industrial grade table that this guy fits on so I don't have to wait for DH to get home to move my project where I need him!

Here's a photo of how the house came to me ... all $5 worth of him lol.

I realized I need to glue him back together before I could do anything else.  His roof was unattached and pieces were missing... luckily it came with a big pile of broken pieces to look through.

I finally found all the pieces for the roof and missing attic walls.  He was not fitting together so great so I decided this would be a job for Gorilla Glue!  And lots of it.  I personally hate the stuff because it puffs up and can ruin your nice clean corners.  But this guy needed something that would puff up and fill in the gaps where the pieces didn't fit.

Here he is clamped up to where I thought at any moment he might implode!

After letting him sit and glue together I started taking a closer look at the inside and I realized both sets of stairs are glued in upside down!!  Of course the pieces that they got wrong were the ones that were holding tight lol.  So I took my box cutter and worked and worked until I could pop them out.  (Also there is siding that was put on upside down and in unremoveable...grr...  I will deal with that in another post!)

That's it for now.  I have big plans for this guy.  I was going to give up on him but I got a second wind to try and turn this amazing house into the beauty it's supposed to be!  Wish me luck! -Ara