Wednesday 24 February 2016

My Mardi Gras journey continues....

First, I'd like to welcome Diane, from Florida, as my second "follower". It really is nice to know I'm not alone out in the mini-world! Thanks for visiting Diane.

Continuing on from my last post I'll show you the work I managed to get done on my project while at Camp, and give you a look at other Campers' projects to see how differently one project can be interpreted. There were some really beautiful ideas represented, that's for sure. Then we'll take a look at how I finished the project once I got home.




While I was at Camp, after I applied the textured brick paper I also wallpapered the right wall with a textured wallpaper - almost like a grass cloth. The colour went well with the dark stain of my floor and trims. Then, I managed to get the floor laid, sanded and stained. (The camera seems to make the colours look different than they actually are. The floor on the balcony actually is very close to the colour in the picture that it runs into. Here, in the picture, it looks more brownish than the grey it actually is.)I made a plant to tuck in the corner on the balcony just to add a sense of depth and continuity. I stained and installed a thick shelf and applied it to the main wall with a large sparkly mirror above it.





Lastly, I installed my little demon-looking fellow over where the French doors will be. I so wanted to use this little guy - he just appealed to me on some subliminal level and seemed perfect for an apartment in the French quarter of New Orleans! However, in order to use him above the door where I wanted him, the door opening is shorter than would accommodate a ready-made set of doors. That didn't bother me because I figured I would just make my own. As I was working away one of our wandering Divas - Iris - came to have a look at my progress. When I told her I would make my own doors since they were not a standard size, and since she knew this was the first full mini project I had ever done, she asked, with a slight skepticism, I'm sure, whether I had ever made my own door before. When I said no, I hadn't, she just smiled and patted me on the shoulder for good luck. Iris, who is an incredible artist when it comes to using chalks and paints to create gorgeous finishing effects, had showed me earlier how to paint my balcony floor so it would blend better with the floor on the picture, and to create shadows on it in the proper way by determining where the shadows would fall in real-life and creating those shadows in mini. (Love you Iris!)

So, with time taken out to complete the secondary workshop with Judith Blondell - the dressing of a mannequin in period dress - that was all the work I accomplished on my lamp while at Camp. Here are some more pictures of Camp Mini Ha Ha 2014 as well as other people's work in progress - sorry I don't have pictures of their finished projects for you but you get the idea, at least, of how very different they all were. I think, if you click on the pictures, they should come up in a larger size in a separate window.






This is Marijke H.'s work in progress - I will have finished pictures of this you'll see in a future post.



Nancy's project (above): She made her own floor, piece by piece, and brought it with her to be installed in her beautiful room. the floor was absolutely gorgeous!

Well, I think this post is getting quite long enough for one day so, next post I'll provide pictures of other Campers' works-in-progress and, hopefully leave enough room to show you my finishing steps for my own Mardi Gras room box/lamp.

Tip for today:
When using narrow strips of wood, popsicle sticks, coffee stirrers, etc., to lay your floor, do not glue the whole piece of wood as it will be more difficult to make it lay flat after drying. Instead, place dots of glue, spaced 1/2 to 1 inch apart down the length of the wood strip and press it in place. Trust me - the floor stands a better chance of not warping because you will not be wetting down the whole, porous, length of wood.

TTFN!





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