A Randomly Selected Newspaper Headline:

The following is a randomly selected newspaper headline from many years ago:

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I have also added a separate page to the blog for the Tower of Magic with a brief summary of all the rooms of the ToM in the one spot. The link is just below this and above the main body of the blog, or you can just click here.

Tuesday, August 10, 2010

This Weeks' Progress - Sunset Garden and Blue Room

This week I snatched some time to make a few flowers for the garden. I made some roses in shades of pink, some small "mystery" flowers in a lilac colour and some big yellow starshaped flowers, al from polymer clay. The mystery flowers are so called because they weren't made to be a particular type of flower, they are just a generic flower and could be almost anything. For the yellow star shaped flowers I started out trying to make dahlias but didn't come close enough to succeeding to be able to call them dahlias. After they were baked they were added to some pieces of plastic pondweed (intended for use in fishtanks) and 'planted' in the garden. This is where the layer of oasis foam over the bottom comes in handy. To plant the flowers, I had pushed a hole in the foam with a toothpick, dipped the bottom of the plant in glue and pressed it into the hole.

The bridge made last week has been painted just about every colour you can imagine, but none of them looked quite right, so form now at least, I've settled on a plain soft brown. I've also painted and added a feature at the end of the path. The pillar part is an old cotton reel while atop it is a glass marble coated with Gallery Glass Hologram Glitter. Again, I'm not sure exactly what this construction is supposed to be, but it looks good.
Some packages have been turning up in my mail box lately. Yesterday my order from Earth and Tree miniatures arrived. I placed this order online in early July and it contains bits I thought I'd need at the time for my Inn, the Regency Room and the Sunset Garden. Now I have no excuse not to start the Inn and the Regency roombox as soon as I have the time. For the Sunset Garden I ordered some fish for the pond and some "flower color" which is very similar to what they call "flower soft" and to the model railway foliage I used for the bushes last week. From this I should be able to make some wisteria like flowers for a vine and some more ground based flowers. I have also ordered some ready made polymer clay flowers which are still yet to arrive.
Once I have these added to the garden it will be all but finished with one exception. Above the gate in the back corner of the garden is currently a small red dragon. I plan to replace him with a sleeping dragon that has his tail and a few legs hanging over the wall. (Yes, I must have been watching cats sleep when I thought of that). This dragon will be made either from air dry or polymer clay.
In the Blue Room, the furniture has all been painted white. Decals adorn the back of the chair and the top of the wardrobe. The chair cushions have been recovered in a blue fabric and the same fabric has been used to make a valance or skirt around the bottom of the bed. The valance was pleated by hand using a great many pins, spray starch, an iron and a hairdryer. I really need to buy or make a proper pleater for these kinds of jobs, it would surely be easier and faster than pining each individual pleat in place. Among the other items to have arrived in the mail the past couple of days are half a dozen picture frames (miniature ones naturally) which will be used to make decorative panels in the panelling I will be adding around the bottom of the walls. Once I have the panelling in place I can decide on the height of the windows (which are salvaged from the house that became Highcroft Castle) and make the curtains (more pleating!). I've also re-arranged the furniture since last week, but am not sure it should stay this way either.

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