The Shape of Things

 I am so proud of myself today. Last summer as I worked to remove wallpaper from the half scale Fairfield, I broke the arched door jamb for the large living room doorway. This morning I decided to wallpaper the living room and began assembling the pieces to put the room back in order,  but I couldn't find the broken piece. I worked on the little house out in the garage during the summer and thought that I had moved everything back into the basement, but I couldn't find the missing piece, so I decided to make a new trim piece one on my Cricut Maker. Of course I could have just traced a new pattern and cut it out by hand--certainly would have been quicker, but clean, precise cuts are worth the time that it took me create my new piece. 

 I relished the challenge.                           

I began by scanning the broken wood trim and saving as a .jpeg, then uploading it into Cricut Design Space, as you see it on the far left of Design Space. Technically, I could edit that scanned image, but I've not trained myself in the skill yet, instead, I found it much easier to build my new piece from scratch using the tools that Design Space has.

I measured the left leg on the real piece from the point where it attaches to the arch down to the bottom, using millimeters: 11mm. The I measured the distance between the inside of the arch from the left leg to the where the inside of the right leg would join to the arch. In the Shapes tool on the left, I grabbed a square and sized it. I made two using the duplicating tool to copy the 1st one.

As the image shows, my first arch wasn't wide enough, so I remeasured the inside width between the legs the made another rectangle  (the horizontal one) to get the correct inside width. 

Next how to create the arch? Design Space doesn't allow for free-hand drawing. I wish it had the flexibility, so to create curved lines takes some imagination. The Shapes tool has a variety of common shapes can be stretched and sized to create custom images.

 I grabbed a circle from the Shapes toolbox and began to flatten the circle until I had an oval that fit between two legs. I used the Attach tool to "glue the 3 pieces together, but I didn't have an arch yet. As the last image shows; I had an oval with legs.

This image shows how I duplicated my oval (I always duplicate extra pieces so that I have the original piece in tact incase I need a do-over) Instead of attaching the new oval, I placed it on top of the black oval, leaving the top edge of the first oval exposed. 

This photos shows how I used the Slice tool "cut away" the excess black oval. 

Next I drag the arch away from the sliced ovals. You can see the oval left.

The first jamb that I made--still in the work space--wasn't wide enough, it was back to the drawing board 

to remeasure and rebuild. The second try was successful. I printed my door jamb to make sure that it was the correct shape and size.

Perfect. I was shocked.

Time to cut the wood.

• Purple tight grip mat
• 1/16 inch bass wood (Hobby Lobby) cut to 11 inches wide
• Knife blade

In the Maker screen the photo on the left shows the machine's placement of the door jamb, but I want it to run with the grain of the wood, I am able move the piece to align it with the wood grain by grabbing the circle arrow to rotate the piece's position.

The machine makes 14 passes. I usually stop at 10 passes to keep from cutting my mat. The shape is not an exact duplicate of the original, but it is close enough. 

The good news: I finally found the missing leg and it will glue back in place perfectly. So which piece  would you use?

I still have so much work to do on this little house, but this was major issue solved. I'm now contemplating making new windows. Now I know that can recreate pieces if I have too.

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I wish you all Happy Thanksgiving. It will just be the two of us. We had plans to have dinner with one of the girls and her family, but the the 12 year old tested positive last week. While she has been symptom free since her test, she is on mandatory quarantine (as ordered in an official letter from the Health Department followed up with a phone call) along with her sisters and parents.  The 8 year old came home from school Oct. 30 sick but tested negative, yet the rest of the family got sick--sore throat, sniffles--typical COVID symptoms. Since we saw all three of the girls once again since the 30th, we are hiding, now, too. I am thankful to have my mini projects to keep me busy and my mind occupied. 

I'll fix a traditional meal tomorrow, except I'm roasting chicken instead of the 20 lb, turkey still in the freezer. Despite the roller coaster ride that 2020 has taken us on, we are cheerful and thankful for our blessings, especially when I think about the journey that my distant great grandparents, John Howland and his wife Elizabeth took 400 years ago on the Mayflower. Their journey and the reasons for it were remarkable and remain so today.

Have a wonderful celebration in your home. For my friends out of country, I am thankful and blessed to have you as friends, for you have enriched my life and bring me joy. I hope I do the same for you. 

 We certainly live in uncertain times. Saturday, we had a small family get-together--just the two daughters and their 5 children. It had been a while since we had been together. One daughter lives an hour and half away on a light traffic day, though there isn't such a thing anymore. She brought to the two boys and left the youngest, Nathan, 11. So this week I am the distance learning monitor. I certainly have mixed emotions about this role, though we love having the little guy here and he is much happier than being at home alone all day. I do hope some learning is taking place. As a retired teacher, I certainly do have my own thoughts about the plight of educators and their students today. Still, I know that many are doing the best they can, given these unusual circumstances. 

It seems, too, that we be going back into hiding--or social distancing. Colorado counties' virus cases are surging and once again we are waiting out a quarantine. While Nathan has been distance learning since last spring, the granddaughters have gone back to their school part time. So, two weeks ago we were waiting on a COVID test for 8-year-old which came back negative and this week the 12-year-old sister is in quarantine since the girl she sits next to in school tested positive over the weekend. And we were all together over the weekend. 

I'm not too concerned that we will all get sick, but we can't be too careful.

Good thing for hobbies! Before I begin here is the link to Bindles Ornaments--a site that I love for making lamps and chandeliers. <https://www.bindelsornaments.nl> Keep in mind that it is located in The Netherlands, so it takes a while to reach the USA. Which brings me the Fairfield, which I moved in from the garage. I hate moving. It took a bit of time reorganize, find everything, and get reestablished in the rhythm of working. I began with the dining room flooring, trying something new.

These are my options for the Fairfield floors: One builder suggested paper floors, so I ordered this paper floor from Itsy Bitys Minis. I like it, but it just does not have definition or depth that a floor should have. I had created a craft stick kitchen floor but felt that the coffee stir sticks were too thick for the half scale and the stain that I used really didn't penetrate the wood or add enough interesting color. I may have gone back to the craft stacks then by chance I found a package of Cricut wood veneer at Michael's, so here is the project. 

Using Cricut Design Space I create 1/4 x7 inch boards. After measuring the floor to get the correct length, I created on board then used the Duplicate to create the rest of them. I knew that my floor was six inches wide, so I created enough that would fill a six-inch-wide space--though it doesn't look like that here and my measurement is set to centimeters. 

Your layout in Design Space doesn't have to be perfect because the program will lineup the cuts to fit for the efficient use of space; however, you can move the pieces around, especially when cutting on wood and you want pieces to cut with the wood grain such as floor boards. 

I use this very thin walnut veneer, (two sheets to package), the deep cut blade (not the knife blade), taped it to a hard grip purple mat, and let the machine do the work.

While the wood does tend to splinter a bit, I did get nice, clean cuts that are so much more accurate and faster than trying to hand cut it all by hand. I'm left with an interesting scrap, wondering how I could put it to good use.

I've never used clear varnish on my flooring, but have always been frustrated because my floors don't have a pretty shine. Somewhere either in the blogs that I follow or the Facebook groups that I belong to I read to use clear varnish. Wow. The varnish took my wood from a pretty dull looking surface to putting a nice sheen on the wood, after I sanded it, of course, to get rid of the splintering.

I'm getting ahead of myself here, but one of my main considerations that once I adhered the flooring to the template, I needed to make sure that it slide into place. I could have been in a lot of trouble if I had glued down my floor on the replace and it would slide in. 

I made a removable floor because of the electrical line that runs along the front of the room. I just didn't want to glue floor boards on top of the electrical tape. I am also using printer bricks. I love the brick paper that I ordered from HBS (miniatures.com) because it is textured, heavy, easy to use, and looks realistic. 

I also use double sticky tape instead of glue because I just was not sure of how the floor would look. Seems to be working.

I'm liking it.

The edges will trim nicely with a pair of sharp scissors.

                   

And there you have it. I have to use the clear varnish on the floor, glue the grown molding in place, add the door jamb, and the windows, and the chandelier. Right now I'm working on the living room floor, so I'll be back when I have that floor installed. 

Today I will be working on the living room floor. I've built the fireplace, now I need to figure out the embellishments for the little fireplace. Results in few days.

                   

Thanks for joining me today. I hope you are well. 

PS: Floor finished. Now for the clear varnish. 

Hello Again

Well, hello. I missed everyone. I can't believe that it's been so long since I posted last. I sort of got derailed on wallpapering the Fairfield. I ordered paper from my favorite company and received the wrong paper--happened twice. The first time I thought it was my fault, so I let it go, but when it happened again, I did more checking and some of the papers were number incorrectly, so I emailed the company. They are very nice and good at making things right, so I had to wait for new paper to arrive and by then I was on to another project.

This is the wallpaper that I ordered for the little kitchen, surely a popular 1920s motif, cherries. My husband's grandmother had cheery wallpaper in her farmhouse kitchen, it was old. 1940s, I would imagine. I do think that it will go nicely with the green checked floor. However, I am learning  that the interest and the  beauty of these delicate, small prints get lost because the prints  are nearly microscopic. My advice: choose bolder prints that have more depth and detail, even larger images like the William Morris print that I chose for the dinning room. 

By the way, the company shipped the correct papers without charge.

The second paper has a linen-like look will be paired with a blue print for the living room.

I have another challenge for the Fairfield. I decided to wash the windows; not recommended. They, as you know, are acetate, which has not only yellowed with age, but is also dusty and dirty, so I decided to wash an oval window--with poor results. The white window "panes" washed away. 

As luck would would have it, I found a package of acetate 12x12 sheets by Cricut at Michael's and I purchased two paint pens to try to recreate the window glass.

  

                      

I am quite impressed with the acetate, but as I searched the Cricut website, it does not seem available now, but it is available on Amazon. There are other alternatives such as transparency sheets that teachers use to make over head project transparencies--really? They still do that? Anyway. Priced them at Office Max, and just as I thought I had to buy a box of 40 or so for a hefty price--don't remember how much, but it was cost prohibitive. My package has 6 12x12 for about $13. 

I have two different paint pens, one seems to have thicker line. I need to work on drawing very straight lines and figure out how to prevent paint pooling at the end of a stroke. Any suggestions? With some more practice, I will be able to replace my spoiled window "glass" and the will the rest of the window look yellow--because they are--but will I need to redo them all? 

Aside from making windows, I realized that I can cut stencils for card making by cutting images out on the Cricut. Actually you can make stencils out of paper.

I was very pleased with the results using pastels to create this pretty card.

I'm still teaching myself Cricut Maker tricks. Here are two more cards that I designed by merging or attaching the swan to a square, a very simple technique.

 So I left work on the Fairfield to make cards for veterans. Our DAR chapter makes greeting cards for the residents at the Cheyenne VA rest home. We work in my basement as a group and I made a lot of cards on my own. Last week I shipped 23 Veteran's Day greetings to the Cheyenne VA and 60 Christmas cards to a group in Michigan that sends greeting cards to overseas troops. Personally, I made 97 Christmas Cards.

Here's a sampling of my work. I had both of my Cricuts smokin'. 

Now I'm working on Christmas ornaments for family. Can't wait to show them--after Christmas, of course.  And I spent the day cleaning in my craft area, trying to reorganize so that I can more efficiently store supplies.

Finally, I had fun sorting through the goodies that I ordered from Bindels in The Netherlands so that I can make chandeliers and sconces for the Fairfield.

And there you have it. It's been a rough Fall. Personally our household is well, but we empathicly suffered with the those who were displaced and lost property in two wild fires that claimed so much of Colorado's beautiful mountains. Four fires burned. The Cameron Peak fire began the end of August and burned nearly 205,000 acres. We lived under a shroud of smoke and ash for weeks. Then a second fire near the Colorado/Wyoming border nearly merged with the Colorado fire the end September and if that wasn't bad enough, a third fire flared up burned so fast that nearly merged on the southern border of the first fire. Estes Park, our favorite mountain village was threatened and evacuated. One day by 2:30 in the afternoon it was nearly dark--orange dark from the smoke of those two fires. It was darker than a total eclipse of the sun. Finally a 4th fire erupted in Boulder, threaten so many homes, including a good friend's. Though evacuated, they were very lucky not to lose their house last 23 neighbors did. It was pretty grim.

Finally it snowed enough to not totally put the fires out, but the fire fighters were able to contain them and I think now they are out.

And this darn virus. This second time around, cases seem to be hitting closer to home. Our youngest granddaughter came home from school with the sniffles and we were with her on that Friday night. She was tested Monday, taking until Friday to get the results. Negative, thankfully. 

My task tomorrow will be to move the Fairfield from the garage where I've been working on it to the basement workshop so that I do the wallpaper. That will be a chore, but it's too cold now to work in the garage. 

Oh one last thing, so, so excited. I follow a miniaturist, Panda Miniatures, on Instagram and she announced that she and her fiancé  will be participating in an HGTV show, The Biggest Little Christmas Showdown, premiering Nov. 27 9PM EST. I'll be watching!

I do hope that you are all well and working hard in your own workshops. It's good to be back.

Have a great week. And Thanks for dropping by.