Dolls house charity shop find ...

I've finally got round to finishing off some things I was working on,one of which was renovating a dolls house I found in a charity shop for the grand price of £2, the original plan was to fix it up and sell it, however it got claimed by my daughter and it's now living in her bedroom,You'd think she'd be happy with the one I made her for Christmas a few years ago,but this one is apparently now a beach house for her dolls.

Here's the dolls house before I started on it -

A bit tired, or well loved if you prefer.

As you can see it's had a bit of use,my first thought was to take the thing apart completely,but as it turned out that wasn't possible because I'd have ended up breaking some of the joins,so I just took it apart as far as it would go.


Some damage,easily fixed with a bit of wood glue -

Despite it being quite badly split this was fixed easily.

The paper used for the roof tile effect was torn in places,and there was a fair amount of pen and pencil drawing all over it,along with some stains,so I figured I'd just strip all of the paper off and see what I was left with.

Taken apart waiting for paper to be removed and then sanded - 

Ready for it's make over.

And here it is fully sanded and awaiting a lick of paint - 

Looks better already.

I had hoped that I could leave it as bare wood once it was sanded,but I was unable to get into all the little gaps,even with a detail sander,so I went for a paint job instead.

After pondering the colour scheme for a while I decided on what could be described as a traditional look,but it reminds me of a cottage,white walls,black roof and green doors,personally I think it's turned out well,but then I would.

Here's the finished house - 

A bit plain maybe?

From the sides - 

Has to be better than it was.

It's painted in white gloss (after 2 coats of undercoat and primer) the roof is black emulsion and the doors are painted with a green water based enamel paint,so it can be cleaned easily,and yes it's perhaps a bit on the plain side,but it looks great with some of the furniture I made for my daughters other dolls house,so now I guess I'll have to make a load more for his one.

All in all despite having spent a few ours doing it up I'm happy and so is my daughter,we had the paint already and for £2 it's not to be sniffed at,it proves that trawling through charity shops often yields interesting results.

Thanks for reading.

Magpie Monday - Homemade wines & drinks ...

I thought I'd add my two pence to this weeks Magpie Monday (well 50p actually)

We've been making our own wines for a couple of years now, and generally we have had some good drinkable wines, some more alcoholic than others, so far we've made blackberry,apple,plum, with shop bought plums, and with foraged plums and I've also made ginger wine.

Although making wine is easy enough it never hurts to have a book or two, and I figured that the recipe book for wines and drinks I noticed in one of our charity shops was worth it's 50p price tag, it's and old-ish book, but it has some very interesting recipes in it.

The book -

Originally published in 1963 (I think)

It has some very good stuff in it, including a Mead recipe, which I'm eager to try, it also has some what might be considered odd recipes, like Beetroot wine, along with other types of veg, like celery and spiced carrot, not sure if I want to try them to be honest.

Beetroot wine (I wasn't making it up) - 

I'm not a fan of Beetroot.

It's a good book if you enjoy a bit of foraging as well, these a good and easy to make recipe for Rosehip syrup which is very good for staving of colds in winter as Rosehips have a very high vitamin c content.

Rosehip syrup - 

Will be trying this.

And it's not all alcoholic drinks either, it has some stuff that kids will love, mainly involving chocolate, things like the chocolate marshmallow float and loads of others, the book also offers some simple tips for decorating glasses and of course good glass keeping practices.

The Marshmallow float - 

I'm not a fan of chocolate, but I'm liking the sound of this.

So all in all for 50p there's a lot in this book to keep me busy for a while.

Thanks for reading.

Skeleton plaster casting set ... ...

I often look in our local charity shops for odd things, or stuff that might prove useful and the other day I found something that will come in very handy.

It's a plaster casting set, it makes a 45cm tall skeleton and it cost a £1 there's a chance that something like this might pop up in one of the myriad of pound / 99p shops that seem to be springing up, but I doubt the quality would be as good as this set.

The set, which was complete (even had plaster) -

How cool !

Inside the box -

Even had a strip of magnetic tape.

Of course since I bought it home the kids have been plaguing me to make a skeleton, so the other day I thought we should have a go and see what it turns out like, it's actually quite detailed, which will come in handy when the kids want to learn about different bones and such like, there's no plaster in the picture above because I'd used it all before I took the picture :-)

Here's a completed skeleton - 

Not painted yet.

It's pretty cool, and for a quid you can't really complain, but because the moulds are very sturdy it can be reused and so we are now thinking it'll come in handy for Halloween related crafts  mu ha ha ha !

On a side note once I'd removed the skeleton from the kitchen table this is what was left, really hoping that it's just because the plaster was still a little wet, otherwise the damn things haunted :-/

Some one call ghost busters !

Thanks for reading.