Pickett Hill Furniture

I am loving working on these little kits. I'm planning on saving most of these for if I need surgery on my foot, which is most likely going to happen. There is quite a stash collecting for that time, of little projects I'll be able to do while recovering, things that won't require me to stand. I've got 3 Betterly Secret Book kits, a Christmas tree kit, and a whole lot more furniture for the Lydia Pickett, as well as 3 plastic Star Trek models I'll be making up for my brother. As of right now I only need Emma's Bedroom, Robbie's Bedroom, Artist Wall cupboard and the kitchen for this tiny house and it will be complete. I still want to get the landscaping kit that goes to this but that will be sometime in the future as it's quite expensive and I'll need to save up for it.

As a present for next Christmas my mom has gotten me the 1/12th scale Holly Ann by The House that Jack Built. I'm super excited about this house. It was on sale through Tuesday Morning at an amazing price. It will be my "heirloom" dollhouse. I will be taking my time and doing it up properly. The design is so much like the Fairfield which is the main reason I fell in love with it but being so large it will definitly take some planning on where it will be displayed. I'll also be measuring my doorways to make sure once built I'll be able to move it if I had to. LOL I'd love to fit it up with as many Ray Storey lights as possible. His work is absolutely amazing.

At this same sale, before my mom surprised me with the purchase of the Holly Ann, I had bought myself an early birthday present of the Kotton Kandy also by The House That Jack Built. I'm planning on making it a small shop. I've been reading some books by Gil McNeil where the main character owns and runs a knit shop and has a knitting group that meet once a week to knit and gossip. She's titled the group the Stitch and Bitch. Which is the main inspiration for this little shop. The novels are very nice and I have devoured the first two and just started the third. I'm not too sure why I like them so much as there doesn't seem to be much action/excitment going on, but more of a chronicle of a single mother trying to move on with her 2 boys after her husband gets a promotion, tells her he wants a divorce because he's been having an affair for the past year, and then is killed in a car accident right after disclosing all of this to her. I read the first one free through Amazon's Kindle Lender's Library program. After all that rambling here are some photos of the progress I've made on the furniture kits.

Onward march!

Well today has been super productive! I got the posts cut for the "support" kitchen counter posts, painted and shellaced. The kitchen flooring installed and I used siding strips cut down, installed on a cardstock, stained and varnished all ready to glue in place. I also cut the buffet counter and have it ready to stain, ran out of my golden oak stain though. I think that would be the closest match to original counter tops but we'll see. The seam of old and new counter will be concealed with a short tile back splash once I figure out how to do it. Also, the risers for the stairs have been corrected, glued in and are currently drying before I give a final coat of white paint to them. Because of the color of the floor I restained the treads in Early American stain to match better. Originally I wanted all the wood work to match the kitchen counters but I didn't have enough stain for that and was too impatient to wait till I could go pick some up. Soooo new plan. I think it's better this way now. Not so matchy-matchy and gives more seperation between living room and kitchen. The holes that were in the front wall from the porch installation have been filled and textured. Hopefully, I'll be able to paint all of the downstairs walls. That'll leave the interior window trim, baseboards and crown moulding left to do. For a few hours of work not too bad.

Bringing in the New Year....

With a nice clean artroom. Here is couple views of that room. This took all day yesterday to get to this point. Trust me this is much better now, for one thing you can see the floor! I almost forgot there was one in this room. The first picture is my little helper sorting pieces to the low table I got for Christmas I need to put together. I think it will fit where the folding table is and it matches the bookshelves. The Arthur will get finished and then moved to a different table in the other corner of the room and then the Harrison will sit on this table. It's almost a perfect fit in that place, just have to move the white drawers and the desk over about an inch. I know having a dollhouse directly in front of a window is a no-no but it's not forever so I can live with it for awhile.

This picture (don't know why it's sideways) shows the bookshelf with all my mini books on the second and third bottom shelves. The room on the top is the first of a Plastic Canvas Barbie dollhouse I've been working on.

Overall shot, notice the floor? That's a relief.

And here are two shots of Christmas morning. Here's Elora with a chocolate-y face. We gave her one piece of Chocolate from her stocking. Turned our backs for a second to get more presents from under the tree and the little buggar had five empty wrappers on the floor and was shoving the fith piece into her already packed mouth LOL. Talk about a sugar high!

This is one of my favorites. Aidan emptying his stocking while his sister cheered him on. I love Christmas!

$50....For a phone number?!

Well, today I had my appointment with the specialist, who actually seemed to know what he was talking about. However, where my problem is he wouldn't be able to work on it and reffered me to an Orthopedic Surgeon. So there went $50.o0 for a phone number. At least he was honest. So tomorrow I will give this other guy a call and see what he says. This doctor said if it wasn't hurting these types of things they'd put under observation but since it does hurt and has for quite some time he thinks they will suggest cuterage. We'll see I guess. He did seem very optimistic that it is just a benign bone cyst so that's a good thing.

Early Christmas Present

Well my DH let me have one of my Christmas presents early, a new camera. I picked it up on Black Friday. He was at work and I was snagging some sales for the kid's Christmas. (Side note, Black Friday is SCARY!) As I was walking through the aisles my brother picked up a camera and showed it to me. It was too bulky, like the one I have and never use because of the size and the many options you have to manually select for good up close mini photos or even photos of the kids. I said I'd rather have a small one I can carry with me easily and it has to be red of course but I wasn't there to buy for myself. He said, "Oh you mean like this one?" and proceeded to pull a small box off a shelf in the toy department where it had been discarded. I snatched it from him, it was PERFECT, ran to the scanner thingy that tells you the prices, after a minor moment of shock at how inexpensive and a few choice words to my brother about tempting me with stuff, I slid the camera into my pile of gifts, picked out a Pink Paisley case and SD card and proceeded to check out. I saved close to 30 bucks on this camera. I believe it was 40 total. Guilty isn't the word for it. I had bought myself a present when I was supposed to be focused solely on others. When I got home I handed the bag to DH and told him to take it, wrap it and then hide it from me till Christmas so I wouldn't be tempted to sneak it early. Last night he asked me if I wanted to open a gift Christmas Eve and I said yes I know exactly which one too. He laughed and said to open it now so I could get used to it and be able to use it Christmas...besides he hadn't wrapped it yet anyways. = ) I tore into it like a wild animal and started snapping random pictures to see how it worked. At the store, I had a hard time understanding what I was reading, (I blame it on the time it was 2 in the morning) and was really worried it was going to be a bad deal after all. Boy am I glad I was wrong! The zoom feature which on the box was stated as 5xPanoramic zoom really meant 5xOptical. It's been only 8 years since I worked in the photo lab but so much has changed since then apparently and I don't use that feature often anyways but I hate digital zoom. My biggest complaint about my old camera was that if I wanted to take a nice photo of a mini project I had to flip through all the settings to get to it and then remember to flip it back so I could take normal pics later. This camera does it for me and the picture quality is much better. I took a couple of the furniture waiting to be painted and my finished "Not so Tall" bench.

Christmas is almost here!

Well, Christmas is almost here and I just finished all of my shopping. I've been working on the furniture for my Lydia Pickett House. About time right? LOL I finished the "not so tall" bench for the front porch and FINALLY installed the porch and portico rugs. I spent last weekend modge podging all of the paper decals for the kits that I have so when I get to them I don't have to wait for them to dry before completing something. I also put together the Al Fresco Dining table, side table, fireplace, mantle frame and the tiny boat for the mantle piece. I did learn that exhaling sharply when working on a teeny tiny boat is a bad thing. Little bugger went flying across the room. I spent quite awhile on hands and knees searching the carpet. Finally found it and fortunately it was all good. Now these pieces are all ready to paint. = )

I've been trying to get the RL house all cleaned for Christmas weekend. That way I can relax and enjoy myself. Which is why I haven't been working on the Arthur lately. I know if I go into my craft room for "just a minute" I'll be emerging hours later with no house work accomplished and too exhausted to clean. LOL. At least the furniture I can bring in and set up on a TV stand and since it's in the living room it gives me a view of practically the whole house so I can't forget that it's a mess. This way I can still mini and clean at the same time. Been working like a charm. I'd get more accomplished cleaning wise if I put all of my crafts away but then my disposition would go down the pooper and stress levels through the roof. Safer to compromise with myself.

Also, when not cleaning or mini-ing I've been reading. Just finished Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier. Loved it! It was rather slow in parts but after a certain point it picked up and I couldn't stop thinking about what would happen next. I may have found a new favorite author. Already added quite a few of her other books to my wish list. I caved awhile ago and agreed to let my husband buy me the Kindle. I was adamant that I would never like it and it was horrible to ruin the experience of reading a book, the feel of the pages etc etc. Well I still love reading an actual book more but the Kindle has been wonderful since almost all pre-1923 books are free and those are the ones I most like to read. And then, as if that wasn't great enough, they come up with the lender's library. Where if you have Prime membership with Amazon you can read 1 free book a month off of their list. My December choice is Water for Elephants. Just a few weeks ago I almost bought it, have been tempted off and on since to do it and then found it on the lender list for free. I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy it enough to pay money for. This way is much better. Almost $80 bucks a year for Prime membership but with how many orders myself and my husband place it's paid for itself in 2 day shipping and other incentives.

The Good, The Bad and The Tumor....?

Got the results back yesterday afternoon. There is definitly something there and it's not scar tissue. There were 2 differentials suggested, a chondroma or slow-growing giant cell tumor. My dad is a PA and a realy really good one at that; better then the doctors I have seen, and I'm not being completely biased either. So I took the disc with the x-rays, and MRI on it to him for his opinion. After comparing my images and symptons to those on the AAOS website it looks like it is either an aneursymal bone cyst or a slow-growing giant cell tumor. Good news is that those are normally non-cancerous. Bad news they most likely will need surgery to remove and depending on how big and destroyed the surrounding bone(s) is/are will depend on how intense the surgery will be. I have an appointment Monday morning with my FP doctor to disscuss the results and we will go from there.
I, of course, am nervous. On the results from the Radiologist who read the MRI he suggested a biopsy or resection and if that wasn't what the doctor wants then at least have another MRI in 4-6 months. I am all for getting it removed. It had already started to bother me before the x-ray but because my Pediatrist told me my foot was fine and there was nothing there I never persued it, thinking it must just be all in my head if they can't see anything. I'm a bit pissy about that right now. Although it doesn't appear to have grown and the report says it has been stable since April of 2009 it could have been different and that bothers me. I would rather just skip the biopsy and go straight for removal. One, biopsy includes a freaking huge needle, see the last postas to how I'd handle that. = / Two, if they do a biopsy more likely then not they would come back and suggest removal anyways to reduce the risk of it becoming something worse, so I would have been subjected to the ginormous needle for nothing. At least with the resection they would put me under without me having to be deal with anything bigger then an IV. Slice and dice away but stay away from me with needles. LOL. Weird I know but hey, who can rationalize an irrational fear?
My poor husband, last time I broke my foot I had to stay at my parents house for the recovery period. Couldn't drive with the boot on and his and my work schedule, plus the baby and the steps leading up to our house, made it impossible for me to safely stay at home. So every time I trip he begs "Please don't break your foot! I don't want to live at your parents again!" HAHA imagine his face when I got back and said "Don't worry hunny, my foot's not broken this time but I may have a tumor in it and may have to have surgery. So guess what!? That means we get to stay at my parents again!" Yeah I'm a little evil. LOL He's a sweety though, he didn't even cry! ; )