Desdemona's Home For Orphaned & Abandoned Dragons & Other Magical Creatures ~ 9

 When I first got Desdemona's, it came with separate crazy paved Garden that sits in front of the House. Some of the Slate was quite sharp and uneven and I want to have more of a Garden in front, so I decided to take up all the Slate.

Once the Slate was up and the boards cleaned, I painted all the remainder of the Paving to resemble Slate. Its freshened the whole outside up and given it all a uniform look. I have some 1:12th Real Slate paving slabs and based the paint colour on them. As you can see in the tenth picture down, I managed to get the effect of Slate nearly the same as the slab. 

I used paper as a template, so that I could work out where I want to put everything and then decided the original garden was going to be too small.

 My friend Sandra, over at Tower House Dolls, gave me the link to a seller on Ebay, that sells off cuts of MDF, so I ordered a bit. It came as a large square, but I've run it through the table saw, as I wanted a large back to front "L" Shape, that would butt up without a lip to the small garden board, outside the main House.

I then managed to lever the already painted steps, off the original board outside the treatment room. They can now be fixed on the new board.

I may also replace the little lean too, for a bigger version, as there isn't any room left in this one.

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Cabin Storage & Reorganization..

Since I last showed you all my Cabin, I have had the over head lights fitted. I had been working by plug in lamps. Its so nice to be able to flick a switch now and have overhead lighting.
I have also been having a major reorganization in my Cabin, moving things around and getting lots of new storage set up. Its much more organised now,before and hopefully I'll be able to find what I want, without having to trawl through everything. I've brought some new drawer storage from Ikea and the drawers hold loads.  I'm still going through all my crafting stash and trying to find a home in here for it. I've managed to remove everything from the plastic storage stacker's, that I had in there and they are going to be reused in the Garage, so they have come in handy and won't be wasted. I still have another white table to put together. So will have a very large working space. The broken flaps table, is now being used for dirty stuff, like stamping, embossing and painting. Hopefully, I'll be completely sorted shortly and can get back to making minis and crafting.

then

 I'll share some more pictures when its totally complete and sorted. Hope you've enjoyed the tour.

Decorating More Boxes..

On a previous post, I showed you the Moppe Boxes from IKEA, that I've been decorating.

I've still got quite a few to do and a bookcase to paint. But I'm getting there.
Nikki & Wendie, have also been decorating theirs, pop over to their blogs for a peek.

Over the Weekend, I've also been working on the strip of soil that runs down the side of the cabin.  Its approximately 16ft long by about 5ft wide. It has got totally over grown and was completely full of weeds and other old Rubbish. It all started great, until I managed to uproot the water pipe that runs down to the Stables and Yard. It was a case of water, water everywhere. Luckily, I hadn't put the fork through the pipe, but as I lifted it, thinking it was a huge root, the pipe came out of the connector. Thankfully, it was just a case of turning off the water, undoing the connector and reinserting the hose. I then dug a channel to see where the rest of the pipe run, so that I didn't puncture it with the fork. There is also an electric cable that runs through this bed, but that's in armoured cable.

Back breaking work, as there is so much slate in the ground, I could hardy move on Monday, but I'm so pleased, that I actually managed to do something constructive again. I've laid some old cardboard on the top, to suppress any weeds, until I can get the wall back up, compost on there to build it up, plant some sweet smelling plants and then mulch with either bark or gravel. There is also a little fence going up, to stop the Dogs getting on there. I couldn't do anything out there yesterday, as we had more drought, falling from the sky..

Something Crafty..

I have quite a lot of the wooden Moppe drawers from IKEA. I've had them for years. I'm not sure that they do this exact style anymore. Where they've been in storage, they'd got a bit grubby.
So in January, I decided to give them a freshen up, to go in the new surroundings. I gave them a rub over with a medium grade sandpaper, then painted them in different colours. I've got loads of scrapbook papers, so used that on the front of the drawers. Then added some scrapbook embellishments. I know a couple of my friends, Nikki & Wendie, have also been decorating their boxes. I think you can see Nikki's, on her blog page.
I've still got a few to do, but pleased with how these ones have turned out.