Renovating my dollhouse bakery, starting with tiling the floors and also making a resin floor

Renovating My Bakery Room Box!!!

Yep, pretty awful designing originally on my behalf.  In my defense I didn't have much brain power due to my severe Anorexia, but I did try.  It needs to go though, it reminds me of such bad times that I need to change it or throw it away.  So change it I shall.

Removing the tiles on the one side was easy.  Came off like smooth butter.  The other side, with the skinny black and white glass tiles from Bunnings, OMFG.  I honestly ended up with a hammer smashing the absolute s*%t out of them, because they were shattering but not coming off.  Grrrr.  Then in my temper I realised I smashed through the floor board of the bakery.  Fine, new floor was cut out and glued on.  So much easier than continuing my tantrum, as fun as it was smashing things with a hammer lol.

I got a chisel and peeled off the wallpaper, It came off quite easily.  I had to rub off the glue that stuck the wall paper down, and then I sanded it and also put a few layers of gesso on it.

This is the glue I had to peel off.

 Since I had inadvertently broken the base of the bakery, I had to pull the walls off.  This actually made it easier to scrape and put gesso on.


























After prepping everything, and cutting a new floor, I had to glue the walls back onto the base.  Now it took me two days to see the mistake I made, and by then the walls were glued down, quite firmly.  See if you can see the mistake, lol.

 Yep, walls went on upside down.  That's no problem except for this one door insert here.  I have a plan to fix that though, it's no big problem (I hope)!  I used Helmar Super Strength Wood Glue to stick it down, it wasn't going to come off easy so I decided to leave it.




Now for the exciting bit.  I decided to make a resin floor on the larger Bakery side.  Yay I was excited.  I love resin and I haven't used it in a while because of my allergy.  Now was the time to bring out the fun!!

 I used painters tape to go all the way around the edge of the outside walls of the room I was going to resin.  This should stop any resin leaking into my storage room.  It actually worked quite well.  I was happy with it.

 Link to my Youtube video which shows the making of the resin floor here.  

It begins at approximately 12 minutes 30 seconds in the video.

I used white resin dye on one side, black resin dye on the other side.  I left a gap in the middle for the blue and silver I wanted to  blow into it.  For the blue I actually used Pearl Ex to colour the resin, I love the effect the Pearl Ex has on resin, it makes it all shimmery.  For the Silver resin I used just cheap acrylic silver paint and lots of glitter.  If you watch the video you will understand how I made the pattern.

 I absolutely love the way it has turned out.  It is so glossy and shiny and glittery.  I love resin and I love miniatures.  Perfect combination 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜.

On the Storage side of the bakery I decided to use my own tiles that I made from resin, black dye and silver glitter.  These are available on My Etsy Shop, Link here.  I have many colours and styles available.

I began by gluing the resin tiles down with Helmar's wood glue again.  It worked superbly for the body of the bakery so I thought I would stick with it.  It honestly did not take too long to glue all of the tiles down.

When I finished, I used grout tiling powder to fill in the gaps and cement the tiles to the ground, the powder is available in the craft section from Bunnings.  I am yet to polish the tiles as I have so much going on at the moment.











 I have already begun the painting and the decorations on the walls.  I don't want to ruin the surprise so I shall wait until my next dollhouse update.





My current Projects I am working on........

 An acrylic paint pour onto a vase.

 A resin ocean pour on canvas.

Finally put the legs on to my river Resin miniature table.

 A miniature polymer clay ming vase.

 And I finally finished the black Pug in oil paints that I started a while ago.  IT was hard.














Here is the link for my Youtube Channel.......MY YOUTUBE CHANNEL!!

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Aaaand Pinterest....... https://www.pinterest.com.au/krystalrose316/pins/
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Until next time.........

Reviewing Color By Feliks Youtube Painting Tutorial

Reviewing Color By Feliks Painting Tutorial

Ok ok it's not as bad as it sounds, I am not judging him, I am just letting the world know how I think his tutorials are.  One opinion in a billion voices.

Let me start by saying he is a huge Instagram star, and I am slow off the post and have just recently started watching his videos.  The paintings he makes are so peaceful and make me feel like there's something worth smiling for in this world.  

I actually tried his boat painting, the sunset is to die for.  

 Color by Feliks Boat Tutorial

He makes it look so easy, sigh.  First off, my fluffy brush, too fluffy.  Actually no, it worked well, the way his did, it was blending like a bad ass, but, and a big but, for every stroke I did with it, it lost ten hairs.  These hairs stuck in the paint, making it impossible to flick them off.  So I had to scratch them off, leave a mark in the paint, and fix it up with more paint.  I specifically went to Spotlight (Australia's Hobby Lobby I guess), and spent $30 on this Mop Brush.



This is it.  A one inch Royal & Langnickel Mop brush.  $30.  I was super excited to try it.  That is a lot of money for one brush, but I love painting, and I wanted to try his technique.
If I could list regrettable buys, this would definitely be on the list.  It made me so frustrated and upset with myself that I just couldn't stop the hairs from sticking to the painting.  I wet it, plucked the hairs out that I could see were loose, but it would still lose more and more hairs.  I swear it was mocking me.

So luckily I remembered a previous purchase of a mop brush. (Ooops)  I bought it from Officeworks here in Hervey Bay, it is a J.Burrows number 20.  Barely lost a hair, not a hair was there!  By this stage I was too agitated to properly be able to follow Feliks.  I wanted to cry.  This is no reflection on his teaching, this was a bad purchase, bad timing and frustration.

I ended up painting this and then stopping.  It was pointless, I couldn't salvage it sigh.

I will come back to this tutorial when I think I am better prepared.  So, I tried another Feliks tutorial.  It is a snow scene with trees and a little cabin.  Ok, I was ready......


ColorbyFeliks snow scene tutorial


He talks clearly, I can understand every word, he shows the mixing of the paint and uses minimal
colours, which makes things easier.  He isn't selling super expensive brushes to me and he worked at a speed that enabled me to follow his progress easily.  I will say that I am still a beginning painter and I am used to the Youtubers like The Art Sherpa, and Painting with Jane.  They specifically explain every brush stroke, and tell the reasoning why a colour is being put on the canvas.  Feliks does do this fairly well, just not to the extent that the beginniner tutorials do.  I had some issues with the way that he made his trees, I couldn't grasp the concept straight away.  I did have to watch a few other painting tutorials on pine trees to get what I was doing wrong. 

My trees were too pointy. And too sparse, and just wrong.




His explanation of mixing the colours was absolutely perfect, nothing amiss there.  Easy to understand, easy to follow.  The only problem I was having was, he is just a step above the beginner painter.

These are ColorbyFeliks' winter trees, I just couldn't get mine to look like his.  That said, every other aspect of the painting I could follow, and understand his reasoning one hundred percent.








This is what my final trees ended up looking like, after a couple of attempts and some repainting and fixing up of the things I did not like.  Still nothing like Feliks' but I was "happy" lol.  I followed the rest of the tutorial easily.  Not a problem.  He is funny, easy to understnad and most important of all he makes some gorgeous paintings that I just want to paint and paint and paint with him.  In all honesety, I loved it.  I like the way he teaches, albeit not quite as detailed as others, I like that he uses a minimal colour palette, his paintings are, well words cannot describe them.  That said he is not for the absolute beginner painter, unless you are one of those people that catch on really quick.  I am not.  Takes me a little time and explanation to get some things.  Considering he is only "new" to youtube (less than a year I believe), he still has lots of time to improve on the small little things.

I wholeheartedly recommend watching his tutorials and trying them at your own pace, to be able to paint even a little bit like him would make me super happy. I love painting tutorials, and I love trying new techniques and teachers.  To put him in the same category as The Art Sherpa is a little difficult right now.  She does many many live paintings with questions coming in as she paints and so she can answer them. 

If I was to crituque myself on my painting below I would have lots to say.  😉  So luckily I am not lol.

Remember, mop brushes shed, they shed a lot, be prepared for that.  I have not tried all brands of mop brushes though, so maybe one day there will be a non shedder lol.  That said they blend perfectly, like a dream, like using oil paints.  It's just those darn hairs.

I am currently working on a few different things, like I said, trying to find who I am and what is my niche.  I am selling my art items on Etsy, although my goal is to own my own website and be an Artist, whatever that means.

Tomorrow I will be working on finishing my miniature resin geode tables and the miniature resin river table.  Perfect for dollhouses and anyone who likes miniatures.  These are prototypes, experiments, and I have no idea if they will work out.  I am just trying to make a name for myself, make something I am proud of.

This is a sneak peak of my river resin table, not looking flash just yet, but I have my fingers crossed after I have done everything to it, that it will look freaking awesome!

I am also working on miniature resin geode tables.  I just have the legs left to do on these babies.

Anyway, until next time.......

 Please follow me on facebook........... KristinaObrienart
I am also on Instagram.......... https://www.instagram.com/kristina_obrien_art/
Aaaand Pinterest....... https://www.pinterest.com.au/krystalrose316/pins/
And now on Etsy.........  https://www.etsy.com/au/shop/KrystalRoseCreations?ref=seller-platform-mcnav

Glow in the dark resin dragon egg, painted with acrylics

Set backs, mistakes and frustrations.

As I sit here writing this I realise that I am not in a writey mood. All my effort and thoughts are elsewhere and I am struggling to put down the words.  The longer I type though, the more I am getting into it. I find that this is similar to lots of other things, until I actually start and make myself do something, it seems too daunting and big of a job.  Once underway, I actually enjoy it, so without further adieu here it is.  My blog post about my gorgeous dragon egg.

My vision was this magnificent dragon egg, glowing furiously, with a polymer clay dragon tail that protruded out from it.  First off, me using a jigsaw, ugh, we are not a good match.  My mdf cutting of an egg shape not so great.  So all my dreams shattered I had to wait until I had help to cut it.  This completely demotivated me and to be honest I did feel like a failure.  Every time I saw that badly cut egg I would remind myself how useless I am.  Why bother Kristina, I would think.  Nothing you do is good.

I put the egg in the too hard basket.  I would get annoyed every time I saw it.  There was always this part of me though, that saw it and wanted to start, wanted to make it turn into the vision in my head.  The old me, I have to be honest, would've thrown it away and never tried again.  I have this little bit of determination now, that I never used to have.



So with it newly cut by my wonderful husband I decided I could start.
I originally painted the base of the egg in Cadmium Orange hue acrylics.  Then I applied a layer of Golden's glazing medium mixed with the encapsulated glow powder.  It glowed, but not enough.  I wanted the orange to burst out from between the scales when I painted them on, like fire, not like badly painted s%#t.  This set me back again, I don't handle stuff ups very well.  So there the egg sat, taunting me, laughing at me, again.  Until I got so angry that I wanted to teach it a lesson lol.

There are two types of glow in the dark powder available from Glowing gecko.  There is the normal one which can be mixed with most things except water based materials, like acrylics.  They also have an encapsulated powder that costs a little more, glows a little less, but it can be mixed with acrylic paint, water etc.  

I decided to just paint the egg, and make the glow between the scales by painting the areas in.  I started with red acrylic paint as the base layer, added black to make the shadows, and put the scales on.  OMG ick.  Just ick.  Anger again grew within me and I wanted to scream, it looks like crap!!  Well maybe a little more profanity than "crap" was used lol.  Walk away, again.  I walked back though, and even more determined than ever I decided after two hours of individually painting on the scales that I had to redo them all.  Then I had to shade them, covering some up in darker colours, but I was finally seeing an egg shape appearing.  GLIMMER OF HOPE!! 

 I put some cracks in so I could make them glow instead of the scales, less work shhhhhhh.

The cracks I hated with a passion.  I won't go over how long it took for me to get the darn things right.  I almost gave up again.  I was beginning to hate this egg.

NO NO NO.  It just looked wrong no matter how much fiddling I did.  GRRRRRRRRRRR.














I decided to focus on the dragon tail that I wanted to come out of a crack in the egg.  Using polymer clay I made the tail, baked it.  Then held it up to the egg and hated the way it looked.

 I had come this far I was NOT giving up.  I painted the dragon tail but it still looked like some weird tail that didn't fit with the egg.  I think it needed to be bigger.  I kept the tail but it is for something else.  This egg was not it's place.  Dammit.  My 9 year old son said to me, "I thought you were going to have an eye in a crack?"  Hmmmm, no I didn't but that sounds like a good idea, thank you lol.

 Painted the eye, wrong, wrong wrong.  It took me a while to realise that I needed black paint in the cracks, because inside the egg would be dark.  Once I did that it was like angels were singing in the background.

Still desperately trying to make the tail fit, lol.  

I got the normal glow powder, mixed it with the resin and slowly and delicately poured it on the cracks and the eye.  I left this to dry, because I wanted to make it super glossy so it needed another resin layer.  I used Solid solutions resin, I haven't had a problem with it, except for the occasional patch of the art or table that doesn't get covered with resin, no matter how much I spread it.  It's called a dip or something like that.  Very frustrating.  I call them oogies.  So I did pour another layer of clear resin over the egg, but I got oogies.  three of them.  FFFFFFFFluffy puddles!!!!!

I poured another layer, carefully ensuring that the oogies were covered, and agh, nope.  I love solid solutions resin, it does everything I want, and because I am still a beginner perhaps it is something I do to make the oogies happen.  I don't know.  I do absolutely adore that resin.  I'm just trying out new ones to see what I like.  Bunnings the hardware store here in Australia, sell a beautiful gorgeous glassy oh so glossy resin.  Oh I love it, perfect, but almost $60 a litre.  A little bit too pricey.  Save it for the special pieces.

The egg glowed, it was shiny, it looked like a dragon egg, the majority of it was a glass finish, but those damn oogies were killing me.  

You can see the defects in this video on the resin.

I ran out of resin while doing the egg so I bought in bulk a different resin.  It is designed not to have oogies!!!!!  It kept it's promise!!!!  NO oogies!!!!  YAY.

 AND SHE GLOWS!!!  I put glow powder and resin on the side of the egg to make it appear like there is a glow all around it. 

 This is the final product, after weeks of hatred, anger, disappointment and mistakes.  I actually really love it.  

 And here is my pugs reflection in the egg.

Wow,  I just realised that after my initial frustrations of writing something, I have gotten more done than I thought.  It is good to get this out of my head and accomplish something, even if it's never read by anyone, I did it.  I finished the egg, I didn't stop trying.  I love the end product and I feel good about myself momentarily.

Now onto the next project.  I have been focusing too much on tables and resin geodes etc that I have neglected my main passion, painting.  My next big goal is a huge canvas painting of Aquaman's face (Jason Momoa).  With water dripping off it.  In oils.  I cannot wait to grid it up and start.  I just have so many things to get done.  I also think Aqua man is going to take me two weeks to paint so it won't be done in time for my next blog.

I am unsure what my next blog will be about.  I'm thinking maybe a detailed (kind of) blog about the products I use in the resin geodes, like the glitter and the gems etc.  Or possibly I could do a blog about the Captain America table I will be finished this week.  Or the one I am looking forward to but I know I will fail and get angry at for a while, the harry potter glowing table I have plans for.   I also want to address mental illness and it's ability to kill every thing and every relationship in my life, and how I chose to fight everyday.  Some days just making sure my kids are happy and safe is enough.  Mental health is very important I am learning.

Anyway, enjoy your week.  It is my daughters birthday this week.  She is a beautiful 22 this year.

Enjoy yourselves.


Please follow me on facebook........... KristinaObrienart
I am also on Instagram.......... https://www.instagram.com/kristina_obrien_art/
Aaaand Pinterest....... https://www.pinterest.com.au/krystalrose316/pins/

Hopefully within the month I will have my own website selling my one of a kind products, and if I can conquer my fear of being seen I will have a Youtube channel.