Kitchen Tiles

Hello All,

Just a quick post today. I was recently very excited to come across a fellow Australia blogger of miniatures. We are few and far between compared to you Europeans and Americans, ooops not to forget Canadians, but you all get my drift. The most exciting thing is that , Emily from Architecture of Tiny Distinction is from Melbourne!!! Incase some of you weren't aware that is where I am from, down south.......

Any way, Emily asked me how I did my kitchen tiles and rather than take up a huge amount of space on her blog I thought I would explain here incase any one else wanted to know.

Firstly I followed Josie's direction were she explains in the Kitchen section of her Cannel House website . I painted some card stock the colour of my choice, then sprayed with several thin layers of Varnish.(more on that later) I then cut the tiles to the required size (I used a guillotine as I found it most accurate) I then stuck each tile to a piece of graph paper I had cut to the correct size of my wall and marked out where the tiles were to go. Once this was done I used gap filler to grout the tiles. This in brief is how Josje explains it but I made one VERY big mistake that cost me hours later. I was impatient to get it done and didn't realise at this early stage that it is important to do several thin coats by watering down the paint, this way you don't get brush stokes. I found it difficult to get the paint to level without brush stokes so I change course and used an Acrylic Enamel for house painting. This is were my problem began. The spray varnish reacted with the paint and left spots. SO, because there was already a gloss I decided to skip the varnish, only to find that when I filled the gaps in the tiles, instead of wiping away easily it grabbed and was very time consuming to remove. It then left my tiles dull with no shine. I then chose to paint every single tile again which took hours, I nearly gave up on miniatures all together. It improved the result but I am still not entirely happy with the finnish.

Well you live and learn!! I am currently painting my new fire surround and the white iron bed steads and how am I doing it???? With lots of very thin coats!!!

I am also doing another little miniature project as a gift for some one and I am really very happy with it so far. I will post about it in a day or two.

Until then, Happy minis every one!!

ML Fi xx