cigarette vending machine

The bar is still not coming together in my head so I decided to make a cigarette vending machine for the barroom.

The machine itself is an amalgam of several different machines so it may or may not be particularly historically correct. Most of the ones I found that were actually from the 40s were very Art Deco and much too upscale for what I wanted.

Then there were hours of research trying to find what brands of cigarettes would have been sold in Canada in that time frame. Finally found this website which was very helpful.

I constructed the vending machine from matboard.

 The front of the machine.

 The top sign and coin slot is from a picture of an actual vending machine. The cigarette packages are from the 40s. They've been given two thick coats of clear nail polish.

 These are ship model belaying pins. I got mine at a model train shop in Edmonton. Bought them originally to use as perfume bottle tops.

They will be the levers to release your choice of cigarette brand. Here I've sandwiched them in a roll of tape to hold them in place while I colour them silver with my Pilot pen.

 Painted.

On the back of the front of the vending machine, I've built a little box where the cigarettes will be dispensed. (It's painted silver on the inside.

 Here the coin slot has been added at the front top and the picture of the available cigarette brands has been added with the belaying pins stuck in holes below the pictures.

 The sides added, then the back.

 The top added, then the bottom.

 The tapered legs are the ends of square toothpicks from Dollarama painted silver.

 In place in the barroom.

Not mini today - but fun

When our grandkids, Jonah (5 1/2) and Holly (3 1/2), were here, they really enjoyed some dress-up things I had for them.

So for Christmas this year, I've decided to make them a "tickle trunk". With that in mind, Joanne and I had a ball at Dollarama the other day looking for things to put in it. So far, this is what we found:

 Miss Holly loves pink and purple so I got two garlands of gerber daisies - put some on a tulle ribbon on a floppy white hat and made a bouquet of the rest. Also made the magic wand. A doctor kit, crowns and SWAT team shield, badge, whistle, and communication head gear. Joanne spotted the dinosaur hats - love them!

A couple tambourines, three wild wigs, tiaras, feather boa, leis, magnifying glass, pirate sword and a couple men's hats.

They both have great imaginations so they should get lots of fun out of this. And I have plans for other things to add to it.

Musings and another little gown

When I started this blog, I promised myself that I would post every single day. Hopefully this would mean that every day I would work on clearing my backlog of UFOs. But let's face it, some days the muse just isn't with me as far as the specific project I'm trying to complete is concerned.

Today was one of those days.

There are a couple things that I had noted for mentioning here.

Gluing: My favourite gluing tool these days is a wooden coffee stirrer. I buy them in packages at Dollarama and there are always some that are not perfect so this is a handy use for those. As the glue dries, I just cut off that end of the stirrer.

Reminder to self: Do NOT clean out stash again! I wanted a cleaning pail to put under the sink and don’t have any left except a rusty one for the cabin. This is about the fifth time this has happened…very frustrating!

Decided to make another gown but didn't use Kleenex this time. When we were in Kelowna last spring, I found some lovely handmade paper meant for scrapbooking at one of the dollar stores. Originally thought I might use it for wallpaper but haven't yet so thought I'd try a piece of it the size of half a Kleenex for a gown. While it's quite thin, it's certainly stiffer than Kleenex so I crumpled it up then flattened it several times until it was softer.

You start with the outline of the gown on cardstock, a piece of paper the size of half a Kleenex and a strip of lace (optional)

Glue the lace along the bottom of the paper. This is glued on the back so only the scallops will show but that's just a personal choice with this particular lace.

Run glue down both sides of the cardstock and glue the paper on both sides about 1/4" in

 When the glue has dried along the sides, put a dab of glue at the middle of the hem of the paper and the middle of the cardstock

 Like this:

Then do the same at the halfway point on either side. Let that dry then gather the 'fabric' at the waist of the cardstock. I've glued a piece of ribbon at the waist (completely around the piece).

 A few scraps of the paper are scrunched up and glued at the top of the cardstock to give some shape to the top of the gown. Trim the extra fabric from the top leaving a seam allowance of about 1/4", shape the top of the gown and glue theseam allowance to the back of the cardstock.

 This is what the back looks like.

 I added a couple straps of narrow ribbon and put strips of self-stick rhinestones from the scrapbooking section at the dollar store on the straps and belt. Also put another stone at the neckline. Dress is finished.

 This is how the back looks.

 And the finished dress on a hanger.

The hanger is made from a piece of wire:

Once it's shaped, it's coated with white glue and wrapped with a length of unravelled Bunka.

shelving

Doors are on and shelves in:
Doors shut:

 Doors open:

In the room:

Shelves still need to be filled. Bottles on the 'glass' shelves, of course, but other than that I've no idea. A pail and cleaning rags below the sink...

the sink and plumbing

I didn't have a plastic piece in my stash that would work for a sink so I decided to make one from cardstock. This would also give me the exact measurements I wanted as the counter is quite shallow.

The original sketch:

Cut and scored. The 'x' marks the centre for the drain.

 Glued together:

Hole cut in the counter:

Probably wouldn't have been an undermount sink at that time but.....

Clamped in place for glue to dry:

 Luckily there was a set of taps with a swivel faucet in my stash:

 Counter glued in place:

 Used my wire bending jig from Princess Auto to shape the drain pipe (I've only had it for about 6 years LOL):

 Painted two strips of wire with copper nail polish and glued them against the back wall for the water pipes and bent a piece of copper wire and glued in place for the drain pipe.

The doors are cut and stained to enclose this section but I'm off to dinner with old friends/co-workers then to the Community Band Concert.

Last night's workshop

Our club, Miniature Enthusiasts of Edmonton, met last night for our monthly workshop. When Sunni, Joanne, Lorry and Delores were in Arizona (Tucson to see The Mini-Time Machine Museum of Miniatures then Phoenix for the miniatures show and sale), at the miniature show they saw a great collection of dresses made by club members from Kleenex. The club was kind enough to pass on the instructions so last night we tried our hand at making them.

Unfortunately I didn't take my camera last night so don't have any pictures of all the wonderful creations the others made. Here's my first effort.

It's no great shakes but I'm already thinking making these could become addictive. I think I may even try making some from silk. You only do the front of the dress but they can be spread on a bed or hung in a closet to great effect.

Sunni knows a picture framer who saves pieces of matboard for her and she brought a great selection of them to share with club members last night. I got a lovely large white on white piece that I think will be used to finish the back wall of the Bombay House when I get around to finishing the final details on it.

Faux drinking glasses

My first thought was to print pictures of glasses on a transparency, cut them out and glue upright on the shelves, much like I did the liquor bottles. Didn't work.

So while Joanne and I were out this morning, we stopped by the pet store and picked up airline tubing. It's about 1/4" in diameter on the outside. $2.74 for 2 metres. So I cut about two dozen glasses in two sizes - didn't bother with bottoms as they're just going on the shelves for show.

The problem with cutting plastic tubing is getting straight cuts. This isn't a perfect solution but it worked fairly well.

I had a length of wood dowel 3/36" in diameter that fit snugly inside the tubing. I wrapped a piece of tape around the dowel then marked the height I wanted for the glasses around the dowel.

Slipped the tubing over the dowel up to the tape.

Use the straight blade to cut along the pencil line.

The tubing comes in a coil so I should have straightened it and left it for at least a day before cutting it. After I took the picture of the glasses on the shelves, I removed them and strung them on the dowel and I'll leave them there overnight (maybe even hit them with some heat from the hair dryer) and glue the glasses in place tomorrow.

These shelves will also have a door with the mesh insert so the illusion will work anyway.