Some new goodies

Once again our club has been the recipient of items from the estate of a miniaturist. Our president, Tina, went through the 'stash' items and put them into ziploc bags  that were handed out to members last night. Barb R. wasn't able to attend last night so I also picked up a bag for her.

My bag contained some great things that I could use:

Houseworks corner posts, a radio, small bush, Christmas bag and Tinker Toy container. I have homes for everything but the corner posts.

Everything else in the bag will go to Barb for her grand-daughter.

In addition, we had a table with some House of Miniature furniture kits, Michael's hutches, some other furniture and a selection of magazines. The magazines were sold for 25 cents each. Members who were interested in the other items put their names in for a drawer. My name was the third drawn and I was lucky to get the one kit that I wanted!

Barb R. and I have have birthdays in March. Since Barb S. is away next month, she gave us our birthday gifts early.

Interesting morning. The smoke detectors are being tested in all the units so it was a noisy morning. The gentleman who tested my smoke detectors showed great interest in my minis and mentioned he had an wall niche that he thought about putting some kind of scene in. So I gave him my card. One of my smoke detectors is not working so that's good to know.

Almost finished right hand side, shelving left side, thinking....

Here I cut the piece to close in below the furniture shelf. Once it had been fitted, I cut four faux "doors" to provide storage under the furniture. I bevelled the edges of the doors then glued them in place and weighted them under books until the glue dried. 

Here it's fitted in place. I won't add the hardware for the doors until the piece has been painted...and I won't paint it until the pieces are cut for the right hand shelving as I want to spray paint the pieces white and want to paint all the shelving pieces at one time.

On the left hand side of the room, there will be wall to wall shelving. The top shelf will be even with the partial wall below the window. In order to make the items on the lower shelves more visible, I'm planning on slanting the two lower shelves as shown in the sketch below.

That's the plan so far.......

Once that unit is built and installed, I'll have a better idea of how much more shelving I'll need.

The 9" Lemax tree will probably have to be eliminated for lack of space. The 4" Christmas tree by Bev Potter-Marien on the right may be the Christmas tree that I'll be able to highlight.

There is just SO much to put in the room and I just don't know where to put it all.

I have a wonderful hanging Santa carpet (no room for that), demonstration door cover (with rolled sale pieces) this wonderful ribbon rack that could be part of a gift wrapping area:

All kinds of wrapping paper (rolls and wrapped sheets) and bows; books (need a magazine rack for them); nativity scenes, placemats and napkins, ornaments (both boxed and individual), garland, stained glass hangings, Christmas stockings (both packaged and dimensional). Santa Claus suits (two different styles)....

In order to fit so many other things in, I may have to eliminate this ornament board that is one of my favourite pieces and one of the first things I made for the shop. This is going to be a BIG decision! This was going to be the focal point of the room and I'd be devastated to lose it but that may have to be a choice I have to make. It takes up about 1/3 of the width of the back wall so using it almost eliminates the use of anything else on that wall.

I thought I had all this figured out a couple days ago until I looked at what was left in my stash and had to rethink everything.........

The usual one step forward and two steps back.....

Right side of the Christmas shop

Originally I had planned on having open shelving on each side of the shop. But because the walls below the windows were a bit high and the wooden framing below them added another 5/8" to the depth of the space below the windows, any furniture placed on the floor of the room would be barely visible through the windows. With that in mind, I decided to put a raised carpeted section on the right hand side of the room in order to showcase the furniture. (Thanks to Sue in Calgary for suggesting this solution.)

I started by putting a piece of 1/4" balsa on the side wall to act as a support for the 'floor'.

TIP: When you need to take a measurement inside a piece, one way is to fit a piece of typing paper in the space then remove and measure it. Another way is to take two rulers (in this case two 6" rulers) and put them across the space to be measured with the 0 measurement at either end of the space. Add the two measurements where the rulers overlap and you'll have the measurement you need. (In this case, the upper ruler is 6" and the lower is 4 3/4" so the total width is 10 3/4". (Yeah, I know that in this case I was able to make that particular measurement from the outside of the glass but that isn't always possible.)

I want the 'floor' to be 3 1/2" deep so I've cut a piece of 3/32" basswood to 3 1/2" x 11 1/2".

Then I clipped out a 3/8" square out of each corner to allow for the wood frames of the case.

I dry-fitted that then cut two 3" pieces of the 1/4" balsa to support it at either end.

Then I used Weldbond to glue the balsa in place and clamped the side pieces in place.

None of the green carpeting I had looked right with the floor of the room plus I wanted the contrast of the red and had this nice piece. Using Yes glue, I glued the velvet to the basswood and wrapped it around the edge about 3/8". (I'll trim it once the glue has dried completely.)

Here I've put that piece under a heavy book (good book and also a great weight for this) to ensure it dries flat.

One of the problems on this side of the room is that the glue that attached the matboard to the outside of the glass shows on the inside so I have to cut another piece of matboard for the inside of the glass. I've cut it to width but won't be able to cut it to height until the carpeted piece is in place. (This won't be an issue on the other side of the room as the top shelf on that side will be even with the top of the partial wall.)

Once the glue has dried completely on the carpeting, I'll be able to trim it and put that piece in place, trim and add the matboard. Then I have to cut and carpet the piece between that and the floor....and cut a piece of matboard to cover the inside of the glass on the right front.

Later:

I trimmed the carpeted piece and glued it in place on the balsa supports and clamped it.

Once that was done, I was able to measure the height of the matboard and glue it in place.

Second thought here: This is a shop, perhaps in a mall, where the rent is high so the space below the furniture display would be used for storage of extra merchandise rather than being closed off. So I'll deal with that tomorrow (hopefully).

Most of the work on this can be done by simply putting the top of the container on it's back or side but sometimes I have to work on it through the bottom and I can do that by propping it up on these two boxes as I needed to do to try the placement of the furniture.

Tentative placement of furniture in the window: (I photographed it against a piece of white matboard so it would show up.)

Quilt, if I decide to keep it in the window, needs to be draped properly.

It's coming together.

Camp Mini HaHa

September 24th - 29th Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, Canada

Camp Mini Ha Ha is an annual miniaturist retreat, held since 2001. The camp is a cooperative event, bringing together miniaturists at every level of experience, from beginner to expert to teacher, and is designed to promote sharing while learning and having a whole lot of fun. Our teachers come from near and far, and campers from all over the world are welcome. Plus no cooking and cleaning!

This year’s project is a lamp designed by Wayne Dieleman. The lamp kit will include the wiring and the plexi-glass and a removable insert.  The project is the lamp with a Mardi Gras insert. Teachers will be Wayne Dieleman, Iris Sutherland and Judith Blondell.

Two major problems with this project

The first problem is only in terms of photography and the blog. This is a case from Michael's that was part of my retirement gift from Sir George Simpson School. It's great and a pretty good size BUT the things that make it a wonderful mini shop are also the things that make it almost impossible to photograph. It has a framed top case with glass on the top and three sides and a mirrored back wall that fits into a wooden base. Everything is visible from all angles and it doesn't need lighting.

The mirrored back makes photography very difficult. Sometimes I'm able to cover the mirror and take pictures without that reflection but that's not always possible.

The other problem is in design. The glass walls are centred in wood that is 9/16 inches square that fits into the wooden base.

So any furniture has to be inset from the wall. And precisely placed so the lid can be put in place. I saw a scene done in this case at Camp Mini Ha Ha so I had seen the problems that could ensue.

Trying to overcome this problem was one of the reasons I have taken so long to get working on this project.

It finally occurred to me that the way to deal with this was to build the shelves I want into the cover itself so that is coming together in my head - along with thinking that perhaps the lower shelves should be on an angle so items on them will be more visible.

That would be on one side of the room.

I have some absolutely wonderful pieces of Christmas furniture. But if I put them on the 'floor', they don't show up through the windows...So I'm thinking of putting a raised furniture display section on the right hand side of the room.

Just letting you know where I'm coming from....

Cash register, plate rail

Well, this is where we left the cash register...

TIP: When making up a printie, I usually glue some coins/washers (pennies are good since they're not used in Canada anymore) inside to give it some weight.

TIP: Above you can see the black lines where the folds are. You can generally get rid of these by lightly sanding along the line with a fine emery board.

It worked reasonably well here then I got the bright idea to varnish the body of the cash register to give it a nicer, more realistic finish. BIG mistake. I've done this sucessfully many times in the past but this time I ended up with a weird finish AND it warped the portion on the lower left of the top.

Since it was already ruined, I experimented on the keys with clear dimensional embellishment to give them some dimension. First I tried the pen versions (which come in colours). Wasn't too pleased with that so experimented with the bottled version.

So started over with (again) one cardstock and one paper copy of the printie. This time I got smart and cut the cash register slip from the paper copy first , cut a slit in the cardstock copy and glued the paper copy in place before assembling the cardstock printie. Lightly sanded the edges to minimize the black fold lines. Then I used the Glossy Accents to give the monitor screen and cash register keys dimension. I really think these touches bring the printie up a notch. (It looks SO good in person.)

So I put the completed piece on the counter and it fits perfectly on the 'glass' portion of the counter BUT it's too low and the cash drawer won't open. SHEESH! This was supposed to be a really quick item to make.

Fortunately, it's a quick fix! Check my scrap wood drawer and find a scrap that only requires one cut to fit perfectly on the base of the cash register. Paint it grey and glue it to the bottom of the cash register.

NOW the cash drawer will open!

Plate Rail: I had a small piece of dentil molding left over from a very old project so I took it and added a square strip of wood to the top of it to make a plate rail.

Glued, then painted white. Sanded with a piece of brown paper.

Checked with This to That to see what I should use to glue the molding to the mirror on the back wall and discovered that the second choice would be Weldbond which was convenient as it's my glue of choice for most things. I measured down from the top of the back of the room and used a strip of masking tape to mark where the plate rail needed to go.

The tape has been removed so I'm trying a couple item placements.

I don't have room for even 1/10th of the stuff I've collected for this project.......

More Christmas shop ideas, Tonight's club workshop

This afternoon I started work on some shopping baskets for the shop but will leave telling you about them until I get a sample finished and can post a tutorial.

One of the things I have planned for the Christmas shop is a plate rail on the upper back wall to hold all my Christmas plates.

The plates on the left are made from pop cap liners. Thought I had posted this tutorial before but can't find it on the blog so if you'd like to see it, let me know and I can add it. The ones on the right are porcelain.

Club member, Barb Striethorst, taught a workshop on bulrushes/cattails, water lilies and dandelions tonight. Barb is an incredible teacher who not only supplies wonderfully complete kits but also writes some of the absolutely BEST instructions I have ever seen!

1:48 scale water lilies

1:48 scale dandelions, 1:12 scale dandelions, 1:12 scale cattails and 1:48 scale cattails

Hard at work...

Jillian (right) with her friend who isn't a miniaturist, per se, but who is into miniature gardening, inspired by Janit Calvo, author of Gardening in Miniature.

On the left is Cheryl H., club member from Nova Scotia and owner of the Yahoo Group Canada Minis.

I didn't take part in the workshop (although I did buy the cattail and dandelion kits). Instead I took the printie for the modern cash register from Small Stuff (formerly Jim Collins') printable site. As you can see, my folds are not as crisp as they should be. I`m going to try to clean that up and make it more realistic looking. One thing I did do was print it on plain paper as well as cardstock and cut a slit where the cash register receipt comes out and insert the plain paper cut out of the receipt in the slit to give it another dimension.

It`s too late and I`m too tired to work on this now but tomorrow I`m going to try a few things to make this look better and more lifelike.