All lit up now

It's not quite finished but at least I know that the lights are all working - whoo hooo!  At first, as instructed, I joined the fireplace, table lamp and hidden light together.  But because the fireplace light flickers, so did the other lights.  So I used one of the coin battery holders from my stash for the fireplace and made it a separate control.  I could have added the light to the strip lighting wiring but this has the added advantage that now I can turn on the lamp and the light hidden behind the false wall, without turning on the strip lighting on the ceiling if I want to.  This is what it looks like when I do that.

And this is with all the lights on and the fireplace flickering.

Of course I couldn't resist turning off all my RL living room lights and taking a photo of it like that.

As I said, it isn't quite finished yet.  I have ordered another window from the UK, because I can't source one here in Sydney.  I am not happy with the Christmas tree, and it will receive further attention. The red sparkly dots don't show up at all well and the gold pieces disappear into the greenery.  I don't really like the gold bunka either. Ideas for decoration would be welcome please.  I thought that perhaps I'd try some gold embroidery thread; what do you think?  I'd like to have 'snow' on it but am nervous about adding paint in case I wreck the tree totally - any tips?

Also my nice red Christmas tree skirt has disappeared - goodness knows how or where!  Luci provided an alternative one, a green version but I prefer the red one so I'm hoping it will turn up before I have to stick it all down. 

Here is another view with all the lights on, this time from the rounded end of the roombox.

As I said, I'd really welcome suggestions on improving that poor Christmas tree!  

G'day Wanda!

It's a great pleasure to welcome you here Wanda.  I hope you have had a look around and found some things that interest you, and that you will visit often and leave some comments.   I really love having feedback from readers, to get a feel of how what you enjoy and think.

You will find out that I love minis in all scales but my current favourite is 1:48 scale, and I really love the detail you can get in such a tiny space with this scale.  I also love finding extra things to add every so often to a setting.  You will also soon see that I specialize in UFOs!  Not by design  but it just seems to happen.  I optimistically say each year that this will be the year that I turn some of those UFOs into FFOs - and I am hoping that 2012 will be the year that this actually eventuates, so you will possibly see some of my many projects finally in their finished state :)

So do keep an eye on the blog, and I hope you will enjoy what is to come.  

A LITTLE bit of Christmas charm......

Quite little in fact - but packed full of elegance and Christmas charm! It's a quarter scale Christmas living room from Luci Hanson.  My kit arrived on Friday, just as Peter was ready to leave to come out to the country town where I had been for the last two weeks or so.  He brought it out with him knowing that I had been anxiously waiting its arrival.

This is what came in the kit:

Every single thing that is required for the finished roombox is included, except the batteries for the lighting.  The box has hidden strip lighting across the top front and the interior is removable.  

It's beautifully made.

And this is what it will look like once it is completed

Don't you love the half-round roombox?  Each is handmade by Luci's husband, and they are available from their website, Cascade Miniatures (click  here). 

We all returned home from our daughter's house on Monday afternoon, getting back around 7pm so were very very tired - I was too tired to even open the box again.  It was a 7-hour trip, not too many roadworks which was good.  I only drove for 1 1/2 hours this time, and almost completed a beaut little caddy pincushion for our daughter on the way - I love hand piecing. It would have been finished except I didn't have any stuffing for it. Pictures later.  Yesterday I attended the Christmas party with my mother at the nursing home where she is a resident.  I stayed with her for the rest of the afternoon so last night it was time to start catching up on the washing and today is the first chance I've had to get into the box of goodies again. 

There was an email from Luci this morning to say that some people hadn't received their page of illustrations to match the instructions.  I checked and sure enough, I was one of them.  So is my friend Jan in Bundy who is also doing the same project.  Our kits also have a plain square window instead of the one pictured in the model, and we don't like that nearly as much so we are going to replace the window.  That will possibly hold things up a bit for us, but I am trying to source the windows locally.  But there are things we can do without them

I decided I'd start with the fireplace - I'm still a bit too tired to tackle the armchairs and make a good job of them.  I started by painting the firebox inside brown then daubing black over the lower part.  I decided I wanted a brown surround like in the model, and did some brown on the bottom too.  It still needs more coats of paint, the flickering globe and the logs added, but here it is so far

I also painted the inside of the removable part of the roombox with a couple of coats of white craft paint.  Here it is with the window cut out of the false wall, and the Santa graphic adhered to the rear wall.

I cut the window opening out of the false wall and added the spacer pieces to the back of it.  

The spacer that goes under the window has greenery added on top of it, with white paint added for 'snow'.

It makes such a difference with the wallpaper added and the flooring paper added, doesn't it? The fireplace is just sitting there for now - there is a piece of furniture beside it, so I have to make sure that there is room for that before I glue it in.   once I have added the flickering globe and the rest of the flames and timber bits, I will run the wires through the false wall and out the rear wall and glue the fireplace permanently in beside the little table that goes there.  

I've cut out the rug and put it in place but I haven't stuck it down.  I'll wait to do that until I have done the furniture.  I just wanted to see it on the floor.

Not bad for one afternoon and evening's work!  How do you like it so far?

Some more new followers....

I have been really amiss in welcoming some more new followers: Andy (dollshousesand miniatures.blogspot.com.au); Rebecca (mamasminis.wordpress.com); Esperanza (Hope) at (lasminisdesperanza.blogspot.com.au): Araceli, Beatriz and Fiona, a fellow Aussie.  

It is such a pleasure to welcome you all here.  If your blog is mentioned then I have already visited and have enjoyed the experience very much indeed.  I am always so fascinated by the mini experiences of others and really enjoy reading about your work and thoughts.  

Thank you for signing on as followers here - it seems that it won't be too long before I will be thinking once again about a giveaway!  In the meantime, pull up a chair, grab a cup of your favourite beverage, relax and de-stress from all the Christmas preparations by browsing through the posts here.  I hope you will contribute lots of feedback via comments and constructive criticism: is there too much information, not enough, would you like more detailed information in the form of pages that are more easily located etc?  

Again, welcome and thank you - without people to read the posts, there is no point in sharing on a blog!  Knowing that people look, read and comment is a wonderful motivation to do thing s so that I have something to share with you.