Gluing the Last Bookshelf and Lights!

I decided to bite the bullet and wire the lights in.  Since I only had three lights I used a small outlet strip that has a USB connection for power.  I can use one of the many charger plugs leftover from broken cell phones. 

Using the new version of Blogger and getting more and more annoyed with it.  Can't seem to make pictures larger.  Or insert more than one at a time.

The lights don't seem too bright which is good.  Keeps the moody atmosphere which I like.

I also tried to make a different type of coal scuttle but I'm not convinced it's better.  

I'm not convinced it's better but it was worth a try.

I received my heart in a bell jar in the mail.  Originally it was supposed to be a pendant but I took the chain and extra jump rings off and it looks good.

I switched bottles for the message in a bottle, I wanted something brighter and figured I'd put it on a shelf instead of by the box of teeth.  Then I made a lowball glass to go with the whiskey.  And I glued everything onto the shelves.

I like how it looks.  I have some extra books so I'm piling them up to sit on the floor and adding a spider to go on top of them.  I doubt it'll be noticeable but I'll know he's there.

And I put some roses, two white, one red, in a bell jar as well.  Something to sit on the floor.

The rugs aren't lying perfectly smooth but I added the furniture and the cask of Amontillado to the back corner behind the statue.

So far I think it looks pretty good.

I'm debating another small table behind the chaise to go next to the door.  Not sure though.  I'm waiting for the glue to dry on the bookshelf and then I'll add the back wall.

So far my list is coming along though...

A gold bug

A black cat
A purloined letter
A magnifying glass
Cask of Amontillado
Message in a bottle
A box with teeth
A model of an air balloon?
A heart (under glass?)
A jar of eyes (or one eye?)

Previewed the post and I really don't like how small the pictures are.  I suppose I'll have to get used to it.   I've got to go and dye my hair again.  My salon has reopened but for limited hours (which are during my workday) and they want me to sit in my car while my color sets.  Uhmm... no, thank you. I'll do it myself.  

I'm pretty pleased though, I think I'm almost done with the roombox if I don't decide to add a little table.  I have some more doors (1:1 size) to put together before I put another project on the table. Hope everyone is doing well and had a great weekend!

Surfaces and Miscellaneous Pieces

Well the saying is 'a day late and a dollar short'...so I guess I owe everyone a dollar.  I'm good for it, I promise.

I spent part of the weekend assembling furniture.  Unfortunately 1:1 size, not 1:12.  But we needed the shelves and the extra drawers so it had to be done.  But the rest of the weekend I worked on the chamber.

I started by adding the crown molding to the end walls.

Then I began to add the little pieces I've collected to the mantle and the desk.

Then I added some of the books to the end shelf.

I had a few other little pieces that I added when things looked a little bare.

You know that I debated removing a leg from the chaise and propping it up with books.  I decided it was too much fun to not do.  So I broke one off partway and added the books.  Then because it looked good I added the glass and decanter of absinthe.

You'll recall my list from last week and I have managed to cross several things off it.

I found a gold bug and it's on a little stand to go on one of the shelves.  The model air balloon you can see on the desk.  The Purloined letter is on the mantle with the magnifying glass and skull.  I had a little green bottle and rolled up some paper to make the message in a bottle.

The box of teeth... well I made a box.  And a little cushion to go inside.  Then painted it black.  But I wanted something to jazz it up a bit so I used one of my paper punches on some thin cardstock and painted the little pieces gold.

When they were dry I glued them to the box and added a handle.

I found a chunk of plastic that looks white and cut it into little pieces and then glued them to the inside.

So now I have my box of teeth.

I judged it an appropriate time to add my raven to the statue of Pallas.

Then I had to get a piece of cardboard so you could actually see the statue and raven.

A gold bug

A black cat
A purloined letter
A magnifying glass
Cask of Amontillado
Message in a bottle
A box with teeth
A model of an air balloon?
A heart (under glass?)
A jar of eyes (or one eye?)

I have a cask and I'm adding Amontillado to it.  I'll be borrowing Cleopatra from the WQRC so she can sit and be the Black Cat.  I have a jar with an eye coming. It's supposed to glow in the dark which will be cool.  And I have a heart under glass coming as well.

I added my message in a bottle and box of teeth to the hearth since that seemed to be a good place visually.

I might add something to hold the box open a bit.

But once I got most of my stuff added to the fireplace and bookshelf I decided I'd glue them in.

I don't have the back wall added so you can see light where the shelf and fireplace don't quite line up.

But I threaded the wire for the desk lamp through the hole I drilled and put everything in place.  It's not glued in but I got a few pictures to get an idea of how it will look.

I like how it looks so far. The lighting isn't great but once I get all the walls in that will be alleviated quite a bit.

I took Betsy's advice and added a bit of color to the exposed stuffing on the desk chair.  I hope it looks a bit better.  I'm still working out the exact positioning of the desk, statue and chaise, mostly simply by degrees of angle and how to use the floor space well.

I'm excited to have gotten this far!  And hopefully the post office will stop sending stuff from Colorado to Seattle before it comes to Texas.  And I'll get the things I order in a timely fashion.  That's part of why I'm hesitant to order anything from overseas anymore.

What do all of you think?

Desk Chair, Frames & Clock

I'm still recovering a bit, so I slept a lot more than I normally would this weekend.  As a result I don't feel like I've accomplished a lot.

Though my packages finally arrived so three cheers for the post office getting their rears in gear.  (Although one got dropped at my neighbor's house and they brought it over twenty minutes later when I was trying to figure out how to complain that the package had not been delivered despite what the status showed on the USPS site.)  Soo...baby steps?

But the package from Miniatures.com arrived during the week so I could at least get started.

My idea for the desk chair was to bash the Lydia Armchair and turn it into a desk chair with wheels.

So I microwaved it and took it apart.  I sanded the seat portion so I could reattach the back at an angle.  I saved the pieces of fabric so I could use them as patterns for my new fabric.

I had to use new pieces of cardstock for the covers to the back and bottom of the chair.  Because in my experience fabric doesn't glue as well as wood I altered the seat and back cushion fabric pieces to leave the bottom of the chair back and back of the seat to leave the wood bare.

The bottle of nail polish weighs just enough to keep the chair from tipping over backwards.

But once everything was glued together again I had to wait for the glue to dry.  I added a back rung to the legs so I could keep them stable since they felt a little wobbly gluing them back in.

I wanted a pillow to go on the chair and decided to use a spare piece of dowel to make a bolster type pillow.  I wrapped a piece of batting around the dowel and small circular pieces on the ends then glued the end pieces of fabric over them.

I used Kris's method to make tassels for the ends and used the same embroidery stitch for the edges of the main piece of fabric.

As you can see, rubber bands were my friend for this chair/pillow project.

There were a few spots on the fabric of the chair that had gotten glue on them.  I actually didn't mind too much because I wanted to make the chair look pretty beat up.  So I used my craft knife to scrape the glue away and purposely went down to the base fabric a few times. In other places I added stuffing with a spot of glue or used a needle to pull pieces of stuffing into the right place.

I'm pretty happy with how it looks so I tried it out in the room.

I had ordered some frames but they were made of metal, very heavy and extremely elaborate looking so I kept them for something else.

Instead I got some of my frame wood out and made my own.  I would like to go on the record that this was not easy for me and I dislike making frames.

But once they were glued together I painted them black and then antique gold on top of the black.  It makes the frames stand out from the walnut of the wood but not garishly.

Oh, I also aged up a fireplace tool set and glued that to the fireplace hearth.  The tools are crazy glued in place so they won't fall out when I glue the fireplace in.

The other thing I got in the mail was a silver tray. So I glued my cranberry glass decanter and glasses to it.

I wanted a clock for the mantle but couldn't find one I really liked so I stole the clock face from one of my old beat up clocks and made the wood surround for an 'over the hill' mantle clock.

I like how the red mahogany stain pops against the walnut of the mantle.

I'm excited because I'm close to the point of putting the books on the shelves with some other curiosities.  I really should look through Poe's poems and stories for more things he mentioned.  He wrote detective stories as well as poetry.  A few things would be:

A gold bug
A black cat
A purloined letter
A magnifying glass
Cask of Amontillado
Message in a bottle
A box with teeth
A model of an air balloon?
A heart (under glass?)
A jar of eyes (or one eye?)

I was thinking of finding a skull which could be fun to have either on the mantle or shelf.  A little nod to Sherlock Holmes.  Nothing super obvious but something macabre.

I ordered a few things off Etsy and I can make some others.  So we'll see how it goes!

Hope you're all doing well and you had a great weekend!

Chaise, Pillow & Drapes!

I don't feel like I've accomplished much this weekend though I did do a few things.  I've slept more than usual due to my ongoing recovery from the awful allergy/sinus/infection thing.  A change in antibiotics and I was at least able to go back to work for a couple days before the weekend started.

So I've been tired and really want to do nothing but sleep.

I've also had an issue with the post office.  I expected two packages with key things for the build on Tuesday and somehow the post office seems to have misplaced them.  It's been more than eight days in the same place so something has gone wrong.  Finally figured out how to inquire about them with the post office.  Incredibly thankful for the tracking numbers folks used when they shipped.

Without the things I've ordered I'm at a stalling point with the shelves and fireplace.  I need to put things on the shelves and fireplace before I glue them in because otherwise it's a nightmare to get everything on the shelves.

Still, I can work on other things so enough of my woes.

I did work more on the drapes and got them up over the windows.  I wanted some drapes pooling on the floor so I'm pretty happy with how things look so far.

To test out how things look I put the desk and bust in the room.

So far so good I think.  I picked out a fabric and started to work on the chaise kit I'd gotten from HBS Miniatures.  It's one of Kris's kits and the instructions are wonderful.

I didn't go with a purple because I didn't want it to be too matchy matchy with the drapes.  The blue fabric and muted pattern suits the moody look of the room so I think it works.

The instructions have directions for a pillow as well and micro beads to fill it.  I followed her instructions for the tassels but for the corded trim I did an embroidery stitch for the same effect.  I have bad luck with glue and embroidery silk.

This is what I did while I was waiting for my chaise legs to dry.

So I got the tassels onto the pillow and I like how it looks.

It looks pretty good.  So I tested it out on the chaise.

Added the legs and we're done!

I'm actually thinking I might break one of them on purpose and make a couple of books to put under it so it looks a little more broken down.

Maybe later.

So I tested it out in the room.

I like it so far.  I played a bit with the angles of the desk too.  I added white cardboard behind the sheers so make them look like the breeze is blowing them forward a bit.

Next step will be the desk chair with wheels to turn and stare at the raven on the bust.

But I did remember to open the door so you could see the knocker on the front.

That's pretty much my entire accomplishment for the week.  I've also been goofing around trying to do a video tour of Fine Print and realizing that I'm terrible at video.  More practice needed.

I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy and that we can all get back to work and normalcy soon.