Christmas Projects and winding down on the big projects for the year

This is the time of year where miniatures typically end up taking a bit of a back seat to other crafts and events going on for the holidays, and to a certain extent this year is no different, the Wee Christmas at Historic Kenmore exhibit that I'm involved in every year opened this past Sunday (it runs through the month, check out Kenmore.org or Facebook for more information if you are in the Fredericksburg area and are interested in going to see it.  This year I only have the toy store in it because I didn't end up getting the bookstore finished in time), I've gotten a bit more work done on the bookstore since my last post, but nothing too significant (I attached the two halves of the building together and have starting figuring out exactly how I want to do the windows. and then I made the floor for the first floor of the store, but I haven't actually even attached that down yet..... I also haven't really taken pictures of all that yet, so I'll give it it's own separate post sometime in the near future), and I'm moving on to Christmas projects.  This year though I have several Christmas themed miniatures I'm working on both for myself and for presents.

The first one I've finished should have been a one day project, not taking much more than the afternoon to finish, but of course me being me, I ended up dragging it out over about a week, because I kept adding stuff to it and hesitating to make decisions on exactly how I wanted to do a couple things for it.  I did finally put the last finishing touch on it yesterday though.  It is a 1:48 scale kitchen scene in a cute little gift card gift box that looks like a book.  They had them in several different cover designs, but for now I'm only going to show you this one because I might be using some of the others to make Christmas presents..... lol.  Since there was a gingerbread house on the cover of this one though I thought a little kitchen with a teeny tiny gingerbread house in it and gingerbread cookies being made would be perfect for it..... (fair warning the light in a lot of these pictures is pretty bad lol, since it was meant to be a quick little project I wasn't really thinking about needing great pictures, most of these were taken either mainly just for me to get a little more objective look at it, or to post a quick "this is what I'm doing right now" kind of thing on Facebook)

The front cover of the "book" (box). I also too a short video of the entire outside and it being opened that you'll see at the end of the pictures.... as long as I can figure out how to upload it on here.... I don't think I've ever tried doing a video on here before. lol

Early stages.  The cabinets are in but have no hardware so far, the tile backsplash is there, but I hadn't yet painted the walls above it, the counter is in and the sink, but the sink has no faucet or anything yet, and I'm just starting to decorate it

Basically the same as the last picture just slightly different angle.... fair warning, there may be several like that in here lol.

Getting a little bit further in the decorating.... top of the upper cabinets done too.  oh and you can't really tell in this picture but I had decided on and painted the upper part of the walls a super pale gray by this point too.

Close up of the cookies and decorating supplies..... The cookies were made using a fabulous mold from Stewart Dollhouse Creations, that even came with the clay.  The little spatula is from them as well (I bought the unpainted set and painted this one myself, the other pieces will be going in future projects).  The piping bags full of icing for decorating the cookies are little pieces of clay baked to harden and then just regular kitchen plastic wrap glued around them and the tip painted to look like a piping bag.  Oh, and the cookie sheet is just aluminum foil cut to size and then the one end folded up a bit. 

A better look at the cookies, and spatula, and icing bags

The kitchen of course had to have it's own little gingerbread house since that's what's on the front cover of the box.  This actually was - sort of - also made from a cake mold from Stewart Dollhouse Creations.... I used the square cake mold and put two layers together and cut the top to be angled like a roof and then just kind of pinched the bottom of that part to give it a little more shape. The cake stand it's sitting on was from them too!

Close up of the decorations on the tops of the upper cabinets..... the letters are floating locket charms, the tree is the top of a tiny bottle brush tree, cut off and shoved into half of a screw type jewelry closure that I removed the loop from, and the ornaments are just beads.  The springs of greens laying by themselves are tiny cuttings of preserved princess pine.

Finally got the sink finished.  The faucet is ust a bent piece of a large gauge wire and the handles are 11/0 seed beads with a little bent piece of narrow gauge wire in them and painted silver.  The dish soap I was really excited about because I really wanted dish soap, but wasn't sure how I was going to make that happen in Quarter scale, but fortunately I found perfect beads at Michael's (on sale at the time even), and i glued an 11/0 seed bead to the top and then painted the "soap" on with a little bit of light orange paint mixed with mod podge, to keep it translucent (and the right glossy finish to look like it was inside the bottle not on the outside lol), then I just dotted a small circle of white paint as a label, and it turned out so much better than I had hoped for even! Oh, and I think I forgot to mention what the sink itself is made from..... it's the blister packaging from my allergy pills cut to have a little lip around the blister part and painted metallic silver.

An overall view of the kitchen, with it mostly done.... I was still trying to decide what I wanted to do for hardware for the cabinet doors and what I wanted to do about a window at this point

An overall view of the whole kitchen after {finally} deciding on hardware for the cabinet doors

A closer view of the cabinet door handles on the bottom - they are made from 11/0 seed beads with a tiny no hole bead glued in the hole. they were then painted a color just slightly darker than the backsplash tiles, and then distressed with some white paint.  Oh I also think this is the first picture where you can really see the backsplash well.  I made it by gluing colored vellum to cardstock and then scoring the grout lines into it.  Have I mentioned yet that the cabinets are also cardstock? Which worked really well for the doors because I was able to emboss detail into them, but making the cabinets themselves from cardstock was a little more trouble than I really wanted lol. I choose cardstock so I wouldn't have to paint it and could just cut it with scissors, but I think next time I'm going to do them differently.

The upper cabinet knobs were made the same way as the lower cabinets, but instead of painting them they were left clear

And finally after dragging the project out for days, I got a window in the room.

Then decided I needed to paint the mullions instead of just the printed ones on the picture....

Then I decided it needed a little wreath (made from a piece of green pipecleaner I trimmed down so the fibers were really short, shaped with a pair of round nose pliers and then wrapped with 1/16th inch wide ribbon)

And finally I can call it finished!

The gift card holders/boxes I actually have seen at a couple different stores in my area this year (At Home, ACMoore, and I know I saw them at a 3rd store and I can't remember for sure where it was but I'm kind of thinking it was one of the Walmarts around here....) I got this box though at Dollar Tree.  It's a bit bigger (5.25" x 3.375" x 2.25" deep) and I'm planning on putting a Santa's Workshop scene in it.  I haven't really mapped it all out yet to see how it will fit, but I'm thinking a main level with shelving along the back wall and worktables in the center, with toys and presents being made and stored on that level and then a loft/second level with cubbyholes along the back wall and a desk (or maybe two) that will be the mail room/naughty and nice list headquarters..... I have some toys and supplies leftover from the toy store, that I want to use for something (a few of them went in my attic roombox that is for leftover materials from other projects, but I don't want to put everything I have more of in there) so this will be perfect to use some of that stuff!

Hopefully I will be getting that done before Christmas to post pictures of and I'm planning on doing a short post with some pictures of the little bit of progress I've made on the bookstore since last I posted, but, just in case the month gets away from me before any of that happens (as it often seems to do) I wish you all a very merry Christmas (or whatever other holidays you may be celebrating this time of year), and in case it really really gets away from me a Happy New Year too!