{Hello!: Year of Doors} February Door

Another door caught up! February!

Saturday, when I finished the March door, I gave myself until Monday night to get February's door done, because I've got some other stuff (non miniatures related) that I need to get done the early part of this week, but I ended up not having hardly any time Sunday to work on it, so I extended my "deadline" to Tuesday evening, which obviously I made. Woohoo!  This one ended up being almost entirely scratch made, with the exception of the window itself, which I had leftover from another project.  This is the first of the doors that I've done a window with curtains (actually I'm not sure if I've done any quarter scale curtains before now that I think about it) and I had to figure out how I was going to do them so that they would cover the window properly and lay flat enough behind the wall that it wouldn't affect it laying flat when I install it into the display. (Which also I have a little update about that, but I will save that for the end of this post...)

I was able to successfully pull off my idea for incorporating "hello" into this door, so keep your eyes open for that as well.

To get started, again, the planning sketch as a reminder of what the initial plans looked like:

And now on to the making of the actual scene:

So, again the first thing I made for this scene was the wreath for the door.  This one is a "grapevine" wreath in a heart shape.  I make my "grapevine" wreaths with narrow gauge wire that I wrap around a form and around itself until it looks like a grapevine wreath.  This time I did it a little differently though since it was a heart shape.... instead of the shape itself being made with the thinner wire I actually used a bigger jump ring and bent it into the shape of the heart first and then wrapped the thinner wire around it.  I then painted it so it doesn't look like metal wire. (You may notice there are a couple shiny places coming through in this picture, I messed up the paint a little bit putting the flowers and stuff on the wreath, but that was simple enough to touch up after I had finally glued it on the door and was sure I was done messing with it) The roses are made from paper (the red ones are from a kit that I got off Etsy several years ago and hadn't used yet and the pink one was one I had already made that was leftover from another project.  The "rose buds" are paper stamens meant for doing full size paper flowers and I just painted one pink and one red.  For the bow I tried a slightly different technique for making the bow from ribbon.... this time I pinned the ribbon down so that it had a loop with the ends crossed and then tied the loop into a bow by tying a piece of thread in the middle of it (unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of this so hopefully that description make some sort of sense).  It did make a nice bow this way.  You may notice that I got a touch of green paint on one tail of the bow and there's some glue on the other, but once the bow was on the door I put a touch of red paint over those places and they aren't really noticeable anymore. 

The door itself is made from one piece of thin bass wood and I scored the outline of the door so that there would be a trim around it and then scored the center panel edges

After painting the door and the trim.  Because of the way I scored the outline of the door the paint isn't as perfectly crisp as I would like, but when looking at it in person you can't see it as clearly and it still looks neater that if I'd tried to make a seperate frame for the door I'm sure. lol.  At this point the wreath was just sitting on the door to check how it looked, the wreath didn't actually get glued on until the very end of working on February

Dry fit testing the door and window into the foam core board that will be the base for the back wall/house facade

This is a cautionary picture...... the facade is white brick, so like with the brick for March I glued to it foam core board with the paper peeled off of one side, but the first time I glued it on I did not make sure my glue was light enough to not warp the paper, so I had to make a second back wall and print a second sheet of bricks.....I actually still ended up with a couple really tiny wrinkles, but they were in places I didn't think they'd be noticeable

And again like the brick for March, I scored the mortar lines to give it texture.  I shows up a lot better with the white bricks in photos than it did with the bricks in the March door

The overhang over the door area was made from some scraps of foam core board, some strips of white card stock, and a piece of thin balsa wood for the roof

The roof/overhang over the window was made the same way.  Here I am holding the balsa into the curve of the foam core until it was dry to so the wood would hold the shape

Test fitting it over the window before it was painted

Test fitting everything and checking on how everything is looking as I go along.  By this point I had also painted the "love" sign and the little wooden heart next to it and made the mailbox with a few envelopes with valentine's day stamps on them poking out.  The mailbox was made with printer paper that I embossed and distressed to look like a white enamel wall mount mailbox.

Rather than having to try to have a room scene behind the window I wanted to have curtains covering it.  As I said this is the first of the doors that I've put curtains on and actually probably the first 1:48 scale project I've done curtain on.  Because they only needed to look good from one side, and I needed them to be as flat in the back as possible, I gathered the fabric onto a straight pin, cut the head off the pin and stuck the pin into the foam core in the window opening for the top of the curtains and then glued the bottoms under the window, and held it in place with more straight pins until the glue dried

To keep it as flat as possible I also glued a strip of cardstock over the bottom of the curtains to hold them flatter against the foam core board

Once the window was done I glued the side wall to the back wall.  I read this tip for using building blocks to make sure you get a good 90 degree angle somewhere years ago and that's what I did here.

The overhang over the door was glued on next, then the overhang over the window, and then the door and accessories (well acutally not "love" sign and wood heart because they will be leaning against the house so I need the patio area in front of the door done first).  As well as the decorations and mail box I also added a porch light and a plaque with the house number on it.

And the last little detail before it was done was the doormat.  Same as the other doormats so far I painted the design on a little piece of sandpaper

And here it is all together finished.  Well, finished except for the patio that will be on the ground in front of the house.  I really want a herringbone pattern brick and am having trouble finding that pattern as a printable, and am trying to figure out if there's another way I can do it without taking too much time and difficulty, so for now I'm just calling it done and I'll do the patio whenever I figure out the brick situation..... (Although honestly looking at it just sitting on the floor of it's cubby hole in the display, I might not mind if it ends of being maybe a painted or stained concrete patio... we'll see). Oh and I also made a slightly bigger wooden heart because I ended up having more room than I originally thought I would.

Did you find the "hello"? Here is a close up of it, on the wall mounted mailbox:

Now, as I mentioned earlier I do have a little bit of an update on the display shadow box.  You may remember I'm not installing the scenes in their cubby holes yet because I wasn't quite sure how I was going to finish the bare wood of the display, and I had sprayed it with some spray paint I already had the other day, which was a matte almond that was very close to the color of the bare wood, but of course not bare wood.  Well, when I went to Walmart to get groceries I took a minute to look at spray paint because I liked the color but it was just slightly off to me so I was going to see if I could get basically the same color in another brand and see if it was a little better to me, or else see if there was another color that I thought I would like better.  I ended up getting another color that was very similar but was slightly pink, which I thought I would like better.  The only problem was I could only find it in gloss and I was thinking I wanted it matte, but I figured I could always spray a matte top coat over it.  I repainted the display when I got home and I do think I'm going to like this color better, but I haven't put any of the doors back into their spaces yet because I wanted to make sure it was completely cured first, especially being gloss, it sometimes stays a little tacky for quite a while and I didn't want anything getting stuck before I was ready for it to be stuck. lol.  The other thing I will now have to decide is if I want to leave it gloss or spray it with matte.  So I'm still not installing the scenes yet, but I'm getting closer to being able to actually do that. haha.

With this door finished I am only two doors behind now, January and December, but as I said I've got some other stuff to get done this week in the next couple days, and then Thursday is my birthday, so I doubt I will be making my goal of getting caught up by the end of April, but I plan on getting back to work on the doors next week and hopefully get January and December done and then I might go ahead and to May's door or I might take another break for a week or so and do May's door later.

{"Hello!" : A Year Of Doors} March Door

This time when I say I got one of the backlogged doors done, it actually is one from a previous month, not the current month. HAHA. March's door is done!

This one went really quickly, as a matter of fact if I had just worked straight through on it and not been doing one part and then going and doing other stuff for a while and then coming back and doing another part, and then it being bed time so doing the rest in the morning, it probably would have really only taken maybe half a day to do.  The part that took the longest was the bricks, but I'll get into why that was when I get to that part of the project.  March doesn't have a lot of accessories/little details and those are what tend to really take me a while because working on tiny details this small I usually have to put it down and walk away for a while before I go insane relatively often, it was actually kind of nice to have a project that was mostly super easy, non stressful stuff.... Having said that though I don't have tons of pictures of the making of this one because there just wasn't that much to take photos of until the end. But, here's what I have.

Oh, also I did find a way to incorporate "hello" into this month, but I'm not going to say how/where yet, see if you can spot it.

(*also a little side note, my phone is getting old and I knew I was going to need to give in and get a new one soon, but I hate switching phones so of course was trying to hold out as long as possible, but the camera started acting up, first it would tell me it couldn't turn on about half the time I tried to launch the camera and then it got worse and worse and restarting the phone seemed to help in the beginning and then it got to where that didn't do anything and as of last night the camera will just not turn on at all now, and actually neither will the flashlight, but that's not as big of a deal to me.  I usually use my phone for taking pictures because it does really well of taking close up pictures of really tiny stuff, but for some of the later pictures of this door I had to use my husband's phone (which also takes good pictures, but they are a different aspect ratio), and then today I had to use my digital camera since he was already at work, and it actually I don't think takes as good of pictures of close ups of tiny things (or else I just need to try a different setting more or use it in manual mode, but I'm not always the greatest at knowing what to set everything to for the best pictures in manual).... but, especially towards the end of the post, if the pictures start to seem a little off, that's why)

First off lets start with the original planning sketch again:

Now that that is fresh in your mind again here is how it was made from step one to end result:

As with April's door the first thing I made was the wreath, and the first step of making the wreath was to punch a ton of the tiniest circles possibly with a 1/16" hole punch.

Next the tiny circles are shaped and glued to a wreath base (which is a tiny ring that I got from the jewelry department of one of the craft stores) that I painted green (just in case any of it showed though the greenery I didn't want bright silver colored metal shining through). If you've read any of my posts about making the florists shop for "Whimsy Street Shopping District"  then you may remember that I used the same technique to make hydrangeas, except then they were glued to a tiny foam ball.  It seems like it would be a really tedious and time consuming thing to do, and it is a little, but once you get into the rythmn of it, it goes pretty easily along.  This wreath took me, I think, just under an hour to complete, and that was with putting it down for a minute or two every once in a while to rest for a minute and let the glue dry some so I didn't mess up what I had already done as I was moving around the wreath, and stopping to text a few times too.

Once the wreath was done I made the door itself, which I cut from thin bass wood and scored details into and then colored with a marker to look like old stained wood.  At this point I just had the wreath sitting on it to check the size and design of everything because I didn't have the glass in the door yet or anything

My next step was making the brick surround for the door.  This was the longest part of the project.  Unfortunately you can't really tell in this photo too well, but the bricks are a printed brick sheet, which I glued to foam core board that I had peeled the paper coating off of, and then scored along all of the mortar lines to give it some texture and dimension. Scoring the lines took a couple hours I think, but (even though you can't really tell in the photo) it really made a difference.

After the bricks where done I did the roof/architectural detail over the door.  It is 1:12 scale dollhouse molding that I cut down a little bit (it originally had dental molding at the bottom of it) and added a roof to.  The brackets "holding" it up are smaller pieces of the same molding with slightly less cut off

To either side of the brick surround I wanted stucco and ended up achieving that by mixing some sand into off white acrylic craft paint and brushing it on (I did two coats to get good coverage).  I had painters tape along the edge where it buts up to the bricks but had taken that off by the time I took the picture.  I did peel it off while the stucco was still wet and then re-taped it for the second coat and again peeled it off while it was wet so that it peeled off cleanly without pulling some of the stucco off with it.

I printed the house numbers on cardstock and cut it out and glued it on. (Also you'll notice I did decide to change the house numbers to have the month first instead of the 20 first). The brick section also got glued to the stucco piece. At this point I had yet to put the glass in the door or glue the wreath on it yet so again the door is just sitting in there to make sure it all works

I did decide to put some mullions in the window in the door and glued those directly on the "glass" (thin clear plastic) after the glass was glue to the back of the door (it's been kind of nice doing these doors because since the backs wont show I can just glue stuff on and not worry about what it looks like on the other side lol).  The wreath was also glued to the door and the door glued in place.  I also made a doormat with "Lucky" painted on it.  As with April I made the doormat from sandpaper.  This is of course just sitting in its cubby hole, because there was still a couple more things to do at this point

The next step was to make the landscaping and hardscaping for in front of the door.  I used a piece of foam core board with the paper peeled off the top (to give a little texture to the front walk.... but yeah keep this in mind in a few minutes, because as you will see I did not keep it in mind when I should have) then painted the front walk, painted a green base for where the grass would be then glued green ground landscaping foam to the grass area.  This picture has one side coated with the "grass" and one side just painted so you can see all the steps/layers of making it.

While that dried I worked on the bracket for the hanging basket.  I actually started out by cutting the open end off of a small size bobby pin, then gluing that to hold it's v shape, and then was going to glue something else across the top, but as I was waiting for the glue to dry on that I noticed a strip of utility staples sitting on my workbench that I had used at Christmas for a part of someone's Christmas present.  At first I though oh, if  I cut one side off the staple it should work well for the top part and then as I separated one staple from the row it dawned on my that it might be easier, and sturdier, to just make the whole thing from the whole staple by just bending the side into shape. Which it did make it easier and sturdier, so that's what the hanging basket bracket is..... the part that is against the wall is the top of the staple and the sides are bent to make the shape.  I then spray painted it matte black to look like wrought iron.

When the glue and paint was dry on the base I held it together with the back to see how it looked.  And realized that I need my doormat slightly smaller, which I was a little unhappy with how the "Lucky" didn't look perfectly centered  to me anyway, but wasn't bothered by it enough to completely re-do it, because I did like the look of the "lucky" itself and who knows if I could get it as good again, so it wasn't a big deal to me to just trim it down some and then re-do the green edge on the sides I trimmed.  (The trimmed down version will be in the final pictures)

So, the hanging basket itself was all I had left basically.  I know I said this door didn't really have anything that was a huge pain/frustrating to do, but actually this was a bit more of a pain than I wanted it to be (but still not that bad, especially since it went pretty quickly (well except for when I dropped the basket and it took forever to find it....).  The chains were a bit of a challenge because they are teeny tiny jewelry chain that I had to cut apart and put back together with 3 lengths of smaller links on on larger link, and then attach the other end of each to the basket with more larger links.  But, it still ended up being way easier and looking way better than the way I had originally thought to do it and actually started attempting before I remembered I had the chain. (which we're not even going to go into because it was stupid lol). The basket itself is a bead cap that I sprayed matte black and I used a small foam ball painted brown as the lining in it. (You'll get a better look at the basket in the next couple pictures.)  The ivy I made from a kit that I had originally gotten when I was doing the florist shop, but only ended up using a couple leaves for an arrangement there and I thought it would be perfect for this basket. Getting it in the basket also ended up being a little more of a pain than I would have liked for it to be because of the chains already being there, I actually ended up gluing the basket in its hanging position after putting the first branch of ivy in because otherwise I couldn't tell where the ivy needed to go in relation to the chains, but then it was a tight workspace with it already hung up like that, but still in the long run I'd do it the same way if I had it to do again.  The ivy kit is from SDK Miniatures and they have tons of fabulous plant/flower kits in several scales.

The glue securing the chain to the bracket wasn't 100% dry when I took this pictures so you can still see it a bit, but of course once it dried you can't notice it unless you are looking way too closely and have the eyesight of... I don't know, something with extreme eyesight....

This picture gives you the best look at the "basket" itself. I decided to have the ivy more to one side of the basket, partly because I liked the way that looked style wise, partly so that there was at least a little of the basket still potentially visible, and partly because I wasn't trying to have to get anymore stems of it glued in there than I had to since it was kind of a pain.  But the biggest was just that I liked it asymmetrical, because I think we all know that I'm willing to torture myself to get something to look the way I want it too. HAHA

So, remember how I said keep in mind that I had peeled the paper off the top of the foam core board, because I hadn't kept it in mind......?. Yeah, so I decided I wanted to spray some clear top coat over the ground, the grass specifically just to help protect it a little, especially since it won't be getting glued into it's cubby hole immediately so it will be handled a little bit more.  If you know anything about spray paint and foam you will know where this is going, since I wasn't thinking about the fact that I had taken the paper off and exposed the foam I also didn't think about the fact that the propellant in spray paint and foam often times do not mix well, and.... well..... the concrete has more texture now......  Fortunately it didn't melt it too much and because the grass area has a layer of glue under the grass it didn't affect that part any.  I did have to put another coat of paint on the walkway part, and it has a bit of gap now where the walkway and the doorstep meet, but, I mean, that happens sometimes with concrete in real life too, especially if its been there for a while, and if it's too bad once everything is installed I'm sure I can fill it in a little with something and then paint it to match.  So not a huge disaster, but a few minutes of panic since it was literally that last thing I had to do before it was done (especially since it wasn't' even technically a necessary step).  So let this be a lesson/reminder to you..... always remember that you have unprotected foam before spraying it. (which isn't to say that I don't use spray paint on foam sometimes, because I love my spray paint, but it has to be on something that its okay if it melts slightly)

Here is a close up of the slightly smaller doormat and the more texture front walk (which I mean looking at it in pictures it's not that bad lol, and the mat covers a lot of it.)

And a finished shot (which I had to take with my camera, and as I said earlier I actually don't think it takes as good a photos of tiny stuff a lot of times as my phone does... or I guess did...)

So, did you remember to look for the "hello" in this scene. It's not really hidden or anything but just in case you didn't notice it or forgot to pay attention for it here is a close up picture.

The "'wood" Shamrock in the center of the wreath has "Hello" "wood burned" on it. (by which I mean I printed out a teeny tiny "Hello" in a burned wood color onto raw wood colored card stock and then punched it out with a tiny shamrock punch)

I am hoping to make (or at least start working on) the February door today.  It might take a little longer to make because it does have a few more tiny detail decor, but I think I have everything I need for it and I kind of figure I might as well just keep working in backward month order.  Hopefully I will be able to get it finished and posted by the end of the weekend, but I don't promise great pictures with my current camera/phone situation...........  And I've already planned how to incorporate a "hello" in that scene!

{A Year Of Doors} a little update

No, I haven't finished another door already (although I have been getting stuff together today to start working on the March door, which I could probably easily get done in one day/afternoon, but I don't plan on starting on it really today), but I do have a quick little update.  If you read my original post about the series you may remember that I said the "A Year Of Doors" title wasn't set in stone. Well, I was looking for a folder or something to put all my notes and sketches and such for the project in and started to pull out just a plain black folder and then noticed a folder that I had picked up at Walmart sometime in the past but hadn't used for anything yet that has "Hello" printed on it and I thought, oh that's a good folder for a project of front doors.  Then, after getting my stuff somewhat organized and in the folder I realized that "hello" could also be good for the title for the series.  So the official name for the series is now "'Hello!': A Year Of Doors"

My folder that inspired the name change (or I guess more like addition), and that is keeping all my notes, sketches, and plans together and semi organized

Along with the new title though I also came up with a little challenge for myself: to incorporate "hello" into as many of the scenes as possible. (Ideally I'd say the challenge is to have it in all of them in some way shape or form, but I don't want to be putting it in just for the sake of it being there and it not blend well with the rest of the design, and since I don't have a lot of extra room on some of them I may not be able to work it in for all of them).  I had already planned for one of the doormats to say "hello Sunshine", so there's one month..... lol.  I also don't want to put it in multiple months in exactly the same way.  Possibly, say, 2 months both having it as a wall hanging/sign but that it is an entirely different style/design on each one.  Some of the ideas I've come up with so far to incorporate it are:
- on the doormat
- on the door
- wall hanging/plaque
- on a pillow on a bench or chair
- garden flag
Other than the doormat that was already planned anyway I don't know yet which months will have what, or as I said if they even all will have it, but I'm definitely going to put effort into getting it in there as much as possible.  If anyone has any other suggestions feel free to comment/let me know! Can't promise I'll definitely use them in this project, but I'm always up for ideas!

April, which is already done may be one that doesn't end up with a Hello, because right now I'm not sure how I'd incorporate it and I'm not changing anything at this point, but I'm not completely dismissing the idea, depending on how it ends up getting incorporated into all the other months I may end up coming up with something for it and coming back to it later.  I think I have an idea for March's door, but I'm not 100% sure it will work, because it will need to be really tiny..... but I'm going to give it a go and see if I can pull it off, so keep an eye out for my post about the March door in the near future to see if it works out!

A Year Of Doors: Backlog: one down, four to go

Okay folks, I got one of the doors done! Which I just realized really shouldn't be considered one of the backlogged doors because it is the April door, which since it's still April, this was when I was supposed to be working on it anyway.... but hey, that's still one door done.  Its' not actually completely done, as you'll see in the pictures, the edges are still rough/unfinished because it is not yet getting installed into it's little compartment in the tray or shadow box or whatever you want to call it (my instinct is to call it a tray, but I think Michael's, which is where it comes from, calls it a shadow box) because I'm not 100% sure on the finish/color for the shadowbox, so I can't really put it in permanently until that is finished being painted.  I did a coat of spray paint in almost the same color as the bare wood yesterday, because I already had the spray paint and I want a neutral color, but I don't think I want white (because I don't want it to look like it is part of the walls of the house on any of them with white facades) and I don't think I want gray (not sure it will really look right with all the house fronts/doors). So I think I'll be sticking with this, but I didn't have quite enough to give it as good of coverage as it should have, and I might also look at spray paint real quick at Walmart next time I go out to get groceries and either get another can of this color or see if there's anything else I might like better.  So in the meantime the facade and decorative pieces and everything are just sitting in their cubby for pictures, so ignore the rough edges and where stuff doesn't meet up completely flush and such, that will all be taken care of during its final installation.  I actually spent a lot longer on this door than I meant to, partly because I kept getting sidetracked from working on it and partly because, even though I had my original sketch, I did end up having a few decisions to make beyond that and any time I have to make decisions about something that I will have to commit to it takes me a while. Lol.

First, here's the original planning sketch again to remind you what the plans looked like:

This is of course the colored version.  At this point I didn't have any siding or anything drawn in, and actually I guess hadn't completely figured out even what the siding would be since I just have a "?", but I'm pretty sure from the get go I was picturing it with the white clapboard siding even if it wasn't "official" yet

 Now that you have that in mind again here are the pictures I took as I was working on it (didn't really take a lot of in-progress pics of a lot of it, but for most of it I don't think that really matters haha):

The first thing I worked on for this door scene was the carrot wreath for the front door.  I used teeny tiny dried baby's breath buds (they're on the regular baby's breath, they are just so tiny you have to really look for them, and there's not tons of them usually) for the tulips the wreath is made from

If I were making a real life wreath I would be wiring the stem of the tulips together to make the carrot shape, but for the miniature one I cut out a piece of paper in the size and shape I needed to use as a base to glue the flowers onto.

I glued them all on first and then painted them to look like orange tulips

I added ferns to the top and a tiny bow to finish the wreath off (although I do still need to probably go back and touch up the paint a bit because I messed it up a little working on the top and the bow.  This is also the only picture I have I think of the door before I painted it, so if that is of interest to you this is your chance to take a good look

the next thing I worked on was making the tiny giant Easter eggs for the topiary. I made them from oven bake clay, and this is them sitting in the urn (which you may recognize from several other projects and is actually a jewelry bead from Hobby Lobby). This is after they came out of the oven but before I did anything else with the topiary

I had made the eggs for the topiary pretty much right before bed one night intending to do the flowers and stuff for it the next day, but then I actually did the door and facade the next day during the day instead.  Again I didn't really get in-progress shots of this part of the project, but the "clapboard" is strips of card stock that I cut, and the wall itself is foam core board to give the window in the door and the sidelights some depth.  The "glass" for the door and the sidelights is just really thin plastic sheets.  Obviously the door was painted and I glued the wreath to the door

I went back to working on the topiary that evening and added flowers around its base and between the eggs (the flowers are more of the dried baby's breath buds and some other really tiny dried flowers I had that I had gotten when I made my florists shop, and I just painted some of them pink and some of them yellow, and left some white... which is kind of hard to tell in this picture, but it was night and the lighting isn't great in my craft room at night for pictures...)

Now this is the first picture I took thinking I was all done (remember the edges will get finished during the final installation haha), except for the door mat, because I couldn't find the sandpaper I bought to use as door mat material. (I ended up remembering that I offered my husband some of it and he had it with his stuff).  But after looking at it I felt like it needed something more, so I started thinking about what else I could put in the scene that wouldn't be too similar to stuff I have planned for other doors, and that would enhance not detract from what was already going on (for example I didn't really want more flowers or plants or something because I thought they would overpower the carrot wreath and topiary)

Then I remembered that I had some tiny bunny figurines.  At first I thought it was too big even to be a large statue, but I knew I wouldn't want it that color and I've got about 5 of them so I decided to paint it and see if that made it better or worse.  This is also the only picture I have right now of it before being painted.

After painting it I loved it, but then I wasn't sure if I really liked it on the other side of the door or......

If I liked it on the same side as the topiary.  I really was leaning towards the same side but then I was back to the other side looking to bare.  So again after spending probably way too much time going over possibilities I decided to try some oversized house numbers next to the door instead of regular sized ones over the door like I had been planning to do.

And I really like it this way.  The numbers are extra small number stickers that I had that I stuck on thin balsa and then cut out and spray painted matte black.  The numbers are the last 2 digits of the year and then the month.... which is what all the houses will be, but now that I'm looking at it I think I might switch the places of the year and the month so it doesn't look so much like a year itself. lol So it might end up being 0420 instead of 2004. Nothing's glued down yet, so I can change it up a little it need be...