{Whimsy Street Shopping District} The Librarian And The Bookworm Used Books... and an announcment!

Since I got myself caught up with my year of doors project, I FINALLY pulled the bookstore back out to get back to work on it.  It has been sitting in a bin on the shelf under my workbench for over a year now along with everything I was using for it at the time I put it away.  I definitely had not intended for it to be this long until I worked on it again, but last year ended up being a slow year for me miniature wise because it ended up being kind of a busy year real life wise. Lol. But now I'm back to work and hope to have Whimsy Street finished this fall. I have the bookstore, of course, to finish and then I have to do the ice cream shop, which I haven't decided yet if I'm going to work on them any concurrently, or just wait until I'm done with the bookstore, but I'm thinking it will probably get at least a little started before this one is completely done.

Here's a reminder of where I was when I put it away in late 2018:

The last thing I had attempted to work on had been the windows for the upper floor and they just were not working out using the materials I was trying to use and I think that's part of the reason I set it aside for "a while". I wanted diamond pane glass for the large upper story windows, and originally I was trying to use this black mesh, I guess you would call it ribbon, but it just was not perfectly squared and then when I would try to square it up and glue it to the plastic sheeting I use as glass it wouldn't stay right, and then you could see the glue, but then I kind of thought maybe I'd try actually filling the openings with glue and have it look like older glass, but at that point I was so frustrated with it and wanted to get my living room (where I was working on it at the time) straightened up that I put it away and of course that brings us to now.  In the meantime, while I was in the clay aisle at hobby lobby one day, sometime last year, I found what is essentially tiny chicken wire that is meant to be used to make bases/forms for clay sculpting but I decided that it would make much easier windows for me.  At that point I had still been planning on using glue to fill the openings and serve as the glass, but the first thing I had to do, when I got back to working on it, was spray paint it matte black

After test fitting that I wasn't sure I liked how small the diamonds were.... they were an okay size in scale if you measure them (they would have been about 6 inch panes), but I felt like a window this size should have bigger panes, so I decided to try cutting some of the pieces out to make bigger diamonds.  I ended up deciding I liked this better, and then spent about half an hour cutting sections out of the windows.  My only problem with this is that I apparently wasn't keeping close enough track of what I was supposed to be cutting because on both windows I have a section where I cut the wrong pieces off, but I decided that I would rather just go with that than do the whole thing over again. Lol.  (You'll see the boo boos in the finished window pictures). I also decided at this point that I wasn't going to actually put any sort of glass in these windows, with it only being small sections I think it's fine to just pretend they have glass at this scale...

 I thought my next step was to glue the frame pieces around the edges of the window mesh and then glue it all onto the building as one unit, but that didn't really work well

So I decided it would be best to lay the mesh in place over the opening and glue the trim to it and the building at the same time.... which ended up giving me way more trouble than it should have (someone please remind be to stop. doing. buildings. with. curved. walls. lol), and I finally broke down and did the miniatures no-no and used hot glue..... for this though it really ended up being the best option, since I use a high temp glue gun it gave me enough workable time but then set right away to hold the bent pieces in place.

The next thing I worked on was actually the window display for the first floor window.  I knew that I would need to have that done before installing the window so that I could access it easier to place stuff just right. (I also ended up actually attaching part of it to the plastic sheet that was the glass, but I didn't know I was going to do that at first).  The window display theme is "Go on an adventure..... in the pages of a book" so the display is a large open book base (made from carved foam and paper) with a sailing ship and a rabbit hole/hobbit hole cut out of the book "pages" and standing up and books placed on display in and around them.  (From left to right the books are, Gulliver's Travels, Treasure Island, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Around the World In 80 Days, and The Hobbit.... a couple of the covers I think you can kind of tell at least in the pictures what book it is, but not really all of them with them printed this tiny lol).  The "in the pages of a book" banner is sitting in front of the book display, and the "Go on an adventure" banner it hanging from the window opening.  The Around The World in 80 Days hot air balloon is actually just glued to the window itself.

So once that was done I took the base part of the display back out so that I could install the floor.  I had previously made the floor on a piece of cardstock cut to size, but it was a little warped in places and I was afraid it wouldn't lay flat and adhere properly unless it was weighted down until the glue was dry and of course this isn't a very big building to get a weight into, much less one that would distribute the pressure evenly over the entire surface, so I ended up piling several bags of craft sand into the building on top of the floor and let that sit until the glue was dry, and that worked really well.  I really love the look of the floor, even more so now that it's installed into the building.

My next project was the door.  I really really wanted the logo that I designed for the bookstore on the door, but I wanted it printed on the door, not me trying to trace it with paint or something and it looking like a hot mess.  I tried transferring the image with packing tape, which Ive seen done to make labels for jars and such, but it was not going to work for this, so then I was looking at the plastic sheets I use and they are 8.5x11 and I thought: hey maybe they are that size for a reason, let me try running it through my printer and printing the image directly onto it.  So I printed a couple copies of the logo (some of them were other sizes I had tried out or partially finished ones, I only needed one good one, but I wanted some to test out before working with the good one) praying the whole time that it didn't somehow mess up my printer.  But it printed fine and looked great. The next question was would the ink dry/set on the surface, so I left it alone for a while and then came back and tested one of them and it smeared right away.  So, my plan for if that happened was to try spray clear gloss top coat over it and see what happened.  Well that worked perfectly on my test piece.  (My final one actually has a lot more little tiny air bubble dots in in, probably because I think I sprayed the sealer on too thick the second time, so for the future, light coats and just do two if necessary), but overall it was still the better looking one, because it was the better version of the logo and didn't have any stray fibers under the top coat. lol.  And I freaking love how it turned out, and was so easy once I figured out the exact process, so I will definitely be using this technique again anytime I need logos or anything printed on "glass" for a miniature project!

Once the door was done I did the inside trim for the first story window and put the display back in place.

I added a little detail to the top of the building, that probably most people won't even see or notice, but it was something really simple and I think just really sells the whole, the building is books thing (can you spot what it is? hint: look at the top of the spines)

And then I added just one more bit of trim over the door on the outside of the building (which i liked it being white when I first put it on, but now I'm not sure if I might paint it the color of the rest of the trim, but I'll wait a while and see how I feel about it after looking at it for a longer period of time)

Which means the building/structure itself is finished now as well as all of the outside trim and the inside trim on the first floor, and I have moved on to working on the furnishings/stocking the shop.  The first thing I needed to do was dry fit the second floor and the stairs, but, they won't be going in until at least the stuff deeper toward the front of the shop is in place on the first floor. just to make sure I have enough room to actually get that stuff in since it's a narrow store.

Once I had a general idea of the ceiling height and about where the stairs will be I did a preliminary floor plan and started to build the wall of bookshelves that will be in the long blank wall. After building them to the height I thought I wanted though, I felt like they needed to be a little taller so I added another row of shelves (which makes them 7ft tall in scale height). The top row of shelves ended up getting constructed differently than the rest of it, but once it was painted up that wasn't too noticeable and I'm sure will be even less so once they shelves are filled with books.

Speaking of filling the shelves with books, I have started working on that as well, I had made what I thought was a good chunk of books back in 2018 for this but then decided to use some of them for a library in a book shaped gift card holder as a Christmas present for one of my friends that year and realized that it was going to take quite a few more books than I thought to fully stock the bookstore.  I did think about just printing rows of book spines and gluing them to strips of wood to put in the shelves, but knowing how good it looked with individual books I just couldn't bring myself to do it after doing a sample set.  So I used what I had left from my original batch to start filling this bookcase, partly because I wanted for it to start looking like a real shop and partly to get a better idea of how many books I would really need.  And I love the books on the shelves and it really makes it start feeling like a store to me when I set the unit in place in the building to see how it would look. (I might add another section to the length of the bookcase too, I had originally planned for one more section on the bookcase, but then I kind of thought of a slight change I might want to make to the floor plan so I'm going to hold off on the last section until I figure that out for sure.

So that's as far as I've gotten on it so far, but honestly having the outside done and the inside ready to start putting furnishings and stuff on the first floor really makes it seem to me like I've moved forward leaps and bounds with this project.  My next step with it will be mainly making books, and then of course we will be in June soon here and I want to get June's door for my year of doors project done early in the month, since it looks like I will be going back to babysitting probably by the middle of the month, so I will probably be posting that door before I end up posting any progress with the bookstore.

 I do also have a little announcement though..... I decided to start a Facebook page  to go along with the blog! I like the idea of having that as a companion to the blog that I can easily post a picture here and there of what I am working on right at that moment, and progress pictures and stuff, and I'm thinking that it will give me the flexibility to be able to more easily share more and different types of content as well (like I'm thinking maybe videos occasionally and stuff like that) and I will most likely have to Facebook exclusive content as well, so if you haven't already hop on over to Facebook and like and follow my Joanna's Dollhouse Diaries page so you don't miss out on anything!

{Hello!: A Year Of Doors} January

I really was planning to wait to do this door until I could go to Hobby Lobby and get cardstock for the siding that was already the color I wanted, but I started working on all the accessories for it and just really wanted to get it completely put together and done, so I decided to go ahead and try painting white cardstock (which I wasn't sure how well the cardstock would hold up to a water based paint), and that ended up working out just fine so I went with it (I most likely will however be using cardstock in the colors I need for the other months with siding made from cardstock, but I'll get into why down in the photos).  Once I got going on it I got kind of wrapped up in it and it moved pretty fast, so I didn't take as many in progress pictures of all the steps as I normally would, but I think I managed to get a least one for each major part of making the door anyway (even if some of them were taken well after the fact lol).  When I started working on this door I was afraid it might be too plain/boring because there really wasn't much going on in the original planning sketch, but I'm really happy with how it turned out.  There's still not a lot going on as far as decorations, but I think the little scene setting details add a lot to it, and honestly I think for most people January is really the "down" month of the year as far as decorating and activities.

So here is the planning sketch again as a reminder:

 And now on to the work itself:

As with most of the doors the wreath was the first thing I made for this month.  And I actually kind of made it twice.... I had made the base for it back in late December/ early January.... and then when I was looking for it to finish it off I couldn't find it, so I had to remake it, and then after doing that I found the original one on the floor in an odd spot..... but the second one actually looked a little better anyway so I stuck with that one.  To make it I wrapped a jump ring with yarn and then made a tiny bow from the yarn and added some tiny little paper snowflakes from Stewart Dollhouse Creations.  The door itself was also obviously painted by this point and it was one of the doors I got from B J Miniatures.

I know I normally wait until the end to point out the "hello", but for this one its a little too glaringly obvious to just ignore it until then I think...... I hand lettered the "hello" on the door using a white paint pen, and then touched it up a little bit with some gloss black paint and my tiniest paintbrush. (you can see some of my practice hellos on the tape next to the door)

This little guy is the only extra decoration for January (other than the basics of wreath and doormat). I made him from a piece of thin balsa wood, cut to the shape and then scored to look like planks. I painted him with regular craft paints and then added a little scrap piece of wood for the brim of his hat and added another of the little snowflakes to that, and gave him a base with another little scrap of wood.  He is about an inch tall which makes him about 4 ft. in scale.

Now I am getting into working on the scene as a whole.  I had these two bushes left over from a set I had bought for the landscaping for the North Pole Tearoom, and they filled the space perfectly.  At this point I was just using a piece of balsa to hold the place for what would be a brick stoop... primarily to check for how wide the stoop should be and how that worked with the bushes.

As I said, I decided I didn't want to wait to get light blue cardstock if I could help it so I decided to do a little test section of white cardstock painted blue.  I wasn't sure how well the cardstock would hold up to being painted, but I made sure not to completely drench the paper in paint and it worked just fine, so I decided to go with that so that I could go ahead and get it done.  This picture is the door and snowman sitting on the little test piece I did to check the color.  I did end up mixing the color myself..... this original color was just a medium blue mixed with white, but I wasn't completely happy with this so I did add a little of a blue with a little more yellow in it and then a tiny bit of another medium blue to get it a smidge darker until I got my ideal color

Now this picture illustrates why I do plan on getting the actual color of cardstock I need for future sidings.... while painting the white worked out just fine, because I had to paint it I couldn't attach the door and trim first and butt the siding up to it. I had to try to mark where the door would be and line up the siding with those lines.... which worked out okay, but wasn't exact and did leave me with a couple minor issues, so unless I can't get the right color in cardstock I will be trying not to do it this way in the future for these doors.

Checking the progress again with the paint done

I added printed bricks to the bottom of the wall for the foundation.  You can also see one of my little issues from the way I had to do the siding here.... the door ended up just slightly higher than it should have been so I extended the bricks into that space to hopefully make it less obvious.  Which mostly worked, but now that I'm completely done with it I'm still not sure I'm 100% happy with it so I may try to figure out something I can add to hide it a little more that won't end up messing anything else up...

With the house facade done, it was time to move on to the base/landscaping.  I wanted dirt in the areas around the bushes with the edge lining up with the front edge of the step going up to the stoop. (oh which obviously I had made by this point so I could trace the edges, but that's one of those things I didn't get pictures of while I was working on it..... I made the stoop from foam core board pieces glued together to make a top and sides and covered in printed brick, and the step was a piece of balsa also covered in printed bricks).  I wanted a walkway coming from the right side in front of the bushes to the step (which there ended up not being much room for so only the edge of the walkway ended up making it on there) and then just grass in front of the bush on the left side (which obviously I hadn't gotten on there yet at this point, but I did it the same way I've been doing the grass on these doors..... a base layer of green paint, a layer of tacky glue and then green ground foam pressed into that for the grass)

And of course there's snow on the bushes and this is a January door so I wanted snow on the ground too, but I didn't want it completely covered with snow.  I wanted it to look like either snow that had started to melt away and there wasn't tons left, or just a light snow that didn't really cover everything (or hadn't yet) depending on how you'd rather look at it.  To make my snow I used one of my favorite new techniques, I mixed some sand into white paint and dabbed it on with a blunt tipped paintbrush (oh I also used the sand mixed in paint technique for the dirt in this one too because I didn't want to do mulch I just wanted a quick cover, but with some texture, especially since I knew it wouldn't really even show that much by the time I got the snow down.

I liked how the snow turned out sticking differently to the grass material, it made it look like how in real life snow accumulates differently on grass than it does on other surfaces.  You also may have noticed that the snowman is now on the opposite side of the door from what I had had him on up to this point.... I decided it would be better for him to be on the "hinges"' side of the door rather than the "handle" side..... I feel like that would make it easier going in and out the door if you have bags or something especially, and not fee like you have to be extra careful not to knock him over.

And the doormat...... I wasn't sure what I was going to do for the doormat because I wanted some variety from the plain rectangle that most of the others were, plus the stoop here wasn't too big so I didn't want the doormat to just completely overtake it, so I was looking on Pinterest for inspiration and saw one similar to this, and I liked that it was relatively simple as far that the design goes, but had a lot of style with the interesting shape, and was able to be substantial and not look too small for scale, but also not take over the entire stoop.

And here is the entire base done without the facade behind it

With that all done I knew I wanted a porch light for this one, and of course it needed house numbers as well.  I looked online to try to find a quarter scale porch light to buy for this one, but there are really not many options available, and all the ones I found were wired to actually light up, which I'm not doing power for these to light up, and I could have just cut the wires off, but they cost a little more than I was looking for because they were wired.  I did end up finding a style I liked for this door though in a different scale and after looking at it I had an idea for how I might be able to make it myself.

Fortunately my husband had to go to Walmart for a couple things, because I wanted to try making this light from a pearl head (sewing) straight pin and an earring back (which I don't have pierced ears so didn't have any earring backs so I had to have him get me some while he was at the store).  I also used a little circle punched from black cardstock, which isn't pictured here.

I inserted the pin through the earring back, bent it to shape and then cut off the end, leaving enough to push into the foam core board that is the base for the house facade.  I then taped off the pearl and spray painted the rest of it matte black

I then used another pin that still had it's point to poke a hole through the center of the circle of black cardstock and into the wall, and then added a bit of glue behind the cardstock and glued that to the siding, and then before the glue dried pressed the end of the wire of the fixture through the cardstock and into the wall, and let it all dry

I am so happy with how this little light turned out (granted the globe should probably be bigger compared to it's base than it is, but I'm fine with that because it turned out so well and was so easy to do)!  I most likely will be doing another light this way at some point, I also think I could use this flipped the other way too (so the light is pointing down not up) to change up the look a little and maybe for a smaller light do it with just a flat head pin and no globe with it facing down not up.

Definitely getting there, but it still needed house numbers

I debated what I was going to do for house numbers, because I'm trying to change things up as much as I can from door to door, and this door is a little more traditional so I didn't want to do anything too crazy. I thought about just printing numbers, but didn't want it to look too much like March's house numbers and didn't want to try to cut out tiny individual numbers, so I decided to try making metal numbers from wire.  This picture was testing them for size and style with the rest of the door, and I almost left them white after seeing them on the door, but my plan was for them to also be matte black, so I decided to go ahead and paint them and if I decided I liked the white better I could always paint them back  

Of course the black was the clear winner once I got them on the door, and that was the finishing touch for this door.

Clearly my concerns about this door being too plain and being boring turned out to be nothing.  While there's not as much going on decoration wise here as on a lot of the other months, I think it has just enough details to really bring it to life and I think it is just perfect for January.  (In this picture you can really see my issue with the bottom of the door, that I'm still debating if I want to try to do something with.... it's not really that noticeable when you are looking at it straight on in person, and I don't know if other people would even hardly notice it at all, but I see it when I look at it.  But, I don't want to end up messing up the rest of it trying to do something about that, so I may or may not try to do something to fix and/or hide it a bit.... I'm going to leave it for now and come back to it later and see how much it's still bothering me then before I make and decisions on if or what to maybe try) 

Now that January is done I'm officially caught up with this project to be able to, from this point on, work on it as planned, doing one door a month as a weekend project.  (As I've said before, even though I had planned on December being done at the end of last year, I'm not going to consider it behind until I get to December this year..... I do want to have it done by the end of November though so that it is good to go by the beginning of December if I want to use the project for anything and to have more time to work on presents and stuff like that in the already busy holiday season.  I'm thinking I might try to do it in July since I usually like to do a little "Christmas in July" day/celebration, but we'll see it may not get done until the fall....)

And..... now that I'm back on track with this smaller project, I can get back to work on Whimsy Street.  I realized last night that I don't think I've worked on the bookstore in over a year, so it will be really good to get back to that..... The building is mostly done for that.... mainly I just have to figure out how to do the windows (my original plan was not working at the time that I put it away last, but I think Ive found something that will work better..... so that will probably be the first thing I work on when I pull it back out), and get the second floor and the stairs worked out (its a spiral staircase and the second floor will be open in the middle so I haven't quite worked out exactly how the stairs are going to fit in/be positioned in relation to that), and I think add all the exterior trim work.  I will probably do all the fixtures and stock the shelves and all the decor for the first floor though before I install the second floor just to make it a little easier to reach stuff, but I'll see which way I think it going to work out best when I get to that point.

We are approaching the end of our stay at home order here in VA in a couple weeks (as long as nothing changes) so I won't have as much time to work on stuff  on weekdays probably for at least a couple months, so the bookstore may not move as quickly as getting the doors caught up did, but I'm hoping that now that I've gotten on a bit of a roll during this time I can keep the momentum going, because I do also have to ice cream shop to do to finish Whimsy Street (plus the actual street itself to display them on together) and I really really want to have them done by November at the latest. (I don't expect the ice cream shop to take too long to do though hopefully, and I will probably get started working on some aspects of it concurrently with finishing the bookstore)