Feeling flat

It's overcast and drizzling, and I had a late night last night so it's not really a good day to be working on either of my builds (alas, the retro caravan kit has been taken off the list until at least January.)

But I don't feel too bad, as last night was mini-related. Freinds and I attended the opening of ANCA Gallery's The Peculiar Library exhibition and admired the latest from local icon Alex Asch.

Then it was off to the newly-reopened Smith's Alternative to heard another local icon, Fred Smith, and Kiwi Don McGlashan perform. 

 

This was also (surprisingly) miniature-related as the set up of the venue was almost exactly what I'd been contemplating for my Lundby live-music venue. I need to return in daylight and take some photos as the ones I took last night weren't so great.

Since I'm not painting or building today, and am feeling a little overwhelmed by the whole thing, I thought I'd try and rekindle my enthusiasm for the HBS build by mocking up the back wall. I added the gravel surround and part of the tree fern kit which I was lucky enough to pick up for $2 at a show.

And I feel much better about the whole thing: except now I think that perhaps I should install a garden shed between the two windows as an extra sound buffer and to store the batteries for the lighting which I'll be installing (*cough* once I work out how to do it...*cough*)

Another highlight of the morning was that the letter A bookcase I bought off Etsy arrived in the mail, so I just had to throw up a quick scene to highlight it.

(Which made me realise how much I miss throwing up scenes and how much miniatures is feeling like work at the moment. And made me decide I needed to schedule in time each week to make a scene. As it were...)

 #HBSCreatinContest2015

Meanwhile, back at the Lundby house...

It's been a while since I focused on my Lundby build (apart from picking at the carpet in my spare moments...) and since I figured that I needed time to think through all the answers to yesterday's question (thanks, guys!) and decide which approach to take, it was time to pull it back to the front of the queue.

Where I finally decided to try using a hairdryer to soften the glue holding the flocking onto the bedroom floor.

 And realised just how much time I'd wasted picking the flocking off without it.

 *Sigh*

 Next up was finishing the repapering. Paula had sent me a message last month asking me if I'd checked the Swedish-language version of the Lundby site for wallpaper templates, as they seemed to be working just fine.

(Erm, no I hadn't and when I followed her links they did indeed work just fine. Thanks Paula!).

So I printed the lounge side wall templates out on card and cut them out.

 Except there was a problem...

 I thought at first that perhaps they hadn't printed out in the correct scale.

 And while checking that, noticed that the template said it was for the 1999-2011 Småland. I'm hacking a 2014: perhaps that's my problem?

I went upstairs to check some photos of various Smålands, and it slowly dawned on me that I'd printed the right-hand lounge wall template and what I really needed was the left wall bedroom wall template, as although the wall is in the lounge in my build, it's originally the bedroom.

So, feeling smug, I printed out the correct template and returned downstairs to cut it out and check the fit.

*Sigh*

Perhaps I could warm up the glue under the wallpaper, peel off the wallpaper and use it as a template? No.

Even better, could I prise the window off if I heated up the glue? Also no.

So I cheered myself up by cutting out the template for the right-hand wall. Which fitted perfectly.

 And decided to take my frustrations out on pulling apart a Lundby sofa that I need to recover for the build...

Muddling along Monday*

I'm at that stage where I have so many projects on the go that I feel I'm not making any progress on any of them.

But slowly and surely, I'm getting there...

The HBS Creatin' Contest build: I thought I was going to take the back wall to James at Victorian Dollhouses and get him to cut my window holes later this week. Then told myself not to be such a wuss, and dug out the instruction manual for my scroll saw so I can learn how to remove the blade, and cut the holes myself. (Besides, it's probably more than time I changed the blade: I hear that they are like sewing machine needles in that way.)

The Lundby hack: Still working away at removing the bedroom carpet. Each morning, as I wait for the kettle to boil, I do some more work on it. There's probably some fabulous shortcut, but I haven't bothered looking for it. Yet.

The November issue of The tiny Times: is running late. But until I broadcast it to the world, only two people knew or cared. I think it's our best issue yet. But then I'm a tad biased.

And a new project: I'm going to be part of another exhibition—my first outside of Canberra—which opens in a month. I spent some time this afternoon on the phone to the curator, discussing what they'd like from me, and now I need to schedule time into my diary to (re) create the pieces.

Plus, over at one of my other blogs: I went interstate to visit an op (thrift) shop.

(*Except, just as I went to hit the 'publish' button I had the dawning realisation that it might just be Tuesday. Welcome to my life, where days of the week become meaningless.)

_________________________________________________________________________

What's in the Toybox exhibition

27 November - 24 December 2015

An exhibition of works particularly for children but also suitable for adults in need of a little nostalgia in the lead up to Christmas.  From original book illustrations to colourful sculptures and hand-made wooden toys by local Goulburn Woodworkers, there's something  in the toybox to delight everybody.

Goulburn Regional Art Gallery

Civic Centre, Bourke Street

Goulburn N.S.W.

Tel. 02 4823 4503

Open Monday - Friday 10 am – 5 pm,   Saturday 1 pm – 4 pm  (Closed Sunday and Public Holidays)

Because sometimes procrastination can be a positive thing!

In the time since I've been wrestling with making the changes I want to make to the Smaland dolls' house that Lundby Australia had sent me, the lovely people at Lundby updated the design of the house, making what I wanted to do with it a much easier proposition.

First up is the new remote control, which gives you the ability to have the lights on in one room at a time: perfect for this build, as I can have lights on in the upstairs bar/ music venue but off in the downstairs cafe (which is only open during the day).

Lundby have produced a clever stop-motion animation showing how it works:

The other change that works for my build is their decision to make the kitchen/ dining area open plan, which means I don't have to deal with channels in the floor and wall and can, in fact, use the floor that comes with the house as it is, if I want to...

I decided that all this was a sign to stop procrastinating, and do some work on the hack.

Remember when I mentioned that I tell myself if I mess something up, it'll be a good story for the blog?

After checking the Lundby site for the wallpaper templates and finding them not there any more, I decided it would be a good idea to cut the new wallpaper to size before applying it. Bad, bad idea. Can you see?

Luckily I had enough of the paper to try another approach: applying and then cutting (my big Xyron sticker machine came out for the job).

Perfect!

Next step was the flooring. I had assumed that the bedroom carpet was a single piece of fabric. Silly me. It's lots of fluff, glued on:

(I'll get back to that later, as I'd run out of the time I'd put aside to work on the hack).

So far so good, even if it's all a bit temporary for now.

I was pleased to find that the copper spray paint I bought for the Hideout build, and used to paint one of my stag heads, went well with the paper I'd chosen. I think I'll be using that on a few things before this build is done...

My next issue is dealing with wallpapering the window wall. I'll check the Lundby site again in a day or so to see if the templates have mysteriously returned and if not, I might have a poke around to see how difficult it is to remove the windows from a modern Lundby. *gulp*

I also need to decide on papers and flooring for the music venue entry area and get them installed...

Slowly but surely, I'm making progress!

Futzing around Friday

I'm feeling like I've not got very far with any of the projects I'm working on.

Although the retro caravan has made it to dry-fit stage, which must be a good thing:

Meanwhile I've made no progress on the HBS Creatin' Contest kit. Unless you count blutacking a bulb from a Typo heart marquee light to the outside to remind me to make a lighting plan.

I do have an excuse for this one: the lovely Fran from HBS offered me a second sliding door for the kit, so I'm waiting for that to arrive before I make the final decision between French or sliding doors for the side entries, and cut the necessary holes to fit them...

And the Lundby hack? Well, I have cut the bar floor out of a roll of black sparkly stuff I picked up from Typo (I have no idea what it was originally supposed to be used for), gathered some wallpaper options and pulled out the bag of gold stars I bought for the build.

So, all in all not much progress...

#HBSCreatinContest2015 

Finish it off Friday: Fifteen minutes at a time...

At last weekend's ProBlogger training event, one of the things that stood out for me was hearing how the organiser had wanted to write an ebook, but felt he had no time. So he got up 15 minutes early each day and spent that time working on it. Three and a half months later, he was done.

I realised I needed to do the same with the three big miniature projects (if there can be such a thing?) that I wanted to have finished by the end of the year:

1. the retro caravan kit (which I have already started and am trying to get into the habit of spray painting a bit of each day until I've undercoated all the pieces, boring as it might be).
2. the HBS Creatin' Contest kit (which is still sitting in its box on the kitchen floor, waiting until I find the space to unpack it).
3. and the Lundby hack, which has been waiting for my attention since December.

So today, I refocused on the Lundby hack, which I set up on top of a bookcase in the lounge back in December, confident that they fact it was sitting there, in full sight of the sofa, in all its glorious colour, would mean I'd be forced to get cracking on it:

 Instead, I just stopped seeing it. :-/

(Has something similar ever happened to you?)

So here's my starting point, a 2011 Lundby Smaland House:

Right from the beginning I'd thought I'd like to turn it into a cafe/ bar/ live music venue.

Downstairs, I decided that the original bathroom area would be a good kitchen space, and discovered that I could put the bathroom wall in backwards so the door to the room was at the rear of the space.

I also decided that the internal stairs took up too much room so removed them. Instead, I was to add a door to the back wall, which will lead to toilets, the office and storeroom.

I want to leave the wall between the original kitchen and dining areas out to make a large, open-space room offering chairs and tables and sofas to sit at while you have your coffee and cake.

 Upstairs, I'm planning to have direct entry to the bar/ live music venue from the outside balcony, and possibly expend the roof to cover it. Inside will be a small lobby area,

 And a large, open-plan live music area with bar and a range of seating options.

I'm using band equipment from a Playmobil set, which is about the right scale, because the Lundby instruments set (60.5061) has been discontinued.

Wish me luck!

I don't believe in Christmas

...but Santa arrived at my front door this afternoon anyway, and dropped off two large cartons.

 Which contained much Lundby goodness:

(and my first challenge for 2015).

At the Sydney Show back in May, I'd been chatting with lovely Paula, the Lundby Australia distributor, who told me about the new approach Lundby was taking with promoting DIY and custom Lundby 'hacking' and asked if I'd like to 'hack a house'.

Of course I said yes! Things got busy for us both (although I did find time to brain storm what I'd like to turn the house into and we emailed back and forth over several months to come up with ideas for what I might need her to send me as well as the house).

And today it all arrived. I should get started on the project but the beady-eyed amongst you might notice a reason to put things off for a couple of days:

Included in  the boxes was a copy of the book I'd been eyeing up this time last year in Brisbane. If anyone's looking for me, I'll be on the sofa...