Thursday (and not throwing in the towel)

As Daily Dolls' House December 2016 drags to an end, I'm feeling simultaneously chuffed that it looks like I'll reach my goal this year (as opposed to last time, where I didn't manage to meet my target), and exhausted. In a good way.

I'm also laughing at my plan to tidy my studio over the summer break: it was heading in the right direction until I started pulling boxes and drawers out at random to find items for the scenes I've been making. It's OK: I still have time to wrangle things into submission before I go back to work (and, more importantly, before my January flat inspection.)

One of the things I've been trying to do is get to those tasks that have been banking up 'until I have the time'. With ten whole days where I'm free to do what I want, I've been lecturing myself on the fact that if I don't start working on them now, when exactly will it happen? 

So this morning I dug out a vintage towel I op shopped years ago and thought that  the design would make great retro floor rugs. I grabbed my fabric scissors, took a deep breath, reminded myself that done was better than perfect, and started cutting.

And cutting. And cutting.

Which led directly to a Fray-stop frenzy (because I knew if I didn't do it right away, the rug pieces would disappear back into stash, only to turn up on another blog post in a year or so as a Finish it off Friday project...)

While I waited for the edges to dry I did a post office run. One of the things that was waiting for me was the MiWorld cookie shop that I'd picked up ridiculously cheaply from eBay: cheaply enough that I factored the per-piece cost of the accessories into my buying decision, not the structure itself.

As I unpacked it and set the wall and floor pieces aside, I realised I'd actually bought far more than a bunch of cheap accessories: I'd bought a solution to throwing up small scenes quickly, without having to tape various bits of cardboard together:

Suddenly, the accessories weren't the focus any more and the cost of the set became an absolute bargain. And the colours rather perfectly matched the rugs I'd just completed!

Since I plan to spend my afternoon out of the studio, I needed a quick 'proof of concept' scene for both the rugs and for my new staging solution, and came up with a retro living room.

I'm still trying to decide if this is set in the 1960s-1970s,

or if the owner is just a retro freak...