Sunday, June 23, 2013

I do wish RL would stay out of my way! I had a little time yesterday to work on minis, but spent much of it packing up the little room box I had made for my sister. I've learned a few things from the big companies that mail miniatures to me - pack them with LOTS of padding! I now have a cigar box cushioned in the center of a 17" square box. And my own copy of the same room box isn't quite finished, so I worked on that for awhile, too. Then, when that was clamped and the glue was drying, I got out my micro house. The paint was all dry, of course, so I did another dry-fit, putting more of it together this time. Sorry I forgot to put a penny or a Hershey's kiss in the picture, but it's setting on a cutting mat with one-inch grids.

I think this will work just fine to take out the one wall so I can have a larger Parlor, or Entertainment Room, as they were called.

Then I took the micro LED lights out of their packages, dismantled the house again, and did some experimenting with light placement. I think maybe the hallways will be left without lights - the maid forgot to turn them on! That will reduce the lights from nine to only six. So if I can fasten the lights to the ceilings first, then cover the ceiling with paper, then try to hide the wires down the sides of the chimneys …

I worked for hours on Sunday afternoon and evening, but don't feel like I made much progress! The wires are on two of the floor/ceilings, but not on the top floor yet.

I think I should paint the top side of it first but not sure if it will be seen or not. I made a paper pattern of the second floor, which is the first-level ceiling, carefully tracing around the stairwell and the slots for the lower walls to fit into. Since I am leaving out a wall on the second floor, I didn't cut slots for it, just covered them over. Not needed, right? WRONG! Half of each slot is for the notches on top of the lower wall. Two walls fit into one notch. I used a pale yellow scrapbooking paper for the ceiling, which I cut out using my scratch-paper pattern. Carefully measured and cut holes for the light bulbs to poke through, and glued it all down. Then I did another dry-fit, placing the first-level walls and the second flooring together. That's when I realized my mistake in covering the slots!

Why does glue grab quickly when you don't want it to??? I was barely able to get the paper off again! I fleetingly considered trying to cut the paper through the slots, since it was already glued, but the slots are so tiny I wasn't sure I could do it without cutting the wood also. So now I'm back to Square One with the ceiling papers. Well, maybe Square Two, since I still have the pattern.

I also painted the red "carpet" on the stairways, and painted the banisters and top landing in gold.