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First of all, let me introduce Santa. I found him in a gift shop, back in the 75%-off Christmas sale stuff, in a little German-heritage town not far from here. I don't believe he'll live in the mushroom, but he comes by frequently to check on the elves and their progress. Do you think he's carrying a lantern because he doesn't think I'll solve the lighting dilemma? ;) While I was thinking about the lighting, I did some aging on the oven wall. I love these artist colors. I got them on the clearance shelf at Hobby Lobby for about a 10th of the original price. I love 'em! After I finished the fireplace, I tidied up the work area a bit. Decided to put the fiber optic lights away, as they didn't always come on and I just couldn't figure out what to do with them. When I opened the electrical storage, I found some clear plastic stars -- meant to be mirror hangers -- that gave me an idea. The plastic tubing + the stars + a light . . . well, here is the prototype. I taped a silk flower to the wall behind the star. This is mounted on the first floor wall that I'm not using, just for the sake of experimentation. I can run the wires beneath the house, up through the floor and the tubing, and voila! A sort of sconce. The prototype has already been replaced in my head with something a bit more Christmasy, but this will give you the idea. There will be five sconces around the ground floor -- one of either side of the bay window, one on either side of the front door, and one on the oven wall. I'm still not sure how to handle the other five lights for the upstairs living area, but there is a place in the oven wall where I can run them through the floor. After solving at least half of the lighting challenge, I gave myself some time to do something easy, so I took some bits of balsa and a stain pen and made this little shelf. It's going to go on the oven wall. While waiting for the stain to dry so I could glue the shelf, I pulled out some fabric to audition for the ground floor. I thought if the elves are busy making toys, that white floor is going to get pretty grungy in a hurry. Sorry for the blurry picture. I think the camera was still set on macro for the shelf photo. Anyway, I think I'll make a thin cardstock template and use this fabric as a floor covering. The elves remain nameless, but they don't seem terribly upset my their mini anonymity. (I like the way that sounds when you say it out loud: mini anonymity.) ;)

Well, life intervened with my mini plans, as it often does, but I'm finally back to working on the oven wall. The little baker is very interested in what's happening. Today we got the alcove cut out. The little stove fits in there just right. The little baker likes the little stove. She says she can turn out all kinds of good Bohemian breads and pastries on it. We used a big emery board to sand down the rough edges. This view shows the left side of the oven wall shortened and curved and the piece of bendable drinking straw that will do for a stovepipe. It will be painted shiny black to match the stove. I rummaged around in the construction materials bin and found a handful of bricks, enough to brick the back of the stove alcove with some left over for the steps. The little baker and I had a discussion about how to finish off the steps. We debated between bricks or no bricks, but I think the bricks won. I told her they weren't glued in place so she'd better be careful how she stepped on them. She was careful, thank goodness. We put the bricks away and painted the whole thing with gesso. There are some rough patches that need to be smoothed over with wallboard mud, and the whole thing will get another coat of gesso and the stairstep bricks will be glued on. When the glue dries, we can grout the bricks, do a little aging on them, and slide the whole unit in place. The little baker called in two of her male counterparts to see what progress we've made. The one in the middle found something to get excited about, but I ignored him. The one on the right just wanted to know if the stove will be hooked up in time for supper. We have some paint samples in the construction materials box. I think one of them will make a nice pad under the stove. We haven't decided if the kitchen area will have flooring or not. The little baker just called me over. She says she needs to have a name. "Little baker" just isn't doing it for her. She's thinking about what she wants to be called. I guess each of the elves deserved a name. ;)

Inspiration The White Orchid, a special run of the Greenleaf Orchid dollhouse kit, is made from Sintra, a beautifully satiny white plastic. I was lucky enough to get one during the short run of this kit. It has been waiting patiently for more than two years to become what I knew it was going to be almost from the get-go: a mushroom home for five elves and their fairy godmother wrangler. ;) This is what inspired me. We have always had a cheerful red-topped mushroom on our Christmas tree, a Bohemian good luck symbol. This is what it looks like in real life: Here are the elves and the fairy godmother. The elves came from the gift shop at the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City. I can't recall if the fairy godmother came from a shop in Crown Center in KC or the French Quarter in New Orleans. No matter. Fairy godmothers come and go wherever they please. Getting Started Andrew (aka doogster) posted some knowledgable information about the type of glue to use for this material. He said Tenax 7R would be the best. It welds the plastic and sets in 10 seconds. Of course I didn't have any on hand when I started the project, so I used Aileen's Tacky Glue to assemble the two floors and the three sides. The next morning, when I took off the masking tape, one side fell off. And the other two walls were failing fast. So, off I went to the hobby shop for some Tenax 7R. I did some test pieces with scraps and discovered that it is marvelous stuff if the two pieces to be joined are absolutely in contact with one another. Even a teensy gap and there is no attachment formed. I added some superglue gel to the arsenal and am now chugging along cheerfully. I got some Krylon spray paint for the roof bits. I want it a lovely, smooth satiny red. I pinned them to a piece of styrofoam insulation and sprayed away. It worked beautifully. Another flash of inspiration As I was prepping the large octagonal window for the center gable, a couple of things were churning around in my head. I thought I'd rather have a blank wall in that area on the inside. One of the challenges of this housing arrangement is that there are four little men elves and one little lady, plus the fairy godmother. Sleeping arrangements are going to be difficult to sort out. A blank wall might give me a bit of flexiblity. Then it occured to me that the window might be a doorway. A cuckoo might live in that little space. So I went looking for a cuckoo that would be found in a Bohemian forest and who should introduce himself but a Great Spotted Cuckoo. I did a search on the internet and found a tutorial by Kerri Pajutee on the CDHM website for making a parrot. Her directions are so straightforward and clear that I think I can use them to make a cuckoo. Here's what he ought to look like: All I need to do is get out the Fimo and round up some feathers. I'll save that for when I'm in an accessory building frame of mind. Back to the build There were some little details to work out, like how would the cuckoo's door open. I cut the center punch-out in half, superglued some hardware on it, and made a little perch out of part of the roof trim (which isn't going to be used on the roof). I glued some spacers made from other punch-out scraps for the back wall, which I cut from foamcore board. From even a small distance, the foamcore looks much like the Sintra. I would have used the wall pieces, which aren't going to be used, but they weren't big enough. There are some other challenges to be met, like stairs. The stairs that come with the kit take up too much room. I was very much taken with Grazhina's gnome house and its lovely brick & plaster oven. I'm thinking that something similar built against the side wall might have steps built in for the elves to scamper upstairs. It would have to be a bit more elaborate and might even include a space for a tiny lady elf's bed. How cozy and warm would that be? ;) That would make the upstairs bedroom challenge a bit less complicated. So here's where the build is now, with the ornament by the porch for reference. The plan is to finish the outside completely while the plans for the interior have time to ferment in my brain. Plans Change Of course they do! While fiddling with the outside bits, adding windows, etc., the inside has been nagging at me. I finally chopped up a piece of contractor's foam board to make a combo stairway/oven wall. This is the first attempt. About 2 inches near the window will be removed and the corner rounded a bit to make a little closet/nook. An alcove will be cut out for a half-inch scale woodstove. The baker is only 3" tall. I thought a full size stove would have her running up and down a ladder -- dangerous near a hot stove! The foam will be smoothed, Spackled, and gessoed so it will look more like the Sintra walls. The unfinished chair is the fairy godmother's. She's pushing to have it gilded, but I don't think so. I'm hoping if I ignore it (her) long enough, she'll turn her attention to something else.