The Smallest Department Store

I was too quick to shout SPRING last week, we woke up to snow the next day! So Birchwood is on the shelf waiting for the season to turn. So I looked around for what I fancied working on and Cynthia Howe's Department Store in a Baby House shouted my name!

The first thing I did was wallpaper. The hardest part of this task was deciding which wallpaper to use in which shop, and before that deciding which shop to put where in the Baby House. The choice of wallpapers was unbelievable.

It took a bit of fiddling to get the wallpaper in around the light fittings.

The middle of the top row of drawers opens into a little writing desk.

The rooms that are usually landings with stairs in Baby Houses are going to be elevators.

Starting at the top and working left to right the shops are going to be.......

Dress Shop

Elevator shaft

Jewellery Shop

Perfume Shop - look at those beautiful bottles along the top of the wallpaper.

Hat Shop

Flower Shop

Tea Room

I spent far too long deciding where to put which department. I always think of the Baby Houses as real buildings and how they would work. I most definitely did not want the Tea Room on the same floor as either the Dresses or the Hats, imagine buying a beautiful gown and then realising it smells of food! Also working along the same lines I didn't want the perfume Shop next to the tea room - what is that beautiful scent ?? chocolate cake ??? I wanted the Tea Room and the Flower shop on the ground floor because they need to be where passing folk can nip in without having to negotiate the rest of the store. So you see, I spent FAR too long thinking this through!

Then I started on the furniture and once I had started I couldn't stop. The kits are just amazing. I have never seen such tiny details, the laser cutting is incredible. The down side of this is there a lot of very thin fragile pieces - some of which I did break but fortunately managed to fix, apart from the bench from the hat shop which needs some serious first aid!

Here are the pieces from the Tea Room.

Here is the furniture from the Dress Shop - the cabinet hasn't got its front on yet.

Here is the furniture from the Jewellery Shop.

Here is the furniture from the Perfume Shop

Now onto the furniture from the Hat Shop.

Then the furniture from the Flower Shop.

It is all ready to paint now and add the trims and mirrors and so on. I cannot wait to then start making stock for all the shops. I have no idea how I am going to manage the dresses and hats let alone the tea pot to go in the Tea Room!

I have also been working on a few Lydia Pickett pieces. There is always something for Pickett Hill half built on my craft table. This last few weeks it has been Emma's Toy Kitchen and the Benches to go in the porch.

This is the tall bench to go against the house wall.

This is the lower bench to go against the side of the porch that is open. Both benches need their cushions, this will test my sewing skills!

The Betterleys have just released the last three kits in the Lydia Pickett Series. It is sad in a way as I have loved looking forward to what would be next. Although I still have a lots of the kits still to build so it is not going to be over for sometime yet.

Cricket Hollow continues.....

I have been happily working away on Cricket Hollow and loving every minute of it. This is the perfect miniature project. A truly unique and fascinating way of putting a building together and a great opportunity to mess about with paint effects. As to how much fun I am going to have filling it, well you will have to wait and see!

The windows are in, one in the front and one in the side. The glass is actually glass - which makes it feel so real. There are mullions to go across the windows but I am waiting until I am further on as I can't decide what to do with them as I really want to be able too look in clearly. The logs sticking out at the front are the porch support beams.

Here is a photo of the inside. The beams are in and ready for the upstairs floor to go in. As you can see all the pieces are so clearly labelled, I don't want to imagine how long this takes for each kit but it certainly makes the putting together a complete dream.

This is a view of the side window. Also you can see how perfectly all the logs cris-cross over each other.

Another view of the back.

This is taken from above to show porch support beams and the porch posts in place.

I decided that now was the time to do some painting. In the instructions it gives a very clear description of how to use India ink and rubbing alcohol to weather the logs but I wanted to have a go with just the paints that I had to hand. Firstly I gave the whole building a very rough coat of light brown.

Here is a close up so that you can see the colour and the coverage.

I then went over it all again with a medium grey. I dry brushed it on and then wiped it off. I made sure that some parts were missed altogether and some parts had a heavier coverage.

This is a close up of the edges where I tried to give a more heavily weathered look to accentuate the way the logs are placed as I really love this part of the design. I absolutely love messing about with paint effects. Once this layer is dry I am going to do a little extra with a lighter shade of grey.

I gave the inside of the building two coats of white. It recommends white in the instructions so that Annies quilts are shown off to their best.

I love the way that it looks so rustic - with the log edges showing through the paint.

The other project that is sat on my craft table at the moment is a 48th scale Baby House. My friend Rita was kind enough to pass it my way when she realised how bad my Baby House addiction had become! With it being such a bare kit I thought it would be good to have some fun with the design. I am planning lots of collage probably with a vintage botanical print theme.

But here is the basic Baby House so far. The top and bottom half are not glued together yet and the doors are just propped against it.

Here is a photo of the insides.

These are the legs that came with it.

Lots on the go at the moment. Numerous miniature projects, knitting projects and quilting projects are all being worked on at once. Never a dull moment but that's how I like it.