Welcome to my life . . . .

This is a blog about my passion: dollhouses and miniatures. This particular blog was started to follow my miniature dream: to create a Victorian Mansion. But work on my Mansion is slow. Very slow. Sloth slow. Ice Age glacier movement slow. Why? Because I am easily distracted by other personal miniature projects (I have 50+ roomboxes and 15 dollhouses in various stages of incompletion) and because I work for a miniature shop and am often up to my elbows in miniature projects that aren't mine! So, I thought, some artists work in a particular medium (woods, watercolors, clay, oils, etc.), I work in progress . . . .

Thursday, December 15, 2016

Delayed Birithmas Gift...

Surgery and loss of miniature mojo set me behind schedule on my friends' Birithmas Gifts (First post about Friends' Birithmas Gifts) but I am back to finishing up the New Yorker Box for my TX friend...Making this scene in one of the windows:
2015 Christmas Window Display in NY City

Last step is the lighting.  Was planning on putting the light bulbs in the center crown hanging in the center for the Queen of Hearts Bergdorf Goodman window display.  So first I had to replicate the crown hanging above the doll.  Friend had found the perfect size crown during her trip to New Orleans and shipped it to me (along with her lions seen in the last photos of this blog entry).
Sprayed some glitter on the crown but it doesn't show up very well in the photo
Had to add the red velvet to the crown.
Cut the pieces
Super glued each piece into place
 

 

The underside still has the hole for the bulb/wire to light it up.
Unfortunately when I inserted the bulbs and lit it up, the bulbs weren't enough to light up the entire window area.  It created more of a spot light effect on the limited space under it, leaving most of the box in shadow.  So I removed the bulbs and just put them in the ceiling to light up the area.
"HI!" I'm waving at you in the reflection of the unlit room.

This side of the box is now lit but I think it still needs some lights at the bottom to better enhance the sparkles on my friend's lions.
Hanging crown, not lit but still an important detail touch to the scene.
So, I'll still add more lights near the bottom and the Tiffany side needs it's lights glued in place (Blog post showing the Tiffany's Side), but I got to play yesterday afternoon with my friend's Birithmas gift and spent the time altering a crown.  She won't get it in time for Christmas or even New Year's but I will hopefully get it shipped out by the end of January 2017...Does that mean I can count this as her 2017 Birithmas gift too? LOL

3 comments:

  1. Love it! and I'm sure "Texas friend" will love it too!!!!

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  2. Hi, Lori - The crown turned out beautifully, but the addition of the velvet pieces looks very tricky! Nice work. Why is lighting usually so unpredictable? I haven't done much electrical work, because my husband enjoys doing it for me (thank goodness!) but it's always sort of a hit or miss
    experience - a venture into the great unknown. You do seem to have solved your lighting problem very satisfactorily - the window display looks wonderful.
    Marjorie

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    Replies
    1. I love hate electrical work -- I'm working on 2 customer houses right now and both were brought to me because of electrical issues. I'm pulling my hair out with them. But I know, once they are working, it is remarkable how impressive the lighting can be!

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