Birithmas 2021 thru 2024

My 3 friends have never met each other, but they are collectively responsible for this project.

First inspiration came from my old neighbor and friend, Chip. He posted this picture from a "hippies" Facebook page and I fell in love:

I loved the colors, the flowers, and the vines overhead! But I couldn't envision it as a miniature scene; it needed something more. Then I was talking with my other friend, Maria, about her home town, Arequipa in Peru. It is called the white city since most of the buildings are white with white roads. And the pictures I googled inspired me:

Street in Arequipa

Another street in Arequipa

And it began to form in my head: mostly white street scene on one side and the colorful restaurant scene on the other side! But I have no time to create a new project...

Unless it was a gift for someone! And that's how friend #3, Best Friend in Texas, also became responsible for this project's life. Best Friend and I usually exchange Birithmas gifts: birthday and Christmas rolled into 1 gift since we both have Nov birthdays and don't want to pay shipping twice within a month to then ship each other Christmas gifts less than 4 weeks later.  But, due to Covid, graduations, college tours and trips for kids, and health issues, I have not exchanged Birithmas gifts with my bestie since 2020. So I got to work on our Birithmas gifts!

I knew it was to be 2 side-by-side scenes (one side an open patio and the other a street scene) and I wanted a tile wall fountain in there somewhere. Mocked up a design with foam core poster fairly quickly.

And then the project sat still for a bit. I needed wood to cut the final design on. And I had to research various products to find just the right tile, bricking, doors, etc. for the exact look I wanted. And then when I finally had most of the pieces, I got started:

Got the wood cut and rough designed the fountain/pond

Using molds I bought from Gravik (Link to Gravik's Etsy page) I created the bricks, cobblestone, and wall stone for the floorings and street side of the scene.

Since I have to ship this project, I was thrilled to find a LIGHTWEIGHT Sculpey clay!

I had to create a realistic "white" clay (didn't want a bright white)

Although my "street side" of the scene will be white on white, I didn't think a bright white (how the clay is sold) would look realistic since no city stone would look that clean. So I had to add some tan clay to the bright white.

Finished clay after being baked in the mold

I didn't like how the 2x2 stone looked on the wall. If it were a floor it would have been fine. But being vertical it looked too large and blocky. So I used my blade to cut the 2x2 blocks into 1x2 and staggered them on the wall to create a more realistic wall façade:

Then I used the bricking molds to create over 1,500 bricks (about 400 more bricks than I needed, but I don't math well so I had overestimated how many I'd need).

Added glitter to some, cuz why not?

Various shades of bricking

Laying the bricking down in the scene

Painted the MDF laser-cut door I had bought off Etsy to make it look like wrought iron and wood:

Painted the center black to resemble wrought iron

Painted streaks of brown hues on door edging to make MDF resemble wood

Both our doors together

Also bought amazing tiles from Gravik to create the wall fountain. Using paint, EnviroTex, and a product called Solid Water, I created the pond and fountain (Post about water effects).

Made ponds with Enviro Tex and plexi blister pack covers

The fountain caused some headaches since the water "stream" kept shrinking and breaking as it dried.  Took four attempts to finally get it to work.

As it dried, strands of "water" kept breaking where it met the pond

Finally finished with pond and fountain

Also made some pots to go in the narrow ledge shelf. Sawed a wooden bowl in half and created a back to cover the open side to create a half-round bowl. Then painted it to resemble terra cotta:

Full wood bowl on the left; cut bowl with wood backing in middle and on right

Painted to resemble terra cotta like pot

Unpainted bowl pot with flowers in narrow ledge on street side

Other walls were finished off with a textured spray called Orange Peel. I had used it before on my Moroccan vignette and thought it would work well on these walls, like a stucco effect.

The patio side

The street side

The spray I used

Prior project I had used the spray on

Then came my dilemma: My original vision had lattice and vines going over the patio half of the scene. But then that blocks the view from above into the pond/fountain.

With lattice in the way you can't see into pond fountain area as well

This way it's open and easily seen

So I made my friend's lattice first. Made it removeable so that if she thinks it blocks the view too much, she can remove it and fill in the brick hole with flowers or a bush or something.

People can always bend down and peek into the scene to see fountain wall area

Can really see the plastic under the dirt from this view - had to make sure she could remove it all if she doesn't like it.

And finally, I played, filling in some pieces to get a feel for its final destination (although it still will get alterations before it is "done"). My patio side will be the outdoor portion of a "restaurant", like the image my friend Chip inspired me with and the street side will eventually have many red pops of flowers on the bushes like my friend Maria's home town (I did decide to ditch the fountain at the end of the street as it seemed redundant - scene already has one wall fountain):

Cobblestone was also made using a mold purchased from Gravik

Chairs still need to be painted various colors

Can't wait to add all the details and more plants!

So, it was sent to her late, but friend finally received her Birithmas 2021, 2022, 2023, and now I'm counting it as our 2024 gift too since it didn't make it to her in time for her birthday/Christmas in 2023!

2 year long Birithmas Gift

 Last year I was so busy closing up the shop that I didn't have time to make my friend her Birithmas (mix of Birthday and Christmas) gift.  I knew what I wanted to make her; I had even bought most of the supplies to do it in early 2019.  I just didn't have the time.

Several years ago I made her THIS (click to read blog post about making the box) for Birithmas:

One side of the Birithmas Gift from years ago:
Large Shop Window to be decorated

When I gave her the box 3 of the sides had been decorated. Side 1: Tiffany & Co was painted and designed - my friend just needs to fill the window with jewelry and stuff.  Side 2: We contacted our friend Tish to make a doll for the Queen of Heart's large window display (Link to Post about Other Large Shop Window).  Side 3: And the flat side of the box had been decorated with Broadway Show posters.  Which only left this one window left to be decorated.

I knew friend loved this real life New York City florist window display (from her New York city trip in 2015):

Lots of roses....

So I wanted to replicate something similar for her in miniature.  Plus add a few touches of my own (the miniature window is slightly larger than the real life window so there will have to be more in the window than just the dress and gift boxes).

First up was a reindeer that my friend was giving away.  She got this for a project and then didn't use it.  So I told her I could use it (she didn't know it was for her own gift):

Scrawny little reindeer

Started to fill him in with some lycopodium:
He's got a bushy butt!

Um, did he just become Max from the Grinch?

So once I glued lycopodium to him to fill and fluff him out, he started to look more like a dog than a reindeer!  I was so disappointed and lost my momentum for working on the project.  He sat around my dining room table for a month or so, my little reindog.

Then November hit and I realized I hadn't even started the other projects that would go into the window scene and I was going to miss out on getting my friend a Birithmas 2020 gift!!!  Unacceptable.  So I dragged Reindog out and contacted my friend's mother for advice: keep Reindog as a dog (friend loves dogs!) or bite the bullet and glue antlers on him and hope that converts him back into a reindeer?

Reindog reigns supreme

He still looks a little doggish to me, but friend's mother says the antlers make him look enough like a reindeer. (The antlers were cut off of a rubber/plastic reindeer toy.)  But it wasn't quite enough.  So I increased his reindeer-ness by adding some Christmas decorations to him:

Poor thing looks like Christmas sneezed on his head

Project #2 for the window scene is a shelf unit filled with goodies.  However, I wanted friend to put some of her own style into the window scene so I only added a few items to the shelf (which she can move around, take out, or glue down once she decides what she wants on the shelves).  I added some "garland" (sparkly pipe cleaners) to the edges of the shelves and it was done:

Simple, Quick, and Easy Project: I needed that after Reindog!

Riding high from that success I jumped right into Project #3: The Lamp Post!

Sort of plain looking: needs some Christmas!

I had various bits and pieces that would dress this up, such as more sparkly pipe cleaners, ornaments, flowers, and...

Lanterns...

bare trees...

and a sparkly reindeer

I made the sparkly reindeer from a brown plastic railroad accessory.  Spray painted him white, smothered him in white glitter, and glued no-hole-beads to his antlers.  It was like a pampering day at the spa, sort of.  So I glued my bits and pieces to the lamp pole:

Hung larger ornaments and glued smaller ones to the lamp post tray

Lantern and reindeer (bare trees got ornaments and a star topper)

Added a candle to the top lantern and flowers to the bottom basket area and it's done!

Now came the main attraction: the Rose Dress.  I was scared to tackle this project due to my Past Experience with dressing dolls (and really a mannequin is just a headless/armless doll!).  Dedicated a Saturday afternoon to it and came up with:

Don't ask me what those arm holes are doing; they look scary. That's tomorrow's problem.

Not bad from the front.

So, it took me three different design attempts and there were some glue spots on the fabric that I'm not happy about, but this was an acceptable start to a bodice and my patience was stretched thin.  Time to stop for the night (which became a week).

A week later I forced myself to try the skirt part.  And, like the bodice, it took me about 3 or 4 design styles before I got to something semi-decent enough to glue to the mannequin.  It did not help that apparently I like fabrics that look pretty, but are a pain in the butt to glue and sew (yes, one version of the skirt involved my using a needle and thread!).

Have some side skirts happening. Middle is still a bit drafty.

Now has a back skirt in place

Had a 2 or 3 hour debate over how to join the side skirts to the back skirt.  Only solution I could come up with was to glue over them to keep them together.  So I glued the only coordinating ribbon I had over it (a black and gold ribbon) and thought, "I can't give this to her; it looks sloppy with weird trims/ribbons on the back that won't match the white trim in the front, odd size arm holes, uneven seam and hem lines, and I haven't even attempted the roses yet".  I wasn't going to cry, but felt despondent enough over how it was turning out that I wondered what gift I could just buy for my friend because this dress wasn't looking good enough to give to her. Then my eldest walked by the table and said, "Did you make THAT? It looks nice!" And just like that my confidence and momentum returned!  Sometimes all it takes a compliment to keep you going.

The "nice" enough dress

So I glued white bunka trim to the front of the dress:

Arm holes are looking better now

And cut some red aida cloth to fit the front of the skirt for the roses...

Luckily I had bought 3 packs of roses (for a total of 150 roses) for this project!

Glued aida cloth to the mannequin and finished filling in flowers

Now that dress is done, I had to work on the blanket of flowers at the mannequin's base.  I wanted the blanket of roses to be separate though because 1. that will be easier for shipping this from Virginia to my friend in Texas and 2. the dress was looking so nice, I didn't want to screw it up with the blanket of roses looking badly so if it's not connected to the dress, I could still ship the dress to my friend and feel like I had a respectable gift for her.

Glued some foam to a piece of cardboard (to get a "rolling hill" effect like in the photo).

Roses spilling out in front of the dress in real life shop window

My foam base for my blanket of roses

I started to glue roses to the foam (just left of center in the back by the dress) when I realized that I should paint the foam red in case there are gaps!  After painting it red, I started to glue the roses to the foam.  And then I started to hyperventilate since I THOUGHT 150 roses would be enough, but I was running out!  I stuck some larger roses in that were "red" and not "deep red" like the other roses but I couldn't think of what else to do.  And now the edge that was supposed to be covered in roses, was just a raw foam edge because I was out of roses.  I debated about covering the edge with a strand of the sparkly green pipe cleaner garland (that would coordinate the dress to the other pieces in the scene) but I really didn't want to do that.  Then youngest asked, "Why can't you just cut off the excess foam edge and paint what remains red?"  Brilliant!  Simple solution!  Can't believe I wasted 2 hours brain storming this and the solution was so simple!  Thank goodness I have smart kids.

Dress and removeable blanket of roses

So the scene is now complete and fits into the window space (I had a template of the Large Window Shop so I knew exactly how much room I had to work with)!

Front and center is the dress and blanket of roses

The larger and lighter roses actually make it look realistic since roses aren't all the exact same size and color.

My reindog and lamp post

Wish the lamp post was more visible but the main focus is supposed to be the (roses) dress so...

The shelves with snow globes and a snow white village scene by MagnoliaMinis

Entire window

It's the first week of December and all the gifts are wrapped and packed for shipping and by the time I post this she will have opened them (can't post until after she opens in case she reads the blog before she's opened her Birithmas Gift)!  Took me 2 years, but I finally finished her rose dress!

Hoping you all are having a rosy winter!  Stay safe everyone!