Popping Popcorn

I met new friends at the Philadelphia Miniaturia show 2 weeks ago. (Show was amazing for anyone interested -- multiple rooms of vendors! Well worth the time and hotel room to fully see everything.) One of my new friends mentioned she saw a popcorn string to hang on a Christmas tree: the kind with cranberries strung in between each popcorn kernel. And I remembered that was one of my "to do" list projects. So using my new friends as an excuse to not feel guilty about playing with miniatures, I "popped" right into mini mode and decided to make us some.

The popcorn I had made last year (Post of first popcorn I made) wasn't going to be enough for my project, never mind being enough for both my new friend and me. So, I got to work making more popcorn. Mixed about 3 parts white FIMO clay with 1 part translucent. Added a tiny dot of yellow and created my skinny snake to pinch pieces off of. Rolled hundreds of little balls, some got indented/poked with a needle, and then 2 or 3 were stuck together to create a "popped" kernel:

One round, one indented

Pushed 2 rounded together and the indented one is on top

My little popped kernel

Roughly 1/16"

My army of kernels (colonels? Lol)

Dusted a few with some darker brown chalk to resemble burn marks but you can't really see it

Then I had to "string" them. The cranberries were easy; they are beads. But the miniature popcorn had to be glued onto the strand. Plus I need the string to be flexible so it can be put on any tree (or garland or where ever my friend will put hers) so I can't just glue the kernels to the cranberry beads. First attempt was on nylon invisible thread. Big mistake. I could hardly see it to glue the popcorn in place. Plus it was very rigid. So I quickly switched to white thread and that worked great.

Threaded the beads on but glued the kernel to the thread allowed for the flexibility I'd need!

Friend's 2 foot long strand has been mailed to her and now I'm working on my shorter strands to go in to my miniature Christmas scene.

2 foot long strand

Up close

Still flexible!

But before I can work on my christmas scene, I have to first deconstruction/spray paint/renovate my childhood dollhouse into a witch's home!

Summer Strawberries (CREATE Class with Sun Lemmens)

I took a NAME (National Association of Miniature Enthusiasts) CREATE class taught by Sun Lemmens of Nalladris. It was a Strawberry Cart class. First, we would assemble the cart and then paint all the items to go on the cart.

Assembling the wooden pieces...

Photo courtesy of my friend Julie who was also taking the class, better organized than me, and remembered to take pics

By the end of the first class this was as far as I had gotten:

Because of course I couldn't just assemble the cart as pictured:

Looks cute, but lets really strawberry it up!

I saw the opportunity to take this cart to the next level and got strawberry pattern fabric for the awning (which of course didn't arrive in time for class day) and I wanted to paint my wheels black but the black paint didn't dry in time to assemble them during class. During the week I finished up my wheel painting. And struggled with the fabric awning.

Thank heavens it was gluing and not sewing!

Wheels and awning on; just awaiting trims!

Wheels done and shadowboxing trim is on the front of the cart

Loving my strawberry flowers I painted on the wheel axels

Cart was finally complete and ready for the goodies! For that class we needed to prime all the 3D printed items that would go on the cart and then paint them. 

Again, photo courtesy of my better organized friend, Julie

What a difference priming makes! The details really began to pop out! (I actually remembered to take the next two photos! Just forgot the overall "before" photo of all the pieces we'd be painting.)

Detailing on the teacups really stands out now

Cake strawberries look less like sugar lumps once primed

It was a tedious process using the smallest paint brush I owned, but it was also fun. Steps to painting the waffle desserts:

Step 1: Primed

Step 2: painted waffles

Step 3: Paint strawberries on top and in the whipped cream filling

Step 4: add greenery to strawberries on top

Hand-painting the design on the teapot was cute, but on the smaller teacups and sugar bowl/creamer I was going cross-eyed trying to see what I was painting! (I have since bought a tool that holds the object while I paint it looking thru a magnifying glass. So I'm prepared for whatever future classes I take!)

Painting the teapot

Whole set finished

This was my first time using glass paint and I love the translucent look it gives to clear 3D printed objects!

Lemonade pitcher and glasses look so berry-utiful!

My milkshakes will bring no one to the yard because they will not be put on the cart (who would buy a milkshake off of a cart in the summer? Glass of melted ice cream, anyone?). I adore how they look, but I struggle to suspend that much reality for my miniatures (yes, many of my shop/restaurants have no bathrooms or kitchens and I can overlook that, but ice cream being sold outside in the open summer air? Nope, can't handle that. LOL) So, they will not be going on the cart -- they will be put in my 1950s Malt Shop.

My kids loved those pirouette cookies - so glad they are in these milkshakes!

Of course, I recall that I have an ice cream cart somewhere in my collection. Maybe I could put that by the Strawberry Cart and that would explain the milkshakes being on the cart: it was a crossover from the ice cream business!

Almost complete (real life strawberry for scale):

I am adding a few items to the cart. I needed to make strawberries for the empty baskets in the photo above (did you even notice 2 baskets were empty?). I broke out the Sculpty and started rolling and fussing...

Strawberry field

Not the most realistic, but they'll do...

Made some on "vines" so that I can make a strawberry plant or two to also be sold on the cart.

Some of these turned out very well - I'm berry excited about it

Filled up my extra baskets. They are not the best but from a distance they're pretty good!

Added some jam jars (by Elizabitzies; Elizabitzies Etsy Shop) and I'm still waiting on some chocolate covered strawberries (by CSpykersMiniatures; CSpykersMiniatures Etsy Shop) and now I feel like it's "done" (or as done as any of our miniature projects are - I still need to make and add the strawberry plants). Will add this to my goat-pulled honey cart and ice cream cart and have a little summer farmers market scene happening!

Milkshakes that may or may not end up on the cart

Empty white platter is for the chocolate dipped strawberries

Cute sign by Elizabitzies

Love the bunny in the strawberry patch below

My goodies on a tiered platter (all from class)

Whole cart, from the front, overall

Whole cart, from the back, overall (restock storage underneath; hope to find a little cashbox to put back there too)

Mini Mother's Day (I forgot to post this; how embarrassing)

For Mother's Day I was gifted some free time and I used it to play with FIMO. I created a String of Turtles plant, one little leaf at a time, in order to make sure it draped and hung over the edge of the pot correctly.

Little leaves and strings

Gluing the leaves to the string

My tendrils are ready to be glued into the pot

My finished plant

Ready to be hung on the wall of the restaurant

Feeling pretty confident after that plant success, I continued on with the FIMO and created some popcorn for a future Christmas scene I want to make (probably in 2028 or 2029 at this rate).

Had lots of fun playing, but now my special saw blade for cutting acrylics has arrived and I have purchased the plexiglass sheets so the only thing holding me back from my next project is my procrastination! 

(Update: I forgot to post this back in May! I didn't realize until I got on to share what I've been doing the past few months and discovered it sitting here. So, I'm posting it now and will post again in late October to share the update on my mansion.)

Office Computer (or is it just an Office?)

When my neighbor, Chip, moved away several years ago I saw 2 things he was throwing out that I asked him if I could take. The first: a semi-beaten up old Craftsman tool chest which I converted into a Harley Davidson motorcycle garage. The second item was technically two of the same things: computer shells. The guts (motherboards and what-not) had been removed before Chip put them out in the trash. But I saw potential for a neat office building. I just didn't know what business would be operating in the office space. Then it hit me: a software gaming company!  Thus "Mini Boss Gaming" was born and construction started on their offices.

First I had to strip the computer console shells down to bare basic bones: there was still some remaining wires and metal supports inside and a CD drive that needed to be removed. Luckily my brother-in-law had a handy tool that made removing the odd screws a breeze (especially when he operated the tool so I had to do was stand there and watch! LOL).

The "Before" photos of the workers' cubicles and CEO's office side of the building

The "Before" photo of the receptionist/bathrooms/conference room side

Then, I hit a stumbling block: weeks were spent trying to sort thru the remaining wires to see if I could wire the dollhouse lighting inside the structure thru the computer's on/off switch (spoiler: I never got it figured out). So, after weeks wasted, I scrapped that and focused on new wiring.

I divided the office into 2 parts: one computer shell would have the bathrooms, the receptionist's desk at the entrance to the business, and a conference room; the other computer shell would be the CEO's office and the worker's cubicles side (the Office Side).

The office side of the building

I was very excited that the fan on the Office Side still worked! So I wired that to dollhouse wiring. In the photo on the left you can see the CD Drive has been removed, the space is more open, and the fan on the side of the shell has been reinstalled.

And the fronts of the computers had lights along the edges that also still lit up when I touched the wires to a transformer so I also wired those to dollhouse wiring. Although after doing so, one of the computer shell's exterior lights stopped working for some reason (maybe a different voltage? I'm not sure. But I had already wasted many weeks upon weeks on the wiring and still had to create walls, floors, etc.)

Like the Harley Davidson Garage, I cut foam board to be the majority of the walls. There were metal stubs and screws sticking out of the walls and foam board allowed for the inconsistent wall depths, thus creating a smooth finished wall that I could now paper with minimum disruption along the walls.

Bathrooms (Men's on 1st Floor and Women's on 2nd Floor),
Conference Room on 2nd floor, and receptionist/lobby area

One half of the "building" is underway! Bathroom doors and stalls need to be created and the Conference Room's window needs to be planned/constructed.  And the front door is just a wide opening at the moment, but it's progress. Next up, lights were added to the ceilings:

Light fixtures are in place

I still have a long ways to go. Wallpaper, flooring, trims, etc. still need to be found, created, and/or installed. And there is still the 2nd half of the building to be dealt with. But it's coming along....