Oh Look....!

 

Oh..... Heavens....!

Well, Dear Readers, I left you last week while the Tiny "Reindeer" were getting some Body Building exercises to help them build up the necessary muscles to do the job of pulling the sleigh! And knowing that these things take Time.... I am fairly certain the project will not be completed in time for This year's trek! But... progress is being made! And meanwhile, as some of you know, my Main project at this time of year is to work on "The Christmas Card".... which somehow is never quite finished in time for Christmas....! But since I have been drawing an Annual Card every year now for more than Forty years... I don't seem to have the courage to NOT draw another one this year. It is on the drawing table and good progress is being made.... but once again, it is unlikely it will actually be completed by Christmas.... but I can say it is a bit ahead of schedule compared to recent years! And sometimes a Big project requires small distractions.... just to keep the energy lively and the excitement building... and often those distractions are found in the blogs of you Dear Readers! And so it was that I was viewing the recent post of Michelle Goggins on her blog MG Doodle Studio, who was showing the Christmas decorations for her "dollhouse" aka Gnome Mansion.... and that included a lovely lighted ceramic Christmas Tree! It reminded me that many years ago I had bought a kit for making one of these in 1/12 scale..... where, oh where had I put it??? Could I find it and finally quickly assemble it...???? 

As I am sure you realized, I found it and started right away!

 Green for the tree... check... white for the snow... check, and red for the bows...got it!

It needed glossy varnish... which I had to go get.... but that was quick!

And gluing tiny beads into the holes for the lights....

Here you can see it a little closer... all it needs now is the plug!

 

Which took a certain amount of fidgeting, Dear Readers...

I had to get The Folly lights turned on!

(Which had not happened in quite a while!)

And I had to test the tiny bulb and hook it up to a "plug" unit...

And, Oh Heavens it lights!!!

 

Gabrielle says she saw it in a gift shop and just "Had to have it!"

 

 Can you see how cute it is?

 

I know.... it doesn't make much light...

but it gives an enormous amount of "Seasonal Cheer"!

 

(Perhaps I need to order a couple more of these...?)

Well, Dear Readers... as you can see... 

small distractions happen to even the busiest of us,

But Heavens, they sometimes bring great Joy!

(Thank you, Michelle, for the inspiration!)

 

Oh.... Deer...!

 

Oh, Dear.....

Some of you, Dear Readers, might recall the Tiny Reindeer I rashly began to create a couple of years ago while I was working on an entirely other project. I had been building the "Ravenwood" kit by Robin Betterley, adding my own touches to their design, but the Holiday Season was getting under way and suddenly I found myself "testing" the possibility of making a tiny Sleigh with Reindeer for the "Secret Christmas House", another Robin Betterley kit I had completed a couple of years earlier. I had always wondered what it would take to make a Sleigh with Reindeer in 144th scale! In the above picture you can see the beginning of my first Reindeer... it is simply using the "glue trick" to model an animal body on paper covered florist wire. I had used this method to make my Tiny Ladies and their hounds and the teeny-tiny cat for the Secret Christmas House. There seemed no reason it would not work fine for little Reindeer! So off I went!

And very shortly had seven more reindeer skeletons under way!

(The long tail is just for holding purposes and 

will be trimmed off when no longer needed!)

 

The wires for the antlers needed to be attached 

before the glue was added for the heads...

 

Here you can see glue was being added to the bodies and heads.

It dries but doesn't shrink all the way away... 

it leaves "bulk" which is "the glue trick"!

I make sure not to glue the legs before shaping them.

 

Here is the first reindeer showing off.... 

even though his antlers have not been shaped yet!

And here you can see the rest of them 

have also been given wire for antlers

 and some glue to begin the body shaping.

And I regret to say.... 

that is as far as I got with the project that year.

Because ... as with so many of my "little" projects....

 this was going to take a while!

 

And Truly, I must confess, 

that one of the reasons I made no further progress 

was that I realized that my Reindeer are not "Reindeer"!

They never have been!

All the years I have been drawing

 and contemplating making little "Reindeer"

 what I have been drawing are really our local "white tailed deer"

 with brown fur, skinny necks and pointy horns! 

(Like Disney's "Rudolph" Reindeer!)

Oh DEAR!

What was I to do...? 

Change my "visions" now.... ?

In the middle of an already begun project?

Or just accept the fact that I am old enough 

that my "visions" were shaped from what I knew as a child...

 however inaccurate they were!

So these tiny reindeer, like Clement C. Moore's

 "Miniature Reindeer" are bona fide 

 "Northern American Reindeer"

(Just in case you wondered why they

 didn't really look like "Reindeer"!)

Because to make any progress at all,

 I had to decide what the horns would look like....

 

 I had only put four strands of wire together.... 

more would be too bulky... 

so the number of prongs is four on each side...

I think it is enough!

And they are positioned more like North American deer...

Here I am carefully adding a layer of glue to the wires of the antlers.

This was another step I was not sure how to do!

I don't want them to get too chunky or blobby....

But as it is drying it becomes translucent.... 

I won't really be able to tell the shape until I paint them.

And I needed to do this for all eight reindeer!

 

And I wanted to be sure the deer had ears...

 

Which I cut from a little punched "asterisk" shape...

Here you can see the paper ears gluing on the reindeer!

And you might not be surprised, Dear Readers, 

that my first attempt to make a sleigh... turned out too large!

At first I wasn't sure.... I thought I could get away with it....

Lady Evelyn de Paradise came over to help me decide....

With her in the picture it is clearly much too large!!

Here it is in front of "The Secret Christmas House"....

In case you had any doubts!

A smaller sleigh was ordered immediately!

It is about 1/3 smaller overall.

The runners are cut from card stock... by hand!

Then pieces of florist wire are glued to the runner shape.... for sturdiness.

And the braces too....

 

And then the top layer of the card stock runner is glued...

 making a "sandwich".

 

And then wire "struts" are glued between the runners.

And glued to the bottom of the sleigh!

And an extra layer of glue is added along the bottom of each runner.

Here it is compared with the first version....

And here it is with two of the "Reindeer".....

And Lady Evelyn agrees that it is much better...

It might not qualify as "Miniature" from her perspective...

(But she is only 1/2 inch tall... which is quite tall for that scale)

And meanwhile, the "Reindeer" are being given

 a bit more "bulk" to some of their parts...

In particular their necks.... 

which is why they are hanging upside down

 while the glue dries... 

(always waiting for glue to dry...!)

so it doesn't all sag down to the shoulders!

And I hope you will understand, Dear Readers, 

that while progress is finally being made

 on the Miniature Reindeer...

they might not end up looking like 

"Reindeer"

Oh, Dear!

Christmas Trees...

 

 Light Up My Life....

I Know, Dear Readers, that last week I bemoaned how little Time there was between Thanksgiving and Christmas this year. But never mind, after Thanksgiving is over life is All about Christmas in my house anyway! And I know it has been many years now that I have been promising to "someday" show you well lit closeups of the decorations on the Lovely Old Dollhouse Christmas Tree. Well, don't be too surprised, but Someday is here! In the above picture you can see a closeup of the glass dove which is one of the very special and lovely little ornaments. Of course, glass is hard to see.... because it is see-through! But there it is! It is about 1/2 inch across. I honestly don't remember where or when I bought most of these treasures. I think I got a bunch of them at a fancy toy store back when my boys were still young and I was still dreaming of "someday" fixing up the old Dollhouse from my childhood. And I think I bought the fake mini tree back around then too... we used it in the "Boy's Dollhouse" aka "The Rustic House", home to teddy bears, dinosaurs and action figures when my sons were little. (You can read all about it in my very earliest blog posts back in 2010!) But all the delicate minis that I bought back then were shoved in a cupboard and saved for that magical "someday".

And here you can see.... or sort of see... 

the glass snowflake (on the left near the bottom),

another of those delicate treasures!

The white icicles are  possibly glass, 

but more likely are plastic.

 

Here you can see a lovely little brass dove... 

(stamped metal I am assuming is brass...)

as well as a little Christmas tree with snow on it

 which is a resin figure on a long bead garland

 that I wrapped around the tree.

I think it was intended to be a "holiday necklace" to be worn in RL!

 I think it looks much better on the mini tree!

 

Here is another view of the snowflake along with

 a red and blue striped glass ball ornament.

None of these ornaments are glued on... 

and the way the branches of the tree are a bit "crude" for scale....

 means that I had to just wind a lot of the garlands around the tree.

For the small glass pieces and brass ones

 I made little brass wire hooks

 and tried to find good spots to hang them!

 

Here is a closeup of more glass balls

 and near the top, a heart shaped piece of lace...

 (Slightly out of focus.....)

Here you can see another of the resin figures

 from the bead garland... a dog with a Santa hat!

Along with a few more of the glass ball ornaments...

 

And still another resin figure... a snowman with a broom!

And you can see some of the large wooden beads

 that are part of that garland.

And way over to the left you can see

 a very fine metallic snowflake....

there are several of these scattered around

 the tree, all with a different pattern!

 

Maybe you can see it a little closer here....?

Sorry... it is hard to photograph!

And here it is in The Lovely Old Dollhouse living room....

I know it is a bit dark...

It's an old house and the lighting needs an upgrade...

 

 

But the Christmas Tree is lit!

Oh, how I love to see those tiny colored lights!!!

 

Meanwhile, Dear Readers, 

I have been scampering around 

seeing to the trees in the other Dollhouses! 

 

In the Castle Great Hall the 

old Witches are gathered around the table...

Tea and board games are on the menu!

 

 

Kendall has put up the huge old tree and lit the candles...

(It is a drafty old Castle without electricity after all...)

It looks so enchanting from outside the windows...!

The Silver glitter Tree is up at the "Shabby Sister House"

 where Sally May and Chip and Annabelle live.

Chip's father, Ernie has agreed that he can see

 the Television just fine if he scoots his chair over a little bit.

(Boy, the batteries on this one need changing....!)

And up above the Clouds in The Cloud Palace,

 the Fairy Bears are admiring the Silver Tinsel Tree!

(It has brand new batteries!)

And Hamish Harry has been admiring

 the Starry Night Village Tree Skirt....

He is looking at all those Reindeer cavorting around the border...

not to mention a couple of sledding elves....

It's a lively scene!

And if you look very carefully among all those bright lights.... 

you might be able to spot

 a couple of tiny "snowpeople" ornaments

 made by Birgit of BiWuBaren fame!

That's as far as I got, Dear Readers... 

Setting up the Christmas Trees takes Time!

But, Oh, how I love the way

 they Light up my Life!