The Little Picture....

 

Bows, Boxes Books and Bags....

I Confess, Dear Readers, I have been battling the urge to jump ship from this project and hurry off to the Greater already underway visions that haunt me at night. Specifically, the Tree House and the Castle have been clamoring for my attention. But before I can, in good conscience, put this one aside, I think I need to get it done to a "certain point", namely leaveable without undue risk to the already begun structure! The most important part is completing the Roof (that open to the air section that the kit specifies, but that I believe needs to be covered with the plastic I used on the windows)... but also there is the completion of the "Furniture" for the interior. On the side wall away from the little studio there is a Wall Rack filled with small store items. It holds a little of everything.... printed gift cards, small decorative items, gift boxes, books, boxed kits... even a little Bakery Shop!... (even though it is just a printed on paper structure). And there are certain pieces of wall art... posters and pamphlets that adorn nearly every square inch of space and are amazing in their printed details! You can see this little rack in the above picture with the first Greeting card in its spot. The only change I made in this item was to swap out the thin metal rods for sturdier wooden dowels. The metal rods were too flexible and a bit smaller than the holes at the sides, and I worried they would fall out too easily in the long run. I found a very very thin dowel in my stash.... exactly the diameter of the holes!

 

It seemed it would not take long to assemble

 the tiny items for this rack.....

 some of which you can see above.

 They are a selection of little items you can buy,

 attached to cards. 

 

And a "tea cup" that you make from a grommet glued

 to a decorative jewelry finding for the saucer,

 with a tiny bit of wire glued on for the handle!

 See it there? On top of it's box? 

It really is so clever!

 

Here you can see some of the paper bits glued in place... 

the little Bakery Shop, and more greeting cards.

 

 

Of course, at some point I realized that getting the Wall Rack

 glued to the wall required that I add the curtains first!

 "What curtains...?" I hear you ask.

 Those very theatrical red velvet draped swags 

adorning the ceiling divider at the top of the kit..... 

I wasn't even sure I wanted to use them! 

But I had started to assemble them way back

 at the beginning of building the kit.... 

at least so far as to glue the patterns to the back

 of the piece of velvet and cut them out. 

I thought I better at least give them a test

 to see how they looked in place. 

The side pieces are in place above.

 I think the purpose is mostly to hide the 

ugly wiring you can see at the top of the divider. 

But since I hadn't come up with any 

"flash of brilliance better idea", 

I decided to go with the kit recommendations.

 

Here it is with the rest of the swaggy part attached. 

It does, in a way, define the store part of the shop. 

I am sure I will grow fond of it as time goes by.

 

Having positioned the curtains, it only remained to add the 

wall posters to this end wall before gluing the rack in place. 

Some of the art-work for these posters is really beautiful! 

Then it just remained to stock the rest of the shelves... 

including some of the Books I had assembled ages ago...

 

 Like most of the books for this kit,

 they are printed covers glued to blocks of wood. 

I added the detail of painting the page ends white

 as I couldn't "see" them as books with dark brown edges! 

These four are for the shop wall rack... 

and include a couple of "OZ" books in the mix.

 

Here is the rack nearly filled..... 

but it needs the gift boxes.... and they need ribbon bows.... 

And I have been dreading the ribbon bows!

 

I finally convinced myself, Dear Readers, 

to just pull out the ribbon and give it a try! 

(The first couple tries were a disaster... 

but could be easily untied to try again!)

 Eventually I got several successful enough,

 almost small enough bows!

 You can see two on the little studio chair.

 (I had almost decided not to bother with 

bows for this chair... but they are cute! 

They are far more necessary as closures for the gift boxes....

Like so!

 

 

And one for the hanging wall art. 

(A lovely picture of Sleeping Beauty and 

another with a beautiful castle in the countryside!) 

The whole project requires five green and one blue bows... 

what was I afraid of...?

(Well, I did have to use my tweezers and add a drop of glue....)

 

 

Here are more little pictures... 

The Three Bears Family out for a stroll... 

and a Tiny framed print of a little girl 

playing with her dollhouse!

 

So, having mastered the bows.... 

I forged ahead with gluing them all in place....

 

Most of the pictures needed to hang on the front opening wall. 

More poster art for the door and the left side of the wall.... 

I changed the positions a little bit all around 

and then there were only a few more small items

 needed to complete those top shelves.

 

Another little all paper fold-up cottage. 

This is the front view....

 

And this is the back view..... 

Can you see the lady sewing in the window....? 

And the puppy looking out the attic window...? 

(Or is it a little girl...?) 

Which side would you have facing out

 when you glued it to the shelf...?

 (The kit shows the front door only....)

 

I did Not follow the instructions! 

That puppy/girl had to see out... 

and the lady sewing by the window 

is one of my personal best feelings in the world...!

 

 

 Oh, and I finally added the real feather 

to the ink pot on the window sill....

(My winter coat occasionally sheds tiny feathers

of the down filling.... I looked down this morning 

and saw this feather clinging to my pants leg!) 

It seems I wandered all over the kit, Dear Readers, 

and I made good progress, but I didn't finish the roof! 

I was too busy with all those Bows, Boxes, Books and Bags!