Committed

 I am committed now!    I have gone ahead and done it!  I'm in for the count!

I have been working on my 1920's house.  Previously, I have worked on the outside and shared that.  A few months before we bought our house I started working on the library in this house.  Yes, I knew that I wanted a formal library!  I worked on the floors and painted the walls  But I then we bought a house and moved.  This big beautiful dollhouse sat wrapped in shrinkwrap for months!   In December I pulled it out and started to work on the library.  I've got one or two more finishing touches and that room will be done! I am actually having fun with the finishing touches and even made my own pencils.  

So the library is going splendidly!   I am determined to work on this beautiful house!  I'm excited about it (even if I'm not sure I am going to keep it!)  

 But what does "I'm committed now" mean?    Well, last year I decided in about March to work on a submission for the creatin' contest that is through Miniatures.com.  I had a lot of fun and worked well under the time constraints and entry deadline.  I loved my final project (once again, not sure what I"m going to do with it though....these creations take space!_ But regardless, I finished the porch scene for the 2022 creatin' contest and submitted my entry!     Of course I'm on the mailing list for Miniatures.com!  So of course I got the email about the base for the 2023 creatin' contest!   It is a market stall.  

  I pondered.  I thought.  And of course, I caved!  I did it!   I bought the kit and I am committed to completing it and submitting another entry!

The example of a finished scene with this kit was of a market theater.  

I have thought about a beach cabana....or a beach vendor....maybe selling drinks, renting umbrellas, etc.  But the thing that keeps coming back to me is an actual vender at the Green Dragon Farmers Market in Lancaster, PA.   In a corner of one of the buildings at that farmers market is a bakery.  They have their display cases and all of that, but nestled in the corner of their area is a enclosed little room where they have ovens, racks of half prepared baked goods, baked goods cooling, work tables ...etc.  Basically, you have a window into a small bakery.   I remember going to The Green Dragon as a young kid and loving to look in the window to watch them working.  It was one of my favorite things as a kid (well and the handicapped guy that sold pencils).   As an adult, I still have to stop and peer into the bakery area!       Yeah, I am thinking a bakery may be in order!

One of my hold ups?    Food!  I have not had much experience making food!  Ok, next to none!  I've dabbled a very small amount with polymer clay.   Recently, I pulled out my clay and made a cake.  I was feeling pretty good abou tit...until I noticed the smell  while I baked it!   Smell.....chemical smells to be exact are NOT good for our parrot!   Yes, we have a conure!   We researched....it is 50-50 on polymer clay.  Is it bad for birds to breath those fumes?   Not sure. The work around is to get a toaster oven and put it in the basement or to work with air dry clay.   We shall see what happens! 

So I am totally committed!    Totally committed to completing this project!   And 80% committed to it being a bakery!  

 Ohhh and if I do a bakery...I may have to break from tradition.  What tradition is that?   Well I alwayys put a cat into my scene.  Not exactly sure how to do that in a bakery scene. I have a few random thoughts and ideas though! The second tradition is that I don't include people! BUT, this scene just may need a little girl peering into the windo!  

Another Addition

 Yes, I am adding another addition to my already busy life and office!  Ok, maybe I'm not adding, but I am reviving it!   No, I'm not talking about another new dollhouse....although there may be something in the works for that very soon also.  But no.  I'm talking about my long forgotten youtube channel that I started for my dollhouses!

A while back...like in April of 2020, I created a youtube channel for my dollhouses.  I actually created an intro video and everything.  I was gung ho!  But then I just started posting my dollhouse videos on my weight loss/life youtube channel.  Which was ok.  It's my channel, I can do whatever I want.  Right?

But lately, I have been doing a whole lot more dollhouse stuff.  I'm feeling more confident with what I am making and creating and I want to get back into my dollhouse videos.  I want to film my completed creations for myself and I want to film the how to's for what I am doing.  I don't want to flood my weight loss youtube channel with dollhouse videos...so I decided to revive my long forgotten youtube channel.   It is taste of tiny over on youtube. 

I spent quite a few hours revamping some of my videos that I had posted on the first channel and have reposted them on my taste of tiny channel.  I will be very soon starting to create new content for the taste of tiny channel. Or rather, I have new content galore, I just need to edit and put it into video form!   Some of my first videos out will include a lot of pictures as that is what I have the most of.  But I will be adding more video as much as I can and as soon as I can!  

My work office doubles as my craft room and thus I have a dedicated work space for dollhouse projects!  This makes it awesome because I should be able to set up a filming area to film projects as I work on them!  

Can you tell I'm excited???????  I will definitely still be posting here.  But want to round out my collection of information!

Come visit me on the youtube channel if you want!  

Mini Memories - The Secret Room Box

 I had a big secret!   Jason (my husband)  and I knew that Christmas was going to be more lean for us this year due to unforeseen circumstances  with an injury that kept him from working for a few months and being financially responsible we didn’t want to take money from savings just to have lots of Christmas presents.  I was ok with that….until I made my mom’s Mini Memory room box!  When I completed that Christmas present for my mom, I was feeling that bereft feeling I get when a project is completed.  I was kinda lost.  But then I had the grand idea!  I would make Jason a room box of our apartment.  You see, we had moved into our first apartment together in 2018 and we lived there until about 6 months ago…when we bought a house.  The apartment was a thing of our past and we had some amazing memories in the apartment.  Obviously it was our first apartment.  But it was also the place where Jason proposed to me.  It is where I planned our marriage/elopement!  and just last Christmas we celebrated our first year as a married couple in that apartment!   Big moments in life for sure and quite worthy of a room box!

My problem?  Jason had an accident and has been off of work for the last few months.  How do you craft and create something for someone in secret when they are always home???  It was a dilemma!   Undaunted, I decided to create a second room box for my mom, depicting a different Christmas scene and that would be a decoy!  My plan was to keep the two room boxes in the same stage of progress. If I heard Jason coming I could swap out projects easily.  Also, if Jason walked by the office and I didn’t hear him coming   he would think I was working on mom’s box.    Mom’s birthday was coming up right after Christmas so that would work for a gift for that too.  Win win!

I commenced working!   I listened for footsteps all the time and swapped our projects frequently.  (I had my big 1920’s house set up right beside me  in a way that just walking into the room you couldn’t see the actual rooms and if I heard Jason coming I would slide Jason’s room box into a deep room within the house)  It worked!  The room box was mostly completed about a week before Christmas  and at that time I was pretty sure that he had no earthly idea!  

His room box doesn’t have all the little scenes inside. It really is just the corner where we had our tree.  The tree was by our sliding glass door and nestled between the bird perch and the crabs terrarium.  I thought about adding specific Christmas gifts…or the proposal.  But ultimately decided not to.  First of all…how do you do a ring/proposal in a dollhouse room box!   The ring would be a speck…and there was no easy way to display a ring in this scene.  I have not ruled it out.  I could always add that later…or add specific gifts later…but for now I am quite happy with the scene being as is.