Pillar Bases Are Constructed - And a Confession....

At 10 a.m. this morning, this is what my work area looked like. It snowed again yesterday, with some of the biggest flakes, or rather clumps, I have ever experienced. April Fool's from the weather, I guess!

I discovered that my walls were too long for the space in the bookshelf; I hadn't allowed for the outer layer of cardboard or the cloth I hope to stretch over it all. Long-time readers of this blog will know that I am straight-line challenged. (So apparently is my younger daughter!) So displacement activity, also know as "clearing your workspace", occurred during the rest of the morning. In the process, I discovered a really good razor knife I forgot I had, and it helped me over the fear hump of cutting 3/8" or 1 cm off the front edges of the walls, floor and ceiling. It worked! The edges are nice and smooth, just as I had dared to hope.



After the clean-up, I can actually work on the table again. The pieces I cut off the front edges of the box were recycled - part of the idea behind this challenge - as the upper pillars for the mine passage. They need to be trimmed to size, covered in card, and "carved".



The bases of the pillars are made of foam board with layers of cereal box cardboard "carving". If you
click on this photo, you may be able to see the three layers of carving, with a raised strip running down the middle. This project recycles, right? The strips are the folds of the cereal box, and I have saved a couple more of these to use on the narrower upper pillars, and the border of the area with the carved panels. Before I hit the bed, I'll harden off the cardboard with sealer, then tomorrow I can do the black base coat.

The blank space will hold a "carved" panel, with a border strip along the faint indentation visible on the wall above the gate frame - I hope! This whole project is growing as I go along....

The Hinge Problem Is Solved

And I am very pleased with it. Do click on this photo, to see it full-screen; this will allow you to see the details.

I replaced my hinges with heavy strap hinges and plates. with lots of sturdy rivets in them. As file folder card (manila especially) is thin but strong, I used that for the hinges. They are actually set into the door post. That involved drilling with my pin vise and then reaming out the excess wood. For glue, I used the tacky and superglue method, which seems to be working well. The tiny rivets are 1/16" punch-outs in thinner card that the stuff used for the other doorway.

The lock is a miniature copy of an actual medieval lock; all it needs is to have the hasp sealed and then painted. As it takes at least an hour for the superglue and tacky combination to dry to my own personal satisfaction, I'll do that after dinner. It's made of wood, cardboard, wire and thread.



The candy shop now has a marble counter. I ended up using brown paper to do the final sanding coats with, as everything just scraped off the paint. It is not "expensive" marble, and it is a satin finish because it is old and well-used. The veining was done with both paint and ordinary pencil, with a final wash of white to blend everything. Next for this project is the false ceiling to hold the fittings for the eventual light I intend to install.

The Hinges Are Giving Me Trouble!

So I did make a lock-plate for the gate, and I painted and embellished it. However, the hinges I just tried - which took lots of time for glue etc. to dry - are now too short. The previous ones were too long. So tomorrow I'll try again, and hopefully I'll find the happy medium. (Or else I'll re-design that aspect of the gate system.)The barred gate has a wooden frame, but the other one is cardboard over foamboard. It is now black, the base colour that will later be sponge- and dry-painted to look like stone - hopefully.

Real Life has reared its head the last five days, and I really had hoped I could finally finish these two pieces. Patience is a virtue which I seem to lack....

I couldn't sleep last night, so I got up at 2:30 a.m. and worked on these two pieces until 5:30 a.m. I also did some concept drawings for the torches I hope to use. My daughter and I did get out for a walk this morning, while the sun was shining brightly. The gravel of the driveway is visible again, but there is still a lot of snow to melt. As we are out in the country, with few if any other pedestrians, we were safe, and we were keeping a safe distance from each other, despite the fact that we've been living in the same house for 3 weeks. The only unsafe thing was a motorist who decided, that since there was no traffic, he could do 90 km in a residential zone posted at 50 km. I wish we still had traffic police!

Gate to the Abandoned Tunnel

This is the start of a gate designed to close off a tunnel which ends in an endless crevasse, out of which, at times, poisonous fumes emerge. Well, you have to have a story, right?

The gate frame is made of left-over wood, although I have to fill in a bit around the key-stone. The key-stone is a scrap of foam board, with relief layers of cereal box cardboard, and a code made of nail jewels and sewing thread. My story, and I am sticking to it, is that the three clear stones on the left indicate the tunnel is 3 leagues in length, when it ends at an endless crevasse; the open-ended sewing thread design (you may have to click to enlarge the picture) indicates it is bottomless. The two purple amethysts, triangular in shape, within the funnel design, indicate poison gas, with two stones meaning unpredictable gas exhalations. The red stone means, don't go in, you idiot! I am creating a sign language that I hope will add some additional colour and sparkle to the book shelf insert.

The barred gate - which needs hinges, a hasp and a lock - is made of cereal box cardboard strips and skinny sticks from a window blind sample, that I used the raffia from in my Japanese vignette's gate house. The unpainted tabs on the right are for me to hold on to when I paint. The paint job at this point is experimental, I need to make the lintel and doorposts look more like stone, which means adding some carvings.

If I don't have a padlock, I'll have to design one. I will make loops on the left, and create some wire bits to represent the door hinges. On the left, I'll need to make a plaque for the padlock, with a hasp coming from behind with a loop for the padlock. This assembly is currently intended to go on the left-hand wall of my book insert. Almost opposite it - I have to think about my limited space - I'll add another door which will not have a gate, as the gallery it opens on to is safe. The plaque for this door will have some green stones. Along the walls will be some geometrically carved surfaces. For this, I may use some jewelry findings from the scrapbooking department, and if space is there, I'll make some floor-to-ceiling pillars, with decorations, shoring up the roofs. That leaves lots of corners for dust, stones, and similar stuff....

The counter-top for the candy shop has its first coat of paint; Real Life interfered with my time for mini-ing today, so I didn't get as much done as I hoped for. However, so far, everything is from my stash or left-over, and from the recycling box.

Now What? You May Well Ask...

This is sitting next to my work space; cheap foam board, left-over fabric, empty corrugated cardboard boxes. Now what?

My little candy shop has its tiles, and the shelves are glued in. I checked the fit of the jars I want to use as candy containers, and all is well. However, I need to do the marble counter top next, and that requires the Carpenter-in-Chief and his table saw. He is exhausted from everything he has been doing lately, and is napping, so I don't want to bother him until tomorrow.

So the last couple of days, I have been looking at tutorials on-line to see if I could, perhaps, somehow, craft a book shelf insert; I do have all the required materials on hand, I think. So I gave myself permission to start something new. If you are not familiar with Book Nook shelf inserts, do take a look! The ideas are just fabulous. No scale required, use cast-offs, and if you want to learn new techniques, check out some of the builds the gaming aficionados create. My favourite right now is a  fellow Canadian at Black Magic Crafts (I hope I have that right!)

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I LOVE fantasy and science fiction novels, and wore out my first set of Lord of the Rings a few years ago. The gap that Gandalf is defending, is slated to get a Book Nook insert. If it works I may do another, to dress up these bookshelves.



OK, this is the start. I measured the space in the bookshelf, and tailored my insert to fit. These are the walls, floor, ceiling and back wall of what I hope will be a passageway in the Mines of Moria. What does that mean? Well, I have 4" or 10 cm of width to work with, and 9 3/4" or 25 cm of length, and a height of 11" or 25 cm.. The plan, and there is one, is a view down a corridor. The lower portion will have carvings and pillars, a faux doorway, and a couple of torches. The upper portion will be rock, which I hope to imitate with layers of egg carton stone. The ceiling will have some small stalactites, probably some sort of clay, and my intention is to add subtle glitter here and there to indicate crystals and minerals in the rock faces. With luck, I can add an angled mirror to give the impression of further corridors.

The body is cheap dollar store foam board, the kind that you can peel the paper cover off of. The exposed foam is then banged and rolled with twisted baking foil. The whole is then painted with a mix of Mod Podge and black paint for strength. There is an outer body of corrugated cardboard, hence the packing boxes. The fabric will be applied last and varnished, to make the insert look like a book, and my daughter can make a title for the "front" and spine with her Cricut machine - once she gets back home!

The trick is that you sort of have to work flat, and hope you made everything to fit once the pieces are ready to put together. I hope to work with a floor, wall and back, with the other wall to be installed once everything is done.And I hope to have lighting....

It's a challenge; the "carved panels" in the walls will be made with built-up layers of cereal box cardboard in geometric designs. I hope to use cardboard to make the torch bodies too. The effectiveness of this Book Nook will depend on whether I am able to paint and embellish the space to create the right illusion, so I will be looking at further gamer gear tutorials.

I hope you will enjoy this new journey with me. Making something from nothing, or from things around the house, is kind of stimulating!