Some Major Changes to the Game Plan...

I wanted to start in small steps on the RGT barn (aka our retirement home) so I spent the past few months working on some of the interior elements. The kitchen kit was from an old Realife Miniatures kit I found on ebay.

The bathroom vanities were from old House of Miniatures kits from ebay, as well. I had an idea in my head about the size of the loft and just happily put stuff together. Well, the dry fit opened my eyes to the fact that I may have over estimated the amount of space, both floor space and ceiling height. No big deal. It's still the First Quarter. I just have to punt... Get the barn shell ready to go and modify or remake what I have to to make it work.

I decided the best way to move forward was to cut the openings for the dormers, garage doors, and front door. A couple months back I had ordered a specially made front piece from RGT without the barn door opening. I realized yesterday they had sent me a solid front wall (and a very warped one at that), but one for the smaller barn kit. So yes, it's about 2 or so inches short.

You know that feeling you have when you're looking for an important email, one that will prove that the mistake was theirs so they'll make it right and send out the correct piece post haste? But then you realize you've made an ass of yourself and deleted all correspondence? Yeah... Throw the flag, Punt again...

Okay, so not all is lost. There's still hope for a win! t least the short piece is the same thickness and has the exact same milled siding. So I just have to use it to fill in the original front wall with the barn door opening. Thank God my husband is willing and eager to help! He's much better with the real life sized tools than I am! 

So, the plan is to fill in the piece, glue it, spackle it, let it dry. Then I can trace the garage door and front door patterns onto to it and use my trusty  (miniature friendly) scroll saw to cut them out. Once that is done, I am free to begin the assembly, gluing, nailing, priming and running the wiring. Score! 

Finally! I have a direction and am ready to run with the ball! Even if the game plan is changing a bit. That's okay tho... us miniaturists have a lot of tricks in our play book!

Apologies for all the football references. Just getting excited for the season to start! Go Hawks!

Tiny Little Smithy...

At last check-in, I was making an attempt at miniature copper wire soldering. Well, I kind of threw myself in full tilt and made 9 different pieces! It was so much fun, I think I may just keep making them!

I've listed all 9 on ebay, and we'll just have to wait and see if anyone else out there in the mini world is as excited. I changed my ebay identity to tiny-little-smithy. If this works out, maybe I can earn a little "mini money" for future projects!

Here are photos of the 9 pieces, then below is a link to my items on ebay. Feel free to buy anything you like! ;0)

Click here to see Tiny Little Smithy on ebay.

Wish me luck!

Back Home and Back At It!

The past several weeks have been full of activity and life has been in full swing! The crazy period of my job won't start again until the fall. The Graduation for my nephew, the memorial for my husband's beloved uncle, and wonderful reconnecting with family time was just what my soul needed! After 3 states and 10 days of travel, it's good to be home and to be starting to enjoy the Lazy Days of Summer!

Before taking the hiatus from my mini world, I'd been thinking I'd like to learn to solder. I have some little rooster plates for the barn kitchen, and I thought it would be great to make a plate rack to display them on. I ordered the supplies from Amazon and there they sat on my work table just waiting to be utilized.

I have a couple real life plate racks in my dining room, so I took measurements from them and attempted to recreate them in miniature.

I have some 1" and 3/4" plates to practice with. For the 1" plates I'll attempt a 2 plate rack, and for the 3/4" plates I'll attempt one with 3.

I've watched plenty of YouTube videos and read a bunch of articles so I think I understand the science of soldering. Now, I just have to come up with my own technique. The copper wire I'm using is soft and pliable, so I am able to twist and bend it. Once I get the soldering technique figured out, I'll be able to get really creative!

You really need 3 or 4 hands: one to hold the soldering iron, one to feed the rosin flux into the metal seams, 1 to hold piece A, and 1 to hold piece B. I have a handy "third hand" sort of thing, but I needed something to hold piece B while I soldered them together. My wonderful husband came up with another alligator clip and that's where I am now.

I'll update the post if/when I get somewhere with it. Wish me luck!

***UPDATE***

Got the copper racks all soldered. Went pretty easy except for holding the pieces in place while soldering. The alligator clip was a little rough on the copper due to it's teeth, and because of the length it was hard to clip the pieces together and still have room to work. I've found some solutions on Amazon, such as cross locking tweezers and locking forceps. They were only around $4.00 with prime shipping, so I'll probably get them.

I sprayed the racks in flat black and they came out pretty good. Definitely not perfect, but I'll just call them "whimsical". I fell asleep last night redesigning them in my head. They say dreaming is the best way to come up with solutions to your problems, so we'll see how the next batch turns out.

I had some miniature laser cut paper doilies so I decided to add a little texture to the plates rather than just painting them. I painted the doilies a shade or two lighter so the detail would show better. I coated them afterwords with Mod Podge spray gloss.















The finished racks are pretty cute, and I think I'll make several more until I feel confident in making the special one for the barn kitchen's rooster plates. Maybe I can sell the practice ones on eBay. I can always use more "mini money"!