Free is good...

You know all of those free ink pens that you collect then leave in various places around your house? Well, when you work with miniatures, they are a veritable goldmine! The cone shaped ends can become recessed or spot lighting. The shafts and mechanisms work great for pipes and fittings. And, the piece that holds the pen on your paper or in your pocket become excellent appliance handles! 

I scavenged around my house today and found 6 or 7 useful (and free) pens with many, many useful parts! I even found the perfect retro looking fridge handle! 

The hinges required a lot of patience and a little silver paint, but worked out perfectly. If I'd had just one more for the freezer I'd have been happier, but it all worked out okay in the end. I need to order more hinges, so maybe my kids will give good miniatures.com gift certificates to me for Mother's Day...

The interior has had a couple coats of spray paint (really hard to get it sprayed in there) but needed a hand painting. It's already taken several coats and still needs more. I got board and moved on lol!

So the Realife Miniatures kit is officially completed. I'm working on a little hutch kit next, then Russ and I really need to get the barn kit laid out. I'm anxious to get started on that!

Opportunities

After experiencing all of the "opportunities" with this Realife Miniatures kitchen kit, I was pretty intimidated to start on the fridge. Well, so far, so good...

One of the things I learned is that you need to read all of the instructions all the way through before you begin the assembly. Punch out, sand and dry fit all of the pieces ahead of time so that you know what pitfalls to avoid ahead of time.

I am going to keep my eyes on eBay for another one of these kits, as now that I have done one almost all of the way through, I have some neat kit bash ideas for a future project!

The fridge was actually pretty easy to assemble, with the exception of the door "seals". You were supposed to bend a very flexible piece of aluminum rod around the 3/32" door frame. Yeah, right! Mine ended up looking like a piece of scrap metal, and there would have been no way I could have glued it onto the door frame without it looking like something you'd see in the yard at Sanford & Sons. If you're under 40 you probable have no idea what Sanford & Son is. Google it...

So again I punt - my fridge will not have a visible seal. Also, if I understand the instructions correctly, you are supposed to glue the tiny aluminum tube to the doors, bend another thin piece of metal at a sharp 45 degree angle, push one end into the wood and the other into the tube. And this is supposed to hold the door straight and make it functional to open and close? Again, yeah right! I am going with good old fashioned mini hinges.

After copious amounts of spackle and sanding, I was finally ready to spray paint the pieces.

Meanwhile, the little fabric I ordered for the undersink arrived. I worked on that while the paint dried.

Just a couple tiny cup hooks, a scrap piece of wood, and a small wooden dowel. 

My grandma was an amazing seamstress, but I don't think she'd mind that I just used Stitch Witchery and an iron on the little curtain.

Some mistakes turn out good. My Notes From The Universe says there are no mistakes. That really makes me feel better when I accidentally make the cabinet frames too small for the cupboard doors and end up having to make a curtain instead. Especially when it turns out so darn adorably!

I'll have to let the fridge sit overnight for the paint to dry before I attach the hinges. Once I do that, this kit will be officially finished, and I have to say I've actually enjoyed it quite a bit!

Oh, and did I mention... My son feels so bad about not giving me grandkids yet that he got me a grandpuppy! Welcome to the family tiny Rusty! I get to doggysit quite regularly, so I see lots of belly laughs and joy in my future!

We're Cookin' Now!

I put the finishing touches on the little stove last night! This was after several coats of black spray paint for the accessories and several white coats for the stove itself.

I really struggled to find little parts and pieces around here to make more realistic burners, knobs and digital panel. The ones that came with the kit were VERY '70's. Like clock dial and everything. I wanted something a little more 3D as opposed to some shiny stickers. I think I'll hold onto them for a future "retro" project...

I often take apart old cordless phones and any other neglected or broken electronic gadgets to harvest realistic looking mini "parts". I kind of struck out with that, but when I looked through my grandma's old sewing machine table drawers (all her wonderful sewing tools and gadgets are still in them) I found lock washers for snaps and snap heads. Those (plus washers from the hubbs) became the burners.

I have several picture hanging kits with all kinds of great parts when you look with your "mini eyes". The burner knobs are nails with fancy heads cut down to just allow them to pierce the wood on the stove panel.

The backsplash part of the stove was really whimpy since it was only about 1/16 thick. I beefed that up with a piece of beveled scrap wood and added a printie control panel I found Googling.

The instructions called for both the oven door and drawer to hinge open. That is silly! Everybody knows that the bottom door is a drawer! So I made a drawer and painted it black.

One thing I have to say about this kit is that you have to constantly measure, pre-fit parts and do a lot of punting. I don't know - maybe it's just me, but the instructions are lacking. For example, in the shelf and lower cabinet instructions when they tell you to punch out a part number, if there is more than one with the same number they tell you in parentheses. By the time you get to the stove you are baffled why there are 2 of each of 45 and 46. You never use them, and there's just no explanation. So, I have extra parts and that scares me!

When I went to fit the oven door after inserting the drawer, it didn't still fit! What the heck! It was all fine when I dry fit it all! Okay, punt again. Cut a bit off the bottom of the door, make hinge holes, insert pins. And now the oven door only opens half way. When I put so much extra effort into something and it does not work perfectly I get very disappointed. So, all I can do at this point is figure out what went wrong and learn from it. Sa la vie...