Making Haste Slowly

Now that I am so near to the end of this project, I find myself slowing down.  You'd think I'd speed up a bit to get it truly finished, but I often find the ending of a build a little sad, especially when I don't have another project waiting in the wings.  By coming up with little side projects, I can delay that final bittersweet moment a bit.

I have been making progress on the rug--a few rows every night.  The border is almost done.  When I started the border, I decided there wasn't enough contrast in it, and so tested outlining the little medallions in navy.  Now that it's nearly done, I don’t think the original colors look all that bad.  I'm debating removing the navy outline altogether, or perhaps just keeping it on the coral-colored medallions (both the light and the darker coral).  I'll see how difficult removing the stitches is.  I really don't want to mess the rug up at this point.  Once that section of the border is done, there will be two rows of the steel blue and one of the navy to fully complete it.

This past weekend, I also made 14 more books for the small bookcase, and hung the curtain on the left-hand window, so I have made a little headway.  😊

In other news, I have been participating (most days) in the #mayminimakers challenge over on Instagram.   It is so much fun to see the incredible work other miniaturists do.  And here is the really exciting part—I've sold some of my work!  For the "lucky penny" challenge, I posted pictures of some little jeweled handbags I had made on a whim using nail art.  I had photographed them next to pennies, just for size comparison.

People asked if I was selling them.  I have always hoped to have an Etsy store someday, but I didn't think I would be making sales quite so soon.  It truly was a lucky penny! 😊  I did make up nicer copies (I've improved a bit since my first few tries), and then someone asked if I could do a roadrunner.  Since I knew she worked in 1:12 scale, I tried both a 1:12 and a 1:24 version, and she took both!

Now I am playing around some more with both 1:12 and 1:24 purses, thereby further distracting myself from the main job at hand.  (One completed design below.)

I really need to do a full-court press on those books!

Hope you all have a great week, and, as always, thanks for stopping by!

Exterior Finished

After much thought, I finally decided to go with veneer for the exterior of the room box.  I really wanted to try using the exterior colors of Sagamore Hill, but, to be honest, just painting what I had wouldn't have looked that great.  There are lots of imperfections in the box I built.  It was my first scratch room box, and my skill at "larger" construction is somewhat lacking.  Maybe if I had put siding on it, it would have been OK, but that wasn't really what I wanted to do.  The advantages of veneer are that it can hide some of those imperfections, it will go with the interior wood on the room, and if the box is placed on a bookshelf (which is where I intend it to go), the wood exterior will blend with the wood of the bookcase, so the focus is more on the interior.

I had planned to use some veneer that Carrie had kindly sent me, but it turned out that none of the pieces were big enough to cover the top.  ☹  I ended up ordering some cherry veneer from Amazon.  I love the cherry wood in the floor, so figured I couldn't go too wrong with cherry veneer.  As with the floor, I stained it a mixture of golden oak and red mahogany.  I made pattern pieces for all the exterior walls and "roof," then cut the veneer and sanded and stained it before applying.  I also went over the stained veneer with 0000 steel wool before applying.

After I applied it, edges were sanded flush and another layer of stain was put on.  Then steel wool, satin varnish, steel wool, satin varnish, and finally a rub down with a bit of worn brown paper bag.

Pre-veneer:

Post-veneer:

I am pleased with the way it turned out.

The library has also had a visitor. 

I recently purchased a beautiful half-scale doll from Maria Narbon.  While she will be "living" in the Fairfield, her clothing seemed perfect for the era when the Roosevelts were in residence at Sagamore Hill, and I'm sure Edith would have been delighted to have her has a guest.  Here she is in the Fairfield:

This weekend, I am off to Arizona for a week to visit Mom.  I will be taking my rug along, as well as some printed book covers, and hope to get more done on those.

Enjoy your weekend, and happy mini-ing to all!