Mirror Preview

one inch scale bathroom mirror, nearly done

This is the project that stalled me out on the Willowcrest.  I'm STILL not yet done with it, but I'm so thrilled with its format that I can't help but provide a sneak peek.  

Naturally, I wanted a mirror for the dollhouse bathroom.  I've read that you should have lights to the sides of the bathroom mirror, rather than above, to get the best view of your face, so of course this was how I wanted to set it up.  Then I started thinking about all the extra effort of installing those lights, and finding the right mirror, and wouldn't it be better if the lights and the mirror were all one piece anyway?

Would you believe that it's VERY difficult to find such a thing in one inch scale, let alone full size?

the mirror's 'innards'

Guess what I decided I could do myself?  Out came the illustration board, the Xacto knife, and a handful of oval mirror pieces that were in my stash.  The frame is two painstakingly cut layers of illustration board.  There is a sconce adapter sized hole in the back -  the brass frame it normally snaps into went into my stash for possible future use.

I bought half scale wall sconces, after being assured by Camp members that it wouldn't have any problems with the 12th scale electrical system.  You're not supposed to run two sets of wires through the adapter, so I exposed small sections of wire on each sconce and wired them that way, so only one pair of wires needs to go to through the adapter.  There is an explanation about making multi-light lamps somewhere.  I  don't remember where I learned it, but I have some early lights I made some time ago with the directions.  All's I remember is that the electricity needs to flow in a circle through each light.  It's hard to tell with the mess in the picture - I mostly need to make sure the bare wires from one section don't touch the bare wires from the other.  

UPDATE 2/25/2014:  I did something wrong, as I just totally fried my mirror.  Please do not follow my instructions!  I need to do some research as to what I did wrong.  And buy a new half scale light.

I also glued a strip of bunka around the edge of the mirror, as the mirror was a tiny bit thicker than the illustration board, plus it was sitting on the wires.  It helps clean it up quite nicely!

The flowers in the first photo were pieces of 3D nail art I bought at Sally's Beauty Supply.  I am planning to paint the frame and the flowers gold once I'm satisfied that everything else is properly in place and that the lights actually work.

The mirror should hang quite nicely on the wall by the sconce adapter plugs and a little bit of mini-tack or similar for security.  

And, once again, all of this was made possible by 1 Inch Minis By Kris' blog.  She posted a mirror tutorial a few weeks before I thought about making a mirror, and just the other day posted about the nail decals for her latest tutorial on making lamps and lighting them.  She's making my life harder yet more satisfying at the same time.