Simply Curious

After verifying that yes, my sofa pattern works, I set out to test paper.  What would happen if I used something thinner?  Something thicker?  Something patterned?  Something textured?  At this scale, every tiny bit counts.

I went through my paper stash and picked three pieces of paper that I thought might look good as a sofa.  It was easy to test, I simply held the page I had cut my test sofas from over the potential pages and looked through the holes left behind.

I looked at all the tiny print pages, but also the ones with big, busy prints.  Sometimes, something can be so big that the little bits will work, too.

Thicker papers work better.  Thinner papers don't fold as well (I don't know why?) and tend to mash around the edges more quickly. However, there's hope!  Since there's three layers of paper, you can use two layers made out of plain cardstock, and then glue your preferred pattern to the exterior, cutting off the tabs first.

I haven't yet attempted to print my own, but it seems perfectly reasonable to do so, if your printer can do the fine work on cardstock.  Both the chair and sofa fit in a 1" x 2" block, so you don't need much!

I own a Silhouette Cameo, and for years I've been wondering if it was possible to make dollhouse furniture with it.   It seemed it would be easy enough for 1:48 scale, but could it do something as tiny as 1:144? After successfully making some really tiny cuts for a Christmas ornament, I decided to test it.

My house is lit and controlled by a button.  It's ridiculously exciting.  I don't HAVE to disguise those bulbs, but I want to!


I used e6000 glue to glue the gold bead to the ceiling around the Pico LED, and then glued the other bead on top of that.

And . . . that's it.  The hardest part was making decisions about which beads to use.  Oh, and taking pictures.  Taking pictures of lights is not easy! 

The beads were all roughly 2 mm sized, to help you figure out scale.  They do look a bit big in the house, but lighting is one of those things you can easily cheat on in regards to accuracy.  They come in so many sizes in real life, too!

Oh, look.  It's been four years.

What can I say?  Life has been busy, and I started sharing my projects on Facebook because, well, I get responses there.

BUT, I started posting about my 1:144 scale Willowcrest here, and I'm going to finish it here, so let's keep going!  Here's where we left off:

Yes, I was determined to make this tiny house light up.  That required a bit of planning.

Things you need to think about before lighting a house are:

What kind of fixtures do you want?
What materials can you use to make them look that way?
Where do you want the lights to be?
Where do you put the power source for the lights?
How do you run the wires to those locations from the light source?

I'm going to address the second part of these questions first.


I opted to keep it simple, and just put one ceiling light in each room.  I turned to Evan Designs for my supplies, based on suggestions from True2Scale.

I ordered 1 switched coin cell battery holder, 4 3v warm white pico LED lights, and some heat shrink tubing.  (please hover over the text for the links, the lines don't show up?) These bulbs are TINY.  I can't really take a photo of them, they're just little yellow blobs, but they give off an amazing amount of light.

I used poster board for the ceiling on the upper floors, and ran the wires up through a tiny hole, then down the outside sides of the house.  (Had I planned ahead further, I could have run them down the inside of the house.)

For the lower floors, the wires are glued to the ceiling and run to the interior corners, then down the wall and out under it.  A little paint will make them vanish.

You'll notice that each bulb has two wires. One is colored red at the far end, just before you get to bare wire, and the other colored green.  Once you've got your wires where you want them to end up, you need to carefully gather up and twist all the exposed ends of the red wires together, and then the ends of all the green wires together.  (it's possible the green wires were black, just make sure your colors match!)

Cut two short lengths (about one inch, perhaps?) of the narrower heat shrink tubing, and slide one onto each of your twists of wires, pushing it further back so you can work with the exposed ends.  Then you need to match your twists to the proper color on the battery coin holder, and twist red to red, green to black, ensuring the exposed metal touches.  (it's only important that the reds go together, the other color clearly doesn't matter!)
Now, get a battery and test to make sure it all works before you do anything more permanent.  Make sure the exposed ends of the red and green wires don't touch!

Oh, and relax.  It's only 3 volts.  Your skin has a resistance to such tiny amounts of electricity and you won't feel anything.  I can hold the wires directly against a battery to test the lights and it's just fine. But it could mess up your project if it's improperly wired, so make sure your exposed wires are completely covered!


I ran into the slight problem of having a coin cell battery that was labeled 3v, but only half the width required to fit in the device. I must have scavenged it from a Dollar Tree magnet flashlight. I eventually found the right size. 

Once you've determined everything works, slide the tubing to completely cover all the wires, and use a heat gun or similar to shrink the tubing.  I tried to use a hairdryer, but it apparently didn't get hot enough.  Tug gently to ensure there's a tight grip.  I will say that I had some problems with this,  (the wires are too thin for even the thinnest tubing!) and I'm not sure how to fix it, except with another, longer layer of heat shrink tubing.  Just make sure you put both layers on the wires first, and keep the second layer away from the heat source!


And it works. Check it out!




So where did I put that battery and switch?  It's pretty obnoxious to have all that wiring and that heavy battery and casing dragging about with this tiny house.

Fortunately, this particular dollhouse came with a simple wooden base, and I was able to use it to hide the wiring, battery, and switch.  To keep it accessible, I cut out a frame to fit inside, and then used a piece of cardstock to act as a sliding lid.  I'm using museum wax (and/or orthodontic wax, they're essentially the same thing) to prevent the battery from sliding.  I used E6000 glue to hold the switch in place.

I didn't measure properly, or I would have realized the button was the same width as the side pieces, and I would have cut the frame to glue to the bottom of the piece, rather than level with the interior.  It's a minor problem, fortunately, and easy to work around.

And the lighting is done!  Not too painful, right?

*waves hands around*

This will soon be the new home of oneluckybug.com.  It has been sort of planned for years, since my web site (since 2003!) has basically been a glorified blog anyway, but now that plan has escalated due to a dramatic increase in costs from the current web host.

I'm going to do my best to recreate everything on there on here in one form or another, although I think the Realm pages will end up getting axed.  Don't worry, I'll keep the puzzle answers!

If I end up doing mass blogging and it messes with your life, I apologize.

This should be interesting!

That's CAPTAIN Poppins, Thank YOU!

When I discovered I had a hit on my hands with this costume, I realized I had better step up my game a bit. My Mary Poppins hat has been a big success, but I still feel it's a little too big for my head and a bit unstructured. I tend to tilt it up when wearing it, which means the underbrim shows up in photos rather than the flowers. It was a good start, but I was ready to do better.


Right after I decided to look for new hat options, I happened to find myself in a thrift shop, wiling away an hour while waiting to pick up B. from work.






Halloween stuff was already out, which generally means "the ugliest, weirdest clothing that got donated to us." This particular shop had a bin full of vintage hats, most of which I adored. Among the items was a green straw hat.



Now, what you're seeing is what I consider 'After - Part 1.' I did not take a 'before' photo, because that was one sorry hat. It had a faded golden ribbon, with an equally faded golden suede bow, and some really ratty yellow netting. There were stains on it. It looked like someone had squashed it up and stuffed it in a pocket for a few years. But I saw some potential, and it fit nicely on my head. I bought it and began tearing off the yellowed decorations while walking back to my car a few blocks away. It was rather embarrassing to be seen with it! The photo is also not so great, I was in the basement and only thought at the last minute that I should get a before spraypaint shot.


P.S. Same thrift shop had ANOTHER rocking chair. Y'know, THE rocking chair. In great shape. I did not buy it. I am very curious about its history, though!

Back to the hat! I did a little research, and the Internet crafters said I could fix it with some steam. They were right! I watered up my iron, and grabbed a large can I use to store plastic bags in. It's over 6" wide and has a metal bottom. I fitted it over the metal end (it was still a little loose, but close enough!) and tied some ribbon around it to help hold the shape, and began fake ironing around it, letting puffs of steam do its thing. Eventually I grabbed a lightweight scrap of upholstery fabric and began ironing the hat with that as a layer in between. I even laid the can on its side on the edge of the ironing board and ironed the sides of the hat. It made a HUGE difference. I even sprayed the hat with some water to see if that would help. I don't think it made a difference. I eventually turned the hat and can upside down and left it to dry.




Internet crafters also assured me I could spray paint the hat just fine. I had used the Design Master brand for my fairy wings with beautiful results, no cracking or flaking, so I dashed to Michaels to add to my spray paint collection. Lots of shaking, several coats and waiting about half an hour or so between outside and inside, and I am now the proud owner of a second Poppins hat base!


I bought some vintage millinery cherries on Etsy, but frankly I prefer the wooden cherries I painted. 'Nice' daisies are also hard to find. I am still on the lookout, but these will do.






Et voila!








I found the white cotton prairie blouse on eBay, and am much pleased with this cosplay. Judging from people's responses, they are pleased, too! I have a coat, too, but unless the event is outdoors it's generally too hot to wear.

Now I need to work on what to carry in the bag. Everybody expects a lamp for some reason. I kept explaining that I only pack a lamp when I'm moving house . . .

I had to set aside the Micro-Willowcrest for the moment, I just realized Myths and Legends Con is two weeks away!

There's no way I can generate a whole new costume in time this year, but I thought I'd at least build up a few more accessories.  Today I finally finished my Steampunk hat!

The hat is a vital accessory for almost every costume.  It helps to define who you are and what you're doing,  Mary Poppins, for example, is totally identifiable just from her hat.

I have a pith helmet, but that implies adventure, excitement, and activity, which I don't always want to portray, and, well, it's a little too big for me.  I wanted a fancy hat, but with my short hair, there's a lot of hats that I just can't wear because I don't have anything to attach it to.

Pre 'am I sure this is what I want?' shot.  It was what I wanted.

My first glow-in-the-dark hat!

Having mentally completed the second floor, I've moved down to the first.  I wanted to fit both a kitchen and a living room down there.  I have a basic metal kitchen set I bought years ago from Anita McNary, plus the living room kit I had picked up from Diminutive Details.

I got totally hung up on printing wallpaper, so I'm not as far along as I would like to be.

My printer is probably about 12 years old, and I bought it for $35 at Big Lots.  It's printed out tons of school papers, crafts, cards, letters, and even wedding invitations and table decorations.  But in this digital age my use has been steadily declining, and in the past few years, it seems like every time I went to use it, the ink had dried up. I blamed the lack of use and the high, dry altitude.  Everyone else is blaming the printer head, which is so old it's not self cleaning.  My attempt with a qtip was not successful.  I'm not willing to buy yet another ink cartridge after the failure of the other one, so eventually I have to pick out a new printer if I can convince myself I still need one.

I finally snuck a print in at work, and initially decided it was too blurry for use.  I eventually changed my mind on one style, and decided to use it in the bedroom. In the bathroom and the downstairs, I opted to paint.

The thing about 144th scale houses is that you have to decorate all the walls COMPLETELY before assembly, so I have started concentrating on everything that goes on walls.  Everything is so tiny that you have to reconsider traditional decorative items.  My tiniest bead were put to use as container and candles.  Scraps of wood from the furniture kits became wall shelves, and even tinier scraps of fabric became towels.

The white curtains?  Tissue paper, carefully scrunched up and glued for the bathroom, and the bedroom is bits of lace.  I have some amazing tiny laces in my stash, but sometimes it's the not-so-tiny but detailed laces that work best.  For the bedroom, I ended up cutting out elements of a trim that worked perfectly for a hint of a draped valance.  Can you see the arches in the 'open' section?  The solid section will make a great rug.




Here is the bedroom, pre final assembly.  (I haven't done the back wall yet.)  I made up a faux gallery wall with plain old printer paper and a colored pencil.  The curtain rods are just thin wire.

I'm documenting this now because it's probably not going to be visible once it's assembled!  Certainly not photograph-able.  But check out the effect of all these detail below!





I promise I will dig out my real camera soon.