Carry on with a Smile.

Building miniatures from scratch can either bring a great deal of satisfaction or a lot of frustration. I'm feeling both.

With the walls of the shed cut, it was time to cut the shiplap siding that is 15 mm wide and in varying lengths that is then glued to each outside wall. The trick, of course, is to get clean, even cut. RIGHT! I ended up re-cutting a lot of lap siding because the strips were either crooked or bigger at one end or the other. It was a tedious job.

Next step: glue on the lap siding. The piece on the left--the back wall is the best with the fees boo-boos. Yes, the sides are uneven, but after the glue has set the edges will be cut even.

I've taped these pieces down to keep the wood from bending with the moisture from the glue. It's smart to tape the pieces to a cutting board so that it can moved from the work area; otherwise, the work area is occupied--all night.

My grad school Romantic Literature anthology and old dictionary work well to weight down the walls. 

With these pieces curing, I spent the morning installing the door in the front wall. Lesson: don't count on your original measurements being accurate. In the rough fit, the door fit into place with some sanding, but once the molding was added, the door was much too large, fact it was about and 1/8 of inch too wide, so I cut it down. The the bottom was about 1/8 of an inch too long, so more cutting. 

The wood layers are thin--1/32+1/16--made of bass wood, so with a sharp Xacto blade, the cuts were easily measure. 

After fiddling with the door all morning trying to get it to fit, tt finally fits and works, held in with dressmaking pins as the hinges. 

It's a tight fit, but it works and looks decent. 

Next step: Install the side wall with the window. Won' that be fun.

I wasn't in the mood to work on lap-siding the other night so I made a chicken feeder and waterer for the chicken house. I began by making a prototype, using food container cardboard and the pull tab from my husband coffee creamer.  For this project that requires curving the pieces, the cardboard wasn't flexible enough fashion into a smooth cylinder.

To remind myself of the finer detail of the feeders, I visited our own henhouse--yes that is a real hen. My Facebook tutorial had folks wondering where I had gotten such a realistic hen. We actually have 12 laying hens--not all lay eggs, but we get between 0 and 7 eggs day. Anyway. Back the drawing board.

         

With better success on the my little bucket using card stock, I came up with a pattern. I used my Cricut trimmer to cut my pieces, except for the circles.

The bottom and top rims are 1/8 " while the rim for the bottom of the feeder is 1/4".

I cut the barrels 31/2" long and 1" tall, keeping it close to scale.

I punched out a circle to replicate the handle for the waterer and bent 18 gage jewelry wire into shape to form the handle and used jewelry glue to attach the handle

Now for the feeder. It does not require a lid rather a handle. 

And there you have it. I still need to paint the feeder, but I am very pleased with the results.

I've let this post sit for a few days and have moved on with work, so I'll post this and work on the next post to catch up. 

I hope everyone is well. Having a hobby does help--except if we run out of supplies. I do have plenty to keep me busy, distracted, and occupied, so I'll carry on with a smile.