Projects evolve...

Projects have a way of evolving without me even thinking about it. It can result from random, unrelated statements made by other people or even me seeing a different commercial on T.V. This time it's born of my desire to keep dust and the three cats out of the Shabby Chic room.

This workshop was designed and taught by the lovely Joyce Mori, who is a contributer to American Miniaturist magazine.For the record Joyce is a wonderful teacher and is incredibly creative. The five people who took the class all had a great time and are looking forward to it again.

The setting itself is a room with three walls and a floor. No top, no plexi-glass on the 4th side. This design would be fine if I had a curio cabinet that could hold several settings of similar size. But sadly I am not that fortunate yet. Someday perhaps...

Here's the setting sans furniture. The window was not part of the original project. There was a window dressing attached to the wall , but nothing behind it. That didn't sit well in my mind. I kept wanting to see something behind the curtains. I debated between a window or a door with an "Employees Only" sign on it.
The window won because I keep toying with the idea of transforming the entire setting from a shop into a bedroom. But I really don't know if I will or not. At the very least I can create more depth with something beyond the window.

Thus again I come to the issue of dust and helpful kitties. A while back there was a project by Joanne Swanson in Dollhouse Miniatures that involved using two hat boxes to create a room. I've started looking for hexagonal hatboxes or decorative storage boxes to make a more cat-proof covering. I will have to sojourn to Peoria to look for a nice selection, since I don't know of many places to find nice hat boxes where I live.

What I am going to do in my next post is put up pictures of the acceossires and furniture from the workshop and then the pictures with the items I added from my own stash. I want to really make sure I can show the original workshop was much more than three walls and a floor.

FH has been sick. So until he's a bit better I won't have a chance to really get things finished. I did work on everything this weekend with my friend, but on Sunday we were working in the break room of a Christmas tree farm that was not well heated. The paint and glue were definately unhappy with us, so our drying times were affected and our productivity was affected. Not to mention that it was bloody cold for our fingers. By the time the Hunter Safety class that FH was teaching ended and the MVLR (Mackinaw Valley Long-Rifles) meeting was over my back was in screaming pain. Between the cold and the chair I was sitting in, my nerves and muscles were less than happy and I could feel the ache in my vertebrae.

Fortunately I was able to still walk and keep some semblence of balance when it was time to finally go home. I did decide that if it's still this cold in March for our meeting I am going to skip it and let FH fill me in after. Normally it wouldn't be bad except for the inadvertant overlap with the Hunter Safety class. The class is always packed and they are in the room with the woodstove. In retrospect it's probably why FH is under the weather. We were in the cold for about six hours Sunday. It was much nicer for him during the longer section of the class on Saturday. To paraphrase Terry Pratchett, spina bifida is "a bit of buggery."