Category: Crafts

2024 Halloween Gingerbread House

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on 2024 Halloween Gingerbread House

Before we get started, this post is two months late. In fact, I’ve already posted our 2024 Christmas Gingerbread House post (Click here). So that post is actually a lot more informative. I only realized I hadn’t posted this one when I went to reference it for that one. My bad! So I recommend you read that one first as it has lessons learned from this one that we implemented in the second build. However on this one, we went in blind. And it was a clusterfuck. It ended up fantastic — but this is a valuable lesson in just because someone looks awesome, doesn’t mean they’re better than you. They just covered their shit in a ton of icing.

Last year (2023), K2 and I kinda of upped our Christmas Gingerbread House game. We still used kits, but we leaned in more for the decorations. So this summer, K2 was talking about how she wanted to lean into the holidays this year. We decided to go custom for Christmas houses — make our own. I pointed out that we didn’t have to wait until Christmas, I’ve done a Halloween Kit before. So we decided to go for that shit.

We roped in K and ran with it. Now, Halloween is my favorite holiday. So rather than wait for Christmas, I went all in for Halloween. I can say (since that’s already been posted) that the Christmas build went better, but my Halloween house was much more elaborate. We had TONS of candy and we made templates. I went advanced. I wanted Adam’s Family vibes. But I made it on the fly without taping it together — so there were a lot of errors. You’ll see. Look at all that candy!

This is the same Gingerbread recipe we used for the Christmas House but was our first go. It was a mess. a sticky sticky mess. I can see that it’s a lot more wet here, that might have been a problem. It’s also a lot more brown because I dumped in some coco powder for color.

Perhaps due to the wetness, These pieces bubbled while cooking so we had to pull them out and roll them. They also bent and curled like crazy while drying. So watch this shit. You’ll see some serious fuckery in my pieces. Also, as I said on that other post — if you’re baking pieces that are touching — re-cut those lines halfway through because this shit is concrete.

So here you can see my finished pieces that had windows getting ready to go in. The windows are just broken up jolly ranchers. Like I said in the previous post, you do this AFTER the cookies are baked. The jolly ranchers melt fast and they’d burn long before the dough cooks.

I’ll also point out, I tried sugar-free jolly ranchers. I noticed they were made of isomalt which is what they use in all the fancy TV competitions. So I did most of mine in Sugar-free. I didn’t have enough though, so I did end up with some regular. Some things of note:

  • Sugar-free is far more expensive.
  • Sugar-free dries solid. The regular jolly ranchers always feel a little sticky to the touch. They can also drip if you put icing directly on them (as seen in a few of my Christmas House windows).
  • The regular jolly ranchers are more translucent and bright. The color is so much more vibrant and they light up better. Add on the cheaper price and fuck sugar-free.

So the first bit of fuckery I want to point out you can see here. Look at the piece with three stories of windows. Look at how fucked up that texture is. That’s because we were trying to keep them from curling by putting pans on top of them and I forgot the parchment paper on top. So I had to scrape it off a pan halfway though baking. That’s never gonna go well. You can also see on the back piece that I’m holding up how wonky the lines are and that the bottom corner curls up. This led to a lot of gaps where pieces joined which required a lot of icing coverage. One of my roof tiles also curled insanely because noone was watching it while I was rotating in new stuff.

I wasn’t thrilled with the color of this gingerbread. So the next morning, I mixed up some violet royal icing and watered it down to a wash and washed all my pieces in purple. I LOVE IT. First, very Halloween. Second, the flaws and ugly spots where there are wrinkles and dents are now bright purple instead of dark holes! Because more icing settled in those areas. I fucking love this technique. That’s why I repeated it on the Christmas house. It was fucking perfect on this Halloween House.

In these next photos, you can see that the side to right in the Louie picture has the brighter regular jolly ranchers. See what I mean about them looking better? You can also see two full size roof pieces I made. Welp, remember how I never taped this thing together? Yeah, I had to saw on that and break it as best I could in half. Live and learn. You can also see the fuck ton of small pieces to make my porch and stairs. You know what I did on the Christmas Gingerbread house? I made the fucking stairs with caramels and iced over them. LOOK HOW MUCH WORK THAT SAVED. You can also see how curled some of my pieces are. That’s where two batches of black icing will come in later. You can also see that lovely fucked up piece I scrapped off a pan.

This house was turning into such a fucking disaster that I don’t have many in-progress shots. I do have this one I want to share though to show the level of fuckery we are talking about.

There are a few things to see here:

  • Look how I wedged a piece of gingerbread in that side gap LOL
  • The first floor roof covers my already decorated windows.
  • Also, if I keep the bottom roof line for the porch, my door will be covered. So I’m going to have to raise it for the porch which will cover part of that already decorated window too. Whatever. Choices had to be made.
  • Most obviously, what the fuck happened to my second story windows? Why is one half covered? This is what happens when you just make a template on the fly.
    • I’m just going to have to ice over it. I’ll scrape off the candy and iced edges and cover it in icing. Like a FUCK TON of icing to level it up and block the light.
    • This is why the purple icing on this (and mimicked on the side tops) has that texture. There was so much icing that it kept slipping down and I kept pushing it back up. Well, as it dried, it cracked. So I leaned into the “texture” it was creating.
    • It looked really bad with just a really short window — so I MADE IT A CIRCLE WINDOW! Genius. See how epic disasters can work for you?

One more cluster fuck that almost didn’t see the light of day. I found an adorable Nightmare Before Christmas themed house online and they made the roof look like metal sheeting. I wanted to do that! I wanted to have a swirl of burgundy and black. To get their texture, they used a tile grout tool dragged over the royal icing poured out. Well, I guess my royal icing was too watery? Because there was no way mine was going to hold a shape that sharp. I also didn’t have that tool, so I decided to wing it with a fork!

Well, it wasn’t going to hold the fork texture either so for over an hour, I had to keep stroking it horizontally to get the ridges. Do you see my color swirls? No? That’s because they were obliterated during this process. More and more every time I did it. Now it was just a really ugly ass color. UGH. We will wait.

By the next morning, it had not solidified like the lady on the internet promised it would. So I popped it in the oven on a super low heat. This might be what cause the next problem. It was a very fragile honeycomb crumbly texture. So crumbly. It was impossible to cut my straight metal roof pieces (though I did try wit ha pizza cutter). So I just salvaged what pieces I tried to cut that didn’t shatter 100%. I had those laid out on three pans and hoped I had enough. Then I started shingling the roof with the pieces I had in some kind of manner. It was so so so bad. I almost just ripped it all off. Husband came down to see how I was doing and we discussed ripping it off because it looked so bad. And there wasn’t enough contrast with the purple siding. Also, the pieces were of very uneven thicknesses because some broke off the “back” bit — it was really weird. And the edge would just crumble if you thought about touching them. So I started outlining the bigger pieces in the purple icing to keep them from crumbling. Ran out, eventually switched to black.

Even then it was a hot mess of crumbling icing. But the black was at least making it pop a bit more. So I leaned in and started outlining the cracks that were forming. I outlined over the divots that were missing. I outlined around every piece to keep the edges protected (and together). I was kinda salvaging it! I placed big pieces over areas I had filled in with crumbled bits and just outlined around the new ones. It was not anything close to my aim, but I was achieving “decrepit” roof! I worked out for me! Triumph over adversity!

I also used a fuck ton of black icing covering all of the joins. Notice that in some areas, that black icing is REAL THICK. If you would like to look at the front of the tower, you will see how the right side of the tower has black icing three times thicker than the left. Well, it matters which pieces are back to back when assembling and that right join was wide on the front and the left was wide on the side. Fuck me! So when I iced the joins, my windows and door were so far off center it was comical. Like maybe this is why my second story window was covered? Kidding, that was its own fuckup. Welp. I guess we’ll just go with… more black icing? It worked for the roof. So um yeah… Just a really thick line of icing to make them look centered! SWEET! Yeah, I used two full batches of black icing on this house. That’s how much shit is filled in with black icing.

Now, another hot mess was that side I had to scrape off a baking pan. The gnarly bent one with all the deep divots and valleys. How the fuck was I supposed to fix that? Guys, I guess we’re doing a vine.

Yes, a vine climbing up the house that conveniently crosses all of those areas. Ooooo, what it it’s even all up on the third story roof! Like those vines that grow on my own house that grow into the gutters if I let them grow unchecked for too long. YEAH. I guess it would kind cover like the corner of the house ’cause I can’t have all this vine on the side and none on the back. And making it look “rooted” in that corner will let me cover that massive 1-inch+ gap at the bottom where the back and side join. WIN!

So you see? This house is fucking epic. It’s way “better” than my Christmas Church! I mean, “better” is in quotation marks because build-wise, this is a cluster fuck. Looks-wise though. I’m good. This is the shit. I am so fucking proud of this house. I’m almost even more proud because of how fucked up it was at points (hence there being no photos of those points). It was so bad, I wanted to scrap it. But I continued on. And it came out amazing! And some of the best bits – the crazy roof, the vine, the circle window -were never intended — they were just damage control! None of that was in my vision for this house at all. Even the heavy black icing covering gaps just makes it very gothic and Halloween.

Lastly, a few details. Lots of pumpkins! I wanted a porch with stairs just so I could put pumpkins on them. The pumpkins are Braches Pumpkins that were Moms favorite Halloween candy — plus some orange and green M&Ms for little and immature ones. I dyed shredded coconut green for the lawn. Look at my bat sprinkle door handles!

There were supposed to the three stairs but it ran out of room. Since I fucked up the stairs, I had to fix some size discrepancies with caramels sculpted like clay and iced over. Also, That’s how I came to the caramels-can-just-be-the-stairs in the next iteration.

Does anyone else think the windows look like gaping open muppet mouths? That was not intentional.

2024 Christmas Gingerbread House

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on 2024 Christmas Gingerbread House

Do you just want a recipe? I mean this isn’t a recipe POST, but fuck it, click here to skip it all.

We Doin’ It

Last year, K2 and I did more elaborate gingerbread houses than usual. We stepped up our game. We still did kits, but we were more elaborate with decorations. Then, for Halloween, K2, K, and I went all in on Halloween houses. We made them FROM SCRATCH. I just went to grab you a link and I did not post it. I suck. Probably because deciding which pictures to use (meaning: not posting all 30 angles and combining some in photoshop) and writing it up takes a while. I’ve been working on this post for 3 days. But DAMN. That one was epic so it’s coming. I’ve looked at my media files three times to make sure but — nope, there’s no photos of that uploaded. WTF?

UPDATE! I posted about the Halloween House! I highly recommend you view it — especially if you feel like my skills are beyond yours because that was a CLUSTERFUCK. A true story in thriving in difficulty and overcoming adversity. I mean it was a hot fucking mess but came out better than this one!

Anyway, so for Christmas, we REALLY wanted to step it up. I went all out on Halloween because that is my favorite. K and K2 just did regular house shapes. But I went ALL IN. We did it all from scratch and they were great. So we decided to do it again for Christmas, obviously. This time K and K2 upped their game and I’m reeling mine in a bit. I decided to simplify from the Halloween elaboration. I wanted to do a church with a steeple. Nice, but not the complexity of the Adams Family House. Plus I’ve done this before. Big house shape plus tiny house shape for steeple. Bam.

So here we go:

Day 1: The Bakening

Since these are from scratch, we had one day scheduled just to get them baked. For the Halloween houses, we made three batches of dough but didn’t use it all up by far. So this time we started with three batches. I also died it brown to get some color. I had far fewer (so so so fewer) pieces to make on mine, but K and K2 scaled up a lot, so that wasn’t enough. So we made another two batches (we might have made a third too). Pretty sure K2 had to go to the store for more eggs, but we had no choice — no way were we gonna get close. We didn’t have brown dye left, so from there, the gingerbread pieces all had a very cool swirl effect as we combined batches. I liked it.

I think K2 came over at 4pm and I was done at 2am. Yeah. Lot of baking. I mean it took us a damn long time to get it all rolled and cut and spread all over my kitchen — but you can only fit so much on one cookie sheet and there’s only three racks in the oven. So yeah, my oven was going all night with me rotating stuff in and out. The key is a fuck ton of parchment paper and counter space.

We do paper templates and follow that for the pieces (I also keep the labeled templates to match up the pieces later when assembling). This “gingerbread” recipe has no fat in it so it doesn’t spread at all which is nice. It’s also basically concrete. It’s a pain to baby sit because it wants to curl as it cooks and dries, but it is solid as fuck. If you need to cut apart your pieces (if you have two pieces adjoining on the sheet), recut it halfway through baking because this is solid.

We learned some things from the Halloween Houses:

  • 1) This shit is so solid it does not need to be as thick as you think to be sturdy. When I tossed my Halloween house in the trash, I tried to break it apart and was unsuccessful. So I just tipped it off my counter into a bag. It hit the floor tower roof first and didn’t crack. SOLID.
  • 2) Cutting windows by hand sucks. My house Halloween house had a lot of windows. Cutting them out by hand sucked a lot. So this time, I bought a bunch of geometric shape cutters. Oh my lord, thank you. Clean, perfect cuts. I combined the tear drop and rectangle for gothic windows on mine. Circle and rectangle for arched windows on Ks. We did big and small combos for wreath shapes. K2 went fucking nuts with circles for snowmen and stars and diamond/parallelograms. Just yes, buy cookie cutters.
  • 3) Royal Icing is also concrete. We do hot-glue our houses together (cause aint nobody eating this shit). You only need to glue to hold it until the icing dries. So this time I only used a bit of glue because the icing is going to do all the holding – as evidenced by my trashing of the Halloween House.
  • 4) Caramels can be structural. My Halloween house had a fuck ton of pieces because I did a porch with stairs. I had to use caramels to fix the sides of the stairs and it occurred to me that I could have just used caramels for the stairs. It’s basically clay. It won’t hold up on its own — but you only need it to hold up until your icing dries it solid. So THIS TIME, my stairs are totally caramels. In FACT, we forgot to cut two sides for me front off-shoot so I used caramels. (One got cut, but somehow not a second one.) That’s why I had to ice over those walls when I assembled it.

So here is 2am that night before I finally went to bed! My church is the greyish one on the island (I didn’t paint the roof pieces) and K and K2s are on the counter. I also meant to have a window on the front but there was a lot of cutting happening and it just got missed. Do you see all the pieces we made?

I “painted” the Halloween House purple and loved the results so much that I had to do this one as well. I always do an over-the-top red and green candy house for Christmas houses. So I wanted to go a bit more elegant this year. I wanted an icy blue-grey for the church. I nailed it, but when I was painting it, it felt like a huge fail. It was much darker than I wanted. This dough soaks up liquid like a desert so keep that in mind. And when it dried and the white sugar came through it was perfect.

This is basically just an extremely watered down royal icing that I paint on with a brush. The Halloween House had one or two layers and this has 3 or 4. What I adore about this finish is that it takes the ugly parts and makes them shine. The marbled lighter bits are the grooves and dents and cracks and imperfections. Since more icing settles in those places, it looks lighter/closer to the icing color when it dries. So it is a gorgeous way to keep the character of real baked pieces. The key is that it is a wash, not actual icing. You aren’t icing over the pieces, just washing them with a little bit of sugar (well, royal icing with a ton of water). It should be very drippy and painted on with a paint brush. You’re basting the gingerbread. It should soak into the gingerbread. I also loves that when it dries, there is a very subtle sparkle from the sugar crystals. I just adore this method.

Making Windows

If you’ve never done windows on gingerbread houses — you are missing out! They’re so easy! Throw in some battery powered LED lights while assembling and it’s fucking magic! You just cut them out when baking. They’re filled with melted hard candy. We used jolly ranchers. Separate by colors and bang them up a bit. They don’t have to be pulverized, but break them up a bit. Pretty sure any hard candy can work. butterscotches can do a nice cabin glow.

  • Cut the windows out and then bake.
  • After the ginger bread is done (cool or hot, doesn’t matter), put it on baking paper and fill the holes with candy. Put a lot in there. When it melts it will lose a lot of the volume of the bits you just sprinkled in plus some might seep around the window on the back side. Do NOT do this with the raw dough. The candy will melt very fast and will burn long before your dough finishes cooking. Do this with finished cookie pieces only.
  • To get the stained glass effect seen here, clump colors together in piles. Watch it because it won’t take long to melt. Once they are a uniform puddle with no lines between colors, pull them out and let cool before removing from the pan. If you are quick, you could swirl the colors with a toothpick before they cool.
  • NOTE: White sugar will not even come close to melting before the candy, they don’t work together.

Day 2: Decorating and Assembling

This is a minimum two day process since you have to bake everything. Day two is assembly and decorating. It’s easiest to decorate the sides before assembling. You have a nice flat surface to work on and stick stuff to.

I used black icing to outline my windows and do the stained glass lines. I used a darker grey/blue for decorating. I did a foundation of edible ball bearings (cake pearls?). I also did some swirls to add detail. Then, I assembled with hot glue and covered all my edges, joins, and caramel walls/stairs with the grey/blue icing. By this time, K2 was done with hers, so we have a photo of Louie watching me ice a roof edge.

After she left, I worked many more hours. Silver pearl things got added around some windows to brighten up the black and in a few details to sparkle. It was also looking a bit too generic and non-Christmas. So I made a wreath to glue on later and some garland on the windows. The green bits are sour gummies cut into pieces. The red bits are from a Christmas sprinkles pack we bought last year (save your candy from year to year — no one is eating this shit).

Day 3: Roofing

I needed another day to work on mine. I had assembled the church. It was iced. So Day Three, I started with trees. They are ice cream cones wrapped with sour gummy strips. Then I decided to tackle the roof. It is cinnamon toast crunch. It took 3+ hours. Louie watched TV with me though.

I decided that was a LOT of cereal roof visually, so I added some snow drifts of shredded coconut. I love them! Were they perfect? Hell no. But you know what? You can just pull off whole sections of cereal you fucked up with too many snow drifts and redo it and no one will ever know. You got a whole box of cereal.

To finish off Day Three, I used the rest of the white icing and covered a big area on my base and sprinkled it with the shredded coconut for snow.

BTW, our bases are cardboard wrapped in craft paper. We used doubled up boxes (so 4 layers of cardboard total). Put the boxes in different directions to each other so the creases for the flaps don’t’ line up. I wanted to use solid green wrapping paper but I couldn’t find any. Last Christmas, I used a green gift bag that had a glitter border and it was pretty awesome. I bet scrap fabric would work. Anything you have around to cover the cardboard.

Day 4: The Finishing

Yeah, I needed another day to work on it. Day three was a work night so I couldn’t stay up late. Day four was mostly finishing touches. I glued the wreath on the front of the church with hot glue. I decided the back needed a wreath but I didn’t have any more circle shapes, so I glued a bunch of K2s parallelograms together and glued them to the house. It was fat and I glued it on before decorating so I thought it would be a disaster but I kinda love how huge it is. It took a ton of chopped up gummies to cover.

I topped all of the trees with extra sour gummie cuts to cover the ice cream cone tops. I made little gum drop tiny trees by the church doors topped with some of our star cutouts. I added “bushes” of gum drops. I really committed to that.

I used more of the red sprinkles to decorate the tree in front of the church. And two more star cookies of different sizes for the tree topper. That’s their grand Christmas tree. I couldn’t use the red icing because it just wasn’t red enough even though we used the entire jar of red color. There are some red M&Ms on the tree and wreaths too.

Then, as my final touch… I added a little gingerbread man sprinkle by one of the door trees. I like to think a little girl left her teddy bear there by the tree.

SHE’S DONE! Light her up!

Detail shots:

Front and back:

Side A and Side B:

Holy fuck, I am so damn proud of this one! EVERYONE LOOK AT MY CHURCH! The little star Christmas tree toppers! The trees! THE WINDOWS! Look at my snow drifts!

I like to really throw my all into some projects just so I can be proud of myself and show them off. Remind myself I still “got it.”

You know whats so weird? This “elegant” gingerbread house was far cheaper than a traditional one with all the candy. Sure, it takes longer because the details are all icing. But it required hardly any actual candy. Green gummies, green gummy strips, sprinkles and jolly ranchers (plus the cereal and coconut). Usually you have to have a huge host of different candies for variety. That means it’s actually a lot cheaper to make this fancy style.

Sentimental Throw Backs

This house is a bit of a throw back to the second real gingerbread house I made with my mom back when I live in a shitty apartment in college. We did a church with steeple then too. It also had the cinnamon toast crunch roof. It even had a hershys chocolate door too! So this pleases me greatly. Momma would love it and want to keep it forever.

Here’s a post I did of gingerbread houses through the years. There’s two mom and I did at the apartment from scratch.

Another throw back — the cat destruction. It was a well known “secret” that Jack would sneak onto the counter every night and lick the icing off the gingerbread house. It was hilarious seeing bald spots appear. He never did it in front of us. But every morning there would be missing icing spots or M&Ms with the colorful shell licked off. It was part of the tradition for me.

Well, I noticed the coconut around the Halloween house was disturbed a lot and I just prayed to GOD it wasn’t a mouse. I never saw Louie do it, but I did suspect he might be the culprit. Lo and behold it is him. Louie don’t give a fuck so he got right up on the counter and started eating it right in front of me. Little fucker! And I will 100% allow it because it’s tradition.

Recipes

Concrete AKA “Gingerbread”

Modified with original credit to: The Craft Crib

Ingredients  

  • 2 C granulated sugar
  • 1/2 C corn syrup (the recipe says honey, you could use molasses. Corn syrup is cheapest)
  • 1 TBS warm water
  • 4 eggs
  • (Fuck spices, no one’s eating this)
  • 6 C flour
  • Optional: Food coloring if you want that gingerbread look you would have gotten from the molasses, spices, and brown sugar. This is gonna be sugar cookie pale so maybe add some brown food coloring if that’s your thing. On this Christmas house bake, we did add all my brown to the first batch. Then we made more and didn’t have food coloring so we just combined them and got an awesome swirl effect.

Instructions 

  • Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
  • Bake that shit until it’s dry. I’ve done it twice and it varied a lot. Just make sure it’s dry but don’t over cook it.
  • BABYSIT IT — this might bubble and it certainly likes to curl. We’ve used it twice and it varied so much.
  • The original recipe says: Bake the pieces at 325 degrees F for 15-20 minutes, rolling the dough once after 10 minutes. I don’t know if we used too much water, but this took a LOT longer. Just look and tap it. If it’s shiny and soft, it’s not done. I actually flipped these pieces so they’d just hurry up and cook. Maybe I just cooked them too long? No one’s eating it, it’s fine.
  • The original recipe also says to put a pan on it while it cools to prevent curling. Probably not a bad idea. IT CURLS. Babysit it.

Royal Icing

Modified with original credit to: Hanielas

  • 3 egg whites, (90-100grams)
  • 5 cups powdered sugar (650grams)
  • 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (no, I do not measure this shit. I’ve also forgot it in some colors and didn’t notice a difference. I just sprinkle it in there. It’s cheap)
  • (Fuck flavoring, no one’s eating this)
  • Food Coloring

Quacks of Quedlinburg Custom Storage: Broken Token Storage Makeover

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | Leave a Comment on Quacks of Quedlinburg Custom Storage: Broken Token Storage Makeover

First, it’s like Christmas, so let’s jump to the end and then go back to the beginning. Here’s where we’re going: LOOK AT THIS MASTERPIECE!

Quacks of Quedlinburg

Ok, so in the beginning, I had an interview. It went well. I was chatting with the interviewer about boardgames after we were done and she asked if I’d ever heard of Quacks of Quedlinburg. I had not. I wrote it down in my very professional interview portfolio to look up later.

I pulled it up on Board Game Geek to give it a glance. It had a long list of award nominations and finalist titles and a “few” wins:

  • 2022 Ã…rets Spel Best Family Game Winner
  • 2020 Origins Awards Best Family Game Winner
  • 2019 UK Games Expo Best Board Game (European Style) People’s Choice Winner
  • 2019 Hungarian Board Game Award Winner
  • 2019 Guldbrikken Best Adult Game Winner
  • 2019 American Tabletop Casual Games Winner
  • 2018 Meeples Choice Award Winner
  • 2018 Kennerspiel des Jahres Winner
  • 2018 Golden Geek Best Family Board Game Winner
  • 2018 Cardboard Republic Daredevil Laurel Winner

Yes, those are just the awards it WON. Clearly she wasn’t over-hyping it. I also liked that it can be two player. I recently received a long-awaited Kickstarter game that we have yet to play because we need a minimum of 3 players. So 2 players — fucking-a! I immediately added it to my Amazon Wishlist. Along with a game organizer to go with it.

The Broken Token Game Organizer

I’ve never had a Broken Token game organizer. I know the brand. I know it’s reputable. I’ve just always found them so… ugly. I love me a game organizer — game changer (literally!), but damn. However, I did look at the Amazon reviews and saw this photo of someone’s customization:

WAIT. Wait wait wait. These are supposed to be CUSTOMIZED? That’s why they’re ugly? Holy fuck! I don’t know if yall noticed my recent booknook fandom and the amazing Sherlock Holmes booknook I did (link). But I knew I had the skills to make this AWESOME. So that went on the list as well.

Makeover Time

For my birthday, my wonderful husband got it for me! Woot! I love a craft project! So I dove in. I spent over a week on this. First, I stained the wood and assembled the boxes with glue. Then I hit a roadblock, which I knew was coming.

When A Hindrance Becomes Your Greatest Asset

The Amazon Review photo had been done with stickers/paper. I did plenty of that in my booknook and that’s why I know we have an amazing black and white printer but a very shitty color printer. The resolution isn’t great and you can see the print lines. So just not gonna work. I could print and paint over it, but I’m not that good at painting small details — I have shaky hands.

So have you ever heard that overcoming obstacles makes a better product? Like in the first Deadpool movie. You know when Deadpool forgets his big bag of guns in the taxi? Well, that wasn’t just any old gag. There was supposed to be a huge scene there with all those weapons. But their budget got axed so they couldn’t afford that scene. So the amazing scene that ended up in the movie replaced it. That’s one example. They had to forgo all the FX budget and do a practical scene. This EPIC case I just made is another perfect example. I couldn’t just print my graphics, I had to make this shit for real.

Aside from the labels, I could do everything else practical. I know I have an excellent black ink printer so I ordered some clear sticky paper to do the typeface. I could paint under it and then just stick the type over my paint. Yay!

Gathering Pieces

Remember when I talked about my nightmare Hobby Lobby trip? Well, during that trip, I looked for things I could use for this project. I really wanted some of those tiny brass label holders that you put on photo boxes. They did not have any. So I got metallic puff paint to make something up. I also found some cute tin corner details in the wood craft section for 99 cents (for the four pack)! Were they black? Yes. Irrelevant. Then I looked through all the charms and jewelry bits. I found a pack of six insanely tacky photo charms. They’re really cheap brassy gold and the fake “diamond” inlays and thin plastic. PERFECT.

So I snipped the charm loops off with some wire cutters and painted all that shit in enamel gold paint — going for a brass accent look. Then I used paint to fill in the center of the photo charms for each player color. In the final photos, you’ll see they look like cabochons. So funny story. I was going through my glue stash and found Mod Podge 3D in there that I had bought for some project and never used. I’m pretty sure I thought it was clear puff paint but it’s not! It’s a liquid to fill bottle caps or pendants to seal things in. What? So I filled up my cheap pendants and daymn — they look amazing! Yall these were six for like $6 and half off. I’m good.

I also picked up some earrings I had hoped to use on the ingredient drawers but they were too small. I ended up using one of them on the black book spine. A bat charm also makes an appearance — I TOTALLY already had that! Again, just snipped the loops off with wire cutters and painted them the brass color.

Layout Time

So at this point in the project, I had decor bits and boxes. I had decisions to make. Do I use the corners as true corners? They look kinda cool sideways. I gotta cover this ugly engraving work too. Do I want to do books like the one I saw? How could I do a potion shelf?

It was time for Photoshop. I love making decisions like this with photos so I can see the different options side by side. So I laid out all the boxes I had and put it in Photoshop. I used the clone tool to fill in some missing wood bits. I googled some playing cards to visualize where those would be in the finished product. And I took the Amazon Review guy’s labels to play with just for the visual. This is what I came up with:

Thankfully, the ingredient drawer fronts could be installed backwards so no worrying about that engraving. The flap in the middle (it flips up to reveal a shelf) could also be installed backwards. I was not so lucky with the other two compartments. I’d have to work something out to cover those.

The book compartment was the worst. That had to go. I couldn’t just paint books because it was engraved. Also, a bit of 3D wouldn’t kill anyone. So I made my book spines with sculpty clay! I used a earring on the black notebook. I modeled the fat green book after my own leather happy book where I have lots of Four-Leaf Clovers and cat foot-prints and even butterfly wings. I envision it being a similar book for herb identification. Oh and I totally had some glass skull beads for an upcoming booknook, so I tucked one of those guys in.

Now We Paint

I’ve moved my crafting from the kitchen table to the living room for two reasons. One: I totally mess up the nice table every time I do stuff on there. Two: Louie gets really needy when I’m ignoring him. This way he can sit by me. Kills my back though.

I color matched the ingredients to the corresponding game tokens. I just used good old acrylic paint on the books and labels. You can see I printed out a fancy outline for my puff paint and to show me the rectangle to color in. I did not outline the squares with puff paint because, as you can see on the Rubies box in the final photos, I can’t do straight lines.

I had been hemming and hawing over what to do with the bottom compartment. I considered covering it in leather bias tape I had or maybe red felt? But It was looking very busy with all the colors. I wanted more wood to show so I decided to do a monogram. To cover the engraving, I cut an oval out of the sticky clear paper for the flat surface (all of this is Mod Podged so no worry about the adhesive strength). The Q is the same Q in the games logo. Does the puff paint work on that Q look shitty? Yeah. But I spent over an hour and like 50 Q-Tips trying to get it reasonable. I’m really proud of my puff paint filigree though.

I also had to add handles to the player token drawers. I didn’t install the wood ones so I could use my swanky cabochons. I did leave a small bit of the opening though so I could thread something through. I had thought maybe tassels. However, when I went to grab my skull bead, I realized I have Evil Eyes! How much fun would Evil Eyes be in my alchemy cabinet? So I grabbed those and the copper beads from the Sherlock Booknook and made some little pulls. I LOVE THEM. Holy fuck they’re fantastic!

I also used a lot of stain markers for clean up. More about that in the Lessons Learned section at the end.

THE FINAL BOX

So look! Here’s my alchemist cabinet! I am beyond thrilled with this! Can you believe I would have just printed off graphics if I had a good printer? What? This is AMAZING. I might store the game in its lid like this. Like just put the guide and player boards in the lid and slide this in over it and just put it on my game shelf like this. I think I will.

Lessons Learned

I learned a lot on this crafting journey. I’d like to pass some of that on to you.

  • Glue Spots. So I glued my boxes together after staining the wood. Well, where any glue spread or I touched it with gluey fingers, there were noticeably shinier spots. That’s why I had to use Mod Podge– I coated everything so it all had the same sheen.
  • Mod Podge and tolerances. I used “Extra Matte” Mod Podge. I’d have rather used regular, but I didn’t have enough and I was using stuff I had. So it was Extra Matte or Super Gloss. Well, this stuff is thick. And that made the tolerances of the sliding pieces off. UGH. So where the trays slide into cutouts in the wood… well, I had to sand that down. I chose to sand down the cutouts to make them wider where they slid in rather than the trays. It sucked. I’m glad that the Mod Podge adds a coating plus strength in that it’s just more glue — but damn.
  • Mod Podge looking “Flat.” In some areas where there was too much Mod Podge, they clouded. This happened on my tin corner decorations. It also looked bad on the back of the flap. The wood is rougher on that side and since I installed it backwards to get rid of the engraving, that was out. I fixed this with Stain Pens. They’re made to fix/hide scratches in furniture — so worth having. I also buffed a bit of that gold enamel paint back over the raised metal additions to bring back their luster. This actually makes them look more aged since they’re less shiny in the nooks. Over all though, I’m not down with the Mod Podge I used. It ruined the tolerances so I had to spend hours fixing that with nail files. It messed with the shine. Also, it has a rough feel. I think the “Extra Matte” fucked me over.
  • Stain Pens are AMAZING. So this is layers of wood. So the stain didn’t go all the way through every layer of wood. This left the center of the wood edges lighter. Stain Pens to the rescue!
  • Stain Pens are shiny. I also used the stain pens to cover some mistakes. Notice how non-square my paint labels were. Squared those up. I told you I used like 50 Q-Tips getting that monogram right. Well, wiping away metallic paint leaves a bit of a color. Fixed that with Stain Pens. But even going with the grain, it was so obviously different where I used the pen over the Mod Podge in levels of sheen. So basically, I covered the front of everything in stain pen. I mean, it looks fucking awesome — but I only did the fronts. I wouldn’t be able to get into the nooks and crannies with the pens even if I wanted to.
  • Clear Sticker/Tape over paint — not great. So the paint was obviously not perfectly flat. This led to light refraction and you could see the areas behind the sticker paper I had printed the text on even after I Mod Podged everything to the same sheen. This sucked. I had to solve this by painting over the sticker paper with paint again. Obviously, I couldn’t get right up against the text though. This led to a ghostly sort of shadow around the text. It works, but it was not intended. I’d say it looks awesome on some of them, like “Fortune” and “Ghost’s Breath.” On those it adds to the look. It’s not noticeable at all on the white and grey. It is noticeably bad on the red Toadstool and Rubies though. Oh well. I stand by the printer making me do this all for real being the greatest thing to happen. But I’d totally print those labels and then add the 3D around them.
  • Puff Paint is for people better than me. I can’t draw a straight line to save my life. Also, a consistent squeeze to get a uniform thickness is impossible. This shit requires skills I don’t have. I’m thrilled with my filigree on the drawers/trays though. It’s abstract so it doesn’t matter that it’s not uniform and perfect. Also it was done by starting by squeexing out a blob and pulling away while releasing the squeeze — this led to nice drop shapes.
  • Paint this interior of the game box. I’m really glad I realized how much of the box would actually show through. What alchemist cabinet is backed in freaking cardboard? So I painted the inside of the box all black before putting this in there. Pro move. I’m so smart.

Feedback for Broken Token on This Exact Box

I don’t like that the ingredient trays aren’t drawers. That sucks. The player tokens are drawers that slide in and out. The ingredient trays are just trays with a lip that slides about a centimeter into the frame. 1) this looks awkward when using the trays on the table to play because they have those stupid tabs on the sides. 2) I can’t use them as drawers like I want. I’d much prefer these had bottoms like the player token drawers.

It kind sucks that you can’t open the books compartment without removing the Fortune and Rubies tray. This is a super small complaint since you’d have to remove those for play anyway. But it also has the same stupid tab problem of the ingredient trays.

Since the box isn’t rigid and you gave us no drawer slides, the side with the ingredient trays can bow out slightly. This means the ones in the middle can come out of their tabs. Seriously, these should have been drawers. It would have fixed this too. There’s nothing holding that column to width anywhere but the very top and very bottom.

I like the swing out bottom compartment. That’s fun.

The ingredient trays need separators for the different values of the tokens. I’m going to add these with painted cardboard because I really do think you need those to play the game more efficiently. It would let you know at a glance if one item is out and also making grabbing what you want easier.

First Game Play(s)

Husband and I actually gave this three plays on Sunday. Once in the afternoon and twice in the evening. We love it. It really is a good game! It’s fun! This picture is the last game where I was DESTROYED so ignore that. I did get 13 rat tails on that last turn though so fucking-a. I love the rat tail catch up mechanic!

There is a lot of luck here — but also a lot of resource management going on. It’s not coincidence husband won all three games. If the game was longer, you could even it out a bit. Only having 9 rounds means that the BEST your bag will get is 1/3 cherry bombs (8 cherry bombs plus assuming you bought 2 ingredients each of the previous 8 rounds). I wish we could buy more ingredients per round.

So far we’ve only played with the starter set of of books, so I’m sure there will be a lot of changes when we change the ingredient books up. Hawkmoth kinda sucks in only 2 player. I know it will be great in larger games though. It’s still a good game for two player! But Hawkmoth sucks for just two.

This is a great length of game for two players — just about 45 minutes.

Five Stars!

five stars

Future Plans

I’m going to make some customized player tokens to go around the score board. I’m cool with the wood discs for the rats and water drops though — don’t see any need to upgrade those. I’m actually going to buy insanely tiny glass vials with cork tops to make color-coded potions for each player!

I HAVE to get the Herbs and Witches expansion. Not too thrilled about the Alchemist expansion, but I really want that Herbs and Witches one. It has a better rating on BGG than the original game! I probably should have got the big box that just had the expansions. But then my organizer wouldn’t fit… so nevermind.

I might put the Evil Eye bead pulls on a nice string or ribbon instead of the seed beads. I’d like them to hang more freely.

I’m going to use cardboard to make separators inside the ingredient trays for the different chip values.

I want to get chip “sleeves.” – plastic to go around the cardboard. Would I ABSOFUCKINGLUTLY LOVE the BGG Geekup acrylic tokens? Fuck yes, I would! But that would be $42 for the base game plus $30 for the expansion. So damn.

I’d like nicer bags, but not any of the ones I’ve found for sale to go with the game. Does anyone sew? Like I like that the bags are black. I don’t want them to be color coded to the player. I want black. I think a nice black crushed velvet would be fucking sweet! With like a silky liner? Chef’s kiss! I wouldn’t mind the silky liner being matched to player color (maybe even the drawstring too). Or even them all having the same color liner on all of them– like maybe a grey? Or purple? They’d have to be the same size cause they gotta fit in my box. But yeah, I’d love a soft nice bag upgrade. But not in garish colors — I like the black bags. I might buy just some velvet bags later that aren’t intended specifically as an upgrade for this game.

Random Updates in My Life

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Crafts and more crafts… And cards… And decorating…

So, I’ve got a lot going on.  Two different craft projects.  Plus Christmas decorating.  Plus Christmas cards (expensive and so much work.  Why do I do these?  Like I can’t break the streak.  That’s why).  And tomorrow I gotta pick up the Thanksgiving ham.  So my counter is full.

Speaking of crafts, you know it’s the good shit when there’s a skull and crossbones warning on it. 

Actually, that wasn’t the good shit.  It fucked me over.  It’s supposed to go over the top of EVERYTHING.  Including a few layers of sealant.  I wish it had specified that.  The second I put it on, my enamel paint just dissolved.  I found out about the sealant thing when I googled “what the fucking fuck.”

These paw print ornaments are killing me.  But I won’t give in.  As I told you, the top coat I previously used was old or something and left yellowish bubbles and streaks.  Maybe THIS SHIT could have saved it.  So I got mineral spirits to try to get it off.  After so much elbow grease, I had barely anything off.  So we brute-force it: repaint.  Now keep in mind, everything I do to these takes two days.  One day for front to dry, then another for back.  And then actually another for the writing on the back in the paint step. 

So I repainted.  They look amazing.  Time for top coat!  FUCK ME it disolved the paint.  So repaint the ones I tried and fucked up. 

I’m going with something I know this time, bitches.  Modpodge.  Super gloss Modpodge.  Got the back done and second coat on the front now.  It says you can do a second coat after an hour (I waited a day) but it takes FOUR MOTHER FUCKING WEEKS TO CURE?! Sweet baby Jesus, are you kidding me? 

For mine, that’s fine.  They’re dry to the touch so I can hang them.  But I gotta mail my brother-in-law his!  What if the packaging leaves dents?  Or sticks to it for some reason?  FUCK. 

And I thought Pottery Barn was smoking crack. 

As seen here in my text messages, Pottery Barn prices are insane. 

Is that a hilarious National Lampoons Christmas Vacation pillow? Fuck yes it is!  Do I want it?  Oh hell yes.  Is it $70? Also yes.  Who are you catering to, Pottery Barn?  Who?

Well, this weekend, I needed craft supplies (enamel paint in red).  It’s cheapest at Hobby Lobby.  I know that is insane, but it’s true. $7.99 online or $2.39 at Hobby Lobby.  It was also half off Christmas and I needed lights for our tree. 

Y’all, I’ve never seen Hobby Lobby so chaotic and full.  FULL.  The giant ass parking lot was full.  You could barely move in there.  The longest string of lights they had was 100 count, so fuck it, I got a ton of those. 

I saw these cute blowmold Christmas Trees at the front.  Would possibly be cute to have.  And half off!  I had to find one with a price tag though.  Holy Mary mother of god! FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS EACH. 

Who are y’all marketing to?  Who?  A fucking blowmold?  Seriously?  What the fuck is happening? Tariffs haven’t kicked in yet, y’all!

Plants!

My plants are doing well.  Look at my Thanksgiving Cactus of Friendship blooming right on time! I love how the red turns to magenta on the tips of the petals!  Stunning.  Today the second layer opened up!

Also, husband helped me put up the main Christmas tree because my anxiety was killing me.  So I had to move plants around.  Plus the end table.  And I’m over wintering some things (I haven’t even brought in the lemongrass from the garage yet).  So Louie is now… JUNGLE CAT. 

Aging without any grace whatsoever

How’s menopause (perimenopause)? I’m glad you asked.  Terrible.  I’m not having nightly panic attacks anymore.  I need to remind myself they were nightly.  But I do still have them around once a week. Also, I’m moody and I’m hot.  

We went to the Venardos Circus for my birthday.  It was going to be 50s and down into 40s when it let out (fahrenheit).  So maybe long sleeves? I wore a thin long sleeve hoodie.  Big mistake.  The second I got in Ks heated car I was like, I have made a terrible decision.  Even inside the tent.  I switched seats with husband because K2s commentary is honest to god, half the joy of the circus.  But when I switched and realized the seat beside him was open, it was heaven!  I wasn’t between two hot people!

Where can I get Christmas tank tops? Not joking.  Want. 

Also, I’ve reached the age of “I have to pee.”. Like, I used to be able to hold my bladder for hours.  Gotta pee?  It’s fine, I’ll go when I get home.  No more.  Now my body gives me like one “I gotta pee.” Then, if I ignore it, all the following “I have to pee” signals will be accompanied by a small bit of pee.  Too much information?  WELL ITS MY LIFE.  So at the circus, my brain was like “I gotta pee.” I’m not allowed to ignore it anymore so I had to use a freaking porta potty!  The shame!

I thought Gods punishment to Eve eating the apple of knowledge was painful child birth.  The Bible don’t say shit about menopause.  Of course neither did anyone else in my life. 

Fuck getting old.  I’m supposed to be happy and child free with money.  Not peeing a little, moody, sweating all night and waking up to panic attacks. 

THAT’S FUCKING BULLSHIT, RONNIE!

Crochet Brontosaurus

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on Crochet Brontosaurus

I made this.

It is a crochet Brontosaurus. I used Benet Baby Velvet yarn. It is VERY soft. The pattern is from Palana Design on Etsy. It’s the No Sew Mamenchisaurus. I wouldn’t say it was easy. That might have been my yarn choice though. This velvet is crazy hard to see your stitches in. She has videos that are much needed. Especially when I realized she was crocheting in a different direction than myself. That matters. I think the pattern could have been helped by naming where you were (“like 8 stitches around the leg” or “decreases should be on top of the tail”). So my body was a big attempt at me mathing it even so the legs were spaced appropriately. My stitch counts pretty much never matched up, so there was a lot of winging it.

I would also note, this might be considered yarn art and not straight crochet. That’s because I went back on the tail and neck and heavily altered them with stitches after I was done. I made the neck thinner, chiseled the chin, and made the tail taper a lot more. The neck suffered from my stitch count problem. So it was narrower at the base than at the head. So I tightened it up to match the base width. The yarn is so hard to see stitches in that I can get away with it.

That said, I would totally make it again. I would stress less and I would watch more of the videos because yall, she’s not crocheting in the same direction as me and that matters on some parts. I feel like the directions are so confusing because there are so many increases and decreases per row with no indication of where you are in the row. So If I do it again, I’m winging most of it. Now that I know the basic happening, I could wing the body and tail and neck. And if I was focusing on winging it to make it look good and not following the pattern exactly, maybe his head wouldn’t be turning just a little. It doesn’t look bad at all, but that wasn’t something I was aiming for.

This took about 5 sessions. I did the feet with K and K2 while watching a Christmas movie. Then I did the body which picks the feet up (no sew). I did the tail one night. I did the neck and head last night. Then this morning, I shaped it up a bit and highlighted under the eyes.

I love it. He’s may happy purple dinosaur.

Oh and no knocking the pattern! I didn’t design this or figure out how to do the shapes. I love the hump on the back, I love the clever neck hole situation. It’s adorable as fuck. Theirs looks way better than mine! I bet if I didn’t use such a hard yarn, it would have been better. But damn this velvet is so soft.

I would also say that since this is no sew — meaning everything is fully crocheted together, this would be an indestructible kids toy. There are no seems to be torn. Of course you would need to stitch the eyes and not use the plastic ones. But yeah, without the plastic eyes, I’d hand this to a baby no problem.

Sherlock Booknook: Part 5: The FINALE

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 2 Comments on Sherlock Booknook: Part 5: The FINALE

Previously:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 1

Sherlock Booknook: Part 2

Sherlock Booknook: Part 3

Sherlock Booknook: Part 4

Let’s wire her up!

The correct touch sensor wire finally arrived from China. With that, I could finally finish my Sherlock Booknook. I was a bit nervous. Sealing it up meant I couldn’t keep tweaking it. It meant I couldn’t pop off walls for good photos. It meant calling it done. Finite. And there were still a few minor tweaks. I needed to fix the trap door. Cover where the battery opening shows in the hall. I could do that with the suitcase by the clock, but then what would I put where that had been to cover the glue spot on the floor?

It took a bit, but I finally dove in.

Why is the wire still barely long enough? I have a whole wad of light cords but this guy has to shortcut behind the staircase to reach. Also, wiring it up first meant that I couldn’t keep laying the top to the side while I worked…

It is FINISHED

Introducing… SHERLOCK THE BOOKNOOK.

Standing at a short 9.1 high x 4.3 wide x 7.1 inches deep, she is tiny. Her upper floor is less than 5 inches of ceiling height. She is tiny but extremely mighty in detail.

Notice all side have been customized to the show. With heavy coats of modpodge sealing everything. Finishing it all off is a lining or fine faux leather trim across all edges. So soft to the touch and nice clean sealed edges. Even a lovely cushioned leather edge to sit on. While the graphics, a show poster on the back and the opening credits scene on both sides, have been printed in black and white, I selected a brown 1/4 inch faux leather bias trim for the edges. This is because it wasn’t available in black. Or for other reasons you may choose to insert here.

A Conversion

As stated in other posts, this kit is a conversion. I don’t have the skill to start from scratch, so I chose a generic “Detective” Booknook (The Rose Detective Agency by Cutebee) to convert to reflect the amazing show: BBC’s Sherlock.

I fucking nailed it. Obviously, it is not Sherlock’s flat from the show. However, I like to think if Sherlock moved, this could be his new place.

Also note my elimination of the very generic “The Detective House” and flowers across the front. Fuck flowers, this is Sherlock. It has been replaced by a hand rolled clay brick facade. Did I need to cut and paint all those bricks individually? No. Would I do it differently if I were to do it again? Perhaps just making one piece and scoring it to look like brick? Yes. I would.

It is slicker and cleaner. I flipped the front plate to have the fancier steampunk bobble at the top. It’s better like this. Also, you’ll note yet another iteration of the chandelier to replace the “Detective” sign above the desk. We’ve had a few iterations, but we ended up somewhere good.

Baker Street

Let us start our tour at Baker Street. The entrance to Sherlock’s new apartment. Er, flat. In this kit, the upstairs is surprisingly sparse, but the alley is pretty full. I basically did what they did, just better.

I got out paint. Some flat wood items were replaced for fake flowers, sculpted broken clay pot pieces, a tiny plastic gun that would fit on a dime. Old wanted posters were replaced with easter eggs for the show and PlayBills. The address and road name were corrected.

There are few changes here from the last iterations. Both from seeing the side-by-sides in my last post. I trimmed the flower bushes by at least half. I also made the color a yellow cast in the alley. This really makes the hallway stand out and gives it a seedy criminal vibe.

For the yellow glow and the chandelier upstairs, I used the same technique. I took a small acrylic ring I had a pack of already laying around. For the chandelier, I printed stained glass and glued that along the ring. For the alley, I placed the ring in the middle of a orange cupcake wrapper and glued the edges up. Both are attached above their LEDs with hot glue.

The Hidden Hall

Changing the alley light to yellow, really makes the inner hall and stairs pop. There are a few easter eggs for fans in here too. I solved my battery door and stray sharpie mistake by placing a suitcase at the bottom of the stairs next to the umbrella stand. Happy Accidents as Bob Ross would say.

The hall table still has the package and letters Mrs Hudson left for Sherlock to retrieve. Including an ominous beige envelope with Moriarty’s red wax seal.

The Upstairs Flat

Here we reach Sherlock’s (new) main room. You’ll see I added a LOT to this booknook. It seems like the original is a bit sparse for a booknook. Also that chair is terrible. So lets look at mine.

The first thing you will notice is the comfy sitting chair for reading newspapers. Also someone’s newest interesting book, “The Mind Palace.” The newspapers are piling up because Sherlock can’t be arsed to clean. The table holds only a tiny hand gun in case Sherlock gets bored and wants to shoot things or needs to quickly call the police.

The next area you’ll notice is the desk in the corner. The pile of mail in front is where it falls as Sherlock enters his flat. It stays there until Mrs Hudson cleans it up, even though she insists she is not his maid. Lots of easter eggs here. It looks like Sherlock has “confiscated” Watson’s laptop again. Of course he has his trusty phone by his side and his skull to talk to (in spirit – I know, it’s just a print).

This iteration sees a much slimmer laptop. It still displays my favorite scene from Season 2 Episode 1 where Sherlock unlocks Irene Adler’s phone. It’s my favorite episode. Now that the box is sealed, a lot of the easter eggs can only be spotted by a vigilant eye from the clock cut-out above.

The secret passage is also fully functional. Where it used to lead to a medieval stone hall and wooden door lit by candle, we now have a city fire escape. You’re welcome.

If we look to our left, we see the dressing table and the entry door. This is where Sherlock chose to draw his new smile (in the yellow paint from the can of evidence in the Blind Banker, season one). Where it used to be on the wall, he still enjoys shooting it on the door when he is bored.

More tiny seed beads beads capping vials and a flask (made from beads) add a bit of depth to the flat shelving by his desk. The purple shirt of sex is represented in scarf form.

Lastly, looking to our right, we see Sherlock’s case board. He’s tracking Irene Adler, Moriarty, and is for some reason concerned about Mycroft.

Watson’s old medical cane is in the umbrella stand. Lots of easter eggs for a few shows here. The taxidermy bat moved from his fireplace to above the clock. I also spent a lot of time adding depth to this flat bookshelf. The bottom shelf I completely cut the books out to add depth I could fill. I capped the bottles with more seed beads to add texture. I also placed a few 3D books to fill the dark holes behind the 2D printed ones on other shelves.

That’s all she wrote!

So there you have it. I’m done. Booknook number 2 is complete! It was such a fun journey. I’m thrilled with the end result. I learned a lot too while doing this one. It was really fun to stretch it out and savor it with customizations and tedious little projects (baking and painting tiny bricks, anyone?).

I’m so proud!

Make sure to check out my previous posts on this build for fun details you might have missed.

Miniatures: Past, Present, Future.

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 1 Comment on Miniatures: Past, Present, Future.

Where we’ve been:

My first venture into miniature. NOTE: I added a kitty cat that was too big for Sherlock’s alley. He’s by the blue shelf.

Where we are:

Still working on Sherlock. The inside is finished but I cannot assemble until I get the new touch sensor which is coming from China. I’ve done the new outside, but it doesn’t look clean yet. I’m going to finish the edges with faux leather bias tape trim. Then I’ll show off the finished project in all its glory.

Where we’re going:

This was on a big sale on Amazon. I paid 50 for Sherlock, got this one for $30. So yeah, I grabbed that up because I knew this was the next one I wanted to do.

I’m not going to start this one until Sherlock is 100% complete. I have no idea how long that will be. I will probably crochet a penguin with a sun hat in the mean time. I’ve also ordered some stuff for this — like a better witch broom, some little bottles, and MORE CATS.

A future?

Yall, I want to open an online miniature shop. I’ve gotten into this little world and people sell the most awesome shit and it costs SO MUCH MONEY. And people buy it! Also, some stuff you only want like 1 or 2 of, but have to buy a huge pack.

So I want to get a 3D printer and print some of my own things — laptops, TARDIS’s, what have you. Make some stuff — maybe a leather bound River Song’s Journal? Custom books. Whatever I want! Bulk buy shit from China and sell it it smaller amounts for crafters. Maybe get in on third party kits. And shopping for stuff at the craft store that can be converted to mini (like the cameo earrings to wall cameos) — was so fun. Throw in some thrifting of doll house stuff. I think it could be fun. Oh an yeah, I’m gonna sell a TON of rock and crystal chips.

I honestly think that with about $2k I can get the website, a selection of inventory, and a 3D printer to get it started.

Now this is down the line. I have other financial priorities. I COULD do it now. BUT, I’d rather get my savings back squared away and finish my tattoo (which I can’t do until I replace the savings that were spent on the deck and pool repairs last summer). Until then, I can keep doing minis and get a feel for what people want.

I already know custom books and mini nerd things (AKA TARDISs) are in high demand. Someone posted this 1cm TARDIS on a facebook group I follow and the comments BLEW UP with people wanting to buy them. They weren’t selling though — it was just a custom 3D print they made with a scaled down FREE pattern. Etsy is full of shit like sets of super tiny Harry Potter books. Hell, do you know how SWEET I could make River’s journal? I could either do actual embossed leather like her’s — but honestly for it to be so small, I might do the covers in clay and paint them. Could use sewing pins to do the embossed details…

Like I’m serious yall. I think I want to start a fun little side business. And then I can just make fun little things to sell! I can even sell fully finished nooks. Like, they’d cost a ton — but some people DO sell them and there is a market. At least the kits would pay for themselves.

Sherlock Booknook: Part 4

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 4 Comments on Sherlock Booknook: Part 4

Previously:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 1

Sherlock Booknook: Part 2

Sherlock Booknook: Part 3

FIRST, let me start by saying THIS IS NOT FINISHED. It’s about 80-85% Finished. There are still some things I need to add and some things I want to tweak and change. I’ll talk about more in this post. The reason I had to pause was… The touch activate wires are too short to hook up. I was finalizing assembly last night, and yeah. It’s MAYBE 1/3 of the length it needs to be. I’ve contacted customer service to ask for a replacement. I hope they come through. If they don’t, I’ll ask M how to extend the wires I have. I’m fairly certain I can just snip them and insert a length of wire and connect to either end, but I’d want to ask and electrical engineer first.

This is a good reason that I might order from their website direct next time. Direct support. Even though I used their official Amazon store front, hey might not help me out. If I had ordered direct from their site they would. So yeah. Magical Pharmacy might be a direct order.

Anyway, for that reason, the project is on hold. It’s also at a good pause state. I can look at it and see what I want to tweak and change. I can ponder…

It’s not even fully assembled yet. If I sealed it, I wouldn’t be able to wire in the sensor. I also plan to completely redo the outside of the box and haven’t even decided what I’m going to do for that. It has to be black and white because that printer is much better.

In the mean time, I decided that since I can’t showcase it yet, I’d show you a lot of my edits by using side-by-sides of the original. I’ve taken all the original shots from the CuteBee website. Except for one that came from Amazon Reviews. I really want to show yall how heavily I have edited this kit. It’s a “6 hour” kit. I’ve spent days on it already. Maybe even 6. Most things, like the paintings and even the books, were printed on the structure, and I’ve changed most of that shit. So for those unfamiliar with this booknook, I can show you with these side-by-sides!

Move-In Time!

Last night, I finally got to work on the upstairs. The excitement was exhilarating LOL. I spent a whole night cutting paper just for this. I made tiny Amazon packages (there’s a quarter in that picture for scale). I made a laptop and cell phone from scratch. I spent hours image searching and shrinking newspapers, paintings, photos, envelopes, letters, folders, book covers. I went to Hobby Lobby with K for little bits. I ordered shit from Alibaba for gods sake. I’ve been waiting over a month to do this.

The time has come. I had already assembled all the furniture. Time to put it together and for Sherlock to move in!

Rather than follow the instructions and decorate the furniture before placing it, I placed everything first. I’m doing my own decorating so I needed to see how it flowed and where I wanted things. It’s strange that in the original nook, the chair is the center of attention. I expected that in mine as well. But it turned out the desk is the center of attention in mine. So good thing I did the furniture first.

Baker Street

You’ve mostly seen Baker Street from my previous posts. But you haven’t seen a side-by-side! The only new things since last post are the fire hydrant, the lamp post, hanging lanterns, and the walls being up. Oh and I changed out the weird old vintage note on the bench for a modern letter. I added a little forensics book too. OH! And I glued down the toy gun I got!

A few things to note here. 1) It’s a lame crime scene, I know. But I had to use what the kit had, remember? I’m editing a kit, not building from scratch. You’ll notice the flowers in the back are changed from wood to 3D. I already showed you the updated signage on the walls. And look at the difference the crime scene makes with with 3D stuff. I ditched the old-timey lantern too. My sculpted clay pieces and toy gun and flowers are killing the original.

Another thing. Do you see why I took so much time painting edges? Look at the original mailbox. The sides of the iron railing. LOOK AT THE FIRE HYDRANT. That fire hydrant is fucking adorable. Whoever designed that from 2D snap together pieces — fucking-a. Bravo. Well, done. But it’s more brown than red! You gotta paint the edges!

OPINION REQUEST: I want to make my LED less bright and more yellow like theirs. Any suggestions for what to cover it with? I was thinking wax paper?

The Hidden Hallway

Unlike the website, I can’t rip most of it off to photograph inside the stairwell, so I’ve done my best. Husband lamented that there’s so much effort and detail in there that you can barely see. But isn’t that the point of these? Tiny little worlds that beg to be explored?

I know, I already showed you the flowers and mail — but now you can see what it was before. Upgradde with a double D for a double dose of pimpin’. NOTE: It had a candle and a vase. I removed all candles from this build. They were everywhere. On the furniture, on the shelves. I excato-knifed them all out. Same as the street lantern. We’re modern now.

As with everything else, I had to replace all the pictures I wallpapered over. I wish I’d have saved the credits shot for the back wall. I found a few gorgeous London pictures and an adorable painting of a red phone box with a couple walking by with a red umbrella. Oh and I blinged out the frames in metallic paint. White cardboard my ass!

It’s All in the Details

This picture is to show you what difference a little paint can make. Look at their globe thing. Can you believe it’s the same as MY astrolabe? Yeah, no. Mines got metallic paint that makes it look like an astrolabe. Like the lines are there on purpose and not just because I made a sphere out of 2D pieces. The blue is also a shimmery blue with hints of purple in spots. I’d say the seed beads were for flair — but they’re recovery. This kit is pressed paper and I smashed the fuck out of the tip and end trying to get that round end piece on. HOW are you supposed to apply pressure to get them to snap together? There’s no where to hold or even put pliers! So I had to cut them off. I replaced with seed beads, Mine look better anyway.

I adore this astrolabe and typewriter. The typewriter was another case of too much brown from the edges. I painted it bright red. Then I was like… I have made a mistake. This aint a Kitchen Aid mixer. So I went over it with walnut stain. Perfection.

Stain, you ask? You’ll notice this throughout this thing. I bought a furniture scratch repair kit to do the edges. It was the cheapest way to get a ton of brown markers in a variety — plus I already started fixing some dings around the house. Bonus! I wish I found this before my husband noticed when I scratched the floor.

I obviously fucked this up at some point, and got stain on the front of one of the pieces. So then I had to stain the whole thing – cause you can’t wipe that shit off like paint. And I liked it. I liked it a lot. So every piece of shelving and furniture in this room has been stained over. It allows the under print to show though — but just looks less cheap. More real. And since it’s stain, it adds beautiful striations as long as you go with the grain the wood should have. I might get the black stain that came with it and go over some bits on Baker Street that I just did with black paint. So the shelves and stuff in my pictures look richer and darker for that reason, not photo trickery. Mines just better.

Let’s Get The Initial Shock Out Of The Way. THE FRONT.

SURPRISE! Now keep in mind — WORK IN PROGRESS. I’m still tweaking a lot. For instance, I already took stuff off the table by the chair because it blended in with my beloved mail pile too much.

So you can see my fucking AMAZING chair and footstool makeover. If you didn’t read that part, I used clay to sculpt it to be padded. Especially that pillow. Like don’t use that unmodded pillow yall. It’s taking away from the already bad chair. But I’m not done with it. I want to buy some clear matte-finish paint and make it not-shiny.

Deep in the background, you can see that I replaced the painting above the clock with a bat — like the taxidermy bat shadow box Sherlock has in the show.

There was also the case of that “Detective” sign. The kit is for a detective agency. So I guess he felt the need to advertise above his desk. I thought about making it white and putting “Consulting Detective” there since that’s how Sherlock introduces himself. But this is Sherlock’s house. He doesn’t advertise. I couldn’t get rid of it though because it’s a structure for an LED above the desk. So… A light fixture? I printed out some more modern options but went with an Applebee’s-flavored stained glass shade.

The only other thing I’ll note here is the colors. You can see that my brighter books, white paper prints instead of aged stickers, and color prints instead of old-timey black and white have modernized it just like I wanted. Old Victorian flat in modern times. I think I nailed it.

Sherlock’s Desk

I had so much fun with this area. I did not think this would be the main focus, but it totally turned into it. You can see I ditched a bunch of the kit’s stuff. The old phone, looking glass, feather quill, candle. Whatever that thing right behind his chair was. That’s where I put in a cameo for a pair of earrings. And next to the cameo is Dr Watson’s “A Study in Pink” which was his blog post of the first episode. With the skylight, you can get a good view of it and see the whole title.

We’ve got London A-Z which they used to solve the code in “The Blind Banker.” We got a laptop (yes, it’s too fat — but I made it from scraps of the kit and the pressed paper is thick). He’s got a whole bottle of brandy and an insanely tiny glass of brandy — they’re very shiny in person! He has has carelessly placed the glass on his papers which it has already stained. (Another happy accident, not on purpose. I had placed the glass on the desk and then decided it should be on papers. So I quickly pulled it up but the glue had grabbed a bit of the dark stain from the desk. Looks like spilled liquid around the rim).

Also, those papers were tri-folded like a real letter before gluing down. Of course, his trusty cellphone is there. The portrait of Arthur Conan Doyle is replaced with (a print of) the skull he likes to talk to that Mrs Husdon keeps hiding.

Hard to see at this angle, but there’s a stack of books shoved under the desk and one of his favorites leaning behind his chair.

Possibly my favorite bit of this build is the massive pile of deliveries and mail. Like he walks in the door and just throws it on his desk and it just piles there on the floor. He can’t be arsed to bother with his mail. And yeah, I made insanely thin strips of blue paper for Amazon tape but only used it on two boxes because it was a pain. But yeah, this is why I made all those envelopes. British envelopes and American ones with different colored stamps, some bills with prepaid labels, some colored cards. Perhaps cards from fans — perhaps little Kirsty asking him to find out what happened to the luminescent Bluebell.

Right Wall

Look, I’ve discussed it before – but god damn my case board is a masterpiece. The modern maps — the photographs of the characters from the show. The seed bead pins and fine thread tying it all together. And yeah, Jayne from Firefly is still there. And the little sticky note of Moriarty’s “I O U.” OK, this might be my favorite area. I’ve just had it around for longer. Now it even has the astrolabe, so yeah, it might be the best area. OK, it is. But the mail stack is new.

Note the difference the stain pens make on the furniture. I sanded down the cane and painted it to be Dr Watson’s medical cane he used for the psychosomatic limp he had before he met Sherlock. Can you spot River Song’s diary?

I love his pile of newspapers. He can’t be bothered to toss them when he’s done. I printed off lots of London papers to shrink down and fold up. Some are even under the stool, they’ve been there so long.

OPINION REQUEST: Should I add seed bead handles to the dark cabinetry?

Left Wall

I haven’t done the door yet. It was supposed to have a dart board on it but bleh. It also needs a door handle of some sort. I think I might do the spray paint smile that Sherlock did and shot up whenever he was angry. There was no where to do it on the wall paper, so I could sub the door. Only problem is he did it in yellow paint because it was the yellow paint they used as a clue in “The Blind Banker.” And yellow isn’t going to show up on that door. One option is switching the white and gold door for a black and gold door. It can’t be a color because I’ll need to use the better resolution of the black and white laser printer. And I can’t paint that fine detail on it. If I did THAT I could do it in yellow.

OPINION REQUEST: Black the door and do the yellow, or leave it white and use another color? If the latter, what color?

Then I’ll rough it up pretty good with the exacto knife like he’s shot at it a few times.

Oh and the purple scarf is there to represent the purple shirt of sex. If you were around when the show aired — Benedict Cumberbatch became a huge sex symbol. And when he wore that purple shirt — whoo, the internet was on it.

The Mail Stack

Just for funsies, the mail stack. It tickles me that some of the envelopes are First Class and he has no fucks to give.

Next Up:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 5: The Finale

Sherlock Booknook: Part 3

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 4 Comments on Sherlock Booknook: Part 3

Previously:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 1

Sherlock Booknook: Part 2

“What did you do last night?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“So you spent 2ish hours cutting out tiny envelopes and newspapers and folding them?”

“IT’S ART!”

“Did you realize your printer was not high enough res to actually show that you addressed those envelopes to Sherlock Holmes at his correct address?”

“Listen, it’s not my fault the printer sucks ass.”

“Also, you can’t tell that is a clip of your favorite scene on the laptop. And isn’t it going to face away from you, anyway?”

“I know it’s there.”

LOOK AT THE TINY CELLPHONE I MADE.

Next Up:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 4

Sherlock Booknook: Part 5: The Finale

Sherlock Booknook: Part 2

Posted on | by cursingcats.com | 4 Comments on Sherlock Booknook: Part 2

Previously:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 1

Work on the Sherlock Booknook continues. Remember back in the first post? I’m using a Rose Detective Agency kit to make a Sherlock booknook. I’m gonna share the journey cause I am enjoying the HELL out of making little customizations. And what fun is doing it if I don’t show it off? And if you wanna feel like my husband, JOIN ME.

I was going to wait until the end to show it off. But 1, I’m taking a lot of time. 2, That would be a massive post. And 3, I can get better photos before the full assembly. So first, here is where we are currently. These next two pictures show that I’ve done most of the street and staircase area. Then I can go into details. This is… Like 3 sessions of work?

So in the above you can see the murder/case board — but I’m going to go into big detail on that in a bit. From the first post, you knew I redid the wallpaper. I’ll talk about the hall in a bit too. So you can see that I’ve made most of the street scene. I’m missing the fire hydrant and the streetlamp with the street sign. Those will come in later. Same with the hanging lanterns. I think those are the next step.

One thing I’ve been doing is painting the raw edges. The raw edges are brown because these are all flat pack, and basically 3D puzzles. So I think that makes a HUGE difference on the white parts (like the mailbox), and it makes the iron pieces in this kit better too. However, I did discover one really bad thing.

These kits are all available from multiple brands. They’re clearly drop ship items and some are better than others. For instance on Reddit, someone was asking about the same Garden House kit I made. Their instructions said to peel off the windows but they were confused because there was no film. Well, mine had film. She had the same instructions but a lesser quality kit. And on this one, I drew the short straw. This kit isn’t wood — it’s compressed paper. Now this has advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages: The pieces are cut great. Extremely fine details. Also, the clicking things together is more secure. Since the paper has a bit of give, the “female” connections/holes are not perfectly square. They curve in a bit so they can be stretched ever so slightly when you click it together. I might not have even noticed except for a few things. So far only two connections have failed me. When I put together the globe (not seen, it will come in later) — I totally smashed the end. The fit was too tight and I tried to force it. More obvious though is the railing by the door. So the right railing wouldn’t go in all the way. I pushed and tried my best. I used pliers to try to get the force straight down. And… the paper structure failed. It buckled. Had it been wood, it would have snapped — so I’m not sure that’s that big a deal — but still. Ugh. So I straightened it out to my best abilities — wood would have looked better glued back together. I just had to commit to both railings being a little further out than they should be.

Another huge disadvantage to paper. It sucks up paint like nobody’s business. I’ve been using a metallic gold that it doesn’t suck in. If you’re using black, maybe 2 coats will do. It you’re trying to get it white though — 5 coats minimum. The first two coats will barely show. I bought paint pens to do this and the white paint pen was worthless. Too watery. Made no difference. Just soaked it right up. I switched to acrylic paint. That’s what you see in the pictures. Look at the mailbox — that’s like 5 or 6 coats of white acrylic paint on the edges and they still aren’t a solid bright white. Same on the front of the stairs, ect. Still worth it because I don’t like the dark edges showing. I think it even makes a difference on the windows and door cutouts.

So you can see, I corrected the house number from 210B to 221B, because this is SHERLOCK. I cut a piece of wood and colored it gold to make a mail slot on the door. I know it’s stupid because there’s a mail box but I just didn’t like that the door looked so… suburban house? Nothing like Sherlock’s door. So I needed some gold detail.

The paper in the mailbox is printed newspaper I rolled. Better than their sticker. I replaced all the 2D flowers with flocked flowers made for train sets. HUGE difference. Like upscaled the look by 1,000%. For the crime scene, I replaced the flat wood flower pot bits with clay bits I baked. And it’s not in place yet, but instead of the flat printed wood gun, I bought TOY GUNS. Yes. I ordered two 1/12 scale toy guns for action figures. They were like 90 cents each with $6 shipping. On thought just now, I could have ordered more for future projects, but whatever. It’s not in place yet because I have 2 different ones and I haven’t decided which will be upstairs and which will be in the crime scene.

I didn’t change much about the investigation kit because I thought it was super cute as is. I did add a more modern envelope tucked in the lid. I also didn’t use the smokers pipe. So to fill in the empty space, I threw in a few seed beads. I used the seed beads for a few things. They’re on top of the police bollards and as a doorknob. They’re pins in the case board as well.

Speaking of case board…

OH MY GOD! I’m so chuffed. And yes, I’m using the word chuffed because I’m just so tickled with myself. So you can see on the left here, I’ve shown you the original — I had to get a snapshot from a youtube video so sorry it’s not great quality. As you can see, the wall was originally green and the case board — like everything else was dingy toned down colors. I did take a picture of the provided stickers so you could see them better. TELL ME THAT’S NOT JAYNE COBB (Played by Adam Baldwin) IN THE BOTTOM CORNER. You cannot convince me it is not. That might even be Mal above him.

Listen, this is ripped off chinese drop ship crap. You know they’re just stealing images. Hell, on the side of the actual booknook there’s a typo. That’s fucking Jayne Cobb and I LOVE JAYNE. He’s my favorite Firefly character so he TOTALLY made it on the board.

Ehem. Ok. So, the case board. Well, like I said — I’m going for the exact vibe the show had — old Victorian with a current person in it. So Sherlock would use color. He’d use sticky notes. He’d use Google Maps. So I’ve got a modern map of London, a Google Map of best sites to visit, and a map of the Underground. From the show, I pulled Mycroft, Moriarty, and Irene Adler AKA “The Woman.” And yall, I am just taking my time and having so much fun with this. So yeah, I added seed beads for pins. Then I used a set of tweezers to thread red sewing thread between them like a real case board. Pro Tip — I printed all of these images on a good quality thick paper (though my color printer, obviously doesn’t print to a great quality at such small scale). To make these images show a bit more from each other when overlapping, I ran a sharpie over THE EDGE of the paper cutouts. //Pro Tip

Then the next time I worked on it, I was like fuck it, I’m adding Jayne. I also added a little tiny sticky note “stuck” to the picture frame with the “I O U” Moriarty left. So I’m really excited about this case board. It looks amazing. It’s from the show. It’s also got a lot of 3D going on with the pins and thread and now the sticky note stuck on the frame instead of the wall. Oh and because my wall is black and white, I made the background a color so it stands out. I went with green.

So, you can tell I added a lot of my own printed elements. Here. The above image shows two of the pages I created. I scanned in the original sticker sheet and wall boards to get the scale. Then I put that in photoshop and just started grabbing all sorts of shit and shrinking it down to the scale of the sticker sheet. Some of them are multiple sizes so I could see what I liked best. So yeah, that’s how I’ve got all these tiny things, if anyone wanted to ask. You can even see all the book covers I printed in various sizes so I could pick the ones that looked best. (Books were already shared in part one).

I also changed a few more of the “old” Victorian bits. You can see here in the wall “pieces.” The secret door behind the sliding bookcase was like a medieval castle door with a candle — that’s a city fire escape now. Scotland yard was a kid lighting the lanterns by hand. That’s just a cobblestone alley now.

Another problem was all the old-timey notices and wanted posters printed on the boards for the street area. So I thought about playbills and theater adds. So I just googled “Playbill” and found one for “Cats” (me) and “Beyond Therapy” which I thought would be a funny joke. Those went by Scotland Yard.

Now that bit of brick with the windows snuck up on me. I didn’t see it so I had not planned for it. But, I had printed a few extra things for my murder/case board that didn’t get used. So you can see I used the same two playbills, but replaced the plays with the graffiti-ed painting from “The Blind Banker” and one of the books I printed called “The Mind Palace.” So more references to the show. I had also printed the bit of graffiti the people were finding before their deaths that was a big part of the “Blind Banker” episode. So I put that up too.

And yall, I’m so tickled. I found an advert for Benedict Cumberbatch staring in London Theater’s Hamlet. So fuck yeah I put that in there. (Benedict Cumberbatch plays Sherlock in the show I’m imitating here, for those not familiar with it). I had to put stuff on there to cover up the old shit anyway, so I used it to my theme advantage. And inside jokes.

So on the second night of assembly, I tweaked a few things. I took out the lantern from the crime scene and just covered that spot with more flowers from the broken pot. And I overhauled the table inside the window.

Originally, I put the table together as intended. It’s only seen though the window in the finished build, so why bother? I used the flat 2D flower vase and candle. But naw, we’re going all out — so I exacto-knifed that candle out. Now there’s more flocked flowers in the vase (I think the package I got had 10 colors. I mixed pink and yellow here because that’s Mrs Hudson’s space). And I covered where the candle had been with letters. Including one of Moriarty’s clues from “The Game” sealed with red wax. Oh and I made a tiny package. I know that’s USPS, but I don’t care. It’s an adorable little package Mrs Hudson left for Sherlock to pick up.

So the last thing I did last night was finish up this side wall and glue it to the main piece. As you can see, I had to replace the paintings in the stairwell that I wallpapered over. I used the shiny gold marker pen for frames, so I hope they shine in the LED when it’s lit. Do you see that picture on the left? Is that the scene in the BBC Sherlock’s intro? YES IT IS.

This is fun.

Next Up:

Sherlock Booknook: Part 3

Sherlock Booknook: Part 4

Sherlock Booknook: Part 5: The Finale