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.
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.
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.
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.
After finishing up the Garden House Booknook, I wanted to do another. I looked over the dozens of options. I narrowed it down to two. One I wanted to do for the details. The other, I wanted to do for the theme. I went with the theme. Specifically: Sherlock Holmes. So I got The “Rose Detective Agency” kit.
Now, am I going to allow all the generics to stand? Fuck no. It’s not “Rose Street,” it’s “Bakers Street.” It’s not 210B, it’s 221B. So if I’m gonna edit shit, we’re going in. We’re going BBC Sherlock. Because that was the BEST Sherlock. And I’m a huge Robert Downey Jr fan, but nope — BBC Sherlock. Benedict Cumberbatch. That’s where we’re going.
I obviously can’t completely remake it. I’d have to build it from scratch, and I don’t have those skills. But I can do what they did with the show. They didn’t take away the old Victorian Sherlock Holmes, they just updated it. So I’m doing that. I’m tweaking the kit here and there. It will largely be the kit, but with some upgrades.
For instance, look at this atrocious chair. It’s front and center. It’s so FLAT. Well, with a bit of clay and paint, I can make it better:
See? I couldn’t have made that chair from scratch. But with some clay and paint, I can overhaul it. I did good, eh? I impressed myself. And all the little books!
On the left, are the books that I haven’t edited. They came with the kit. On the right, are the ones I’ve redone. I wanted to add a few brighter colors and more modern looking books with the old — much like Sherlock’s flat. Do you see that first large book? London A-Z — that’s the book they used to solve the code in Season 1, Episode 2: “The Blind Banker.” A forensics textbook. The two pink ones are “A Study in Pink” — John’s blog of the first episode. Do you see River Song’s diary from Doctor Who? A joke on “The Mind Palace” and an actual book on the “The Smoker’s Dilemma” and the benefits of Nicotine. A joke on Sherlock’s nicotine addiction. Oh yeah, I painted the page edges white too cause I can.
Oh and did I spend the majority of my day using photoshop to remake the infamous BBC Sherlock Bakers Street Wallpaper? Of course, I did! And then, I meticulously cut pieces and used ModPodge to rewallpaper the flat in the nook. I was super careful to line up the pattern. What did you do with YOUR Saturday?
I’m having fun with it. I need to find more pictures and modern newspapers to replace the old school ones that came with it. I’ve already got some cool stuff for his case board from the show. Pictures of Irene Adler, Moriarty, Mycroft, modern London, a map of the Tube. This is fun!
For Christmas this year, K gave K2 and I booknooks! And the gift of making them together. It took us 2 full days a month apart, but we did it, yall! Here’s the kit I was gifted:
The Rolife Booknook and Wonderland Garden House. I’ve seen it under two brands on Amazon and non-branded on Etsy. My little stickers even had “Rolife” printed on them so I think that’s the real brand. Plus it was on the box.
We started them on February 10th. It took us a month to be able to get together again and we finished them yesterday. March 10th.
I’m pretty sure my kit was by far the easiest of the kits. But dang, yall. Miniatures are hard. Here’s me questioning if my eye doctor was correct that I should start considering bifocals. Cause good GOD. That shit is so very tiny. Of course that’s what makes the book nooks awesome. The insane amount of details. And this kit was not short on the details. Look at my little shelves!
There are little wooden books wrapped with sticker labels and spines. Flower crates, pictures with frames, tiny flower pots (all 6 pots are different), the tiniest blue rose known to man… Look at it! The window even opens and closes!
Cause, I’m extra, I did do a few changes. Especially today. One, that chair is supposed to go inside and it is just not to scale. No. It is an outside chair now. I also added some extra “area rugs” to cover the marks on the floor where things were supposed to be placed. The basket of rolled papers goes in front of the stairs. Well, that blocks the stairs! How is that functional? And the chair fills the whole thing up. I like it much better less crowded and where I can imagine walking into it. And who doesn’t like an outside chair?
I also added and switched somethings around. Originally, all of the rolls of paper were stickers rolled together. Well, I apparently can’t do that without making them look like shit. So first, I got out some nice paper I had in my craft supplies and used it instead of the bright gingham colors that came with the kit. For the ones with the flower stickers, I put the sticker on the paper and gave it a good roll with the sticker ending up on the outside. Excellent. Oh, and speaking of stickers, I love that little detail of the tulip sticker that looks like it’s a poster that is just draped/fallen over the shelf there.
All of the pictures and intricate details are stickers. Much better than having to glue paper. But MAKE NO MISTAKE, you need glue for this bitch. It doesn’t come with glue, but it is required. Thankfully, I read a review about how you have to turn it over to wire it. Literally almost the very last step is turning it over to wire it up underneath. (Better pray those lights work when you connect the wires!) So everything needs to be glued the fuck down.
The first day, we had to make do with the gorilla glue I had in a junk drawer because only K2’s kit came with glue. For our next round, I ordered fast drying craft glue and tiny pinpoint dispenser bottles so we all had a bottle. PRICELESS. Absolute requirement for this. You think that door had that “glass” in it and trim on it? NO, it didn’t not. It had to be glued on. Parts of these kits expect you to glue a piece on the wall and then stand it up immediately. EXCUSE ME? No. Also, I ordered another pair of longer tweezers. Such a necessity here. I have gorilla fingers, or something. Who the hell can pick up those micro stickers on the drawer labels? They’re so tiny they didn’t even print 1, 2, 3, 4 — they’re all “No. 1.” So, be prepared.
In my extraness, I beefed up some of the plants with fake grass blades. I also added dried moss to all the planter boxes and pots. And do you see my Peacock Ore chips as rocks on display? I threw in a big clear quartz crystal too!
Then today, I saw some of the purple flowers I had dried in my collections of rose petals and it was ON. I ripped out a lot of the 1-dimensional paper flowers and replaced them with the real dried flowers. And where I left the paper flowers (like on top of the blue bookcase), I tucked them in various nooks. It adds so much texture! I even tucked a few petals in the boots with the sprig that is totally Wall-E vibes.
There’s actually a lot of depth in here too. There’s a whole second level balcony in the back with it’s own chest and flower box on top. And a cute railing all around. It’s the layers and layers of details that make it so cool.
Well, plus the lights. The little lamp works and there’s a utility light hanging from the ceiling.
Yesterday, we were exhausted. K2 was here until 9pm. So almost 9 hours straight or work to finish them. But yall, I kinda want to make another. I don’t need one or have a place to put it — but I really enjoyed putting it together! IT’S SO PRECIOUS!
So Lumalee is my next project. He has two mushrooms with him. I bought Premiere Parfait Chunky Yarn ($4 US) for these Nintendo projects. And I special ordered the green from Istanbul. Why? Well, it’s damn hard to find baby blanket yarn in bright colors. So I asked the lady I bought the Mario and Luigi patterns from what green she used for her Luigi. Well, in Europe, Himalaya Dolphin Baby is the big cheap chenille yarn. USA doesn’t seem to have it. We have the Premiere Parfait. But we don’t have a bright green! So yes, I ordered this from Europe. It was $2 (US) a skein but shipping was going to be $50 for all the colors I needed. I was like, I can’t pay more for shipping than for the yarn! The seller said they just charge by the gram, sorry. So I ONLY ordered 4 skeins of this “grass green.”
They arrive vacuum packed which was funny. I wasn’t sure what the package was and thought my yarn hadn’t been delivered. Look at this:
This shit compacts. They also threw in some evil eyes. Thanks?
So yeah. I needed to see what crochet hook to use. Some people say 5mm and some say 4mm. I did this mushroom in a 5mm. I’m gonna go with that.
I will also note, the Himalaya Dolphin is WAY BETTER than the Chunky Parfait. They look the same, but working with them is very different. The Dolphin barely sheds at all. Only when cutting. The Parfait sheds a lot and you have to be very careful frogging and stitching is a pain. Shedding all over. LAME. I was easily able to do my magic circle in the Himalaya Dolphin, didn’t even question it. It was IMPOSSIBLE in the Parfait. I had to get out another yarn and do my 6 stitches on that yarn and then tie it tight to make the circle. Cause Chunky was NOT going to do it.
So someone start selling this shit for cheap in the US. Here’s what those 4 cost me. I better get Luigi plus a few 1 Ups. Maybe I should have ordered more? But no, because the shipping went up with every single one. Ugh. Glad I got the 4 though.
Item Total $10.60
Shipping $17.92
Sales Tax $0.85
Order Total $29.37
He very cute. OH, I got the pattern for Lumalee plus two mushrooms from AzeliaCrochet on Etsy. The pattern is well written with lots of pictures.
I have completed my second (Woobles) penguin, Orville. Wilbur was the first penguin (I did the bats and pumpkin before him), and I gave him the Tiny Aviator Hat. I made Orville with the Tiny Bowler Hat.
These $5 tiny accessory kits are so worth it. In my opinion, these hats really take them from adorable to fantastic. They add so much more detail.
I saw a few people added feet to their Pierres so I might do that in the beak color. But really, Husband immediately claimed Wilbur to live in his office and I made Orville to pair with him and they tuck under his monitor so standing isn’t a problem.
I need more hats. They have a big summer hat, but it’s in a bundle and I don’t want to buy a whole bundle or another penguin, I just want the $5 hat. I didn’t buy another penguin kit. I bought some cheap easy yarn on the internet and made another. That’s why he’s a much lighter blue. This was the penguin I made with K and K2.
So I envision Wilbur is the suave pilot catching girls at the bar while Orville tries to fund their efforts to fly to business men at the bar. Orville also reminds me on Monty from Firefly for obvious reasons. But I’m so in love with the Wright Brothers as Penguins – It’s like a pun.
Note for any fellow Wooblers: If you notice that my bowler hat looks different, I tweaked it. The Tiny Bowler Hat pattern only goes up to 18 stitches around the top. It would have been a cute jaunty hat, but I wanted a full size hat like the Aviator Hat. So I kept circling the last row (row 4, I think? Before you start doing the sc rows to make the sides) and holding it up to him until I decided it was big enough. It ended up being 30 stitches in the edge rounds rather than the 18. This was fine, because I bought a large black skein of Woobles yarn when Amazon had them on sale (I got white and black). Other than that, I followed the pattern. I just had to do a lot more repeats to get all the way around on each row. I think it worked out great!
Last time I checked in with my new crochet hobby, I had made the woobles bat and penguin and started the blanket that never ends. So let’s check in. I gave everyone a fuck ton of Woobles for Christmas. This included my besties K and K2. I figured K is killer at crafts, so she’d be good with an intermediate kit — also it was a purple dragon and what is more K than that? So, I was wrong. The dragon is kinda hard. And the tutorials assume you know the basics. So fun twist, I ordered a bunch of easy yarn and now all three of us are going through the Penguin tutorial together. I think K has finished her potato and K2 and I are about to start closing ours up. K has the itch though and she sent us a text tonight with her progress on the dragon.
So what have I made? Well, I got a Michael’s gift card for Christmas. So I was like yeah, I’m making a big ass dragon. I got the code for the tutorial from K. We went to Michael’s and I picked up some velvet yarn. I dont love it itself — but the colors were just spectacular. I wont work with it again because it is MESSY A F. It’s also overly heavy and I actually like the feel of the baby blanket yarn better. But I made the dragon! I took three skeins of dark purple and one of gold. Here he is:
I like working with the bigger yarns way better than the tiny stuff. It’s fun seeing your project build faster. Also the fuzzy yarn is so forgiving in how visible the stitches are. This one was a PAIN though. I am not intermediate as much as I want to tell myself I am. And this one just had so many steps. So many. And I ran out of yarn (originally only bought two skeins of purple) and had to wait for more to come in the mail because no local Michaels had it in stock. Even though the one across town told me they did and I drove all the way over there — they couldn’t find it. Fuck that Michaels. FUCK THEM.
Anyway, damn it was a lot of steps. I got through about 8ish rows before I realized that the recommended hook size of 19 was far too big. So I went back and got a size 10 hook. Then frogged it and started over, Here’s an action shot:
So I felt so accomplished when I finished the body and head. I figured I was close to my dragon! I added the ears which are freaking adorable. I added horns. I took a break. Then I added a tail. But fuck — I sewed that shit on so damn crooked. But it was on there now. So I just rolled with it, like his tail is swooping. It looks better this way — totally my end goal all along. I added the spikes but they just looked so wrong. So I frogged them and redid them 3 times before deciding that’s just how they looked. Then I had to wait on my mail ordered yarn.
In the mean time, I added wire to the spikes. This velvet yarn is heavy so they weren’t standing up by themselves very well. When the third purple skein got here, I could do my wings! I got those done, Wired up the top ridge and jammed those babies in. The great news was that I had enough gold and purple left to wrap all the edges that had wire so it’s completely hidden. It looks fucking AMAZING! I’m so proud of my dragon! I had to rearrange my office shelves to accommodate him.
I thought his colors were very regal, but K2 can’t see anything but peanut butter and jelly. So his name is Lord Concord (like grape jelly).
So did I finish my Christmas blanket? Oh fuck no. I did travel with it over Christmas and worked on it the entire travel time and on and off while I was at my in-laws. Flying is much more pleasant when focusing on a craft. Really. And even the flight attendants were interested in what I was making. See: Here’s my bald ass crocheting at the airport on a layover:
So this blanket is going to take fucking forever. I’m going to TRY to budget time so that it’s done for next Christmas but that might even be tight. It’s supposed to be six rows of 15 repeats. That should be a 60″ x 40″ blanket. I was working on the 12th repeat this weekend and measured… I’m at 80″. Fuck.
So I wrapped up my 12th repeat and started the second strip. But my strips are also barely over 5 inches wide so 6 would only give me a 30″ blanket. Ugh. So I’m looking at at least 8 strips. Yes, I ordered more yarn so I should have enough. This blanket will never end. I’ve decided I will try to hold to a rough schedule of how much I need to have done each month or quarter or so and sprinkle in projects I’m more excited about. Having a row finished though is very exciting!
It’s so soft. Also, it’s funny to see my evolution into settling in to being comfortable with this yarn. My first three color rows were actually so bad that I cut them off and redid them. It had to be done. Then at maybe the 3rd repeat, I decided to hold the yarn with my fingers and crochet super slow so it wouldn’t be stretching and wiggling all over the place (it’s super thin and moves like crazy). You can really see where the row gets really thin there because my stitches were too tight. Then I got better and settled into a good rhythm. I’m doing really well now with my tension. I’m using a tension regulator that I made though. Got the tutorial off Youtube. You can actually see it on my finger in the airport photo — it’s a white crocheted ring.
I’m going to leave the rest of the imperfections of row one in there. It’s my first big project so it’s a good showing of how I evolved. I’m going to try to keep them in order when I stitch it all together.
So next up: I have the Woobles kit for the pig — plus the tiny wings kit so I can make him a pig with wings! I can’t wait to finish up the penguin I’m doing with K and K2. I’m going to make him a tiny bowler hat and pair him with the other penguin with the flying ace hat — they’re going to be Wilbur and Orville! I also bought a pattern for Lumalee and some Mario mushrooms off Etsy. I want to make it in the baby yarn like the grey bat, but I can only find very muted colors for baby blankets. So I’m waiting until I find a good yarn to buy for that.
