As I death march to my new job tomorrow, lets reflect on some of the nice things I’ve done with my two and-a-half weeks off.
K2 and I did our annual Halloween Gingerbread houses! I went with Wednesday Season 2. Basically, I got the crow cupcake toppers on Vine and was like “what can I do with these…” — Then BAM, Wednesday. So I did her and Enids balcony.
Lots of lessons learned on this one. We both hate the day of dough making and baking. It’s a whole damn day. My oven vent hood was on for song long (I run it when the oven runs because sometimes husband can smell gas upstairs from the oven) that it turned itself off. Yeah. Then I made my own sugar instead of using candy because I needed clear. I did colors in cupcake trays and then poured off the rest to a pan as the instructions for edible glass say. But I think it just got too warm because it was the last to get poured and because there was a bigger mass. So it came out yellowish and not clear. The strings that ran between the cupcake molds are clear, so I think that’s what happened. UGH. So we used UV resin. And that didn’t go great because it was overflowing into each other. And even though the window actually looks great with natural light behind it, the lights inside have an extremely blue glow. And it took over an hour of standing at the stove to make that edible glass. Damn.
I also wanted to make railings for the balcony and I did, but the sugar was too wet, perhaps? I did the roof line bird spikes at the same time as the railing and they dried perfectly. The railing was a no go. I was going to do it again, but… fuck it. We were already three days in. Baking takes a whole hard won day. WHOLE DAY with two of us. Then we did a day to ice our sides before assembling. Then a day to assemble after they dry and finish off details. I decided the stone pillars gave the impression enough for the railings. No one cares but me. I cant sculpt gargoyles either, so we got pumpkins. Enid carved a happy face in hers. Wednesday’s is small and knocked over by the one-eyed raven and yes, that bitch has a silver eye.
I had also done two colors of purple for the roof. I was going to do individual shingles. But the icing was too runny, so I just did this and swirled it. Honestly, that was for the best. Win on that. This would be the end of an entire dormitory so I just cut the back off with the entry door to their room. But it looked so bland and weird that I did it up for Dia De Los Muertos. That’s totally on theme for Season 2 as well.
“I’ve never seen cultural appropriation done with such panache.” – The best Gomez Addams
For Christmas I’m going simple. I want to do obnoxious Christmas colors since I was very refined last year. I want gaudy traditional.
I’m back to my cat diamond art painting. Six panels done now! I like that it worked out that I get to do the black cat and pumpkins the end of October. Probably in to November too ’cause this next week for me is insane busy (New job, Christmas Concert, Physical Therapy, Tattoo Day, Plant Expo, and Circus).
Give me a break, this this has 108,185 square diamonds in 55 colors. Most of which are black. Also, I took a break from this one to do Moon Bats for Drills and Chills:
So I guess it’s back to the grind. It was nice having some time off. I wish I’d have pushed it back further, but I did not. Probably better not to get too happy and content not working.
I’ve been numbing out my life stress with Diamond Painting. Have you heard of this? Diamond Panting? I kept seeing Diamond Paintings in Amazon Vine. On amazon they can them “5D” which is just so cringe. I don’t know what the hell dimensions they think the 4th and 5th are, but it bothers me. Not my point.
It’s Paint-By-Numbers meets Bedazzling. So no actual artistic skill required. Like less skill than paint by numbers because you have to stay in the lines on that. You’re just sticking the bling on the spots with the numbers. I felt kinda bad about the whole no-skill required thing. Like I’m too good for that, because apparently, I’m an artistic craft snob. But yall, I get why it’s taken off. It’s so fucking zen and satisfying. It’s like when “zen tangles” took off.
Is that two words? “zen tangles?” Or is it like “zentangles?” “zen-tangles?” You remember – when everyone was doing those line patterns we all did back in school on the sides of our notebook pages? But it became like a legit adult art form? Anyway, that didn’t last long. Moving on.
So from what I can tell, Diamond Painting started getting really big around COVID because in lockdown people needed shit to do. We needed tedious shit that was going to take days of work. So it became a thing. Now chinese drop-shippers are on that shit. So that’s how it entered my sphere. So fuck it, I ordered one. Well, I ordered a set of six plant designs. I knew they’d be shit quality but I figured I could use three or four for my office. I say office, but yall know I work in a cubicle so don’t think I’m fancy.
After over a month of waiting, one arrived. Yeah, just one. They changed the listing from the set of six to a single one. And I still have to pay taxes on these Vine items so it was listed at $20 — So I’ll pay like $7 and this piece of shit is NOT WORTH $7. I gave it a 2 star review. Really, that was generous. I gave it an extra star because it had an “AB” diamond. I’m getting ahead of myself.
I had this canvas and like that’s a fuck ton of bedazzling. I was very intimidated. Combine this with the fact that the “tools” kit arrive broken and was absolute SHIT, I couldn’t start here. I know from everything in life that quality is better. This is really true for any art form as well. Talk to a master of any art – seriously like blacksmithing, glass bowling, stained glass, wood working — whatever skill. They will tell you — those expensive tools are nice, but they’re better for the beginners who can’t afford them. If you’re good, you can do your skill with shit tools. They wish they had the good tools when they started because life would be so much easier. So I wanted to get started on a good foot. Something quality.
From youtube videos, I found that they all worship this company called “Diamond Art Club.” Well, lucky for me, Diamond Art Club sells shit on Amazon. So I ordered up a set of non-intimidating coasters. I also ordered some dirt cheap accessory kits. This was an excellent plan. If you want to get started in Diamond Painting, I recommend these things:
Diamond Art Club Coasters (this link is to their website, but they’re cheaper on Amazon in price and shipping — but the section won’t be as great). They’re like $15 on Amazon.
This kit of supplies from Art Dot. It’s got a comfortable pen, diamond trays I like better that then fancy Diamond Art Club ones and a GAZILLION times better than the shit green “boats” that you get with cheap kits (which was broken in mine anyway). It’s also got release papers for when you advance to canvases — must have. It’s got DAC color code label stickers for storage. We got a good roller to smush those diamonds down, a straightener to make it look like you don’t suck, and sealer for a finished project. Yeah — all that under $15. BUY IT.
So then I made this:
IT’S SO SHINY! Not intimidating either. I did this in two evenings, but I’ve done others in a single evening after work. I love that they’re on wood so I can sit on the couch and do them. They even come with cork bottoms. And the Diamond Art Club kits comes with really nice tool kits. A nice pen, better wax, and a nice tray. I still prefer the fat Art Dot pen from that kit I linked though. Also those trays. So soon I did all the coasters in the kit:
I told my Sister-In-Law about this new Diamond Painting thing I was doing. Turns out, my brother gave her a painting for Christmas! She’s been working on it but its very tedious and she wasn’t enjoying it much. So I sent her all the shit to do the coasters. The coasters, the kit, plus extra trays. (Note — that coaster kit comes with great tools so you don’t need the additional tools kit or anything else. The extra tools kit is if you plan to do more stuff like canvases). You can buy 15 Art Dot trays super cheap ($7) but I don’t think you need that many anymore so I’m not going to bother suggesting them. Anyway, all of that sent to her via Amazon was $36. So excellent gift idea there. She did her set of coasters faster than I did! She had one done the night she got the package. They’re very satisfying, yall. Like do it.
At this point I’ve started diamond painting to drown out the family and work stress. So I was ready to conquer the shitty plant canvas. I paid for it, I was going to do it. Here you can see what I’m talking about by Paint-By-Numbers. There are symbols (in this particular canvas numbers) that have a key to tell you which gem color goes there. The canvas is covered in glue. You stick the diamond/gem/drill on the dot. They call them “drills” in Diamond Painting. I don’t know why, they just do.
So it took a long time but I go that canvas done. I used the release papers to section it off. So I think they best method for conquering the canvases is a section at a time. The newer canvases even come with covers that are perforated for you to tear off just a square at a time. So to use the release papers, you just remove the cover all together. Then you place the release papers on small sections so that you can remove just one paper to work on that section. I split this canvas into 12 sections. Some nights I did 2 sections.
This was a BIG learning experience. It was a super cheap kit. So it arrive folded. Yeah. Even after I put the drills on it, there was still a big fold across it. So I knew I’d need to mount it to a canvas board. I had also watched a lot of youtube videos and had too much information for my experience level. I had seen a tip about covering any gaps in the canvas with mica powder. Your girl is a craft queen, I have that! Also, the background had so much white and there was pink wax stuck in there. I wanted to clean it up before the mica powder. I had seen a tip to clean your trays with hand sanitizer because it works amazing at getting any wax out. So I dumped hand sanitizer on it and used a tooth brush. TERRIBLE idea. I don’t know if it’s because these drills were so cheap, but I think I took the shine off.
I pushed forward with the mica powder anyway — we’re in it now. White all over the background. Then I went too far — green on the leaves. Fuck. The green took away the darker colors on the canvas that had shown through and now it looked lighter. So I got black to darken up the dark edges of the leaves. Then FUCK ME, some dripped in the white. God, what a cluterfuck. OK, no way in hell that dark smudge is going anywhere now. So I gotta embrace a color. What would work for the background… purple. The smudge was at the bottom so I started there. I wasn’t loving it. So I decided to just do the bottom. Then I had ruined it like 3 times and should have never fucked with this shit so I sealed it and mounted on the canvas and declared it done. TA-DA!
It looks good in my office anyway.
Then I moved on to a big girl canvas! The leaves had 9 colors. This one had 33!
Look at how fucking beautiful that is! And it’s the good brand, not a chinese drop ship and it really does make a difference. This kit had special drills too! AB means aurora borealis. They have an iridescent coating on top. Also Fairy Dust which have a very fine glitter on top. This one deserve beauty shots:
Here you can see what I mean by working a section at a time. See how I was working a rectangle and doing each color just in that rectangle:
By this time I had discovered Facebook “destash” groups. Even though the big Diamond Art Club canvases are super expensive – they play on FOMO and some people just buy a hundred. So I had seen a kit I loved but was out of stock. I put up and ISO (in seek of) post. Someone offered it to me at cheaper than cost with shipping included. Fuck yeah bitches.
Now this canvas is 40 inches. So a lot. I’m cutting it into 8 smaller sections. Apparently this is sacrilegious. But it also has some people curious. So I might finally dive into youtube craft videos and do a video of how I do it. It’s on the maybe back burner.
I know this will be a huge undertaking and if I try to just power through it, it won’t happen. So I picked up some stuff to do in between sections of the big kit. I got another set of coasters. I ordered some “Mini Dazzles” (link goes to the website, but again they can be purchased on Amazon). I got the 80’s set and already made this cute cassette tape:
I also picked up the most ADORABLE Otter from the good site and a chinese drop ship polar bear. The polar bear has sunglasses and lots of neon colors so it just looks like it would be a fun one to do.
So if you haven’t heard from me in a few weeks, I’ve been under a lot of stress and self-medicating by sticking dots to canvases so I won’t think about what a fucking clusterfuck everything is. The world, my job, my family. It’s all going to HELL. So shiny dots it is.
I finally got a Rattlesnake Plant! I’ve been wanting one for a few months. I even priced them around my birthday back around November at the nursery but didn’t get one. I thought it would be a good gift. But now that the holidays are over, I still want one. I babysat K2s over Christmas and then she took it and I was like — OK, I’ll get one. I had priced them at $25 at the nursery for a 4 inch. I found this 6 inch on Home Depot’s website for the same price! It got here and I’m super happy with it! Look how it’s already opening and closing after two days:
Good day, lamp, I touch you. Good night, lamp, no touch.
The packaging was also probably the best I’ve had on a live plant. It was wrapped in a brown pot bag and there was a ziptie around the stem area to keep the dirt in. Nice. Then it was in another brown pot bag to protect the leaves. And the box was special made for plants. It had a lift off top and handles. And it was super clear which side was up. Not that FedEx gave a single fuck because it was on its side on my porch despite the GLARING “This Side Up” all over the box. All you can do it try.
I also trimmed my Prayer Plant (I think it’s a Lemon Lime) in the kitchen. It was looking super leggy. I want it to be more bushy. So I figured I’d try to root some pieces. I’ll report to a bigger pot and make it 4 stems in the pot. Plus there’s a plant swap coming up and I can sell the others if they root. Still rooting my zig zag cactus cuttings too. So in preparation for the plant swap, I split them into two little terrecotta pots to continue their journey.
Part of the inspiration for this was now that Christmas is put away, the side table is back over by the window. And I’m tired of the kitchen counter looking cluttered with the leggy prayer plant and the zig zag rooting. So I moved it all over to the living room where — not only do I not get annoyed by it, I get to ENJOY them!
Look at me using two of the set-of-four serving trays I got off Vine!
Oh, and I moved the money tree back to the window. Dear god, I hope it’s happy. I moved it with a grow lamp for the Christmas tree and well over half of the leaves just fucking bailed. I think it got spider mites too. So I’ve been treating it and now it’s back by the fucking window. It’s so fucking dramatic. There is new growth though. And then its pot started leaking — no!
Almost all of my plants are watered from below. It just works for me. So the money tree lives in a nursery pot that sits on top of a pile of rocks in a planter pot (with cotton string to wick up water). It has been in there for well over a year. And all the sudden one of the holes I had glued shut decides to leak. Mother fucker. Why?
So I had to clean it out and triage.
Does anyone else have a container of various glues and UV resin? Is it normal for people to have to organize their adhesives? There were just random glues all over the place — in both junk drawers, craft stuff, the garage (OK, actually there’s still four in the garage that are not represented here — wood glue and the glue I use for glass mosaics).
It’s kinda funny cause this basket is one of the three I bought to organize all my surgery supplies when I did the plastic surgeries. I had one for meds, one for bandaging, I forget the other… Here, I found it. One was just hygiene stuff cause I had to live in the chair in the living room. I was super-fucking organized for those surgeries. So it was a human triage basket and now it’s a stuff triage basket.
I went with the Gorilla Glue Construction: Clear. The strongest of the gorilla glue line. Like that shit is insane. I just pumped the holes with it and let it dry overnight. Note: There is “Clear Gorilla Glue” and that is not the same as “Gorilla Construction Glue: Clear.” Like you might think — just use the crazy strong one for everything. But no. The crazy strong one is super thick and you don’t have a lot of control. It’s also not gonna wipe off ANYTHING. That’s way above craft grade. FYI
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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)
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.
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.
