Brew, 1:12 miniature scale coffee shop - Part 2-ish

1:12 scale miniature bubble tea and milkshakes (at the back!) - PVC, epoxy resin, acrylic paints, decals, microbeads

Hi~! It's a pretty warm Sunday here, and although I try not to work on weekends, there's so much to catch up on, and I am eager to complete a little more miniature work before wedding preparations go into full swing. :O

This post was supposed to be about how I put together some LED lighting for the customer area of the shop, but as usual, I mucked things up as I got tired of waiting for some LED bulbs to get here, and instead worked with surface mounted LEDs...ever since Pepper put up her video tutorial on how to make a doll lamp, I have been itching to try it out! 

But we all know how crappy I get with following instructions. Attention span of a gnat and all that.

 To be very honest, I'm surprised these photos even got taken at all. Looked up parallel circuits to confirm if my memory was correct, and Professor Google did not disappoint once again ^_^ 

I used dollhouse wire, 32 gauge by Houseworks. I wonder if it's the thinnest available, but it's the thinnest I found last year off ebay, so that's what I got. Though I think I'll save the remainder for when I'm more confident with wiring, shipping was exorbitant and cost almost as much as if not more than the wire *sigh* For future experiments, I'll probably use the wires inside some retired USB cables, if I can remember to do so......

For the lampshades, as usual, overthought stuff and worried about the lights bouncing off the ceiling, so I used these iron-on studs to act as reflectors, and some plastic caps off cheap pencils from a dollar store. Bad move with the iron-on studs, forgot they were metal and kept messing up the circuits until the realization, and /facepalm moment. After which I just coated the exposed wire bits with silicon glue and all was well again.

Sort of.

The plywood that held the circuitry was covered with a piece of plastic from a folder/file that I had lying around. Just plonked it onto the plywood with double-sided tape. I like the effect. 

Have I mentioned I tend to overthink things? Although I tested all the wiring before soldering it together, I only added the resistor near the very end. But of course, by using a resistor the lighting was rather dim. SIGH. But I was already COMMITTED to the project! XD 

*heavy sighs again* I have to remind myself of the law of diminishing returns, and stop obsessing......yikes.

ANYWAY. the black rods are straws and once the new LED bulbs (wide angled ones) finally get here, I'll rewire it. I like how it looks now, just not how dim it is.

Minecraft legomen are my current indulgence, from a neighbourhood gachapon machine :X

(I'm quite rubbish at sandbox games, not very imaginative :( But I RUVS Minecraft!)

Mishaps aside, also made these wee sodas and frappucinos. I want to make more videos, and although I was all ready to do a brief introduction to vacuumforming video, the headphones that I bought yesterday were analog, and I had not realizied that the replacement laptop I am now using did not have a mic port T-T. Which means I either have to

1) get an adaptor which would cost more than the headphones

2) get a USB headset

I can't even get an exchange as in my excitement to get started, I opened up the box, as if this weren't bad enough, the receipt was with my cousin GRARRGHHHH RAWRRRRRRRRR well. Dad has a new headset now XD

Super super irritated at myself, 

 I'm becoming seriously more forgetful and distractible over the past year. Age is definitely catching up with me......GYARRGHHH

k. Next post. Then I gotta get going. 

A 1:12 scale miniature scale

1:12 scale dollhouse miniature mechanical scale, aluminum, paper, glue, plastic

 Yes, I really did make it myself, from scratch, out of aluminum sheets and drew up the scale face using Inkscape. It hadn't occurred to me that it would be unusual to find a metric scale in 1:12 until someone commented on it in my Flickr stream. It is rather an interesting thought eh? kekekekekeke

This scale took me over 8 hours in total to make as I did it through trial & error. I've long stopped looking for tutorials and such since there's no real way of making anything in mini anyway. Haven't found a suitable material for cutting out the ...hand?(? is it called that? the pointer? wuh?) or i'd try to make that more convincing. Toyed with the idea of even spring loading the top bit but eh, it's going into the roombox...

I'll go more into detail about why this scale is so important to me once I've completed this project!

1:12 scale dollhouse miniature flying gliders. Paper, glue, sealant

There will be a few more novelty items to go into the tidbits stall, here's the first of the lot ;)

Chinese New Year was fun and I'm glad that the first few hectic days are over. Here's to a more productive year!!!

Dollhouse Miniature Biscuits 1:12 - part 1

1:12 miniature Khong Guan biscuits, air dry clay

Click for a larger image. It's not very evident here, but I did attempt to put the actual words on these sandwich biscuits.....as humanly possible as I could without a magnifier, had to take my glasses off for this task! *squints*

1:12 miniature folding door

Also, a more detailed photo of the door handle.....

moving along....

80s Singapore Stall, Folding Door and Lighting

More progress on my 80s Singapore project. This is something of a personal challenge, and to  be part of my portfolio. All that mucking about with small bits and bobs over the past few years was practice, and although it's the first time I'm trying out something less-than-'perfect', it shows I have come a long way from having to have everything in a set number of items, or finicky about the too-tiny-to-notice details (BUT IN MY HEART I KNOWWWWW). OCD much? NAWWWWWWW NOWAY

*snort* ok. so the folding door has been installed. I thought it looks abit like a toilet, what with the tiles and colour scheme, but these are what I remembered the stalls were like as a young kid. Not everything is measured to scale, this is not a scale model but a re-imagining of what a 8-12 year old's memory can retain. In all honesty, there's not that much I recall other than having to endure hours of waiting while my mother did the week's marketing. Bleary eyed at 6-8 in the morning every Sat/Sun meant I didn't have much to look forward to as my mom parked my brother and I in front of the soya bean stall (no, this mini is not a drinks store ;) ) to have our breakfast, and that also meant I had to keep an eye on him for those couple of hours. UNENDURABLE.

but it also contains the best part of my childhood memories. which I hope to encapsulate in 6 x 6 x 8 inches :)

Also did a generic lighting to show off the details which will be added later. I want to add a pendant light, am deciding on the lamp shade and it's...bleargh. feeling uninspired at the moment.

worked on making these biscuit tins as well. :) I guess by now you can sorta figure out what the stall will be selling? As for the cylinder, a few people have managed to guess what it will be for. It is (was?) a common sight in this region, Singapore and Malaysia as I've personally observed. Can you guess what it will become? :D

These were made out of aluminum sheets, cut out from those disposable aluminum trays/pie tins which are used at potlucks etc. I'm not sure about the thickness, it's super thin and I had previously mentioned using it to make clay cutters. Just be careful if you decide to fiddle with it okay??? It's a little delicate but since it's going to be affixed within the roombox, I'm not too concerned with the sturdiness.

As you've probably noticed already, I've put up some videos onto my youtube page. Remember to subscribe and share if you like my work! :P

http://www.youtube.com/user/snowfern

I'm a Giant! Challenge Day 3

 Not much progress on the 1:24 display, due to strained back/shoulder muscle. did however figure out how to bend acrylic sheets. this was meant to be another display unit (by now the stuff is falling in place right? figured out what it's gonna be yet? :P cos i haven't XD ), but the thinnest sheets I could get were touted to be 1mm thick, and in actuality it was more 1.5mm -_-" super bullet proof displays? o.O

 it wasn't that i miscalculated the measurements, but more cos i wasn't sure my little test on bending the sheets would work, hence i used a scrap piece of acrylic I had lying around.

 but since i had to remove the protective sheet in order to bend the acrylic sheet, i of course messed up while sanding the edges and got some scuff marks onto it :( acrylic is a right pain to work with in that it scratches all too easily :(

think this is a 'before' picture'? 

NOPE. it's also cos i ran out of 'acrylic glue', which is actually either chloroform (which i highly doubt is what they sold me in art friends) or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dichloromethane....i used instead some superglue which is actually a cyanoacrylate adhesive, since i thought hey, it should get the acrylic pieces to 'weld' together, superglue rocks! the results seemed fine a few minutes into assembling it, however the joints were brittle and the whole thing literally fell apart this morning as i moved it around in order to take photos :(

 i'll probably shop around for a better adhesive, the 'acrylic glue' stuff  is quite a *@#&$@#&*$ to work with, even with a syringe/needle it's very fiddly, and i have ruined a number of clear pieces when a drop (or more) of it fell where it shouldn't have

i used this soldering iron & torch, purchased many moons ago in order to learn how to solder (miserable miserable fails) since my regular corded ones were crap, i really like this one, it's a butane torch and up till yesterday i had no idea i could even use it as a hot air device XD serves me right for not RTFM ;P good thing i kept the packaging which had all the instructions on the back. again, got it at a local craft store, art friends. the OLFA blade on the right is the best one i've found for cutting the acrylic sheets, it's kinda tricky, so be sure to wear safety gear *guilty look* and read up online before you start :)

i managed to salvage the clear sheet by buffing it with my dremel and will probably flame polish it using the soldering torch, if i decide to go ahead with the modfiications to the original plan. will scrap this in place of a different design/dimension since it's clear it's too bulky for 1:24. maybe a smallish 1:12 display then. we'll see. :)

Meanwhile, Asuka has also posted about her progress on the challenge! do let me know if you're participating too! ^ ^

I'm a Giant! Challenge Day 1

Well, it was done over 2 days actually, cos I ran out of the mounting board (I'm not sure what it's called actually, it's about 1/16 inch thick and kind of like a really thick piece of cardboard or cardstock). Had to take pics using my crappy Nokia N95 handphone as the camera is in the office :P 

Clockwise from left to right: 

Heavy-ish Mooncake Box (to hold down pieces while waiting for glue to dry)

 1:24 roombox, i hope to make it modular, gonna add on another level
"Nicole's" wood glue, not specially purchased, saw it when I bought my first batch of wood pieces for mini making and picked it up cos I was too tired to go compare with the other glues. so far so good!
Lego bricks, act as a 'squaring' tool since I'm too cheap(broke) to buy a proper one
Protractor, to draw out those pesky lines
My fave "Sakura Kit Kat" pencil. lost the mini kitkat that was swinging from the top T-T it tasted -ok-, couldn't be that good nor bad since I don't remember what it tasted like, bought it for the pencil XD
Craft knife
Tongue depressor, to spread the wood glue
Metal ruler

Took this while I was weighing down a backing piece.

hrm. not quite tabula rasa. but to me, definitely a blank slate.

uh. obligatory shot. i donno why i took this XD

i think i'll update the costs in the 'Challenge' page I've set up, you can see the link to the right of this blog :) Or, you can click on the following link:

http://snowfern-clover.blogspot.com/p/challenge.html

Can you guess what it's going to be? ;) (haha i'm thinking this is waaay too easy.)