Barn Raising: Shadows from the Past

 Not only did I finish my NaMoPaiMo horse, I finished my barn raising project, too.

Like the NaMoPaiMo horse,

it isn't perfect.

I should've put something into these pictures so that the scale would show.

That tiny scale (1:144) made it really difficult for me to paint and assemble it.

But I have learned that challenging myself, hard as it may be, can also give you a very strong sense of satisfaction. (A lesson I learned from Can Do Gracie and her classmates.)

I can't wait to set this up with Little Lynn and Circus Girl and see how it looks with them. 

Shades of Can Do Gracie as well as the girls of Pawnee Stables.

I did it!

Barn Raising: Construction

I was really nervous about assembling my 1:44 scale barn - the pieces were so tiny! 

I laid out the pieces in alphabet order according to the instructions to be sure I had them all, took a deep breath, and began.

The gable on the roof was the first to be put together - nothing like starting with the absolute TINIEST pieces in the whole project to build your confidence! 

But it came together and looked so cute that it actually did build my confidence. If I could put that teeny tiny gable together, I could do the rest.

The stall walls were next,

then the sides and the floor of the hay mow. The directions said that this would be the trickiest part of constructing the barn, and that proved true. There were a lot of tabs to fit together into four different pieces at the same time.

It wasn't until fitting in the green rail above the doors that I realized that the barn doors would be able to slide open and shut.

They were tricky to install - the wood is very thin and fragile and I didn't want to snap it. Due to that fragility, I decided that I would keep the barn doors closed. At this point I was getting very excited about how it was looking.

And when I put the roof on and the instructions said I was done, I was thrilled with how my mini barn had turned out. It looked so cute and I could not wait to get Little Lynn and Circus Girl out and take some photos of them with it.

But as I looked closer, I realized that, even though the instructions said I had completed building the barn, I had some finishing touches to do. See those brown spots on either side of the roof?

And the three brown spots on the side of the barn? Those are tabs from the other pieces which were inserted through holes and glued. They needed to be painted to match the pieces where they were visible.

So often that is the way a project goes - you think you have finished and then discover little things that could still be done. Depending on what you want, you leave them and are content, or you sit down again and get back to work.

I sat down again and got back to work.

Barn Raising: Drawing Straight Lines

The last time I had worked on my mini barn, I'd had to stop due to two problems: 

The white marker that I had used looked cream on the wood (left arrow) and the green marker, despite my having used the fine point end, bled into the wood around it (right arrow.)

I had another white marker, so I pulled it out and tested it on a scrap of the wood. (Red circle.)

That pinkish spot is not white. It was time to get out the paints. Which wasn't too hard since my NaMoPaiMo model and paints were also on the kitchen table. (The craft table in my office where I usually work is covered in sewing projects at the moment. I don't want paint anywhere near my sewing.)

The first coat of white paint went on well and partially covered up the green that had bled into its surroundings.

After a second coat, I was getting the white color that I had hoped for and the green was only faintly visible.

I tested the fine end of the green marker after the white paint had dried. It didn't bleed, but the line that I drew wasn't very straight. I tried stippling a line but that didn't work too well, either.

Maybe I would have better luck using a fine tipped detail brush? I practiced some lines with the detail brush and some green paint, and those looked worse than the lines I'd drawn with the green marker. I simply was going to have to use the green marker.

Since I drew lines on the board daily when teaching, I decided to quit worrying about wobbly lines and simply DRAW them. I took a deep breath, marker firmly in hand,

and SUCCESS! While my lines are not perfect, they will do for what I want.

Next step? Assembling the barn. Stay 'tooned!