New Sofa design and Ebay Goodies!!

 

Few of the items on my Project to-do list was a Sofa and an armchair.

 

One weekend I finally got srated with the sofa, it took about 4 days.... as with anything in life, you probably never get it right the first time, but if you don't give up, you get better at it!

I thought the dollhouse also needed some soft furnishings, I couldn't make them so I had to buy them! As Miniatures are relatively niche in Malaysia so many collectors are still buying online and having them shipped. I looked around Ebay for many days, bidded on a few things, compared prices and managed to get a good deal from a very good seller!

 

I was soooo Happy when the items arrived! Are they like the most adorable little things or what ?! Hee Hee!

Something doesn't look right........  why of course!

A Home is not complete without a Pet or two! I put the cat on the couch as a joke to a Facebook Friend! :)

Experimental Cherry Blossoms

I've always loved Cherry Blossoms....

There were some floral elemenent ideas I had wanted to incorporate into my Lampshade designs, so I googled some basic felt flower tutorials. The basics for felt flowers are about the same.

 

Still experimenting on the shapes and looks, i know it doesn't look anything like a Cherry Blossom but the double tipped petal seems to be the iconic shape for Cherry blossoms?...  

 

Over the weekend, we went to the Grand Launch of the first Spotlight outlet in Malaysia. Being well known for Crafts and Home furnishing, we just had to go (of course, all the e-mail and FB reminders played a part!).

 

So me & Ms. T set off to Ampang Point at 11-ish on Sat morning to Ampang Point to find a Full house parking! After mamanging to find a place to park, we thought ok, let's have Brunch first before we go check out Spotlight. To out horror, we came to the 2nd floor escalator to find a huge crowd barred from going up. The patient Nepalese Security Guard explained there is a huge queue on the 3rd floor queue-ing to get into the Store itself, creating a gridlock. Also to avoid chaos, Spotlight staff controlled the Crowd inflow by staggering batches of disgruntled custoers into their Store.

Photo Courtesy of Ms. T ! Mad Queue!

We finally got in after 40mins, and the massive crowds made it very difficult to browse the Store. Nevertheless, I spotted a small corner called 'Fabulous Findings' - everything in the box for RM 2.99! I got a whole stash of metal beads, best part they were further discounted with the VIP card! The felt cloth was also discounted to RM 2.24 per piece. All in all a good day!

New Lampshade: Meteor Rain

I experimented a new design for the lampshade, it turned out ok and I'm pleased with the results!

The idea I had in mind was streaks of gold or silver streaks on a black fabric or inverse; white fabric with gold or shiny black streaks. So, at first the material I had in mind was thick embroidery threads but it just didn't have the shiny effect I wanted. Good thing I found the packet of shiny long beads I got from Chinatown.

Lights and other things

Quick update on the light/Mini Chandelier results....

 

When I heard IKEA had a minature doll house furniture with miniature replicas of their Vago and Klippan sofa, I knew I HAD to get a set. I went once and they were all SOld Out! So on the next available shipment, I rushed to IKEA and bought 2 sets! HA HA!

Here's an example of someone's Blog I found who decorated her dollhouse using the HUSET dollhouse set! Super cuteness my Gawd! :)

Hanging Lampshade Design...

I've started working on the 2nd Lampshade for the living room and here is the 1st, 2nd, 3rd attempt at bending the wire into a basic round cylinder-ish shape.

The first few 'failed' cylinders... Wobbly and awful looking!

Finally! 'Lightbulb' moment! Figured out how to stabilize the wire without the need to solder!! Yeee-ha!

It still looks kinda empty (top portion) .. Less is More ?
Just the leaves alone looked empty so I sewed on some Berry-beads! Haha!

The issue was as usual to try and get it bended using only 1 single piece of wire without having to join different parts (or the use of soldering! *grunts*).

I had pictured a design with beige linen, something like this;

Then dressing it up with beads and shiny leaf-shaped sequins I had bought at Masjid India. I had the perfect coloured linen, it was an old dress and seeing I could still fit into it, I didn't have the heart to cut into it. It suddenly felt like a sin to cut up a perfectly wearable dress! I must be going slightly mad. So instead I used the shiny Gold tulle I got from Klim's Craft because I thought the transparent fabric would make the light work better with a shiny factor. We'll see...

Miniature Chandelier: Nearing completion...

There it is... swinging gracefully on the little holder.... It's far from perfect but am just glad it's done. My first Miniature Chandelier Protoype. I was up until 3am last night accompanied by 2 mugs of coffee and 2 cans of Beer, hung the last teardrop dangly Crystal, had a good long look. Okay, I'm happy with it and I can allow myself to go bed!

 

Trying to solder on the curly wurly arms was tears-inducing. It was just not going to work, so back up plans was to do a ring around the arms to stabilized it.

It sure does look prettier in the daylight.....

I popped in Ampang Point yesterday while leaving my Ol' Girl for service, and did some material shopping! There is a Crafts, Ribbons and accessories Shop on the 2nd floor next to Popular called Klim Craft. I found the teardrop-shaped beads that I wanted for the Chandelier, they were a tad bit pricey but I didn't see the point of going all the way down to Masjid India to the wholesale place so I bought 2 different sizes, each were about RM 3.90. I was a bit shocked that they were selling simple beads (the exact ones I got from Jalan Sultan) for RM 4.50 a packet!! I got my stash for RM 1 a packet. They were exactly the same beads!

The shop also had tulle, so I bought half a meter each of the shimmering ones to experiment. The price is ok; RM 4.80 a meter.

I had also planned to take up Embroidery soon, I had been looking around for hoops and to think I almost bought an over-priced one from Art Friends, The Curve selling for RM 17.90! Good thing I remembered to pop by Daiso and Hallelujah! they sell Embroidery hoops too! Wahahaha! Don't you just love Daiso!?

 

But I did find these gems from Art Friends and they were cheap! The little dressing table was only for RM 5.50  and the utensils for RM 10.

Mini-Chandelier Project: Almost there... just a little bit more!

The Creative Deities had been very kind.

After loafing the entire Saturday away, I told myself Switch off the damn TV and get cracking!

I had to make a Shade cover to hide the ugly green bulb holder... Beading these suckers was pretty exhausting and took longer than I expected....

Screwed in the tiny Bulb and hook on a cap ...

 

Probably gonna solder on the curly wurly arms tonight to make the shape more defined and it won't look so sloppy. It'll be a real pain... am gonna need extra hands tonight to hold everything in place!

 



Frankly, it still looks horrendous and unrefined. Still much to work on and may the future ones look waaaay nicer than this first Prototype!