My Favorite Things.....

This is not going to be anything like the song. No raindrops on roses. No whiskers on kittens. Someone on the Greenleaf forum asked how people determine what will happen with a new house or other building. How do you figure out what is going to be happening in the scene, what colors to use, in what time period will it be set?

Most of the time I have the building, room box or container in hand and the idea comes. Once in a while, for example the castle, the idea comes first and then I have to build the structure around the idea.

Whatever comes first, there is always some paper and pencil involved. Usually this is a quad rule "Planning Pad". They are available just about anywhere you go. I get most of mine at Wal-Mart. I would have to say that I would rather have one of these and a package of Bic pencils than anything else that someone give me to attempt to entertain me. I don't know how many of these I have filled over the years. They are my weapons of choice for just about everything, especially for minis.

I seem to have a weakness for new paper and new pencils. I think that the most memorable Christmas present when I was a kid was my very first ball point pen. I was fascinated with the fact that you never had to sharpen it and could keep writing and drawing indefinitely......No one told me that they leak, you can't erase mistakes and sooner or later they run out of ink. I think that I probably lost it somewhere before that happened.

Then there was my great uncle Hank. He worked at a print shop and always had all kinds of neat pads made of leftover paper to share. He would give me stacks of these little pads every time I saw him. Yup. He was my favorite uncle. I also loved the start of each school year. Nope. I didn't particularly want to go back to school. I just wanted the new notebook with fresh paper and the new yellow pencils and always a sharpener to go with them.....That always somehow got lost too. If I was desperate enough, I remember chewing on the pencil wood to get to the led. That was not a great way to sharpen them though. Are you starting to see a pattern here? New pencils and paper, give me some of each, and I am a happy camper. OK. I am over the daydream of paper and pencils now. Back to the subject.

The answer to the question that was asked at the beginning is notes, lots of notes, drawings, lists, and measurements. When I want to start a new mini project I pull out a planning pad and go to it.

I start with a page that is the outside of the structure. This usually has a rough sketch of what I plan to do with the building. For example, when I did the Buttercup bookshop, this is where I decided how the two kits would be cut and reassembled into one.

Next I do some pages for each of the floors of the house or shop. This is where I decide what the rooms are going to be and how they will coordinate. I do a floor plan of each story.

From there I do each room. On these pages go a scale drawing of the room with windows and doors. Then I decide what furniture will fit, colors and accessories are listed. I also make a note of what I will need to finish that particular room.

Many times these note and lists change daily. They aren't written in stone. That's the reason for a pencil with an eraser.

Here you see one of the pages from the basket shop. The plan for the worktable is at the top. I used the actual measurements on the page for the construction. At the bottom, I started with a plan for a stool. That one never got built. It may come in handy for another project. It stays where it is just in case.

This last photo is of a list of all of the projects that I still have to do. This particular list was a mistake....At the bottom of this page is the number 21. I did not turn the page to let you see that it goes on.....and on......Maybe I will sometime, but not today. It is two days before Christmas and I don't want to depress you.

See you tomorrow. Merry Christmas Eve Eve.