Christmas Shopping

My mantelpiece is filling up fast, but you can't have a village without a shop-come-postoffice, so that's what I've made this time. And another two storey dwelling, so the shopkeeper can live over the shop. I treated the top storey like I did the previous ones, covered the door area and made a window, but this window is the one I cut away from the lower storey, where the door now is ( more later...)

This one has a thatched roof, which is just white felt sprayed with Adirondack Espresso spray ink. I cut it slightly bigger all round than the roof pieces, then stuck the felt down and folded over the excess and stuck  that with ds tape. That gives the rounded profile you get on thatch, not a sharp edge.  Warning! If you try this yourself don't be fooled into thinking your felt is dry. I left mine for an hour, and gently waved a heat gun at it, but as I was sticking it down I found it was still pretty wet. Going to have brown fingers for a day or two!

I wanted to make a large bay window for this shop, so I made a little box sized to cover over both the window and the pre cut door. The window is acetate, and at the back is a snippet of Tim's seasonal stash papers which I stuck on after I had 'dressed' the window. There's a little shelf (folded card) for a tree to sit on, and the tinsel is also Tim's. I heated that with a heat gun to curl it up a bit as it was a bit too spiky.  The billboard above the window is also from the seasonal stash, as is the poster in the side of the building.

I needed to cut away the left hand window to make a door (and used this spare window on the top storey), and the door is also acetate with a little silver pen added. It's a bit modern for the building, and I'm now making up stories about the shop keeper having heated discussions with the town council planning department about it.  Sorry, it was 2.30am when I finished this house, after a bad day atvwork, and I think I was overtired.  Maybe I will make another door, but it depends on what the planning officer decides.

So here's pictures of the finished shop.  Must get on with Christmas shopping...