Numbers One, Two and Five......Tick!! All I Need is a Rainy Weekend.

No don't hate me, I don't mean a rainy weekend for everyone just for me. One teeny rain cloud above my workshop so I don't have to fulfil my promise to work in the garden this weekend. I really want to work on my List. Obsession is such a terrible thing.

I have dressed the side window with my candy tower and lollipop stacks. To be honest I am so pleased with how this has turned out. You know how sometimes you see something in your head and then when you try and replicate that idea it turns out kind of Blah? This window has come out even better than I hoped.....somehow the idea seems to have worked.

To finish of number One on The List the top shelf is also dressed.

 It even looks pretty good from the outside too. Ah, happy miniature days.

 Number Two has also been completed thanks to the very prompt delivery of the last four jars by Dolls House Direct on Ebay.

 Every day in every way the shop is getting fuller and fuller!!

 I am so glad I found this staircase on Etsy by Scalecreations1 it is exactly the right piece for this project.

 The bottom piece is a perfect lollipop shelf.

The counter is a copy of the film version counter made by Rob Lucas of World of My Own Miniatures. I love Rob's work it is beautifully made and scaled plus he is always up for a challenge.
I am going to have trays of magical HP sweets in the counter to add further links to Honeydukes. I hope I have made enough to fill them I really have had enough of Fimo for the moment!
So, weather permitting I will be starting the counter tomorrow.
Wishing you all much sunshine this weekend with a teeny tiny rain cloud for me! 

Preparations for Number One and Number Three.....Even More Honeydukes.

I have made a lot of sweets for Honeydukes but so far there are no 'real' Harry Potter sweets or direct links to the Hogsmead shop. So today I have been playing with packaging for more magical sweets.

 These plastic containers came from my visit to the Appeldorn Fair a couple of years ago and are now filled with Ton Tongue Toffee.

 The Tooth Splintering Strong Mints are in plastic coin cases that I bought off Ebay. 

 As are the snakes and.....

 ....U No Poo.

 Chocolate skulls and....

 ......lemon drops again in the plastic containers from the Dutch fair. I wish I had bought more of these, or remembered the seller, as I have not seen them anywhere else.

 I have also planned and prepared the side window display. The tall bottle despite being way over sized did not fill the window well enough so I have cobbled together a taller candy tower.

 The smaller jar glued to the bottom gives me the height I wanted and I am quite pleased with the abundant candy display.

 The tower is going to be surrounded by small lollipops with even more sweeties. Again I needed height so I have repeated the same trick.

The lollipop towers have also used up lots of the extra sweets that I have made which makes me feel a lot better after working so hard to produce them! 

I will leave them all to harden off overnight before placing them in the window tomorrow.

I have also prepared lots of Harry Potter printables ready to start making up boxes for the shelves, then Honeydukes will have a proper magical feel I hope.

You know when obsession has finally arrived when you go to sleep planning the counter and wake up thinking about how to make the Bertie Bott's display. What happened to dreams of Brad Pitt and desert islands?!

Half of Number One and Number 2 completed on my Honeydukes Countdown List!!

Working through the List today and have dressed the pink spiral staircase with jars of sweets and a selection of lollipops.

 The lollipops are in really cheap jars and I have filled them with Poundland caviar beads.

 I have used the cheapest of my glass lidded jars for the staircase as they won't be fully seen. They are definitely not as nice as all the others on the shelves but there are thirty jars on this staircase alone and I simply can't justify pouring anymore money into this project.

 Of course as is the way of things I am four jars short! Luckily I found four on Ebay last night so I will add these when they arrive early next week.

 The orange side window shelf has also been dressed.

 I am playing with ideas for the side window and I am thinking of trying to build a pouring sweet jar tower using a rather drastic measuring mistake I made with this glass jar! I have layered lots of sweets and will gradually try to build up and over flowing top. 

Around this sweet tower I have put a circle of large glass bowls that I will fill with sweets and lollipops. This is a tall window and I am a bit worried that this display might not fill the window enough. Maybe I could add a shelf for more lollipops to fill the top of the window. I will make a few of the bowls up tomorrow and see how it looks.

Another rainy evening here but I was very cosy in the workshop playing with my toys. Happy days!

On the Home Run......Honeydukes Final List of Jobs.

I have been working on the interior shelves over the last few days. Making batches of sweets to fill the jars took up quite a lot of time but I have made enough to finish off the whole project now.....I hope.

 The red selection are joined by some No Melt Ice Creams by Nikki Rowe.

 The second big cabinet is now finished. 

 The purple selection has been added to the Bertie Botts window.

 The yellow selection is above the main door......

 I am glad I decided to make the majority of sweets myself as it has given me the opportunity to get to grips with Fimo. I am definitely no expert but I have learnt how to make very simple canes and would certainly feel capable of tackling small clay tasks in future projects.

 The green selection sits above the Exploding Bon Bons window.

 I have now compiled a list of the remaining jobs to finish Honeydukes and I am really hoping that this will be the summer I actually finish a whole project.

 The three cabinets all fit well together.

 These are basic shop fittings probably from Ebay but they do the job.

 I am glad I went for brightly coloured sweets and haven't applied labels as I want the sweets to be clearly seen.

So what is left?

1. Dress the side lollipop window and interior shelf.

2. Dress the pink spiral staircase with jars of sweets and lollipops.

3. Make up the boxes and packages of Harry Potter sweets for the two smaller shelf units.

4. Make the Bertie Botts display (Hmmm, that might take a while!)

5. Finish the ridge tiling on the roof.

6. Make a Bats' Blood Soup display for next to the door. I have an idea for this which will hopefully work!

7. Dress the shop counter and make scales. 

8. Finish painting guttering and attach to the front.

Is that it? Only eight jobs? Easy Peasey.

I can already hear all those Hogwarts students knocking on the door!!

More Sweets are Delivered to Honeydukes.

After dressing the two front windows I decided to work on the second of the larger display cabinets and work out what sweets I need to fill the shelves and tops.

 I have bought my glass jars from a number of suppliers to try and vary shape and size. Most of them come from Glasscraft and My Tiny World but I have also bought from Ebay sellers and Valerie Claire Miniatures. 

 The sweets are a mixture of beads, sliced fimo canes and sweets, both bought and made by me. 

 I decided to colour group the top shelves after looking a sweet buffets on Pinterest. This is obviously my pink selection. The chocolate bunny baskets are the work of Nikki Rowe and fit in perfectly on this shelf.

The chocolate shelf looks pretty inviting to me and has a number of sliced canes from a range by My Tiny World and a few made by me.

I know have to fill the for shelves above the second large cabinet, the windows and the door and of course I do not have enough sweets in set colours. so it is time to get the clay out again and start rolling.

 I had previously made a whole load of round lollipops/cake pops,

 in quite a range of colours.

Now I needed to fancy them up ready to put on display.

 Poundland is a must place to visit for all sorts of bits and pieces with a mini use. These pots are all from their nail art range. They have caviar beads, soft flock, shellac, glitters and fine paint brushes all for a pound and in a range of colours, perfect for sweet making. I also use glass and porcelain paints to add chocolate and syrup glazes.

 Here are the lollipops in all their finery. I have use a gloss medium as both a glue and a glaze. Some are dipped in shellac, fine white glitter (for sugar) or soft flock.

The caviar beads also add an different texture to the lollipops and dipped in dark brown glass paint it is possible to add a chocolate topping. I have enough now to dress the shelves and staircase hopefully.

The lolly sticks are sugarcraft/florist wires that I will cut to size once I put them in their final jars.

Every day in every way I am getting closer and closer. Rain due tomorrow so I am hoping to be able to hide in the workshop as I have purple and green sweets to make. 

I do so love a rainy day!! 

Busy, busy, busy....Filling up Honeydukes and Finishing the Windows.

I have been working in a bit of a frenzy the last couple of weeks as I am absolutely determined to finish, yes I did say 'finish', Honeydukes by the end of this summer. Quite a few late nights in the workshop and a lot of grim determination have led to a lot of progress I am pleased to say.

 Using the packet I bought from the Harry Potter Experience I made up  three different sizes of carton.

 The two smaller cartons I have simply filled with caviar and seed beads. Nice and easy. To make up the cartons I used this Tacky glue a product recommended by the ever helpful Jane Harrop when I visited her stand at Miniatura. This glue keeps contact very quickly so it was ideal for the smaller, more fiddly, cartons.

 The large carton, which will go in the window, needed much bigger beans so i decided to make these out of clay. I had toyed with the idea of just using real jelly beans but I was unsure how long these would last and whether the sugar would eventually react so clay beans seemed the better option.

 I have had to make a lot of beans but decided to only gloss those that would be seen, I am getting much better at taking appropriate short cuts! I am an avid follower and admirer of Otterine's Miniatures Blog and recently saw a post where she used double sided tape to help with painting multiple items. These beans have been stuck to my glass board with invisible double sided tape to hold them in place and then I just used Gloss Medium to add shine. This tip worked really well and I will use it in the future with thicker tape when painting wood pieces.

 The Exploding Bon Bons have come out better than expected too. These are double sided 'boxes', I cut triangles of balsa for the 'boxes' and painted them deep orange. The cellophane explosions are from Quality Street sweets.....the things we have to do for the sake of our Art!! Minis and chocolate the perfect way to spend an evening! These are the large ones....

 ....medium and...

 ....small.

I also made some tiny ones for the shelves of the shop. I couldn't cope with intricate cutting of this size so they have been simplified but stacked together I think they will be fine.

Two great products I have been using lately are Glue and Glaze by Deluxe Materials which can be used with acetate sheets for windows and clear plastics. It avoids all the mucky smears I usually get when using a normal PVA glue. 

While the wax paper, another great tip from Jane Harrop, is perfect for laying on your craft board when gluing or painting as the glued pieces do not stick. I have also lined my right angle jigs with was paper when building furniture and it works really well.

Ta Dah!!! The front of the shop very nearly finished. Windows all glued in place and they actually fit. I can't believe I have got to this point with this project. The lettering hasn't quite come out as I had hoped, the ink has darkened a lot and doesn't look very green anymore but hey ho. Just the guttering to go now.

 Bertie's Beans have pride of place in one window.

 With the bon bons sit in the other.

 While inside the shop they can be seen clearly.

I used all the different sizes to fill the window but ran out of cellophane for the giant bon bons, oh dear does that mean I have to buy another box of Quality Street?

Hope the sun has been shining on you and yours.