Gamages Doll Shop Is Open For Business.....

Despite many gaps on its shelves Gamages Doll Shop is practically finished for the moment.

I always find it quite difficult to leave a project unfinished when I could just fill gaps with instant buys. I am holding back though because I am attending quite a few fairs this summer and I am supposed to be saving the pennies for these events. Which is sensible if annoying!!

I thought quite hard about the roof of this shop box as I wanted it to have the look of a roof without having to do any serious building work. I ended up using some sticky backed flooring I bought so long ago it could no longer really be called 'sticky backed'! I then gave it a dark grey wash and finished it off with a narrow moulding from my stash.

I also added skirting board as a roof edge moulding to tidy up the look of the roof and side walls. 

This shop box will find a place in my real house so I am not going for a totally authentic building look, I just want it to have clean lines and look nice.

 I am getting better at filling and finishing projects with homemade items, especially for areas that are partly hidden. These two box drawers are made up from an Art of Mini kit and I have filled them with paper doll printies taken from images found on Google. 

I later used my new found de-cal skills to add lettering to the front of these boxes for an added detail.

 Many artisans use printies to finish all sorts of scenes so I hunted for girl images on Google that I could cut out and display as dolls. If it works this will be a very cheap way of filling up a shelf and small gaps. I have made them stand by simply gluing a small strip of wood behind each image.

 I am hoping that these prints will also fill some gaps and add a bit of variety to the shelves. I bought these frames in The Range in packs of three, I think they were about a pound in the card making section. I have just painted them up and added some dolly prints.

 More gap fillers that won't break the bank......dolly books. Images from Google glued onto the front of plain card books. I did add decal titles to the spines which worked for some of the books but not for others. I tried to be clever and add co-ordinating colours but I would have been better off just sticking to a black font. The idea did work though and I will definitely do it again as spines are quite difficult to nail on miniature books.

 I also decided to try out something else with the clear de-cal paper. Quite often shops had advertisements painted on the exterior brick work and I thought the clear de-cal paper would give the impression of the paintings as it would still be possible to see the brickwork beneath.

I have also added a road sign which is a little bit to bright at the moment but you get the idea.

 On the other side I have added a bucket down-pipe that I bought at a fair for Honeydukes and never used. I have painted and buffed all the components and it does add interest to the side wall. Obviously it is completely redundant as I haven't installed a top gutter but I like it. 

The de-cal is an original advertisement and I love that it is shillings and pence.

I have also changed my main shop sign as I made a terrible rookie error by using the possessive apostrophe: it should be Gamages and not Gamage's. Thankfully this was pointed out for me by a visitor to the Blog and I have been able to remove the offending de-cal from the front.

The de-cal was very easy to remove as I hadn't varnished over it, I simply lifted the edges with warm water and it came off like a dream without lifting any of the paint work.

I have lots more to show and tell of the inside and window when I will name all the wonderful artisans whose work is inside the shop but that will have to wait for the next post.