If you follow me on Twitter, you probably saw the weekend-long endeavor of my making a (bigger) miniature library at the end of January. I've made many pocket watch and pendant libraries over the years, but these frames are 5x5 inches, so they feel enormous to me.
The project started off slowly. On Friday night I sat down to sketch out ideas. I cut all the shelves the wrong size the first time around. I somehow cut my finger while cutting the passageway door. I should not be allowed to do math or handle blades after 7pm, it seems.
Saturday morning I sat down with my materials and started putting things together. I quickly realized that just about every single piece was maybe 1/16th of an inch too big (again, no math after 7pm). I decided to trim as I went and hope for the best.
The next challenge was the base of the shelf. It was too tall (a whole 4 inches!) and too wobbly to stand on it's base - but I wanted to keep the base narrow for the sake of the passageway door. I decided to build it up and add weight to the bottom, which helped a lot. Also, it fit so snugly in the box that it didn't need much help standing once it was inside.
Once the shelves were all set, my next challenge was filling them. I spent most of Saturday making tiny books. I actually timed it - and excluding drying time, each book takes about 3 minutes to make. I made around 175 of them (over 8 hours of book making!), while thinking about other things that could be added to the shelves to fill space - because I estimated that I'd need around 203 books to fill it otherwise!
Some fun features:
The plant. I didn't think this would work. I was convinced that the leaves were too big and I'd need to go buy supplies (not allowed for this project!) to have a mini plant on the shelf. I was also excited about painting the pot.
The cat. What's a library without a cat lounging on the shelves? I figured since I had more space I'd try a much more complicated cat than I used to make - and somehow, it worked? I made three and painted them, and in the end I thought the void kitty was the best fit.
The crystal & druzy pieces. These are pieces I found by a lake nearby. I always collect tiny pieces of quartz, so it was exciting for these to fit in here so well.
The back wall of the passageway. This fabric is from back in college. I'm pretty sure it came from one of the costumes we made for a production of Tartuffe. I have a bin that includes "fancy scraps" that are mostly too small to do anything with, but I've never been able to throw away. And it seemed perfect for this! (Now I have...and even smaller scrap of it...)
About 18 hours later the library was complete! I'm really thrilled with how it turned out, but I'm not quite ready to start a new one yet.
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