Did I mention in my previous post that I had bought 3 sets of torture equipment?
This is the second set, which is identical to the third.
I have always loved whimsical carousels so it was hard to pass this over. And I had this great idea of gifting a friend I was about to visit with this set after I had built it.
I'd thought the previous kit was a challenge but this was by no means easier.
In fact, every item seemed to get more difficult to do or make.
I was beginning to suspect that there is a sinister masochistic undercurrent lying beneath my being.
The first item to be made, as instructed by the manual: centre piece of the carousel.
No wooden support in the centre except for the two flimsy ends.
This is considered easy. Just gluing the wooden panels on the deceptively sturdy structure.
Beading up the centre piece. Still alright. Not too bad.
I'd thought the pink and blue-eye beads were the most challenging to put on at this stage ...
until inhumaneness set in.
The double-bead bits were very tricky. They shot off the table the moment I applied pressure on the scissors to cut them off the long chain of beads, so there was a lot of 'where did it go?'s. Needless to say, they were extremely hard to stick on due to their finicky size.
Only Heaven knows how relieved I was to see the horses intact!
There's something I don't have to make from zero finally!
Bending the metal sticks and making sure they sat right on the horses proved to be no easy task either!
But how cute and pretty it looks!
If you ask me, I certainly didn't enjoy cutting out those tiny bricks.
One of the most challenging items to make
Too tiny a lamp
I had thought this was hard, but what's truly hard was yet to come.
Each side of the walls was the result of some toiling.
Another precision item that took me one hour to make
Could you guess that it was a present?
The darned chimneys
The eventual result of all those works!
It looked easy enough but it proved to be the most challenging!
Firstly, I didn't know the white glue that was to cover the templates was supposed to be fluid. The ones that came with the package had become clumpy. While it didn't matter much when I was using very little amounts to stick the tiny bits to one another, it resulted in very uneven surfaces when spread over comparatively large areas.
To resolve that, I used newer glue over the first layer of snow and re-layered it with white coloured sand, but the difference in layers showed.
By then, I had run out of white glue, so I had to go out and buy a new bottle and what do you know? It was the most fluid and it gave the smoothest look ever, so I had to layer the third layer of white sand over the old.
The manual had suggested thick layers of snow for a better appearance and that was what I did - as thick as I could make. But it gave me a new problem, which I only discovered, to my dismay, towards the completion of the project.
A shed
Compared to the other two structures, this is nothing.
I was almost exhilarated at this stage. "It's just about finished!"
Until I realised the protection cover could not fit snugly over what I had painstakingly built - because my snow was too thick!
I must have spent at least 2 hours to cut and chiselled away the snow lying on the edge while making sure I didn't cut so deep that the paper that the whole project sat on was ruined!
That - was a lot of work!
Just a fraction of the snow mess
The final look
I learned from a friend that the tune is 'Castle in the Sky'.
How whimsical!
No comments:
Post a Comment