A few weeks ago I dug out my Street of Shops box, with all of the little bits and bobs I swept off of the dining room table last November in preparation for our Thanksgiving family dinner and haven't touched since -- prescient, perhaps, knowing that soon we would be staying home for a very long time.
Of course the desk in a carpet shop would be full of correspondence, receipts, journals, and whatnot, but the House of Miniatures kit that I had (no.40017) was the one without any pigeon-holes, so that certainly it would quickly become a mess. Being set in the present day, I figured that the owner of the shop would most likely go to IKEA and find some organizer that would fit. I have a stash of old gift cards which are not only excellent scrapers as-is and templates when cut, but are perfect for something like this, since they can be shaped and sanded, and don't split like thin wood might (does -- I tried that first), and are thin but strong. I asked David for some help in figuring out the best way to do it --
and his prototype was so good that I just used that, and all I had to do was give it a light sanding, glue it together, and paint it!
Of course I had to give it an IKEA name, so it is Ostron, which is the Swedish word for "oyster" -- for obvious reasons.
Now to fill it with the business side of a shop. I found a number of printable 1:12 envelopes online, but wasn't completely pleased with them as on many the folding lines are dark enough to see easily but show quite a lot on the finished envelope. I edited some of the printables, and made some of my own -- including airmail letters with the line of "flags" around the edges and proper postmarks -- and got busy. I like the manila ones, but alas they don't actually fit standing on edge in any of the cubbies, so I may just have to stack them, the way they are in the first photo above.
(Also in the photo are a variety of business letters that I reduced and printed, but I'm not sure how many I will leave lying around and how many will end up in the cubbies mixed in with the envelopes!)
Envelopes just by themselves would probably be fine, but of course it seemed to me that in cubbies full of business correspondence most if not all of the letters would have been opened already, and so I folded small scraps of paper into "letters" and set one or two in the middle of the pre-folded envelope-to-be, glued the side flaps down, then the bottom and top flaps, and then slit each one open with a craft knife. I made a a few dozen, then realized that if I want the desk crammed full and a bit untidy (which I do!), I will need possibly 250 or more.
I'm pleased with the opened envelopes, though -- especially when the knife slipped a bit or the paper was still a bit damp with glue and feathered instead of cutting cleanly, it has a pleasingly realistic look. Who among us hasn't had a letter opener tear an envelope instead of slitting it?!
But 250+! that's a lot of tiny envelopes to cut, fold, and glue. I decided this afternoon to experiment, and I used a brown mailer that had come from the UK with some lace-making bobbins I splurged on with my Christmas money. I was already a bit tempted to be daring and omit folding lines entirely, since even fine ones are visible, especially when you don't get the fold quite straight (!), and so I came up with a sort of wide T-shape that with the bottom and sides folded over make good edges -- which is all that will be seen once the cubbies are full -- and don't even need to be slit open at the top. These are a bit fatter than the first day's efforts because of course the brown envelope is thicker paper, and because I decided to use even the parts with stamps and stickers, which help with the illusion that the letter has been opened and has something inside -- the bonus is that thicker ones will also take up more space, hurrah! The next batch I do will be the same "template" but thinner white paper, which does look a bit more realistic.
Now I am going to go outside for a while! We've been having splendid weather lately, as though Nature is consoling us that life is still good -- cold, rainy days interspersed with bright, fresh ones. These are some cirrus clouds on Sunday afternoon --
Wonderfully inventive and with the patience of several saints!
Posted by: Toffeeapple | April 04, 2020 at 10:30 AM