Completed Sylvanian Post Office (finally!) and other misc stuff

Wow, it's been a really long time since I updated. I've been in a funk lately, I have no motivation to get anything done. Not having regular hours and feeling lonely can get you down. Oh well, we'll see what the new year brings, I've applied to a few places and we'll see if I land anything more permanent. At the moment I'm not starving or unable to pay bills, and can afford luxuries, so I'm really in a much, much better place than a lot of people. I should be grateful.

Anyway, let's get on to the post office update! Yes, after so long, I've finally completed refurbishing the building. Pictures are worth a thousand words, so here they are. Apologies for the crappy pics and lighting.




This is the thing that took ages for me to finish.



It suffered from a combination of indecision and procrastination. I couldn't decide what to fill the shelves with or how to arrange things to look nice. I originally envisaged little baskets to hold the postcards, but my miniature basket making was fail. For a long time I just spread out the postcards overlapping each other on the top shelf. This thing from Rainy Blues saved me and helped me make that little tray. I encourage anyone who's interested in making little mini boxes and accessories to visit the site, it's awesome. I've got a few different sets of writing paper there too, but they're all hiding under the top sheet :P


Nearly hidden on the right wall we have a poster. The original post office came with a couple of posters so I figure this one should have at least one too.



I love this poster! It's so cute. It's a printout of a real vintage post office poster. While I'm not sure it really fits the overall decor of the post office, I like it enough I don't care. Broken kitty is here to stay!

Now for the inhabitants of this little post office.



Samuel Stamp is the postmaster of this little post office. He stays indoors, doing important Postmastery things. It's nice and warm inside, out of all that rain, sleet and snow that Postman Pete has to bike through. On rainy days he likes to sit with a nice cup of hot chocolate and think of all the rain he's not out in.

This is Postman Pete Petite.



He delivers the mail on his trusty bike. Through rain, sleet or snow and braving hordes of angry dogs, he'll make sure that model of a five tentacled squid with hilarious tentacle movement action you bought on ebay gets to you. Or die trying. He's THAT dedicated guys. This postman is actually the JP version which doesn't come with a bike, unlike the UK version, so I repainted a Bobby Roberts bike I got in a lot. The parcel actually fits in the police bike basket, whereas the UK postman bike has a basket that's too small for the parcel the set comes with.

Time to take care of the customers.





Anyway, this ends the post office update. Now I just need to finish all the other buildings I'm currently working on. Eeep.

I've also been working on some Valentine heart cookies. I'm hoping to get these to the dollhouse shop at Strathalbyn in time for them to sell. If I manage to finish on time this will be my first sale. Or trade. Because they have some stuff I'd be willing to trade for...




I love craft sand. It simulates sugar so well, and looks so good on the cookies IMHO. Craft sand proved to be a PIA to find online when I was looking. Everything was either huge bags for wedding decorations or cost more than I wanted to pay. Eventually I found a local seller who was selling sand art kits with included an assortment of tiny little bags of sand. Jackpot! The amounts of sand in those little bags were just the right amount I needed for small projects and will probably last me quite a while. I'm just sad there was no black sand in the set he gave me though.

This cookie project is also the first time I plucked up enough courage (yeah, I'm afraid of everything  so sometimes it takes me ages to try something because I feel so apprehensive of failure) to try using mini piping bags to do the piping work instead of using a pin like I had been doing before. The pin in the photo is just for scale this time! Anyway, I find using the piping bag easier than the pin. My biggest problem is shaky hands that make the piping work look lumpy and uneven. Practice, practice, practice!

Btw, after taking that picture I accidentally put my thumb on that cookie and messed it up.


Horror game stuff ahead:

I've been playing a PSP visual novel type game called Corpse Party. It's a really good and very, very creepy game. Just looking at  it, you wouldn't think that it'd be capable of being creepy. It uses 2D sprites and backgrounds and anime style artwork. The creep factor is really in the great sound work (voice acting, sound effects) and the descriptions of various things a in the room your character is in. You can't really see most of what is described to you, but I think it enhances the horror factor by forcing you to use your imagination.



The general storyline goes like this: A group of students are telling ghost stories after school, and then decide to perform a ritual that will ensure their friendship for years to come. There is a sudden earthquake and they wake up in Heavenly Host Elementary, a school that had been destroyed years ago. Now they have to find a way out, and figure out why they are here.

My description really doesn't do the game justice. All I recommend is picking this up and playing it through if you like horror and are prepared to do a lot of reading. Be warned though, this game is not about usual gameplay, but about atmosphere. Also, if you play this game, you must do so with a good set of headphones to get the full effect. The sound work is really integral to the mood of the game. Voices of the dead will speak to you from nowhere, sounding like they are right there in the same room as you, laughter and cries will flow from one side of your headphones to the other, like something invisible just passed you. Yeah, I'm not really good at this description thing. Anyway, I love this game and I'm about to start the last chapter.*hearts*