Forward & Backward

Whew!  It seems as if Halloween was just a few short days ago and here it is almost Thanksgiving!  If you're worried that I'm going to torture you with another Top-Ten List of Pilgrim Dolls, fear not, beleaguered Readers, I shan't go there!  My Library is coming along, however slowly...ugh! it's a long story but let me fill you in on what I've managed to accomplish.

First of all, I'm hooking up the lights and chandeliers.  This is never an easy task for me and it inevitably   involves lots of colorful cursing from your intrepid reporter as I fumble to hold onto those damned brass pins!

I decided the Library would have two chandeliers centered on the bookshelves.  I'm not quite ready to build my own fixtures from jewelry findings --yet!  (Some day, perhaps...) But to save a little ching, I revamped some 'stock' fixtures.

So here's one of the little chandeliers I picked up.  It has tiny, gold chains you can just make out in my horrid photo.  I removed these chains and replaced them with strands of glittering Swarovski crystal beads, which I think are much more glam than gold chain, don't you think?

There were extra beads so I added swags of them between the arms of the fixture --because a chandelier can never be too sparkly, right?

Here they are, sort of  semi-installed.  I accidentally broke one of the bulbs because I thought they were bi-pin and --duh!-- they are actually a screw-in type bulb and so instead of screwing the bulb in tighter when it turned itself off I fiddled with it and now I think the glass part of the bulb broke off from the little metal socket part.  UGH!  NOW how am I going to get it out??? 

So this is the sofa I have picked out...I had made a Chippendale-style camel back number from a kit and it turned out pretty well, but it just seemed a little --I don't know-- stodgy.  My original plan was to make the Library a little old-fashioned, done up in an earlier Georgian style but when I put this sexy Recamier in place I was smitten! 

Of course that means I have to go back to the drawing board on all the other furnishings and even the curtains I painstakingly Pretty-Pleated will have to be re-vamped, I'm afraid...but oh well, it's not a race, right?

Hey...if I don't see you, have a lovely Thanksgiving holiday to all the American miniaturists out there in blogland...here's my favorite Thanksgiving clip (only a teensy bit scary, I promise)!