Friday, October 14, 2016

The Making of "First Edition Books"


Hey guys, Jess here. This month I'm bringing you the biggest project I've ever made. While it's closest to 1:24 scale, so relatively small in scale, it's a whole shopfront and will be rather tall when finished. I'm using GSLC products to accent this historical shopfront as well as for the shop windows and the apartment windows above the shop itself.

I've built the shop entirely from foam, just playing with layering and sanding with my nail file. It's all pink insulation foam and foam core from the dollar store. Right now it's incredibly light, but as I add mortar, paint, and other fun items, it will get heavier.

I don't plan things. I'm a fly by the seat of my pants crafter. I tend to write things down as I'm in the process of doing them so I'll remember for next time or take pictures as I do them to remind myself - so nothing is measured. This is all just "Hey let's add another layer here" sort of crafting.

If I can pass anything on to you as a crafter in working with foam - it's to always work with a sharp blade. If you don't, the foam will "pill" and it will annoy the flying crappola out of you and might wreck your project. Luckily foam is cheap and you can try again. It's so much cheaper and easier to work with than even the balsa wood you can get from the hobby store.


I cut the base out of pink insulation foam and then sliced out strips of white foam to build up on top of the pink. It took me a lot of research into historical shopfronts. I actually got my husband to drive around the local small towns and we took pictures of the decorative shopfronts and I did some architectural research. And then I added foam as I felt necessary.


I found these letters at the dollar store - I really kind of hate the R, but there's nothing to be done for it. If I ask GSLC nicely enough and often enough, maybe they'll make me some lovely letters for my next shop (hint hint!)


Then I built up the foam some more into a sort of crown molding shape. I'm really quite pleased with myself on this one. Hurray for winging it!


I drew out a brick design on both sides behind the storefront and carved them out using my craft knife.


I painted the six panel windows a base of black, both sides and in between all the panels.


I found and used a clear product packaging leftover for the panels of the windows and cut it to shape and then glued it in place.


I liked the old apothecary set and used them as decorative elements on the bottom of the storefront and above the door as the number plate.



I added some Polly Filla to the top of the foam to connect all the bits and pieces together because I so did not measure anything correctly in any sense of the word.




Then I base painted the whole of the storefront black.



It kept toppling over on me, and in my infinite crafty wisdom, I added a sidewalk base.


I thought the Victorian elements looked a little Celtic, so I went with a green and gold Celtic feel to the storefront. Green base and gold elements. 


I used liquid gold-leaf on all of the chipboard elements. It's fantastic stuff, but it's stinky - like nail polish.


Then I textured and painted the sidewalk.

Check back with me on the 28th of October for pictures of the finished project!

Materials Used

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