A Queen's Library!

Evangeline and I are getting bored of playing in the same space over and over again so plans are underway to construct my vision of what the library at Barkley Manor would look like.  I've been thinking about doing this for a long time but have been dragging my feet because I know that the space needed to do this would require major reorganization of my doll/craft room, not a task that I was looking forward to but it's finally done, and now I'm ready.

The first step was to look for inspiration.  If you google image search "gothic library" you will see some amazing eye candy.  There were many that inspired me but ultimately this is the one that really spoke to me and really embodied what I think the library at Barkley would look like.  It somehow manages to be cozy in it's creepiness, just like Evangeline herself:

Evangeline lives in the attic of the manor but I imagine she does sometimes wander through the deserted house, looking at relics from long-passed relatives, none of whom she ever knew, wondering what they were like.  So my goal is to create a room of elegance, gothic and creepy, but also cozy.  It needs to be a cozy room where Evangeline will go when there is a storm outside and she needs a comfortable chair to sit in and listen to the wind-driven rain but at the same time elegant enough to host Mortimer and his uncle for a glass of wine after midnight services at the local cemetery. 

I want this project to be a real room, not just a cross-section of one so it needs to be significantly larger than the attic I built.  As a result, I will not be able to build it entirely out of wood like I did the attic. That would require wood-working and architectural skills that I don't have.  But, I did remember that in a corner of my own attic there is a table top to an old victorian dining table.  I don't know whose it was or how it got there but it was there when we moved in.  I tried to move it once when I was cleaning the attic and it is extremely heavy.  I have decided that it will be the base that I build the library on.  I hauled the table out of the attic and set it up in the room where it will now live.  It was missing two of it's legs so I used a card table for it's base:

Once I had the floorprint of the room it was time to overcome one major obstacle: the books.  You might think that's a small detail to be worried about once the room is built but have you ever looked into buying small books as props?  It turns out you can spend as much as your heart desires, and then some, but it's not easy to find them cheaply.  I have been looking for months for a cheap supplier of small finished books and I have come up with nothing.  I went to the Brimfield antique show and found a dealer with a complete set of miniature Shakespeares that I thought would be perfect…they were $2,000!  I decided Evangeline didn't like Shakespeare anyway.   Del Prado has a line of miniature books in the $7-$10 range but they are too thick to be the correct scale. The cheapest ones I found that worked were $5 each - still way too much for me to stock a library with.  I decided there was no point in pursuing this project if I couldn't come up with a source of books.  This brings me to my first project: book making.  And LOTS of it!

Credit goes to Leo for suggesting I use "fun foam" as the pages.  Fun Foam can be found in sheets at craft stores like Michael's or online.  I bought both white and tan fun foam sheets and found the tan ones looks most like an antique book in the finished product.  If you want to make faux mini books en masse, here's what I used to do it:

fun foam sheets
paper trimmer
bone folder
staples
old books

1) First, decide on the trim size of your book.  For my first series of books I chose 2.25" x 1.5".  Using the paper trimmer first cut strips of 2.25" and then cut those strips into 1.5" pages.  My paper trimmer did not cut all the way through the foam but it "scored" it well enough so I was able to just pull it apart:

once you cut your strips into pages, stack as many as you want to get the book as thick as you would like. I used 4 pieces for all of my books.  Tap one long end on the table to get it perfectly lined up and put a staple in the other end to secure it:

To make a cover for the book, you could use most any kind of paper: construction paper, wallpaper, scrapbook paper, etc.  I really want to get the look of old books for Evangeline's library so I have chosen to use the book cloth that lines antique books.  You can find old books anywhere; yard sales, books sales, antique stores, etc, usually very inexpensively.  I have chosen several books that have very dusty looking covers.  Begin by running an exacto knife or straight edge razor down the inside spine of the front and back of the book:

This will separate the pages of the book from the cover.  It will also make it easy for you to remove the book cloth from the cardboard of the cover.  With antique books the glue that binds the book cloth to the cardboard cover is usually so dry that you can peel the book cloth right off.  In the case of The Life of Aaron Burr Volume 1, here is what I was left with:

Using my paper trimmer (you could use an exacto knife and ruler if you don't have one) I trimmed the book cloth into 2.25" strips to match the height of my books.  Cut pieces of the strips and staple them to the "book".  It doesn't matter if you cover the book entirely with the book cloth unless you want to display the books on a table or in the doll's hands.  These books that I am making are just filler so they just need to fool the eye.  Here is a close up of a finished book:

and here is what a bunch of them look like on the book shelf:

As you can see, I have mixed in some of the manufactured books I bought to give it variety but using these "books" as filler will stretch my dollar much further and enable me to fill three of these shelving units.  The shelving units, by the way, are golf ball display cabinets with the glass doors removed, the unit turned upside down so the golf ball indentations are on the bottom of the shelves and not visible, and with a few coats of American Masters Walnut Spray Paint to make them darker.

Well, now I have books and book shelves.  Now on to building the room, just as soon as I make about   600 more of these little books....

A Tale of Two Critters

Later that week, Evangeline was getting ready to go out to the annual Mortician's Assistant's Gala Dinner, which was conveniently being held at Ipswich Grand Hotel that year.  She was, of course, going alone.  Still, as she did every year, she made herself a smashing new gown.

As she finished getting ready, Valentine and Mouette watched from an old rocking chair, holding hands and looking very innocent.

"I know that look, you two.  I've seen that innocent look on your faces before and the last time I did I came home to find half the skunks in Ipswich Wood and seventeen stray cats dancing in the rafters of my attic!  It took nearly three weeks to get the smell out.  Tonight I'm going out to the Mortician's Assistant's Gala Dinner and I don't want any trouble."

As Evangeline turned to leave, Valentine jumped off the rocking chair and climbed up a stack of shoe boxes so she would be tall enough to get Evangeline's attention.  She presented Evangeline with a corsage that she and Mouette had made for her earlier that day with the last rose of summer from the gardens at Barkley Manor.

It almost made Evangeline cry.  Who needed Mortimer when she had friends like Mouette and Valentine?  Evangeline showed off her corsage before heading off to the gala.

As soon as the door closed Valentine was walking the rafters:

and Mouette was going through Evangeline's desk:

At last!  The keys to the curio!

They immediately set about stacking up hat boxes and shoe boxes and storage boxes from all over the attic until they had a stack tall enough for Mouette to climb and unlock the curio door:

Valentine stood on the sidelines, cheering him on!  At last the curio was open but Mouette lost his balance and...

...all you could see was his tail and his tiny hand.  Once they had cleaned up the mess they stood in awe of Evangeline's hats and jewelry:

and then the fun began...

But for every hat and pair of shoes they tried on, there was another even more beautiful:

and another:

until finally, exhausted, they fell asleep in a most impressive mountain of borrowed hats, shoes, and jewelry:

Just before dawn Evangeline returned from the gala:

and stifled a laugh:

and realized she better hide her curio keys in a better place.  The End.


Making this entry was seriously fun.  What we all wouldn't give to go into Evangeline's attic, find the keys to her curio, and try on her hats and jewelry.  And if you don't have the critters yet, let me just say they are so unbelievably cute I don't know how or why I thought I could do without them.