Bread experiments

I made some bread over the past few days to replace the awful, awful looking baked goods that came with my Sylvanian Village Bakery. I'm not sure I've been entirely successful. I don't really like the look of my bread, but I think that the short loaves in the middle with the little cuts in them look okay. I still haven't been able to make my bread look as realistic as I like. Also, on the right are my attempts at the 'flour dusted loaf'. Er... yeah... not quite a success yet. But I'll keep trying!

My baguettes are also too fat for their height. I admit, I really don't know bread. I grew up just eating supermarket white bread, and the occasional pandan flavoured loaf. Bread just wasn't a big part of my home food life. It wasn't until I came to Australia last year that I saw a bakery with flour dusted loaves. Maybe there were some in Brunei too, but I never really paid much attention, heh. To me bakeries were all about the curry puffs and yam basket pastries.

My chalk pastel tends to rub off the things I make. I had to seal the bread with varnish to make sure nothing would come off and stain the paper on my bakery shelves. I have no idea why, chalk pastel is supposed to bake into the clay and not come off. Someone suggested maybe it was cheap pastels? I don't think so though, because I know of two prominent artists who use the same brands of pastels that I do. I'm starting to wonder if my oven thermometer's lying to me and my oven's still not hot enough. -_- Aiyeeee... I guess for now I'll continue varnishing my minis. At least the pastel can't come off after that.

I posted a review of my Sylvanian School Master's set on the Sylvanian Families forums.



One of my favourite sets! I'm glad I managed to get it from the second round of BeHappy's budget items offer. I'd missed it during the first round.

My favourite items have got to be these:



I mean look at them! Mini flasks and test tubes *squees* I'm going to have to cast the test tubes in resin to see if I can make some with coloured 'chemicals' inside them.

My next favourite item is the chalk box with the individual pieces of chalk.



They fit perfectly on the blackboard of my little mini school XD That bottle on the far right is apparently a bunsen burner. I would have included it in the picture of the test tubes if I had realised. I thought it was ink or correction fluid or something.

More loot

I'm greedy...

I bought some more toys when BeHappy added more things to their budget corner. Some of these are kinda rare, and to get them at the price I did, I'm really happy. These would have cost a lot more had I paid full price or ebay prices on them. I've been opening them slowly, a few ever other day so I don't get overwhelmed and it feels like I'm getting a present every few days XD It's an awesome feeling.

I'm glad I got that kitchen set on the upper left. I'd been having some problems fitting my existing kitchens in the house I repainted, and this new kitchen fitted perfectly. :) I wouldn't have bought that kitchen if it hadn't been on sale. I already have too many kitchens -_-



My husband also bought me the Sylvanian Village Bakery, something I've wanted since I first saw it a few years ago. We got it NRFB from within Australia and at below retail price, so I'm really happy. It's even more awesome than I thought it would be! I was so giddy with glee when I unboxed it. Granted, it does have its flaws, but I love it just the same.

Now that the Pinky St contest is over, I'll have more time for my other projects. I'm going to give the bakery a slight over haul and hopefully touch it up enough for it to look more realistic. I've already started remodelling some of the smaller items from the bakery like the cans, which were a bland matte plasticky gray. I just spray painted it chrome. I'm working on that jam jars now which have the same plasticky problem.



I haven't been in the best of moods lately, and one of the reasons is that a Sylvanian I bought recently turned out to be damaged. I didn't want to talk about this publicly as I didn't want to bring bad publicity to the seller as it really isn't their fault, but after thinking about it I doubt I'd do much if any damage at all.

I bought a Sylvanian dog teacher set which came with a little mini school house and a dog teacher figurine. There were three of them at the seller's shop and they were listed at a discount because of damaged packaging. You're allowed to choose exactly which box you want. Just my luck, I chose the one where the figurine had somehow had parts of its flocking melted off onto the packaging surrounding it. I think exposure to light and reactions with the plastic packaging did it. :(





I contacted the sellers about it and they were good enough to offer me a similar figurine as compensation. This figure is the maron dog mother, and they suggested that I could swap out the the dress she comes in for the dog teacher's clothing as the figures were 'the same'.

The figures are not the same though, the dog teacher is a darker colour, has a thinner head and is slightly smaller than the mother. Not very huge differences and many people wouldn't even notice, to be honest, but the differences would bother me, I think.



Also I already have an extra maron mother dog--I bought that the first time I got stuff from them. I've decided to ask them if I could get another different figure from their budget corner instead.



My dog teacher with accessories from another set that I'm gonna review in a few days. The damage is on the back and on the other side of his face.

I'm looking for ways to disguise the damage on the dog's face now, I was considering bandages :P

Okasaneko's Blog Giveaway

This post is for Okasaneko Chronicles's Blog Giveaway for the blog's 3rd anniversary. I've been reading her blog for the past few weeks, and it's cute, insightful and inspirational. I'm not really good at describing this, so why don't you head over and see for yourself :)

Loot :P

I had intended on updating earlier, and now it's November :/ I've wallpapered the house, but I'm not really satisfied with the way it looks and am considering re-papering the kitchen. Wallpapering is amazingly time consuming. Making the initial templates with strips of paper, then using those to make sturdier templates with card stock. After that trimming the cutout wallpaper pieces in order to make them fit better. I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but I haven't thought of it yet...

The dollhouse project is on hold while I prepare for the Pinky St contest. I hope I get my entry done on time :s Deadline's the 11th.Too much procrastination from this person.

Anyway I wanted to blog about my recent acquisitions :D

My hubby got me some Re-Ment for my birthday from Angolz. I will never choose that site to shop from again. =_= Their customer service is HORRIBLE. They take days to answer enquiries or tell you something is out of stock, list things that are unavailable as being available, and then fail to give the correct refund amount back, and neglect to adjust shipping as required. They still owe the hubby $5 but he's sick of chasing them around so he's letting it go. Angolz is dodgy as hell.



I'm going to have to take better more detailed photos of the sets after the Pinky contest :P

I got the European Grandma and Cooking with Teddy sets! I'm really happy with the European Grandma set, it's awesome! I love all the little utensils, pots, cans and plates. My only complaint is that some of the items may be a little on the large side.

The Teddy set disappointed me a little. There seems to be less items per set, and some of the items on the bears are not removable.




I got a pile of Sylvanian stuff from the budget corner of BeHappy. This area of the store stocks items that have had their boxes damaged, items missing or the product itself damaged in some way at a discounted price. Some of the discounts are really good, and I chuck the boxes most of the time anyway. I didn't get everything I wanted, but I got quite a good chunk anyway.

The customer service at BeHappy's really good, they answer emails really fast and are polite and friendly. They are even sending me another Sylvanian polar bear because they sent me the wrong one. Honestly, I hadn't even noticed. They were identical damaged sets, and only the damaged spots were different. I love BeHappy!

All this stuff is making me feel really, really spoiled and greedy =_= I feel rather guilty for spending this much money and for asking for such an expensive present, even though the hubby says it's okay... :/ Actually, I feel best when I'm modifying or creating something and it turns out good. There's nothing like the satisfaction of completing a project and seeing the thing you've envisioned in your mind in good solid reality. I also don't feel so bad about the money I've spent when it's for a project. I feel like I'm really putting the money to good use. Just collecting makes me feel rather guilty. Looks like I'm gonna have to modify some of the things I just bought! JI wish I could find second hand cheap Sylvanian doll houses in Lincoln. Like in the op shop or in a garage sale or something. That would be awesome.