Since I’m Olde™ and really don’t need anything these days, it makes buying me presents for my birthday and Christmas somewhat challenging. If I can’t get some sort of an experience I try to make it easier on the Brit by finding something cute on Amazon and sending him a link. Last year, I got a really cool skull cup for my birthday, but I was kind of stumped for Christmas.

And then I saw it.

As you may remember, Bob, I’m a miniaturist from way back. And last year there was a huge craze for super cute book nook scenes that you could build and put on your bookshelf. So I thought, yes, this would be an appropriate Christmas gift for me.

So the Brit dutifully ordered it and wrapped it for Christmas, and I was delighted to open it Christmas morning. It was brought upstairs and sat there until yesterday when I was cleaning the bedroom and thought, “Hmm, I’d like to take a crafting break from the quilt. I should put this together.”

Dude. Dude. First off, the kit was of very nice quality and comes with almost everything you need, including glue, paint, and an eensy paintbrush. The instructions, which appear to have been translated from Chinese, are a little dodgy here and there (the glue was labeled as “latex” and I was using my own glue until the light dawned halfway through the kit, and it keeps saying to paint the “frames” of a piece where it should be “edges”) but the pictures are good enough to figure out what to do. It also helps that I’ve been building miniature kits for over 45 years.

The only problem for me? The kit is roughly in 1/24 scale which means there are a buttload of tiny parts, including a lot of printed cardboard ones, and I have at least one cat who loves to chew on paper. This means I have to keep the office door closed, and it’s cold out here right now in north Dallas so without heat from the main house my office is more than a bit chilly. I’ve been wearing a cardigan and looking wistfully at my fingerless gloves but I can’t wear them while handling glue and paint.

So far I have the kit halfway constructed (and it has a COOL lighting system where an induction pad connected to the hidden battery box is screwed behind the little stepped wooden piece at the bottom of the front. I was wondering why they’d printed the On symbol on a piece of wood, but if you turn on the battery box and touch the symbol with your finger it turns on the lights. I so could have used this tech 14 years ago when I was building the Nevermore shadow box, but now that I know it exists I will be using it on the book nooks I’m going to create from scratch, tra la.

Anyway, pics are incoming once I finish the kit. And figure out where to place it, of course.