A Rose By Any Other Name...

I have been a little naughty to my loyal readers this month. I have been fighting the good fight and seeing a project at work I have been taking point on get implemented, working out the problems,  soothing frustrations, being a cheerleader, gritting my teeth avoiding defenestrating those who get on that one last nerve I have left (always a good practice regardless of your stress level), and just carrying on as best I can (again, another good practice). Needless to say (yet I am saying it anyway), staring down a computer in my down time has become a little less desirable.   However, guilt weighs heavily, plus I had a chance to play this week, which is a win-win for all, depending on your point of view. 

The journey started when I was looking up putz houses again - yes, something about this time of year makes me want to glitter something (I blame the weather and the sparkly white precipitation we have had a couple of times already this month). I came across an interesting site that had this little beauty on it....

Neat, right? It is a paper recreation of a Christmas Market in Mondorf Germany. I will have to take their word for it, as Google has failed me and I can't for the life of me find an *actual* picture of the town at Christmas time. The actual pattern can be found here . Two things about this project...a) it isn't technically "in scale" or any one scale. It is labelled as "naive" (code word for someone took artistic license and played fast and loose with scale). Secondly, the directions are in German. Not a problem, just learn German ( Or consult a translation service , your choice) and Franz is your onkel. Just be aware, if you do use a translation program, these things don't do well with slang, local idioms, etc., leading to very strange instructions indeed. It reminds me of a joke told once of an English phrase, which was translated to Russian, and back to English. The phrase was "The Spirit is Willing, but the Flesh Is Weak". The final translation at the end was "the booze was good, but the meat is rotten". Granted, this was in the early days of translation software, and it has come a long way from those heady days when your modem went 'screeeeee!' to get you on line, but don't write any legal documents based on the translations, no matter how good they seem at the time.

Without any further ramblings, here is my first foray was the little Karussell (I am betting you won't need a translation). 

I love a good Karussell - it was always my favourite ride at the fair, although it was too tame for most of my peers. Honestly, it was a bit slow for all but the tiniest of riders, but these were horses, and I have a weakness when it comes to the ponies.  To print the patterns, I used cardstock, and I used a fixative on the ink before I started mucking about with it. The little pieces are very finicky and intricate, but are worth a careful effort. 

Having finished my Karussell, I went on to the Das Hafenschlossen (or "The Harbour Castle"). It took me quite a while to cut out the carcass...

 Again, the translations made things a bit slow, and this is what one might call a puzzle. Once it goes together, you say "oh, that is brilliant", but it does take some careful thought. 

A tiny outcropping on the left hand side of the building (no, your other left). This is not your typical square saltbox house, so there are all sorts of interesting architectural manipulations. 

The roof piece, cut out and partially glued. 

The first part of the roof, applied to the carcass. 

This part had me stymied, because there really wasn't any obvious place to put the stripe-y bit that I could see. I realized that I had accidentally tucked a roof piece under where it shouldn't have been too, and once I had my roof  fixed and saw the bare underside I realized  - oh yes - back in the Ol' Kimberley Days, where we had our very own Bavarian City, there were timbers used as decoration for the town square buildings, so what else could the stripe-y bit be? 

Building a tower - this side was trickier than the other tower, as it had 4 different cut outs that were stacked and glued together (the other side only had two and the spire was bigger - truly inspiring...see what I did there? No? okay, continuing on...). Again, I marvel at how well designed this project is, as it went together quite beautifully. 

The spire completed for this side of the Harbour Castle. 

 Building a tower piece for the other side of the castle. 

The second turret with spire. 

Add a couple of balconies, and voila, Das Hafenschlosschen! I will start on the church I think next, probably the second most complicated building. When I relax, obviously, I don't play around!


To get you starting to think about Christmas, I have added today a little video on how to make Christmas Sugar Cookies (by Loida Gracia). Enjoy! 

Until we meet again,  my little darlings!