Behind the Scenes

With the Forest Dweller Christmas story having come to an end, it's time to take a look at some Behind the Scenes secrets.

I started by creating a huge set with a living room at one end, and a kitchen at the other. I didn't have much in the way of furniture the correct scale, since the standard quarter scale would be too big, yet dollhouse scale would be too small. So, I tried to use in-between size furniture for tables and chairs, yet used some of the smaller, quarter scale stuff around the walls.  Fireplaces can be any size, so it was in the middle, with my 'Victorian' wall on the the living room side, and the 'Woodcutter's Cottage' wall on the kitchen end....

Taking a closer look at the living room. I included a piano and harp since I was originally intending to have everyone singing together, but changed my mind. They were never used.

I loved the kitchen end of the set. It was also a better scale.

I had been photographing my tiny gourds for another project and was fed up with all the holes. The gourds had come strung together as a garland, and each one had two big holes. So I decided to fill all the holes with Apoxy and then hide them with paint. Yes, it was quite a bit of work, but I was fed up, and with the way time flies they'd be done in no time anyways. So, worth the effort....

When I got to photographing the second set of guests travelling in the snow, I wanted to do something different, so asked Jan if he could make me a small wooden door - which he did.  I panted it, and added a doorknob and leather 'hinges'....

I placed the door against the base of our crabapple tree, and added some trees and props, to create the front entrance to Chip and Jo's home. ​​

In the kitchen scenes I mostly use existing food props, but sometimes I'll use unbaked polymer clay to help create more 'realism'.  Like when Muffy was making a pie. The rolled out dough and pie crust are unbaked polymer clay, while the raspberries are existing baked fruit. After the photo shoot, the unbaked polymer clay gets put back into my supply container.

For the story about Tiana's cookies, I started with a cookie cutter set from a doll accessory package from Walmart. It came with 'rolled out dough', a cutter, and the 'cookies' actually pop out.....

For the burnt cookies I rolled out some dark brown polymer clay and cut it with the same cookie cutter, then added a bit of brown paint to the cookie sheet, and added some 'smoke' in Photoshop.

Then another colour polymer clay for the properly baked cookies. I don't bother baking the various cookies, but just scrunch it up again afterwards and put it back in the storage containers.

I didn't have a complete story planned ahead in my mind, but just went along with whatever inspired me at the time. After the menfolk's games turned to strip poker, and they were all naked, I thought it would be fun to have them go take a sauna.  But that meant I'd have to make one.

I took a small, square, shipping box, and transformed it into a small hut.  Then took some calendar cardboard to fashion a roof. Then painted both, adding some fancy embellishment...

I varnished the roof and the base of the hut to help protect them against the snow.  I didn't varnish the walls, as the corrugated cardboard reacted to the varnish forming unsightly 'ripples', and I didn't want those all over the walls. But the base and roof would be in contact with the snow.

Then I used duct tape to attach the wooden door, took everything outside, and created the scene in the snow....

The inside of the sauna was another matter.  I really didn't feel like making a fake wooden interior, but then Jan brought a small wooden bookcase.  I'm always up for anything that doesn't require a lot of work on my part, and this was the perfect size.....

He'd just finished making a new table and benches, and the benches fit perfectly inside, and we found some smooth stones.  They were a bit big in my opinion but there was no choice since everything outside was buried under a deep layer of snow. So they had to do....

Then by taking a close up photo and adding some 'steam' in Photoshop, it looked perfect....

When it came time to shoot the dinner, I couldn't decide how or where to place the table.  I tried several layouts, but the set with the living room and kitchen just wasn't conducive to having a formal dinner.  So I took the entire set apart, and started from scratch and made a formal dining room instead.  This time I used both Victorian walls. I moved the Christmas tree to the other side of the room, added a different carpet, and some more formal furniture around the perimeter. 

The table was just the right size for all the characters, but it wasn't going to hold much 'food', so I added two sideboards for all the desserts....

With a set this big, the best photos are always the ones taken close up at the doll's eye level....

I wanted something more interesting after dinner, other than the guests just leaving, so came up with the idea of the ladies relaxing in a hot tub while the menfolk took care of cleaning up.  But how to make a hot tub?  I wasn't about to submerge all the ladies in real water.

So I took a cookie tin. I made a raised false bottom at a sitting depth for the larger ladies.  Then I took two sheets of plastic wrap, and crumpled a third layer between them, and taped it over the top of the cookie tin. Then I laid out a row of parquet flooring onto a strip of duct tape, and wrapped it, with tape on the inside, around the tin, securing it with two elastic bands.

​Then I cut small holes in the plastic wrap so I could slip in the dolls.  Then sprinkled some clear beads on top to simulate bubbles.

I took everything outside and set up the tub under the bridal wreath bush.  It had been a 'warm' sunny day, so the snow was very wet, and not very easy to work with. I had wanted soft fine snow that I could sprinkle on the tiny trees, but the snow was way too wet. 

I hung three little lights in the branches above them and took the photos. Then to make it look more like it was nighttime, I had to darken the images and add lens flares to the lights...and some add steam...

I had considered that it might be fun to photograph the menfolk cleaning up after dinner, but I didn't get the idea for the hot tub and cleanup until after I thought I was done with all the photography, and I'd already cleaned all that up so I could set up the formal dining room.  I really didn't want to have to set up that entire kitchen set again from scratch, so decided to just skip it. Making a hot tub was one thing, but forget redoing that entire kitchen! 

*Anyways, the whole story is now up in it's entirety in Favourite Photos 2022....
A Forest Dweller Christmas