My Maharajah's Palace-Bazaar-Mini Flower Stall

This post 1st appeared on Day 88 Pt 3 & Day 89 of My Maharajah's Palace:

After I did the post on the flowers from J.J, I decided that I liked the stall so much that I would keep it for a while. I thought I could display it as a centrepiece for my dining table until I eventually build something more permanent for it, if at all.

There were not enough leaves at the stall, so one of the 1st thing I did was to convert this banana leave tray (above, about 10 1/2" long and 1 1/2" wide) into a signboard for the stall. It was inspired by the header at Tallulah-Belle Originals.

Next, I made some sword ferns.

I think I am addicted to the impossible tasks of trying to make fake plastic plants look realistic. These were 1:96 (?) palm trees that came with a packet of plastic animals I bought a while ago. I did my usual spray paint thing and then use a black marker to "draw and smudge" out the veins. Hopefully, one day, I will master the technique but it is useful to record my attempts.

I also made some pruned hedges (pom pom topiaries) for the back of the stall:


For these hedges, I used materials I already owned for ages. The pots were used to store salt. Two of them were mine and the 3rd I stole from mum. Wonder if she found out yet.

As if there is not enough green at the stall, I decided to add one more for Tallulah:

Here's a hectic Tallulah wiping the sweat off her brow and holding a pot of geraniums made by Jayne.

For the structure, I used 2 candle holders and the dome is a coin box I found at Mustapha during one of my 4am sleepless jaunts (20/6).

I have also added different levels to the display of the flowers so that they don't look so flat. I also made one more basket for the leaves and the ground is laid with a bamboo placemat.

Except for the topiary "trees" and the stall frame, I have tried to use material that gives a sense of portability, hopefully to suggest that this is a stall at a bazaar and not a shop. Tallulah is to be able to "pack everything up" at the end of the day, put a chain round all the stools and empty baskets and go home.

This is how my not so temporary flower stall in a bazaar look at the moment.

Except for 2 pairs of dolls, all the "characters have been "modified" to distinguish them from each other. Eventually, I hope to work on their dresses as well so that no 2 are wearing exactly the same clothes.

In this setting (above pic) , we see a bit of a lull at the stall. Most of the customers save for 2 girls, have already finished their purchases at Tallulah's and are on their way. The rest are browsers or chattering. At one corner is our romantic, loving and somewhat clumsy couple, with a new handbag. Her green kerchief is sticking out of her bag.

At the other corner, we see Tallulah. I have displayed all the flowers (except the lotus) made by Jayne on the tray between the girls. Thanks to the lull, she is able to speak to Tulip SriViNa, possibly about how she's looking for a partner, since business is going too well and she can hardly cope.

But actually a customer, standing next to SriViNa is waiting to pay for a bouquet and her basket on her head is getting heavy. If she operates on battery, I would have made her tap her foot impatiently.

Diametrically opposite from SriViNa and standing far far away from her is Saffron Syvia. You guessed it, Tulip Srivina and Saffron Syvia are the Kashmiri Twins. Syvia is talking to one of the Delhi Triplets, possibly about how to make money from saffron.

The rest of the Delhi triplets and their eldest sister are leaving the flower stall, making their way towards the Emperor's Emporium, which is 1 day away.

Standing at the middle of the stall is Moran, the lead dancer of the Nautch Girls from the palace. As she turns around, she catches the lecherous looks of a man whose arm is wound tightly around his girl, giving her a false sense of security. Moran is used to attention like this as her beauty is renowned.

The couple next to Mr Roving Eye are fighting. The lady is upset and the man is trying to explain

why their basket is filled with nothing but toddy. You can see here one of the 2 "shabby" baskets I made.

Here's the other one, carried by another girl riding pillion on a 3rd bicycle.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Eva for her comment on my flower post where I posted the picture below.

My Maharajah's Palace-Tent or The Emperor's Emporium (2)

This post first appeared on Day 76 & 77 of My Maharajah's Palace

LET THERE be light and there was Light, on Day 77.

I don't know why I had "electrifybia", maybe it was because everyone I know told me it's hard. The articles I read said it's a pain . The must-do, must-have list is a mile long and I kept forgetting what they are. Of course, the fact that there is no dedicated dollhouse shops here where I can just buy a pack of "everything -you -need -to -electrify" adds to my dread. That's why it is already Day 77 and I have yet to start on Termite House because everyone says you need to electrify 1st so that all the wires can be hidden behind the wallpaper/ceiling/floor boards.

Many things happened on Day 76. One of them was this strange resolve that I must get the lights done. It suddenly became numero uno on my Urgent-To-Do list after lying dormant for 7 months. Must be the Light Award...Anyway, I took off at 3pm from work and called Treewizard Chris to check where I should go for mini light-fittings. I don't know how but I was persuaded to drop by his place. He said I MUST check out these "fantastic LED lights that turns on when your hand move over the sensor". Wow !! Ok, so I took a cab and rushed down only to be shown this awful gadget. "OMG! It will look like a spaceship stuck on the ceiling of my tent !" I protested! By the way, you turn the lights off with a switch!! Sensor works only with "on". Shikes!

I made Chris give me one of his trees to appease me . So that's the other thing that happened that day.
I got this beautiful Darwin tree in 1:24 scale. It came with a black base which I modified that night so that it looked like a shrub growing up from the floor of the tent. I also added some more moss and the ferns (made by Chris with paper) to the tree.

While I was at it, I also modified the 4 flower pots Mercedes gave me earlier (Day 63) and this is the transformation process:

I didn't like the 1st version so I redid them again.

As you can tell, in line with the yarn factory, I changed the flowers into cotton plants. A very unruly bunch too. I liked using real materials from my garden for plants because you can't make them any more real than that. So the dried leaves, moss, barks are all real. I dried them and painted them a bit but not the fern leaves which are so beautiful just being themselves. Cotton flowers are made with real cotton.

That was some digression but I did say many things happened that day. Back to the lights..

And so, after 2 quick glasses of coke light and a cup of ginger tea with Chris, I went home, dumped my bags and headed straight for Sim Lim Tower, THE place for L.E.D lights. I forgot to mention that both Chris and FaiZ told me to use LED. All this rushing had given me a headache which grew worse at Sim Lim. It is one of those places where everyone there know exactly what they are doing or at least what they want. There I was, not even knowing what to look for! After asking 6 shopkeepers and another call to Chris, I found Shing Lee Hardware (Pte) Ltd.

At first, the lady at the shop was irritated with me because she kept telling me I had to let her know exactly what I need or want done before she could help. Luckily I had the good sense to bring down my "chandeliers" to show her that I wanted to convert them into lights. I also drew for her where I want them placed in the tent with dimensions of the tent.

She warmed up after a while since I was not a complete dud. She's used to working with students in their art projects and told me I made the chandeliers beautifully. I didn't have the heart to tell her they are christmas decor but I did confess that they were not made by me. Anyway, 10 minutes later, she showed me how a row of LED lights could tranform my ornaments into bringers of joy. I am so, so pleased with my lady angel of light. I thanked her like a million times.

What they do is they solder the row of LED lights (these come in multiples of 3 depending on how bright you need them to be) to wires (you have to let them know how long) and then to the adaptor (or power source which already steps up or down the voltage). As my tent will need 3 lights, powered by the same source, her colleague soldered 4 wires together, 3 of which with a row of 6 LED lights and the other with a switch. So when everything was done, they look like this.

I am completely in love with this little switch. He really turned me on! Seriously though, I think I am a lucky gal if little switches can make me so happy. This is where my darling ended up:

It's on the left side of the tent where Chris' shrub is. I made a little cement holder for it with Blu-tack.

I showed SuZ my light fittings and she gave me some suggestions on how to place the bulbs. I went to work on it the very next day after work. And it was easy peasy (Merce), lemonade pancake (Rosanna). Really! I took longer making my Indian stool and for the amount of time I spent on my baskets, I can wire 3 houses, ok, make that 4!

Too bad I can't photograph this better but I swear by LED. They really add a sparkle to hanging lights and they are so unobtrusive, you can't really tell that they are there. I am not sure if they are expensive but here is the breakdown of the costs for everything:

LED lights: S$2 each but she gave me S$6 discount and charged me S$30 for 18 bulbs.
Wires: S$1.50 for the whole lot
Switch:S$1.50
Adaptor:S$15
Labour:S$5
Grand total :S$53.00

This has to be the cheapest therapy ever for my fear is now completely gone. I am already planning to go back to my angel of light with the requirements for Termite House.

After I fixed the lights, I knew I had to change the tent top. This has been the bane and pain of my whole tent experience. Here's the evolution of the tent top:

The black and white one was done by my dear sis, SuZ who gave me a very good structure. I changed the pillow case into a torn white Indian piece (thankful I could never throw away anything Indian even though it was really torn to bits, owned it for 20+ years) that had laces at the fringe and pick the striped orange cloth from SuZ's stash. The top piece is a cloth coaster I bought in Little India for S$1.

In that stash, I found gorgeous cloth samples from India . They were perfectly scaled for mini carpets and so I hung them at the side of the tent where the yarn factory is.

I had wanted to hang coloured threads as Katie had suggested but when I saw these colours, which matched my "Dye" post, I knew I had to use these. So beautiful that all my girls were immediately drawn to the tent. I added uncoloured balls of cotton yarn next to the wheels , ominously, I hope, as a warning to my unsuspecting girls.

On this side, you can also see the subsidiary company of The Emperor's Emporium, "The Emporium Freight Forwarders Co" and here's the ever expanding staff members:

The main change for the left side is the new home for Sissy and of course, my new love, the Switch

The love seats are still there with a new plant.

For the front, I have added a ladder, some pots with ingredients for the dye (left) and cotton plants (right)

For the inside, I have changed the legs to Taenia's table .

The emporium also now sells elephant candle holders standing next to Kiva's perfect pastries.

And I have placed an immaculate beauty Fafa found in my garden, at the feet of Maharajah Ranjit Singh.

I told her I would post it on the blog and claim that I made it . Eat your heart out, Jayne, stamens that you can see!

And so here it is, my Tent project in all it's entirety sitting alongside my next project..

Thank you for being a part of this. I couldn't have done it without you.