Diorama Experiments and New Hobbies

I've been experimenting a bit with diorama making recently and have discovered a few things.

Having sold off a few dolls (unstrung in smaller boxes because shipping from here is ridiculous), I had empty doll boxes just lying around. Normally I would break these down and recycle them but I decided to cut them up and use them for a small diorama.

What I learned was that, glue warps foamboard and cardboard, even the tough hard cardboard used for doll boxes. In conclusion, wood is the best option.

My first diorama (on the screen left) was made from one of those storage boxes for hats. The second diorama  was made from foam board.The third and most recent diorama was made from cardboard (the hard type used for doll boxes - screen right).

You can see the warping from the glue on the floorboards on the third diorama. This is why I think a thin type wood will give a much better result making the floor more stable for the dolls to stand on.

Even with heavy books placed on top during the drying process, the floor still warped.

Scale wise, even with my Cu-poche girl standing on a chair, it still works great for this size. As long as my Pureneemo is on the XS body, this scale works fine but because of the floor warping, dolls and figures tend to be a bit unstable and fiddly to pose.

The plan is to pick up some wood this coming week and have hubby cut it to scale next weekend and start work on the floor boards. I also want walls that can be folded (flat packed) for better storage. My first two dioramas didn't have this and as a result, that second one was pulled down (nowhere to store it and was too big). It needs to be able to be stored easily (60L container) when not in use. So my idea is trying to use some sort of hinging to join the two walls together (kind of like the hinging you see on doors).

I have a bookshelf in pieces on the table right now waiting for the paint to try before I can put it together to actually look like a bookshelf. I'll see how that goes.

Not like I need anymore hobbies but I picked up a Monster High Mega Bloks set and a Friends Lego set earlier in the week.

This was so much fun to put together. (The flower pot and watering can were not part of the set. They came with a Hello Kitty set but the grass from that set was missing so I used it in Ghoulia's lab to spice things up.)

I'm not collecting this particular line but I wanted this recording studio specifically because it reminded me so much of the Sims Superstar expansion (I think Sims 1?). I loved putting this one together.

I've already got my wishlist in to the hubby for Christmas.