After such an exhausting Wool Week, it's been nice to rest for a few days. I think I'm finally feeling more like myself, though, so I thought it's a good time to post photos of the Wool Shop.
I've been working on items for the Wool Shop since February (with a lot of help from friends), and a lot of items have been picked up from various stores or homemade. For the shop itself, the walls were foam core (white) and laminate sheeting for counter tops (modeled grey). The floor is made of two pices of wood-planking laminate found at ReStore. More details about the setup of the actual area later, but this entry will go through all of the items and display pieces used in the shop.
Below are slideshows of photos showing different sections of the shop and the various items and accessories used. I'll try to answer all of the questions people have been asking, but if you're still wondering about something in particular, don't hesitate to leave a comment and ask about it!
The photos above show the counter area where customers paid for their items.
- The counter was homemade out of some old wood and pieces of a vintage wooden cigar box.
- The posters were printed at home. I rolled some of them (the ones that were for sale) and wrapped them in cling wrap. Other posters are just decorating the walls and the counter.
- The postcard rack was a replacement part from Nanea's Family Market, and I printed the postcards on white cardstock here at home.
- The little sign holders (seen here with a sign that says "postcards") are more replacement parts from Nanea's market. We printed signs to fit in and "laminated" them with strapping tape to make them durable (these also worked on the sides of the baskets and tubs with the aid of a little tacky).
- The clipboard came from Dollar Tree in the desk supplies aisle.
- The sheep toys are Calico Critters or some kind of knock-off that we found as a lot on eBay. They are displayed in the bottom half of the picnic hamper from Lea's Rainforest House.
The photos in the slideshow above show the display area for finished products and brochures. The counters are two of the Sweet Treats Bakery counters.
- The brochures are more home-printed pieces. These are available from the "The Independent Stitch", a website run by one of the authors of the amazing Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook.
- There are mini paper fact sheets featuring the 25 rarest breeds on the conservation list of the RBST. These were made using screen caps and pictures from their website.
- Entry forms are on little clipboards made of craft foam sheets and alligator clips.
- Doll-sized wool socks were hand knitted using Knit Picks Palette yarn and the "Stacy & Stella Cozy Feet" knitting pattern available on PixieFaire.com.
- Truannie's knitted hat and blanket set were also made with Palette yarn, but no pattern was used. I just made these using Truannie as a model.
- The sheep cheeses are pieces of French Brie (Grace's Bistro Set) and Cheddar Cheese (Blaire's Restaurant) displayed in a cake stand from Grace's Bakery Cart.
- The wool kitty and sheep are needle-felted animals made a while ago. The sheep was made following instructions from the book called "Wool Pets" by Laurie Sharp.
- Yarn skeins were made using various wool yarns and are displayed on a cute little wooden stand that came from a rummage sale.
- Lanolin Cream jars are something fun to make. I posted a tutorial during Wool Week, so if you'd like to learn how to make some of these, you can click here.
- The painted canvas is a real painting based on illustrations from Barbara Cooney's The Ox-Cart Man.
- The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook was also handmade, using pictures of a real one, Photoshop, a printer and a lot of glue stick.
The slideshow above shows a lot of close-up photos of the Wool Wall. The wall itself was made using a vintage curio shelf (the kind that has a groove in the back where a mirror would have been). We covered a piece of foam core with scrapbook paper to match the building from Blaire's Restaurant. (What you can't see is that we put on a large piece of wood-plank-looking laminate on as a backer, which means you can turn this around to use as a wall for other setups.)
- The square and rectangular metal baskets used to hold wool curls and large balls of roving are silver mesh kitchen drawer organizers from The Container Store.
- The round mesh baskets came Dollar Tree in the office supply department (desk organizers).
- The mesh container holding the coloured roving balls in the centre area is actually made of three rectangular desk organizer trays (also from Dollar Tree) which are wired together.
- The white tubs/bins along the bottom shelf are another great find from The Container Store. These are over in the desk organizing area and cost $1.00 each.
- The signs are more of the printed and laminated signs made to fit the holders from Nanea's Family Market. A small piece of plain tacky sticks them to any bin or basket and peels right off when done.
- All of the wool dolls are handmade and depicting various characters from books and movies. (Each doll has a wrapped wire armature for the body, handsewn and embroidered clothes, needle-felted wool heads and hair.)
- The white metal rack that holds the wool dolls is a vintage wall pocket rack turned wrong side out.
And the last corner of the Wool Shop is actually the entrance! This area used Blaire's Restaurant for the walls -- with the various frames and restaurant paintings covered over with Wool Week posters.
- The Leicester Longwool locks were displayed on a little wooden crate (picked up at a rummage sale) and in one of the metal baskets from Dollar Tree. That's a piece of a cypress knee in the corner for decoration, and another little garage sale find for the wooden shelf/rack on the window ledge.
- Colourful shopping tubs came from the Summer department at Hobby Lobby, and the metal shopping baskets were in the kitchen department at Olde Time Pottery.
- The "Baa" sheep sign in the window and the sheep-themed chalkboard sign came from the going-out-of-business sale at Pat Catan's craft store.
- Customers were offered little white bags with silver string handles (seen hanging on the oven mit hooks on the side of the Sweet Treats Bakery counter). These were found in the bridal department at either Pat Catan's or Hobby Lobby.
Hopefully, this shows everything of interest in the shop and answers all questions -- but if I forgot to mention something that you'd like to know about, please just leave a comment and ask!
More behind-the-scenes photos of Wool Week coming soon . . .
More behind-the-scenes photos of Wool Week coming soon . . .