Nanetta: Paper Houses

Nanetta: Paper Houses: "It looks like someone is having a garage sale or a fight. The disarray makes me giggle. This photo shows the collection of miniature furnit..."

Paper Houses

It looks like someone is having a garage sale or a fight. The disarray makes me giggle. This photo shows the collection of miniature furniture that has built up over the weekend. Each item is cut many times until it is easy to fold and glue.

See the wagon? It has striped wheels. This is my adaption of Mr. Cloud's free toy.

The little table on the right needs more work. In this scale, the tabs have disappeared. Make them too large and they overlap the space in the legs. Most of these tabs are kept in place with the tip of an x-acto knife while the glue sets.

Note: The Aileen's Tacky Glue Pen, which I reviewed earlier this year, proves to be invaluable for this kind of work. As I have used the pen, the glue has thickened slightly and does dry quickly. The fine tip lays down the tiniest glue line or dot. The cap is easy to keep track of. The precision is complimented by the pen-style application.

Ah yes, simpler times, before the neighborhood got over run-(Friday). Here are two houses in different scales. The bed is still not small enough to go in the green house. It may end up as a playhouse or something. All of these houses began with the cottage lantern from my book, Silhouette Style. I changed the peak, the windows and added a floor and moldings for the windows. I discovered a setting on my Klic-n-Kut cutter that makes these adorable pounce (fold) lines in an appropriate size. The folds are crisp.

The bed is one piece with a bedspread and pillow. The pillow is a miniature version of the one in my book. The pillow puffs up just like the big ones. I glued the pillow in place. The hardest part of working in this scale is holding on to the pieces. I lost a spade one night and didn't find it until I felt something odd on the sleeve of my shirt. If they hit the floor, they're finished.

The divan! This gives you perspective on size. The houses include a set of furniture. The doors open and close. There is a butterfly from another project sticking out from under a layer of scrap paper. It builds up to a certain point beneath my work lamp, gets excavated and goes into the vault of the shoebox.

Nanetta: Inspiration: C. Carey Cloud

Nanetta: Inspiration: C. Carey Cloud: "The Cracker Jack prize was always exciting to me. The miniature mystery in the little thin paper package brought me joy, just like millions..."

Inspiration: C. Carey Cloud

The Cracker Jack prize was always exciting to me. The miniature mystery in the little thin paper package brought me joy, just like millions of other kids. From the 1930's through the 1960's, C. Carey Cloud designed, created and delivered 700 million toys to the Cracker Jack company.

His other clients included Pillsbury, Brach's Candy, CoCo Wheats and more. He designed toys; paper toys, plastic toys, moving toys, theme toys. Many of the paper toys use simple mechanisms to make them move or jump. Above is one of his "action toys". Look at all the details in this pirate. Do you think you could have a kid's toy pirate sitting on a keg of rum today? Probably not. Maybe he would have had to remove the X's.

His lines are simple and convey a complete vignette with subtle, but complete detail. Notice the soft scales on the fish, the sweep of lines on the fins, the sketch of a coral. You could get an assortment of 20 for $1.00 by mail order. Mr. Cloud inspecting a batch of plastic figures. He sculpted much larger than the final size. He had an endless imagination and the skills of several men. He was called the "Year-'Round Santa Claus" and it is easy to see why. His toys had a sophistication to them. It seemed there was a lot of child in his spirit.

Here is a punch-out for a wagon. It is perforated in two places and folds up to look like the mini drawing on the background. His instructions are easy, concise and complete.

Can you believe tin prizes? This is only one in a series of toys for Cracker Jack made from lithographed tin. Carey Cloud found that the Ball Brothers, of canning jar fame, had tons of scrap tin from lids selling for $25 a ton. He was able to produce over 80 million toys before the Ball Brothers found out what he was doing and raised the price to $125 a ton. That was the end of the metal toys in Cracker Jacks.

C. CAREY CLOUD - Google him to learn more.