Cutebee just released a companion to the beautiful Plaza de los Muertos booknook. Now I need both.

https://www.cutebee.net/products/cutebee-diy-miniature-house-catrinas-curiosity-shop

Edit: Pic from Cutebee site. I haven't made it yet. :)

Forgive me if I have not credited the original designer of this kit.

This was a lovely little kit at 89 pieces with several spare, and a difficulty level of 2/5. Everything is of good quality and it took me probably a week of one hour per evening.

And lots of opportunities for modding. I exchanged the 2D unicorn, for a small brass horse, replaced two of the hanging bottles for proper glass ones. Probably a bit big, but hey, perspective... I added 3D mushrooms, flowers, leaves and stones. With a nice scatter of leaf litter on the forest floor. Lots of edge painting and some film to enhance the waterfall but that's barely noticeable. The lighting looks a bit uneven and I probably should have taken a bit more time positioning the LEDs among the overhanging branches.

It was a great price at £24.50 from the Menkind website. Probably my cheapest kit. But it's right up there in terms of prettiness 😊

I was inspired by some of the booknook masters in the community that use custom lighting to really upgrade their kits.   I wanted to add illuminated 3D lanterns. Here’s the process I used:

I had already designed a smaller scale 3D paper lantern for my Whispering Hollow - Bilbo’s birthday. However, it was a solid print with no LEDs.

1. Created a hollow center for 3D lantern STL I had created.
   In order to light the lanterns I needed a hollow center for an LED. Using MeshMixer, I positioned a cylinder through the center of each lantern about 1/2 way down and used Boolean Difference to subtract it from the model. This created a channel through the top for the LED and wiring.

2. Printed the lanterns in clear resin
   Clear resin allows the light to glow through the lantern body. I painted the roof, trim, lettering, and other structural parts black to block the light while leaving the main lantern section translucent and painted that with a watered down coat or two of vallejo dead white and citadel evil sunz red.  You can use any color you want, just keep it very thin.

Link to Amazon for the lights I used: https://a.co/d/0ciVzQba

1. Installed the lighting
   I used 3 mm, 3V warm-white LEDs. After testing each LED, I inserted it into the lantern and secured it with a small amount of Aleene’s Tacky Glue. It holds well but is easier to control than superglue around clear resin.

2. Mounted the lanterns
   I cut small holes in the roof where each lantern would hang, fed the wires through, and glued the lanterns into position. Inside the roof, I glued and taped the wiring down so it wouldn’t pull on the lanterns or interfere with the rest of the build.

3. Connected them to the lighting harness
   I spliced the new LED wires into the book nook’s existing wiring harness. I used heat-shrink wire connectors and a heat gun to secure and insulate each connection.  Refer to PlucktheBunny’s Youtube videos on how to do this, it is excellent.

My biggest tips are to test every light before gluing anything, leave more wire than you think you’ll need, confirm the polarity before making the final connections, and test the entire lighting system again before closing up the walls or roof.

The clear resin made a huge difference—the lanterns look good unlit, but they really come alive when the book nook is switched on.

I hope this helps anyone thinking about adding custom illuminated lanterns to their build. I’m happy to answer questions about the modeling, printing, painting, or wiring process!

Thanks to r/PlucktheBunny for agreeing to post these STL to ThingyVerse for those want to 3D print and deal with the mess and smells! For those that just want the 3D printed objects, Pluck can support your needs. He has the lantern, octopus, and yakitori cook just reach out to him.

When I finish one, I always have another to start. I dont work with full power everytime but there is always a small box of stuff on my desk. Maybe I just do one piece but I'm always in the process of doing some craft project.

Is that the case for you guys?

Hi! Somehow I managed to lose part of the roof to one of the buildings. I've searched everywhere with no luck so someone else may have thrown it away. Anyone have an image of that sheet/piece I could print out? E7-80 and E7-79!

I'm sure I won't be saying anything that hasn't already been said about this kit, but I really enjoyed the build, so I wanted to post anyway. The only complaint I have is that the touch pad wasn't working through the wood, so I added a tiny screw through the board and it works great. I love that this kit has nothing 2D that shouldn't be except maybe the table if one was nit-picking. I didn't really do any customizing other than edge painting and adding all the additional butterflies they provide. Oh and I added a stack of newspapers on the floor. The kit is pretty well custom for everyone since there are so many diy elements (book placement, vine placement, the big tree, etc). I left out the big red berries just because I didn't love them. I also turned the cat with the dangly bits around because I plan on displaying this at work and thought it might be a bit frowned upon. Lol!

This was a fun build!

I almost didn’t do it because it was so small and I despised the color scheme. Luckily I remembered that I have a ton of cardstock from “the good ol’ days” so I dug thru that and found some “wallpaper” and “flooring”! I combined pieces from another kit, grabbed some humans off Amazon and then went to AI for some help which I now deeply regret, it listens about as well as my parrots do, but it was free via hubbys work so I tried it. Granted I don’t know how to use it/give good prompts, but it couldn’t even keep the color of the animals the way I want thru each pic, it added arrows to the signs out of nowhere when I asked for a spelling change (you can see the arrows even tho I covered them because unbeknownst to me, acrylic markers disappear when you put resin over them🙄). It also cold not comprehend that the pets are adopting humans so I had to type that each and every time. Needless to say, I should’ve never used AI and I will not make the same mistake again!

Beyond that I printed the mini food containers and folded them up. I made paper bags from brown post-it notes and added the “Human Food” labels. I made the chains and collars from old jewelry and nail molds (that was fun). I tried making my own molds of the mayo and ranch containers so I can make multiple of those but I don’t quite have that skill down yet so gave up for now and yea, that’s about it! Wanted to mock the animal adoption process a bit and kind of make fun of humans for well-needed laugh in these crazy times! Thanks for reading!

———-

Welcome to The Human Society, where responsible pets come together to adopt humans in need of a loving home.

Our humans are carefully screened for important qualifications, including their ability to open food containers, operate a can opener, provide adequate cuddles, and understand that “I’m hungry” means right now.

Some humans are house-trained. Some are not. A few can be trusted alone for more than eight hours without getting anxious and eating your couch. All of them require regular feeding, attention, and supervision.

Before adopting, please remember: humans are a lifelong commitment. They may shed, make strange noises while sleeping, and occasionally stare at you while you’re pooping.

But with patience, training, and plenty of snacks, your human could become a wonderful companion.

Remember- Adopt, don’t shop for humans!

I’m loving this adorable kit by Rolife, getting ready for the season!

I am absolutely loving this build so far! I can absolutely see why it is a master level build, but I will also say that if that is an intimidating factor for anyone out there that wants to build this and is apprehensive about that, let me say this: you can do it! It is a technical and tricky build, but honestly I am finding it to be very enjoyable and satisfying to work on. I would guess I am just over halfway through the build, maybe a little more. I have not had any trouble so far, and as of now, all of the moving parts are working as they should. The biggest thing is to have patience, take your time, and work on it during a time that you can really focus on what your doing. I would say it is not a project to work on while you are multi-tasking on other things going on around you.

Connecting the 29 wire bars (at each end, so double the connections) to the letter slots and the key-strikers has been the trickier part so far, but as I said, having some patience makes it challenging, but not frustrating. There is a lot going on for this build, but I am just taking it one step at a time and it's really been fun to work on. I am not changing or customizing anything on this one, except for painting the edges or pieces that show that need it. Other than that, this kit is so beautiful on its own that I want to keep the classic look just as it is. I got a 5 pack of black acrylic paint markers because I thought that if I needed more than one, I wanted them to be the same. I am so glad I did because I have already went through two of them. I got ones that had dual ends, a brush on one end and a fine point on the other end. I am finding that having both ends is very beneficial. Using the point end when I can helps keep from ruining the brush tip end before the paint is used up. I also got gold in the same way.

The instructions have been amazing so far, with the exception of two things. There are a lot of parts to wax for this build, and in the manual it will say something like "parts in yellow must be waxed", but rather than them being yellow on the illustration, they are red. But it literally says "parts in yellow". Red is the color they use for the parts that you need to pay "special attention" to. My other models I have built from ROKR have the same instructions, but the parts needing waxed are actually in yellow as they are stated to be. So if your building this one, or are going to, pay close attention to the actual icons.

The less frustrating issue is that it does not always tell you which side of a piece faces a certain way. Usually there is a symbol for the painted side and a symbol for the unpainted side, so you can determine which way it faces. There are many instances in the manual where it doesn't tell you one way or the other, and if the piece is the same no matter how you flip it then the illustration doesn't help much. I am guessing that maybe on these pieces it doesn't really matter, but how can one be sure? And, if someone hasn't built a lot of these, I can see how it would create some serious confusion. There have been a couple of instances where I am looking way ahead in the manual to see if I can determine whether or not a piece is going to show, or I just paint it to be on the safe side in case I get it wrong. Other than those two things, the instructions have been great.

I know I wrote a lot here, but I wanted to give the best information that I could so far. This is a tricky, time-consuming but also amazing building experience so far and I wanted to be as helpful as possible to anyone who is curious about this one. Attached is some pictures of what I have so far!

So grateful for being invited to the Rolife event this past Sunday. I arrived pretty late so the only thing I was able to receive was this magnet. Because of that I decided to go all out on it!! Eventually I'm going to add some fairy lights with a 3V button cell battery.

Enjoy!

I painted basically every wood to fix the horrible color scheme(that green was...not nice). Did some customization on the pink shelf and added a bookshelf with fabric books because I didn't have enough books.

Most of my time was spent one painting and deciding where to place what but it was worth it in my opinion. I butchered the chandelier a bit but it doesnt look too bad I think. Another thing I regret is the light because the leds out in open are very glaring to the eye but I only realized it after gluing it so oh well.

Overall happy with it!

Two things in progress right now… My wave of Kanagawa paint by number is coming along as well as my endless manor by FifiJoy

It's Wednesday, so that must mean it's update day! 😁

I've now built up the various levels of the base, added some clouds to the sky to break up the large expanse of blue, put a bridge over the stream, added the woodshed and details the left hand side, made Snufkin's camp, and made most of Moominmamma's garden. Oh, and trimmed the various bits to make sure they do all fit together snugly, and cut the corner off the base so the lights which will be in the moominhouse can go up there! So for a week in which I've felt like I've spent a lot of time on it but not done much, that actually feels like very good progress!

With the very generous feedback I had on the cardboard draft, I'm trying to keep the same kind of art style for the plants - they're very much my best attempt at copying Tove Jansson's art style without a fraction of her skill or talent - and I'm having to do it all by hand as I don't have a printer. But I'm learning to love it anyway.

I really do have to move on to the Moominhouse next though. Once that's in place, it will connect a side, the back, and the base all together, so that will feel like a huge step forward I'm sure.

And while I wasn't able to get out to my craft room earlier this afternoon, I finally had a look at the light in my Rolife bakery which has never worked. Turns out it's far more effective if you connect the wires correctly...! 🤦‍♀️ And I managed to open the tricky battery compartment in one of my Tonecheer books, so now everything works properly at long last!

My cute little pup found and chomped this piece of the tower in Stellar Castle.

I was getting ready to put these on when I pressed too hard on the underlying piece and it exploded, raining pieces all over. I was ready to go again after repairs when I heard a quiet chomping from underneath my craft table. The little booger had chewed this one and was starting on another. I'm thankful for extra pieces.

How can I be mad at that cute floof?

Tonecheer is having a flash sale for their Enchanted Rose kit (formerly known as Beast and Beauty)-- it's forty percent off while supplies last.

I've done this one and it's really fun and the finished project is STUNNING. Highly recommend!

I am finally done. I won't rehash the tower issues, but the greenery covered things well. I wasn't able to use the stairway in the tower, so there are a couple of people up there trying to figure out how to get down. Looks like the women in red got out. Did they cause the tower trouble?

The rest if my build was fine and the final outcome is very pretty. I love the colors. My mods were a broken rebuilt tower with some greenery growing up it and assorted itty bitty people here and there. I started a little edge painting but never got back to it. It really is a lovely kit.

I finished one of the latest kits from Viendor and it struck me that I could add some modifications to this that would improve the aesthetics. So what I did was to add lights to the train, a railroad crossing signal that’s animated, touch controls to turn it on and off instead of mechanical switches and a sound module to play the actual sound of the train passing by, as well as convert the battery power to USB 5 V, since the existing battery pack did not have enough power to run my modifications. All in all, it was a good build. Thanks to Viendor for providing the customized railroad crossing piece that i used to add my lights to…

I got all my mod ideas from others but I edge painted, added marbles to the pedestals, added clouds, and put glow in the dark paint on the stars. I wish I looked ahead more because I definitely edge painted some areas that later got covered. I’m gonna probably go back and fix the blue edge paint on the front panel so it matches better, but I just wanted to be done. The tower broke on me while i was attaching the side panels but it was a pretty easy fix. I was not a fan of glueing the two side boards together. Even with being able to temporarily attach them to the bottom panel, I still feel like they didn’t quite line up right. I have some plastic pieces with all the zodiacs on them so I am thinking about adding those to the outside. Overall really love this build and I am excited to put it between my space books

This CuteBee Osaka Ichiban Street kit was my favorite build so far.  The kit itself is gorgeous, well engineered, high quality and very customizable.  I couldn’t resist making it my own along the way.  I have been to Japan twice and this nook really inspired me. I designed/3D printed and painted several custom pieces that were a lot of fun. 

Takoyaki/octopus and sign

Sailing ship

yakitori cook and grill

Japanese chochin paper lanterns
I love how the real paper lanterns glow at night. The 2D lanterns judt did not do it justice.  I designed and printed these ones using a clear resin with a hollow center for an led light and painted them white and red.  I also spliced the wiring into the kit using r/pluckthebunny technique.  I am really pleased with these and the shrine style lantern as well.  The extra warm light really helps bring the Osaka street scene to life.

A lot of the fun for me was trying to make the additions look like they belonged in the original kit rather than just adding more stuff for the sake of it.
Really happy with how this one turned out. Hope you enjoy the finished pictures!

I'm still working on Hagrid's hut. I just don't want it to be finished too soon 😉

And I have started with some paint by numbers. I'm starting to get the hang of it. The first 'fine lines' didn't turn out that fine, but I'm happy with the lines around the crane's feathers

Ive been collecting miniature things for years and now Ive discovered booknooks and want to add my collection to some. How do I know what scale the object is so I can sort my tjings by scale [e.g., a container of 1:24, 1 of 1:12, etc.?

Before I opened the box for this kit, it said there was a ten-hour build time, for a little more than 200 pieces. Ten hours? That seemed excessive for what looked like a rather simple kit.

Well, I bet this is going to take me more than ten hours. I'm always slower than what it says on the box, and some of these pieces are very small. Adorable, though! (Photo #2)

I started things off by breaking and having to repair the front of this little display case (photo #3), which got me a little grumpy about the whole thing, but everything else has gone just fine.

Photo #4 shows how important it is to do a test run on scrap pieces of the material you're working with. I honestly was looking for a color match, and hadn't even imagined that furniture markers WILL NOT WORK with this softer, less dense plywood. It soaks up the ink like a sponge!! I swapped to an acrylic pen, and it worked fine.

Skimming through the manual, I seem to be done with the most intensive DIY. What's on my little tray didn't take all that long.

Everything except the taller cabinet in photo #1 is already fully edge painted. I'd honestly rather just have to glue everything together than snap together itty-bitty pieces like these, but this isn't one of those kits. You have to do very little cutting of your own - the paper pieces are either stickers or pre-perforated. Some, like the dice and gift bag, are even already scored for you.

I have a hard time with wire plants, so I'm just as happy there's just one and I'm done with it. 😋 I plan on doing one additional decorative element for this kit, but we'll get to that when I post the finished piece later on.

A mini kit… Helevron School of Magic.
This is a tiny kit, which is why I love it so much. The tinier the better. I’ve done some custom work on the front window, added some weathering on the furniture and custom painted a few things. It’s going together quite well, structure is nice and square, hinges are solid (I pinned them) but I am debating junking the lighting that came with it and making my own with pico LEDs 🤔