2015 Madison Barn Project--Lighting Tips

The Thursday Night Project consisted of a barn, shed and silo, and came from Stephanie Engeseth. She pulled out all the tops for this project. There are a lot of ingenious touches and details throughout. On Thursday night, we were let into a ballroom and we had "instructors" to help guide us through building the project--they had already built the project. There were a ton of bags containing laser cut wood parts, laser cut shingle paper, laser cut wood siding for the interior. The only time I had the entire 3 hours was to stain all my parts. I have no idea how other people managed to "finish" building the project within the time alloted. I'm not complaining--we got our money's worth, and about every half hour during the evening there would be an announcement and distribution of gifts that complemented the project. It was an incredible and fun project.

If you're interested in lighting the Barn, here's how I did mine. I ordered additional barn wood wallpaper from Stephanie and used the 2nd floor template to create the "ceiling" for the 1st floor. You need to make the following sandwich:  engraved side of the 2nd floor facing you, barnwood WP non-printed side, and then barnwood WP printie side opposite the engraved floor. The placement is important or it won't match up.

Place your ceiling up against the rafters and mark where you want the light bulbs. Use a hole puncher (1/8" or 1/4") to make opening for LED bulbs. I taped the wires in place.

To light the 2nd floor, I added 3 LEDs. They're just dangling because the opposite roof will pretty much hide the wires. I placed the LEDs to match the roof rafters. Use clear transparent tape and glue to affix the wires right on top of the roof rafter beams. When the roof gets attached, the wires will be invisible.

I used LEDs from Evan Designs, but ask for an extra 6-8" length of wire for each bulb. The LEDS offered are for roomboxes, but came up short for this project, which is like 4 roomboxes together instead of a single stand-alone roombox. Longer bulb wires will make your life much easier to maneuver and hook up to the on/off switch and battery holder.

Opt for the CHIP LEDs rather than bulbs. The chip LEDs are brighter in my opinion. The bulbs are bright when the wallpaper is light colored, but the brown wallpaper throughout makes the bulb LEDs seem dim in comparison.

I always have the light switch "ON" while I'm wiring and placing the LEDs in place. You don't want to glue everything in place, turn the switch on, only to realize one bulb doesn't work.

I used chip LEDs for the adjoining work shed. I drilled a 1/8" hole with a hand push drill on each side of the door opening. I threaded the LEDs through the holes, two in the front and 2 for the inside.

There's a small crack on the left, which I used as a support/joint for all the wires.

Here's the LEDs on the inside. The chip LED wires are much thinner and almost look invisible against the barnwood WP.

The wires for the shed get hooked up to the wires from roof rafters and the 1st floor.

This part took a long time for me to get right. All the wires for all bulbs and the battery holder is hidden in the empty space between 1st floor ceiling and 2nd floor. You could hide the light switch in that empty space, but it means you have to slide out the 2nd floor each time to access the switch. 

If you have longer wires for each LED, you could theoretically place the switch button opposite of what is shown so when you view it head-on you won't see at all.

Glue in the 1st floor ceiling when you are satisfied. It looks like a tangled mess, but all the lights work.

The 2nd floor is designed so you can slide it in and out for easy access of stuff at the back as well as the front. Make sure you don't glue in the 2nd floor or you'll never be able to change out the battery.

To camouflage the switch, I made a "box" to disguise it (see the template above). I punched a hole where the on/off button is. You can also skip the hole punch and just feel for the switch. To cover up and disguise the wires coming out from the switch, I cut strips of barnwood WP that cover the entire length of the ceiling beam in that opening (see below).

To disguise the wires coming from the shed into the barn, the wires are placed on the underside of the 1st floor ceiling beam. More barnwood WP is used for the beams. You can paint the wires to match the barn trim or the barn/shed color, I used tape and glue to make sure the wires from the shed stay in place.

To further disguise the switch, I glued horseshoes (courtesy of Janet Smith) onto my switch box. The hole is covered up with the paper punched out of WP and gets a horseshoe right over it. Now I just have to remember the horseshoe to turn on and off the lights.

And that's how I lighted my barn and kept all the wires and energy supply self contained.

2015 Madison HP Roundtables

Laser-cut sitting dog from Petworth Miniatures. There's a lot of sanding involved, but instructions are straightforward.

Scarecrow with crow on arm from Barbara Meyer. This is pewter and requires painting and gluing the "hay" at strategic places. Straightforward instructions. Painting isn't too bad, but use of those micro-tip paintbrushes found in Railroad/Diorama section of Hobby Lobby is needed. The hay and a bottle of the denim blue paint is included.

This is a 144 scale cube box housing a kitchen vignette from Tammy Witthaus. Very hard to take good pictures because it is so small. Not hard to make, but instructions difficult to follow because no color pictures on the instruction sheet. This is actually a Mega RT.

The inside of the Strawberry cube kitchen vignette. You make a dining table, 2 chairs, a corner hutch, and a shelf.

Mega RT from Stephanie Engeseth, This is actually an Outhouse, but because of the moon and stars motif, I'm turning it into a Fortune Teller stand. It comes with the bench shown. A great bargain at $10.

A tiny matchbox RT from Sue Herber. Shown next to quarter to  illustrate its small size.

Here's the inside of the matchbox. You just cut and glue the printies, glue the bead with green foam to center and you're done. I finished this in 5 minutes.

Laser-cut QS cherry wood folding screen from Leanne Kirsch. If you choose to stain the wood (as opposed to painting), you can be done in 5 minutes.

Kissing Booth from Luci Hanson. Very easy to make. Minimal painting involved. Highly recommended.

Here's the Kissing Booth inside the picture frame Fair box, also from Luci Hanson, so $10 for both.

Top side of the Kissing Booth roombox. You receive the self-adhesive wallpaper, and I added fabric rick rack trim for embellishment. You can also use the pre-cut scallop trim included.

Here's a lady coming to get a kiss from one of the hunks, LOL.

2015 Madison HP Mini Swap Items

This was from Debbie Cochran

This beautifully cut buffet hutch was from Stephanie Engeseth

2015 Madison HP Sunday Brunch and Souvenirs

Scrambled eggs, bacon, French toast, coffee, water, and fresh squeezed orange juice. Great way to start the day.

Souvenir from Sue Herber and Karen Cary--a food stand in shape of a wedge of cheese.

An array of county fair food from Janet Smith. These are really tiny, and therefore in scale.

A gift from the Steering Committee--a Dunking Booth

Our table centerpiece on Saturday

A pop-up lemonade stand card at every seat, The utensils are inside a Popcorn bag.

An array of ads and gifts for upcoming NAME conventions and HPs.

Our centerpiece on Sunday. Made by Patty Johnson

This is the other side of the Sunday centerpiece. The neon lights have two functions--flashing or continuous. Lights are housed under the base, which has a Lazy Susan so you can spin around to your hearts content. No need to mess with cords and outlets, it's battery operated. The base was laser cut by Susan Karatjas.

The way they determined the centerpiece winner was clever and fun. There were balloons (at least 10) at each table. None of us knew this at the time, because the balloons were in place at all 3 meal functions. We just thought it was part of the decorations. Little did we know each balloon had a message inside (see above). We had to pop the balloons to see who got the winning message. And I WON!!!!! Whooopppeeee. I was thrilled.

We received this QS Windmill at Thursday Luncheon, made by Teresa Callender. The blades actually spin, but mine is a little stuck. The souvenir was hidden inside the Popcorn container in the back and on the top was actual popcorn glued to hide the gift. They advised us not to eat the popcorn.

These are cool Mr. Lid containers that came with the Steering Committee gifts. They are really nice quality with hinged lids. They are sold by Harley-Davidson.

An ice cream food stand Steering Committee gift,

Another view of the ice cream stand.

Another Steering Committee gift--a hot dog stand.

Here's my hot dog stand with totebag favor gifts.

This beautiful hutch was a Door Prize I received at Sunday Brunch. I was thrilled beyond.

This is the hexagonal fireworks stand Theme Luncheon gift from Sue Herber, laser cut by Charlotte Atcher. She gave us little blocks of wood and a printie sheet to make the fireworks. The wood blocks were pre-cut and pre-painted, we just had to cut out the printies, affix the printie, and arrange to our liking. I still have printies left, and the front could use more fireworks boxes and a person behind the counter.