Inside Bunty’s Sheep Shop (Wool Week 2021)

• The floor is a roll of textured vinyl flooring that we picked up for $4 at a Habitat for Humanity RESTORE. It was quite a long roll, so we were able to cut it in half and lay the pieces next to each other for a seamless photo effect. The roll also has the advantage of being easier to store than wooden flooring, and the dolls stand on it decently well.
• The walls are wood paneling sheets from Menard’s mounted by us on simple wooden frames for stability. A hook/eye set on the back of the inside corners holds them together at a right angle when standing but still allows us to store them behind a door as two flat walls.
• The long “wall of shelves” holding the various colored rovings, books, etc., is a 1930s wall-hanging bric-a-brac shelf. You know, the type that would have had a mirror on the back. Mom and I removed the mirror, replacing it with a piece of wood-grain countertop laminate (just the sheet of laminate, without the countertop) that set us back $2 at Restore. Then, between that and the back of the shelves, there was enough space to insert a piece of foam core covered with striped scrapbook paper. Remember, scale is everything when you’re working with 18″ dolls. Not all paneling or paper works in their world, so you might have to keep looking for patterns that are small and/or close together. Figure 1/3 to 1/4 of human size, and you’ll be safe every time. One more note about the laminate backer. We chose the wood-grain finish, so that we could always turn the shelving unit around and use the back like a separate panelled wall in different set-ups. In our confined space, it’s a bonus when one piece can serve dual duty.
• The two shelving units on the far wall (holding the ornaments and toys) were $2 garage-sale finds. We got the one on the left from a woman who was modernizing her kitchen and didn’t want the 1980s spice rack anymore. The piece on the right had been someone’s shop project turned into a spice rack. It has a drawer on the bottom, but I removed that for this set-up to make room for Bunty’s overstock bins.
• The display unit sitting on top of the right-hand cupboard has an interesting story. It began life in the 1990s as a gift box from a wine catalogue that had a divider down the middle and was sized to hold CDs. After serving many purposes in the house and garage, we put a hanging rod (dowel) at the top of it and used it for Mabel’s sweater rack during Wool Week 2020. It was just perfect for this year’s shop display, but I didn’t want anyone to see that it had a rod at the top. So, if you look carefully at this year’s Wool Week photos, you’ll never see the top of the unit. It just fades into the off-camera sky. And you will never see that it advertises wine on the sides. We couldn’t make something better for the 25 cents this cost us. Very multi-purpose item.

• The wooden easels and mini canvases for the sheep art came from Hobby Lobby​. Elizabeth painted them with acrylics, in the style of a few of her favorite 20th-century children’s book illustrators. The small plastic easel under the book originally held a souvenir plate.
• The felted pumpkins came from Target’s little $1 spot at the front of the store during the Thanksgiving season. That’s a lot faster and easier than felting them myself!
• The solid-wood sheep cutouts were part of a Nativity scene from Hobby Lobby​ that was sold by the piece ($3.50 for this one).

• All of the roving, fiber and yarn came from my own stash. I just made tiny balls and skeins and printed labels for the shop. The fiber bags are 2×2″ ziploc bags (eBay or stamp store purchase) with printed cardstock tops secured with double-sided tape. Staples are way too big to use for props with 18″ dolls, not to mention that the potential for vinyl damage is an unnecessary risk. We avoid using anything sharp or pointy in our set-ups. Lots of dolls in a small space increases your chance of accidents, so we try to minimize danger zones.
• I made the spinning and knitting magazines, as well as the Ida and the Wool Smugglers books, by printing covers on plain copy paper and stapling blank paper inside.
• The Fiber books are actually the AG mini-doll
  hardback books with new dustjackets that I printed at home. This keeps time and cost down, while allowing us to store books which can be repurposed again and again. (By the way, if you have these books lying around and would like to find a new home for them, I’d gladly give you Bunty’s address. The island would like to have a library or book store, but the cost of buying the AG books is staggering. We’ve looked at other books, but the scale of the AG hardbacks is perfect, so we’re holding out until the time we can collect enough of them.)
• It’s important to offer sheep decor on Islandshire. The flocked fellow in overalls (Mr Longwool) on the left is part of a Li’l Woodzeez $10 play set at Target (their store-brand knockoff version of Calico Critters​), and the plush sheep wearing the sweater was a $3 Christmas ornament from the same store.
• The small flower vase on the far left originally started life as a 1950s prescut condiment jar. It’s a beautiful pattern that works well in a variety of scenes. And we’re always looking for older flower picks in the right scale for our doll world. We’ve found that the older picks are a much better quality all around, so we can’t pass a flower arrangement or wreath in a thrift store or garage sale without imagining it torn apart. Digital cameras are merciless image takers, so quality and cleanliness are crucial factors in our prop choices.

• We discovered the $1 white plastic bins at The Container Store a few years ago, in the desk-organizing area. In fact, much of what you see in our set-ups was intended for desk use. What will we ever do when the mfr’s realize that few people use paperclips, anymore?! In fact, the metal (wire mesh) roving shelf seen here came from the office-supply aisle at ​Dollar Tree. Those are three desk-drawer organizers that Elizabeth wired together to make into a shelf insert. You’ll find smaller versions of these these as individual containers in many of our set-ups (bakery, in particular). Multi-purpose items get preferential treatment in our own cramped storage areas.
• The mini needle-felted sheep in the center (in front of the roving) were made by me from various types of wool. My goal is to have a small sheep made from each of the RBST wools (and other favorites, of course) to use as a small “museum display”. The tags tell you what kind they are. Good thing, too. Without those tags, I’d have less than a 25% chance of identifying the kind of wool used in each one. (To put this into perspective, once I’ve made something with a certain fibre I can usually identify the leftover bits without any tags. Every fibre works up differently. Before I’m done with a project, I’m usually familiar enough with the raw materials to be able to identify them in the stash bag without a tag.)

• Dad made the mini drop spindles for the shop. You can thread yarn onto them like real ones, and they’re lightweight enough for the dolls to hold in a realistic manner. I printed teensy paper tags that are tied on with string. They’re sitting in a back-to-school bin sold for desk organizing, of course.

• There are several little baskets and wooden pieces scattered around the shop, holding everything from socks to flowers to paperwork and magazines. We’ve been picking these little things up all my life, at garage sales and auctions, and have all different sizes and styles. Very handy, and always under $1 (sometimes under a nickel, and people look at us like we’re weird). Never underestimate little baskets or wooden containers for your doll set-ups. After all, you didn’t know that Bunty’s magazine organizer on the desk there has those nasty little 1980s cutouts of geese and hearts, did you? My sister and I couldn’t stand that piece, but Mom kept insisting that it’d come in handy for something before we were done. A postcard rack in front of it, and — voila — it was just ​what we needed!
• The chair is from the old Pleasant Company AGOT 1990s Computer desk set.
• The lamp is from Kit’s Bedtime Extras set, and the postcard rack is from Nanea’s Family Market​.
• The Bunty’s Sheep Shop sign on the wall was something that Mom and I found in the decor section of Pat Catan’s a few years ago. The sheep was painted black and said “BAA” on it, but Elizabeth repainted it with Bunty’s new logo for me. Absolutely nothing is safe from Elizabeth’s paint brush, x-acto blade, sewing needle, or wiring skills. She’s a hoot to shop with. You ask her what in the world she’s going to do with the stuff in her cart, and she says “I’ve got an idea.” For the record, what she does to an item is always a clever improvement. So, we leave her to it.
• The barrel standing in the corner is actually an old, very heavy, solid wood, coin bank made to look like an old rain barrel. This prop wins the prize for having come the furthest distance. Years ago, when we were in Florida, visiting my grandmother, we went to a Cocoa Beach antique store. Elizabeth had to have this barrel. But it was $5, very heavy, and would take up a lot of space in her luggage. That’s what we said. No matter how much Mom and I tried to talk her out of it, she refused to back down. At the time, she had a TM #76 named Audie (for Audie Murphy) and no space (or money) for an AG horse. The minute she saw the barrel, she turned him into a “barrel rider”. She lugged that bank home and got a saddle to fit over it. Before she could do anything with it, though, the doll became Eloy who sells pineapples. And the barrel went into the closet. Until now. I wonder w
  hatever happened to that doll-sized bongo drum she bought at the same time . . .

Sometimes you make a really cool find. You know, the kind of thing that you know was waiting for you. (Often the thing that other people looked at and said “Who in the world would buy that?”) The finding of the large resin sheep sitting on Bunty’s desk was one of those moments for me! We found him at a garage sale with a $2 tag. Just sitting there all alone. And he ended up fitting on the doll’s counter so perfectly that he just stayed there! There are a few other items in this photo, but I wanted to make sure that you admired the sheep first!

• I knitted the doll-sized wool socks in the basket (using Knit Picks Palette yarn and a Pixie Faire pattern). We cut up one of those old white gift boxes (the kind you usually got clothes in) into foot-shaped pieces sized to fit the socks and keep them flat and neat looking.
• Elizabeth painted “Wool Week” and a green stem onto several AG mugs, after I removed the AG logo with a Magic Eraser.
• The mugs are sitting on another of those 1980s miniature knick knack shelves. Probably came from the same garage sale as the one we talked about before. The knitted stocking (another garage sale find) was hung on the side to hide, well . . . you know what.

Let’s round the corner now and take a look at the wall between Bunty’s sales counter and the door. As previously mentioned, the shelving units were small spice racks. And don’t forget that the bottom drawer on the shelf to the right was removed for these photos to give space for the overstock bins. Notice how you can’t actually see the top of the rack on top? Got it?

The clothes rack on the top houses various handmade items. The two sweaters on the very top were knitted by a doll friend, the green and pink shawl was hand dyed/spun/woven by another, and the green afghan knitted by yet another! The white sweater is from the 1990s AG Apres Ski set. The little Christmas stockings were a cool garage-sale find for 10 cents, because someone actually knitted those from wool yarn.

Decorations for the top of the shelf on the left were some of my favorite things. (Easy enough to do, since I get to pick what goes where!)

• The mini basket worked great for a floral decoration, featuring felt balls from a neat Christmas pick we found at Hobby Lobby last month.
• On the other end, there’s the most adorable Funko Pop figurine of Shaun the Sheep.
• The Christmas slippers are actually a $1 Dollar Tree Christmas ornament that Mom found. They were glued to a plastic boot-shaped insert, but Elizabeth got them off with no trouble. They actually fit on the doll’s feet, though I’d make sure they wear socks to keep from possible staining. When we saw how cute they were on Bunty, we went back to the store the very next day. But they were all gone. That’s another lesson for doll set-up shopping. Buy it when you see it! Very few of the items found in any of our set-ups were purchased in the recent past. We buy most of our doll-sized things with no purpose in mind. But it’s easier to do a set-up when you’ve already got lots of stuff to choose from.
• ​Last but certainly not least, the most adorable lamby slippers are from the Emily Rose Lamb Pajamas (available on Amazon in Wellie and 18″ size)!

There are some popular brands of sneakers made of wool in the stores these days, so Bunty had to offer doll-sized versions of wool and knit sneakers. The little display stands from Nanea’s Family Market worked perfectly and fit into this shelf like they were made for it.

• The purple shoes are from the CYO “Let’s Move” outfit.
• Those are Grace’s grey Meet Outfit boots, but there was a Truly Me pair of “Ankle Boots” made in 2017 that are similar enough to stand in for Grace’s.
• The pink/coral knit sneakers were from a Mix-and-Match set earlier this year (2021).
• The blue and white jar sitting next to the shoes is an old Occupied Japan decorative jug filled with small branches snipped off a larger pick.
• The small Sheep pitcher sitting on the shelf above the Occupied piece is part of the set that Eliot bought for Bunty at the Wool Week 2020 Bazaar. Display only, of course.
• The green garland was a sweet find at Hobby Lobby this year. It came in a long roll and is the perfect scale for the 18″ dolls.
• The wood round sitting on the barrel, to the left, is actually this really strange thing we picked up at a garage sale along the way. Someone drilled a hole in a piece of a branch and inserted a wooden dowel that stands nearly as high as the postcards you see there. It worked perfectly to get the photos (for voting purposes) at eye height for the dolls. Sometimes, you have to stack things to get something to the right height.

• The little matching sheep figures came from the Christmas department at Walmart and were part of a by-the-piece resin Nativity set. At $3/each, they rank as some of the most expensive items in our set-up, but sheep aren’t exactly easy to come by in the stores these days.
• The ceramic sheep figurine was a Hobby Lobby find some years ago.
• Elizabeth handpainted 1″ shatterproof Christmas ornaments with variou
  s sheep art. You can read more about them and see close-up photos in the previous blog entry.

Searching for doll-sized sheep plush and toys has turned into quite a hobby for Elizabeth and me. We even went through some of the bins we have with our old toys in them! So, let’s have a closer look at the top shelf seen here.

• The “Wool Always Be Friends” pillow was a handmade gift to Bunty from a doll friend.
• Bunty’s Lanolin Cream jars were a fun accessory that I made for the original Wool Week event. Very easy to do, and I’ve got an online tutorial to make them in an earlier entry.
• The soap bars and display stands came from the AG City Market Stand set.
• The sheep toys sitting behind the soap are two of our rather vintage Playmobil figures from the 1990s. (It’s disturbing when your own toys are now considered “vintage”.)

• The plastic toys on this shelf are more Playmobil figures (the dark brown is Playmobil 123). The storage bin they’re in was sold as a paper-clip bin in the Walmart back-to-school aisle.
• The flocked sheep toys are Calico Critters in the small and large size. They’re standing in another AG City Market display piece.
• Plush include a mini Squishmallow (far left), Teeny Beanies (far right top) and a small dog-toy Lamb Chop.
• The three small, blue storage bins holding Bunty’s toy overstock (on the floor, under the shelf) also came from the back-to-school aisle at Walmart, where they were sold for holding your box of crayons.

Personally, my favorite part of setting the Sheep Shop up for the first time was the center aisle. Handling the fiber, the little balls of wool roving, etc. . . . that’s right up my alley!  Last year, we’d picked up two metal, bench-like, cupboard-organizing shelves from the kitchen area at Marshall’s for $5/each. Line them up back-to-back in one long row, cover them with the faux-fur Buffalo blanket from Kaya’s bedroll set to give the fluffy look, and we had a quick and easy way to get lots of dolls into the shop without looking crowded. Mom scored in a big way again at Dollar Tree, in the office-supply aisle, when she found the mini canvas-style desk organizers which you see sitting on top of our long table. They were just what we needed for holding the balls of colored roving. And the fact that they just sort of collapse/squish down flat for storage, too, makes them a must-have. (Another case of “buy it when you see it”. We went back to buy more, the next day, and there were only a couple left. Not as many as we’d hoped for, either. Better to buy them all and return what you don’t use, Mom always says. Maybe I should start listening.)

Lots of little odds and ends ring the center table, all of them having been found at garage sales, Pat Catan’s, and Hobby Lobby. The A-frame chalkboard with the sheep on top was a going-out-of-business find at Pat Catan’s. The barrel to the right, holding the white locks, was last seen during Wool Week 2019 as the bran tub. Dad made the wool cards shown poking out of the locks in front of the chalkboard sign.

I hope you enjoyed our behind-the-scenes visit to Bunty’s Sheep Shop. We’ll let you know when the shop is open for business. If you have any questions, feel free to send a note or leave a comment on this entry. And, as Bunty always says, “Keep Calm & Choose Wool!”