ScrapHappy March 2023: You’re Fired!

The shop window. And Daisy.

First off, welcome to Amo and Alissa! May all your scrapping be happy!

Unusually, my post this month is a subtle blend of soft and hard scrapping.

On 1^st March each year here in Wales, it is Gwyl Dewi Sant or St David’s Day. In case my reader is wondering who this David guy is, he is the patron saint of Wales, his Mum (Non) lived down the road from us (“over by there” in local parlance) and he is known for telling people to “do the small things” (in Welsh, “Gwnewch y pethe bychain”). Every year on March 1^st, there are parades of children dressed as daffodils, leeks or dragons (the good children get to be dragons) and I believe in South Wales, the valleys are cleaned to ensure they are extra green*.

In Lampeter, the local Town Council ran a competition this year for the best shop window display with the theme of “Welshness”. This is a pretty wide brief, but I think they were after something more than just daffodils, leeks and dragons, whilst still retaining room for daffodils, leeks and er, dragons. The Snail and I decided on displaying some very Welsh concepts – words from the Cymraeg (the Welsh language) that don’t necessarily have direct translations in any other language, literature of a definitive Welsh nature and, of course, crocheted daffodils and dragons. We decided that a mock-up of a Welsh cottage fireside would be good and, as we didn’t have a complete Welsh cottage fireside to drop in, I built a fireplace and fake fire. Like you do.

The Snail created cushions and pictures with some choice Welsh words – you can read about that here.

We also wanted to have a themed bollard cover, so I (yes! Your truly!) crocheted its base out of a chunk of scrappy multi-coloured yarn from someone’s stash that we acquired. I am pleased with how it went (it wasn’t without its trials but I got there in the end). Jan added daffodil heads and stalks. Here it is being tested for fit:

I crocheted a bollard cover. I am quite good at treble stitches now!

So, the fireplace. We bought an actual grate and guard (both in good working order) from the local auction and I set about using the wood retrieved from the shop (described here, here, and here. There really is a lot of wood we salvaged.)

This will be a fireplace eventually!

Taking shape… and possibly the right shape too!

A walk-through fireplace

The Snail doing a spot of painting

The “fire” itself used old stripboard I have had for about 35 years, some resistors I have had for about, well, 35 years and some flashing LEDs I bought, um, about 4 months ago (so not really scrap, don’t look at them).

One of the less complex builds I have ever done! There’s only another four LEDs to add.

The final fireplace looked like this…

If you hold your hands to the screen, you can feel the warmth

…and here is a video of the fire effect at night. I think it worked OK!

oOo

* This may not strictly be true.