It's Yuletime at Tiny Bag End!
It's been awhile since I had any pic spam to show of Tiny Bag End. I haven't worked on it much in the last two years, to be honest. I spend most of my time on school these days. I've been slowly making some trees and flowers for the exterior, and that's about it. This is how the exterior looks right now:
The flowers and most of the trees are put away at the moment. And I stripped the cardboard off the sides because I want to make new, classier-looking sides out of wood. Haven't gotten around to that yet. :P But a few weeks ago, when the roommate and I were decorating our apartment for Christmas, I had this inexplicable yearning to see Tiny Bag End decorated for Christmas as well. But hobbits don't have Christmas, you say? Well, true, but they do have Yule. It's right there on their calendar! How convenient for me. 0:-) So I procured some green-dyed princess pine and stuck it in there for safekeeping, thinking to put it on the mantels. But of course, I got busy with school, and forgot all about it... until just the other day, I happened to glance in the kitchen window, and look what I saw! ;-)
I thought to myself, that looks like my Merry action figure! Merry was given to me by a friend, along with most of the other action figures I have. But other than Bilbo and Frodo, I usually keep them in a drawer under Tiny Bag End. Hmm...
Next I peered into the dining room window. I saw some kind of cake, a big pile of iced buns of some sort, and those soft gingerbread cookies rolled in sugar that I love. I could also just barely see some shortbread cookies in the back, and someone standing behind the table, holding... an icing bag?
I was distracted from my peeping when the front door opened suddenly. I looked over, and there was Tiny Bilbo, beckoning me! So I stuck my head in the foyer, and was surprised to find a drunken Gimli staggering around. He was wearing a familiar-looking hat.
I was even more surprised at what was around the corner. What looked like every action figure I own was gathered in there! Hobbits and Big People alike. Gandalf, hatless, had exchanged his staff for a stick of red and white candy. But he was glaring toward the foyer rather fiercely, and I decided to see what the others in the room were doing...
Frodo was filling a pie crust. Looked like cherry. I noticed that my princess pine had been artfully arranged on the mantel by someone. I asked Frodo about it, but he wasn't talking.
I wanted a closer look at that table... I saw gingerbread men (or hobbits?), pumpkin pies, cherry pies, nuts, candy, and all the goodies I had spotted earlier.
Just then, Gimli staggered past, still wearing Gandalf's hat. Good thing all the wizard is holding is a piece of candy. ;-) I noted that Legolas was applying whipped cream to the pumpkin pies, and apparently doing a fine job. He appeared to be concentrating very intensely on his task, and didn't even notice the Really Big Person looking down at him.
The other person at the table, Pippin, didn't appear to be helping much. But he did offer me a half-eaten ginger-hobbit.
There was a lot going on in the kitchen, too. Merry was mixing flour and spices, but he seemed distracted, and mildly concerned, by Gimli's approach.
What's this? A ranger, baking a pie? Yes, yes it was. He looked awfully grungy, though. I sure hope he washed his hands first.
I took a closer look at the table. This seemed to be where all the baking was taking place; I saw lots of cookie dough, unbaked cookies, spices, sugar, milk, and eggs.
And there was Samwise, getting ready to whisk something. He paused in his work just long enough to nod courteously at me. But what was he whisking?
Eggs. And I noticed that Merry wasn't being very neat with the flour. I hope he cleaned up after himself...
After all these amazing sights, I decided it was time to return to the world of Really Big People, and see if my apartment was contaminated with hallucinogenic substances or something. Also, looking at all the tiny baked goods had made me hungry...
Bilbo waved goodbye from the doorway. I waved back, then went to my room to lie down.
Thanks for, er, stopping by to share in Tiny Bag End's Yule festivities. Yes, the festivities seem to mainly involve baking. But the place is run by hobbits, after all. :)
Some final notes and acknowledgments:
1. Yes, that's real flour, and real spices in the jars. Why not? :P Oh, but the "sugar" on the soft gingerbread cookies is actually salt. All baked goods are made of Sculpey.
2. I wish to draw attention to those eggs Sam is whisking. I'm very proud of them; the yolks are Sculpey, and the whites are fake water mixed with a bit of paint. I got a big bottle of fake water at a model train store, and I'm finding all sorts of uses for it! That's what makes the cherry pie filling look shiny and gooey, btw.
3. A number of people have contributed to Tiny Bag End over the years. Moosefluff made a large number of bunnies to live on the Hill, although of course those are all put away now, being winter and all. ;) Frodobaggins252 very kindly gave me most of the action figures seen here; Dreamflower02 (who has a really cool LOTR-related store) gave me numerous dollhouse items (including a wreath that didn't make it into any of the pictures, but it looks fantastic as a chandelier decoration in the foyer!); Elwenlj made me that sweet Elvish horn on the dining room mantel (she also makes beautiful dollhouse beds and curtains); and Turimel Melmbartanen made me those beautiful tiny ceramic white and blue mugs, based on mugs used in Bag End in FOTR (she makes other LOTR-themed pottery too). Neat, huh? :)
4. I don't think I even knew some of you two years ago, so I thought I'd link to some older Tiny Bag End posts in case anyone wants to see them.
Background--how this whole thing started
Another adventure of my action figures
How I made the entrance to Bag End
Tour of the (mostly) complete interior
How the Hill was made:
- the trash pile stage
- the papier mache stage
- the styrofoam stage
- the Spackle stage
- the grass stage
Best wishes this holiday season, LJ-land! :)
Obelia