Greetings!
When it comes to the things or structures that we built a bond our home especially our ancestral home is the one that we built the most special bond with. Right from the moment that we were born until the time that we need to live on our own our home gave us shelter. It is in our home that we learned our first knowledge, it is in our home that we took our first step as a child, it is in our home that we learned our first words, it is in our home that we first laughed and cry.
Now, 16 years ago to be exact, our ancestral home was torn down because no one will be living in it and also it is getting old and no one will maintain it. 9 years ago it was replaced by a concrete bungalow with five rooms (one for each sibling in the family). One of my siblings is the only one currently living in there but every Christmas we all go home to celebrate the yuletide season.
It is hard to say goodbye to the home where you were born and raised that is why the exact look and design of our home have never been erased in my mind and then an idea popped up in my mind "why don't I make an exact replica of it using a cardboard?" and the cardboard cutting began.
Did I just mention that the exact image of our home never left my mind? Yes, you read it right, its every angle is still very vividly embedded inside my brain. But before I could actually begin the cutting I bought cardboard worth 50 cents and a cutter also worth 50 cents and also a 50 cents white glue to stick them together.
Below is the first cut that I made, with two windows facing north.
By the way, this is the first-ever in my life that I would do a cardboard cutting attempt to replicate a structure. With that said I have no experience at all in cardboard cutting especially in creating a miniature model of a structure. But I did watch videos of someone creating miniature models of structures many times before.
The next that I cut is the door inside leading to two huge bedrooms upstairs.
These two triangles are parts of the roof of the largest portion of our ancestral home
This cut is a window of the largest portion of our home facing south
Now it is time to glue them in place, the image below is the largest portion of our ancestral home this portion houses two huge bedrooms capable of housing 4 person each. This portion is divided by a wall with a door in the middle.
But while I am doing the gluing I realized that the glue takes time to dry so I decided to buy gluesticks to replace the white glue. At this moment I am using a candle to melt the gluestick but then I realized that using a candle to melt the gluesticks makes the melted glue stick into black an unwelcome sight in creating miniature models so decided to spend more bucks by buying an electronic glue gun.
With the glue gun at my disposal, I now tried to put together the roof but as easy as it may seem it is hard to glue the roof together without a second person holding them while I am doing the gluing. But I do not want to disturb my wife at this time because she was quite busy doing something so I just glued a piece of cardboard at the center horizontally that I can use to hold both the top ends of the roofs and presto problem solved.
The next two photos show how the largest portion of our ancestral home looks like after I glued the roof together.
After I finished gluing the roof together I now created posts that will serve as feet of the largest portion of our ancestral home. Below is the door portion facing south
Here's the east view after I glued the posts
And here's the north view after I glued the posts
The next that I created is the portion that consists of the kitchen and the living area and below is how it looks from the east
And here's how it looks like from the west
Another view of our ancestral home after I finished gluing the portion that consists of the kitchen and the living area
The next that I created is the terrace which is my favorite part of our home any time of the day and any time of the night and below is how it is like after I glued the terrace to the rest.
Below is the north view of our ancestral home after I glued the terrace
Here's another view after I glued the terrace to the rest
Here's the south view after I glued the terrace
Here's another view...
East view of our ancestral home after I glued the terrace.
The top view of our ancestral home after I glued the terrace.
And that's how our ancestral home looks like.
The Experience
I did enjoy the experience of creating my first-ever miniature model of a structure, especially because the structure has an emotional connection to me because it was our ancestral home back in my hometown of Nueva Ecija in the Philippines.
I learned that creating a miniature model of a structure takes time at first I thought that I can do it within one hour but I was wrong. When cutting you have to be very careful in cutting because after you cut the cardboard there's no turning back unless it is okay to just glue them back together.
When gluing you have to make sure that you never protrude the glue or else the model will look very ugly because of the protruded glues. In my case, there are lots of glues protruded but they are hardly visible unless you look very closely, in gluing I have learned that you have to put glue on the inside as much as possible so that it will never be visible from the outside of look of the model.
In this experience, I think using an illustration board is much better than using cardboard because cardboard has always the tendency to bend (just take a look at the terrace that I created).
Also, you need to make sure that your cuter is always sharp and every rushes the cutting for a finer cut.
