Swaps Mall Part 1 - A stacked boxes project

First, let me say, I am so excited that I got to do minis this weekend. My life has been very busy the past few months and this one was extremely so. Plus I was sick the past two weeks and still recovering. This weekend though I applied some of the principles that I am talking about over on my other blog The Organized Miniaturist on doing more minis.

Now to the project
Maybe ten years ago I saw a project done by Debby Barsaraba.  Plus her club did them as well. It was a stack of boxes done as a sort of house, but not necessarily. I thought they were neat because the boxes were covered inside and out and not necessarily typical wallpaper or siding. I saw pictures of these club projects and I was really interested in the idea.
Several years later Debby wrote an article for NAME's Miniature Gazette (issue Sept/Oct 2008) which was a Americana theme. The project there included basic instructions. I stored the idea away until I could bring it to fruition in my own way.
Meanwhile I got an idea to make a Mall in a dome. This was just a means to display all the swaps I have received. I have them in divided boxes but basically hidden from view much of the time.  This Mall would be a temporary location for the swaps.  Ideally.  Having them on display is a proven (at my house) way to get something used.  My minis 'speak' to me and have at times done so from a display dome I have now. I am inspired by the minis I see, so having them on display might get them moved sooner rather than later.
Then along came the Mother Goose project I did. I tried using the boxes idea for that. But I was lazy and didn't make actual boxes. I tried just making walls thinking that I could just glue those down to the base.  It took more work to do that. Lesson learned for sure.

Earlier this year I bought the cover that I needed for this project - a football case.  So in March I started building my boxes.  
Here are some initial ideas I had for each layer

Each of these are all as I was deciding - how they will layout, how many layers
I also needed to determine the height they had to be cut and whether I was going to include a floor between each layer.  Ultimately I decided no on the floor layers and just use the boxes. It was the height of my container and the number of layers I had that determined the height of each layer which are all the same.  
Using the details from Debby's project in the Gazette I cut a bunch of boxes.  Her sizes was my starting point, but I cut more than her list.
I wasn't sure how many I might need so I made boxes and stacked them and repeated until I came up with a configuration I liked.
I used matt board for the boxes and my one base is of foam core board.

I knew from another miniaturist who had done these type of projects before that it was important to have good notes on the way it was laid out.  It wasn't enough to just determine the arrangement - but good drawings or pictures of the arrangement would be needed later when re-assembling after covering with the papers.
So here are some of those

I also had a cheatsheet on the layout per each side, not pictured but it really helped when I was deciding on the papers to use.
But photos were the best as the labels were in the back of the boxes

In March I got all the boxes exterior covered. Picking papers was a major challenge. I used scrapbook papers from a pack I had bought. This pack provided a variety of different colors and patterns but was very cohesive overall. This pack is called a slab and about an inch thick and is the 12x12 inch size. They also were double sided which gave even more variety. I used almost all from the same pack, but added in a few others that I had. 
I tried to coordinate the colors from box to box both side to side of each layer but also from layer to layer.  Maybe I was overboard with my coordination efforts but that is just what I wanted to do.

Then other things took my attention away - and finally now in October I was drawn back to working on this. I learned a long time ago, it works best for me to work on what I am inspired to work on.  So I will work on a project and then when it stops inspiring me I put it away and switch to another.
Here is my progress from this weekend

The first level is done - the base is covered using one single sheet of scrapbook paper. The center had to be open (not pictured) to allow for the round holder that is for the football ends. I considered using a variety of papers around this base, but decided to keep it simple instead.
To cover flaws and add an accent, all the interior papers are getting a gold edging using a gold paint pen and the exteriors some as well. Not sure it can be seen in the photos or even it will matter when I am done.  For sure though it does cover the edges that don't meet so there isn't a white gap.
Here's the second floor all papered and added to the first level. This is when the photos of the arrangement was very helpful - for lining up what I had planned.  No amount of marking on the boxes would work as the papers cover them up.

The interior papers are coordinated with the boxes to the sides.  
The clamps and clothespins were needed at this level and not so much on the first one.  The boxes are meant to be square but each one isn't necessarily.
So there I am right now.