Post #680558 by tigertail777 on Mon, Jun 3, 2013 4:44 AM

First off, thanks for dropping by Zero and everyone else who is following along!

Well it's been a while, and there is a reason for it... my deadline to get the studio done for a combination birthday party and studio opening is June 9th (today is actually my birthday, but I decided to do the celebrating of it on the weekend when more people could come). So this week is the last week I have to get any final touches done before the grand opening party. I have started to hang some framed art and mementos such as Shrunken Head Ned cards from Disneyland. I had to figure out a way to hang heavier stuff because the walls are too thin to go putting a lot of big screws into, so I ended up getting open eye hooks and screwing those into the 2x4 beams. The small stuff I twisted together two Christmas bulb hangers and then snagged then into the burlap, so they are hanging essentially from the burlap cloth.

The last of the wall clamping. I was using liquid nails to "glue" bamboo sticks to the edges as a border to seal and hide the fraying edges of the burlap. I used every clamp I could get my hands on.

After they were all glued down and dried, I started to paint on a wood stain, you can see the difference it makes here. I was trying match the golden brown of the koa wood on the placemats I used as a border lower on the walls.

Then to match, I stained every other wood wall surface such as the base boards here.

I found a couple of very nice older looking frames at Goodwill for cheap, I just had to do some fancy cutting to get rid of some tacky pictures of dogs and ponies and glued in matte boards. Then I took some oversize calendar prints of paintings from my favorite artist Carl Barks, and put them into the frames. I chose two nautical themed paintings he did to go with my tiki theme. This one is called "Makings of a Fish Story" with Uncle Scrooge, Donald and the kids diving for treasure (Carl Barks is the creator of Uncle Scrooge, and wrote and drew over 500 Disney comics. When he retired he began to do paintings of his characters.) I really liked how the green frame set off the painting, and was fortunate to find both this frame and the next one on the same day and they both match the painting color schemes.

This Carl Barks painting is called "Afoul of the Flying Dutchman", based on a full length Uncle Scrooge comic story of the same name.

I had to put up the menu from the first time I went to Trader Vic's, but I didn't want to frame it because I wanted to be able to open it up and see the drinks inside. So I just thumb tacked it to the wall in such a way that it rests on the thumbtacks without putting holes in it.

I know this mask is tacky, and not exactly in the tiki tradition but it is special to me because I got it on my first trip back to Honolulu since we moved away when I was kid. It was the first time as an adult I had been back to my birthplace, and I found this mask at a marketplace in there. It is hanging from one the hooks, and I am using it to conceal some of the cords from the boombox above it, so the wire to any external device such a CD player to be plugged into the boombox comes out of the tiki mask mouth.

If you have ever been to Disneyland and are familiar with Adventureland, you might know about "Shrunken Head Ned" The jungle's only witch doctor. It is a sort of humorous fortune telling machine with a shrunken head giving you your fortune. In addition to an audio fortune, you also get these cards dispensed randomly to you that are quite hilarious. I framed several of them against a few scraps of Hawaiian cloth for the studio. I also as you can see, framed some similar cards from the older "Fortune Red" teller machine at the exit to Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

Here are the Shrunken Head Ned ones on the wall.

I found a shadowbox at Goodwill also that I knew I could make good use of. I stuffed it with various trinkets I acquired over the years, mainly Disneyland stuff. There is a rare opening brochure for the Enchanted Tiki Room, and E ticket that lists the tiki room and several now gone attractions, various pins such as one for the little orange bird (Florida tiki room's old mascot), replica doubloons, and last but not least one of the earliest "tiger things" I ever bought: a tiger squirt gun I have had since I was about 7 years old.

I got this old label cheap off ebay, it is for a pineapple flavored soda that was marketed around the late 1930's called Lula. I thought it looked quite nice mounted against the mulberry paper.

Back to the construction... Remember the lauhala matting I got at the tiki event? I decided to cut it into squares to cover what I could of the ugly silver ceiling (later I will have to buy more to finish it off). I was not prepared for how difficult and dangerous this stuff could be to work with. I did remember from looking at some past threads on installation of the stuff to tape the back to hold it together when you cut it, but was not prepared for how sharp those edges were and how much splintering there would be. I am still digging splinters out of my hands and those are nasty little buggers let me tell you. After the first few tries I got smart and got some gloves, but splinters still went through the gloves even though they were rubber coated. Here it is being laid out for cutting.

And where they are on the part of the ceiling I covered.

As a final touch to the bamboo on the walls I am taking rope bits and snugging them up behind the bamboo in such a way that it looks like the bamboo is tied together (this also hides some of the more ill fitting bamboo pieces where they come together). It's like a Hollywood set though; don't pull on those ropes too hard it's just for show. :wink:

And it is not tiki so avert your eyes if you are sensitive to the purity of tiki being invaded by things wholly of non-tiki nature.... I had a bunch of flat magnets that were being thrown away (you know those magnetic advertising "cards" that banks and businesses use). I tore off the top paper coating and glued down and laminated my own graphics of old arcade game marquee's and bezels. I thought these would be perfect for post it note size papers that could go behind the bezel frames. Being a child of the 70's and 80's I grew up playing these games and dearly love the artwork from them. They work perfectly on the edge of my huge metal cabinet. Cy from Frog Island Tiki's gave me a sample of the same kind of magnet sheet stuff to cover the ugly electric box, but it got lost somewhere in the layers of construction. Once I find it I am going to make something to cover the electric box, but it probably won't be in time for the opening party.

The next time I post it will be of the grand opening/birthday celebration! :)