Back from the show

Mom and I got back from the miniatures show with a few finished treasures and lots of supplies. I mostly bought landscaping materials, which I've needed for my 1/144th scale projects mostly.

Mom bought lots of lace and trims...
and unfinished dolls from Ellen's World. This is my absolute favorite source for unfinished dolls, because she has so many to choose from, and I like the way that Ellen paints them (something I am VERY picky about).I only found one thing for my house, this tiny old plate from Lovely Things. It will go on my kitchen plate rail. The porcelain is so thin!

I found this little fellow at Ladybug's table, along with most of the landscaping supplies. I'll post the project I needed him for soon!

This was the last purchase. I've been looking at these little fairies in lipstick tubes for probably four or five years now, but I always passed it up thinking I'd try to make one on my own. Never got around to it, so I finally caved.
The tube has a very pretty cloisonne style flower, purple butterfly and the tiniest fairy. I love the colors- all pastel. In real life, it is very sparkly!

Tag!

I was tagged by Josje of A Beautiful World. The rules of this tag are: Name the person who tagged you, mention 6 things that you like and 6 people that you are tagging, leave them a note on their blogs. I'm only going to tag three people, I hope that's alright. I'd like to tag: Texas Belle at Myrtlewood Manor, Ara at Adams Family Mini Mansion and Clue: Murder at Bentley Manor and Sandra Morris at Tales from a Toymaker.



So here are six miniature things that I like, in no particular order.

1. Miniatures that really work. I'm fascinated by anything miniature that can really do whatever the real object is meant to do. This little silver sewing bird's beak opens and closes to hold fabric.

2.Miniatures made from unexpected materials. This bobbin lace making pillow was made from absolute "garbage". The pillow fabric is the lining from my first wallet. The bobbins were found in an old radio/alarm clock. They only needed to be clipped out.

3.Miniatures made by people I love. The bobbin lace pillow was made by my mom. Neither of us knows how to do bobbin lace, but I was fascinated with it so she made this for me. The lace "in progress" is actually purchased lace which she sat and picked apart!

4. Miniatures that mimic real-life things I love. The top picture is a miniature copy of Renoir's painting, Girls in the Meadow, painted by Josephine Meyer . My grandmother has always had two copies of this painting hanging in her living room, one painted by my great-grandmother, and the other by my aunt.
The second picture is of my miniature dresden ballerina from Gobel. Behind it is my real dresden figurine.

5. Books I have to have miniature versions of my favorite stories and poems. The book above is Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shallot. This is about 1/12th scale, but I also make larger miniature books of favorite poems (about 2" tall) to throw in my purse or pocket.

6.Hidden surprises. I like tiny things which aren't seen at first glance. It's just as much fun to discover the miniature bird's nest as it is to find the real one in the tree outside-maybe the miniature is even more fun.

The Parlor

This is the room that drives my mother nuts. She calls it the dust trap, but that was kind of the effect I was going for. This room is really CRAMMED with treasures.



The painting in the back left corner of the room was done by Josephine Meyers. It's copied from a Renoir painting, Girls in the Meadow. I always loved this painting, because my great grandmother and aunt both painted (large) copies, both of which hang in my grandmother's living room. Every time I went to her house as a little girl, I would stand in front of the paintings and just look at them. I love to have miniatures that are coppies of real-life things I love, because they have twice the meaning.

This davenport desk was built by Julian Biggers (the chair is Bespaq). It has so many secret drawers!

We're off to Sturbridge tomorrow, so hopefully I'll find another treasure or two, and lots of supplies (not that I really need any more supplies...)

New Micro Project in Pocket Watch

I watched The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the other night. I really loved C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia and was reluctant to watch the movie for just that reason. Film adaptations of books (particularly children's books) seem to always butcher the storyline, turning complex character struggles into simplistic battles between good and evil. But the movie wasn't nearly as bad as I was anticipating. In fact, it got me thinking about making a Narnia scene in miniature. I've had this pocket watch lying around for awhile, and it turned out to have just enough space to show that first meeting of Lucy and Mr. Tumnus.
Sorry for the lack of clarity on the above picture. The glass front made the scene difficult to photograph. I used a very fine white glitter on the snow. The lantern is made of a few little plastic bits glued together.Both Mr. Tumnus and Lucy are carved out of toothpicks. I tried to stay true to the book's description, giving him a red scarf and black umbrella. He is carrying packages wrapped in brown paper. I nearly forgot his tail! Luckily, I remembered and was able to glue it on before I closed up the watch.

Lucy has tissue paper clothing and bunka hair.

Here they are together!

More of the Music Room

I've just realized that I've never shown the whole house interior. Here are a few more details from the music room. I love this figurine. It's really made of porcelain (most of the other figurines in the house are cast metal), so I'm terrified that one day I'll knock it over. One of the wedgewood vases was a birthday gift. I found the other a few years later.

There are two paintings of Venice in the room, both from Josephine Meyer. This one has tiny figures (bottom right) sailing a toy boat (bottom left).

And here's another picture of the little budding musician...

The Music Room

This room is the only room in the house which even slightly resembles my original vision of what it would look like. I pictured far less white, and quite a bit more gold, but overall I'm happy with how things have turned out. This room is on the second floor, on the far left. The violin on the chair is a new(ish) acquisition. I've had a plastic violin there for several years, and always looked longingly at the better-made miniature instruments. I managed to snag this one for a much lower price than normal at a recent (local!) show, and I'm thrilled to finally have a good one. I played violin for several years, and was sorry to give it up, so it was important to have one in my dollhouse.

The screen behind the chair has etched glass panels. My mom built it for me, several years ago, because we simply had to figure out how to display the panels. The shop that sold them (now out of business) only had these three left. There are two with urns and plants, while the center panel has a very intricate cherub design. If anyone knows who might have made these etched glass pieces, I'd love to know!

Mom also made the two ferns in this room.


The chandelier is from Mr. Kay. However, when I saw it in the room I thought it looked a bit bare, so I pulled the elastic out of a rhinestone bracelet and draped it evenly over the three arms.

This little musician is a very new member of the dollhouse. I've tried to restrain myself to only a few animals, but I really couldn't resist him. The odd thing is, I don't know any real life Dalmatians, but all the other dogs in my dollhouse (there are three others, an English Cocker Spaniel and two Beddlington Terriors) were meant to be real dogs that I know and love.

I'm going to try to put up a few more photos of this room later.

Cleaning Up

I've been scurrying around today, trying to organize my miniature workspace. This is usually a pretty big task, since I hoard all sorts of things which defy categorization. I've decided that I definitely need more storage (I do have more storage than this picture shows, but not too much more). Thank goodness I mostly make 1/144th scale now, since that only takes scraps of materials. I also really need to figure out an easy way to store various sized papers, since I'm usually in the middle of designing/putting together a few different printable projects. Between all the trial runs to check colors and fit, quite a few sheets accumulate!