Christmas is over, the new year is well underway, and I'm still back somewhere in November mentally. I usually decorate the dollhouse for the holidays, but this year, I didn't even think of it until three days after Christmas. Luckily, the children living in my dollhouse have more than enough toys already.

The rocking horse was one of the first handmade miniatures that I fell in love with. I spent a good portion of the summer cleaning the attic to earn it. On the day that my mom took me to the shop, I was so nervous. I kept imaginging that it was already sold, or even worse, that I'd walk into the shop just as someone else bought it! My uncle brought the clogs back from Amsterdam.

These little dolls are sweet! The two round wooden dolls came from a local shop that closed a few years ago, but I'm not sure about the large doll.

The fireplace is halfscale. I replaced the original painted grey brick with an antique tile pattern that worked well in the room. The screen was a quick project a few years ago. The brass tools on the right came from my mother's childhood dollhouse!

This is one of my favorite bears. Sitting like this, he's only half an inch tall!

There are all sorts of things tucked away in the corners of the playroom! Many of the toys were gifts from various relatives.

Gallery II: Paintings

I posted a few photos last night of this room box I've been working on. I needed a space to store and display all my paintings without a home. The photograph below was taken while I was in the midst of swapping paintings around, and experimenting with the best spots for new paintings. Here are some of the paintings that will be displayed (at least temporarily).

This was the second miniature painting I ever tried, way back in high school. The original, by Virgee Le Brun, is "Julie LeBrun as Flora".

This girl was another early-ish attempt, though I did go back in and work on the eyes later.

I haven't made a frame for this painting yet, but it will go into the box just as soon as I do. I never did figure out the marble columns of the original Alma-Tadema, so eventually I just left them alone.

This was a recent painting. The original, by Edward Robert Hughes, is incredibly detailed. The different greens of the plants were fun to figure out.

I love Vermeer, but have been really nervous about trying any of his paintings. A few new paintbrushes gave me the courage to get my feet wet recently.

This painting was only in in the box for a short while. I gave it to mom for Christmas, so it's going to have a new home. Unfortunately, I got the scale a bit off, so the head looks enormous in a dollhouse, and isn't appropriate for mom's Georgian cottage in any case, so it will probably go somewhere in our real, "big" house.

And just for fun, here is the first miniature oil painting that I ever finished. It was certainly not the first attempt, but the only one that I didn't throw away in frustration. This one won't be going in the box, but it was mixed in with the other paintings, so I thought I'd show it anyways.

Hopefully I'll have more photos soon of the box put together a bit more.

The Gallery

I rarely think about where my miniature paintings are going to go. As a result, I've had several painting laying about, waiting for a home. Finally, I decided to make a temporary home for these paintings. We've had this generic gold room box in storage, since mom's original plan for it didn't work out. It's an odd shape, too shallow for much furniture, and either too tall or too short (depending on the way that it's turned) for a regular room. It was perfect for my needs though!


I really didn't want to buy anything for this room if I could help it, so I tried to re-purpose things that have been kicking around without a home.

I have no patience for making miniature flowers. I've never understood why, since I can work on mini scrap screens for hours one end, but one little rose aggravates me beyond all belief. Needless to say, I was very pleased to find these loose flowers at Eileen Godfrey's.

The table is plastic, believe it or not! I love the barley twist on the legs. The purplish vase began as a red and gold porcelain jar. It was very pretty, but I was never going to use those colors. I used my collection of truly horrible shimmer nail polishes to give it a new glaze. It reminds me of carnival glass.

I used shirt cardboard for the floor, with a couple heavy coats of varnish over the top. The statue pedestals also got a bit of black acrylic marbleizing, though I'm happier with the floor.
The chair had an awful glossy red stain when I found it in Eileen's bargain bin. I got rid of the finish, then did a bit of reshaping with sandpaper.
More about the paintings tomorrow!

Nearly Finished!

I posted about this rug kit from Joan Grimord I was working on about a month ago. Right after I posted, I lost my last threader, and lost some steam. I finally remembered the other day that I had some hair-thin wire tucked away. With a homemade threader, I was able to finish the design today!

All that's left is to finish the back. I've volunteered mom for that task. I quickly stuck it into Pheobe's room with the extra fabric tucked under to get an idea of how it will look in the room when everything's done. I'm not sure that I should have used quite so much orange and I definitely made a lot of mistakes, but overall I'm happy with it.

White Christmas

Woke up this morning, and this is what I saw:I love the view from our kitchen after a good snow fall! Hope everyone has a good holiday. We've certainly started celebrating around here!

Cheers!

P.S. Mom made the maid a few months ago. She's one of my favorites.

Another Micro Roombox

Here's a tiny room box that I whipped out a few weekends ago, when I had a bit of time. Most of the pieces were already made, so it came together much quicker than it would have normally.

The room box is about 1" wide, and 3/4" deep.


I've been playing with different ways to make small-scale plaster. In this box, I tried a putty that I had lying around. I like the effect, but it was a bit difficult to work with.

I tried to do a bit of aging on the tapestry and carpet. The book on the table has a real leather cover, though it can't be seen now that the book is glued down. I make a whole bunch at once, and then use them as needed. I'm unhappy with the tapestry rod. I'll probably replace it with something a bit thinner and older looking.

The Tiniest Chateau in the World?

Those little paper dollhouses I posted a while ago made me remember the most challenging project I've ever done in paper. I found this paper chateau online last year and couldn't resist trying my hand! However the graphics were a bit blocky so I decided to scale it down a little, so that everything would look better. Somehow, the palm sized model I was going to make shrank quite a bit...
The picture above shows the chateau in progress, before I'd started the dormers or chimneys.

Here it is with all but the right-most chimney. See how crooked the chimneys are? Next time I try something like this, I'll just use scraps of wood or styrene. The chimneys were the hardest part, far harder than the dormers. I had to print out many copies, because I kept squashing the chimneys and yes, dropping dormer parts.

I normally prefer to design my own really tiny paper houses, because I can make allowances for the thickness of the paper. However, considering that this was intended to be built much larger, it had surprisingly few problem areas. There were only four really tricky folds in the wall construction, and then those dratted chimneys!

It's been sitting on my crafting table for the last year, high up where I can see it, but it can't come to harm. Lately I've been thinking about doing something else with it, either adding it to a mini scene, or using it to make a Christmas ornament, but I can't decide. Does anyone else have an idea?