Picasa Saves the Day!

I signed onto Picasa this morning to see if that would fix my picture cropping problems. Look to the left! It worked!

I brought along a cross stitch rug, some mini bead work supplies, graph paper, a novel and Mr. Dell to keep me busy until the golfer returns.

He left at 5:30 AM to play golf in what will be 112° weather. I ask you, who's the crazy one here, the hot golfer or the cool miniaturist?

This is the Tibetan rug that I brought to amuse myself. I designed it from a book of real Tibetan rugs that I bought several years ago at a used book store. The Tibetans are my favorite style. All of the symbols have a meaning. I love the stylized clouds in the corners. I did the design on my computer cross stitch program, which reminds me. I need to load that one on here.

The light in this room is not the best. The background on this is more of a salmon color.

I also brought some of my # 14 beads. I seem to have started a mandala with these. I found it in my traveling bead box. It must be from our last vacation. As it stands, it's 1 1/2" across. This is a doodle. I do these just for fun. It will probably become an applique on a large bag or something similar. I have no pattern for these. I just start with 6 beads in a circle and build out, selecting colors as I go.

This one is not really a miniature. It is however, done the same way that the circular purse was done that I showed you in an earlier entry. It just depends on how many rows you add.

Yesterday afternoon my husband went on a pilgrimage to the PGA Superstore. When he came back, he had a whole roll of lead weighting tape just for me! He also found some in his golf bag. I can finish the windows on the second floor windows of the bookshop now. He sure knows how to make a miniaturist happy!

I am off to play with mini stuff now. This is my kind of vacation!

Home tomorrow. See you then.

Good News, Bad News.......

I am in Scottsdale. I got the laptop working. Now for the bad news. I downloaded some photos that I took of what I am working on for the next two days. I forgot that I don't have Paint shop Pro on this computer. I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to crop photos without it. This will be the usual Sunday entry with some other places to visit. Heres some of my wicker to look at for a couple of seconds. Now on to the important stuff. Here are a couple of sites to play with.

http://www.sylvan.com/~isabella/mini/rikpierce.htm These two sites are on the same woman's websites. The first one is following Rik Pierce's class on an English Cottage.

http://www.sylvan.com/~isabella/mini/toyshoppe1.htm The second one is on building his toy shop. They are both filled with wonderful information on building and techniques.

Have a great time wandering through. See you tomorrow, pictures or no pictures.

Before and After

You saw the before yesterday. Now for the after. It has been a long time since I last laid a brush to this little monster. I had forgotten how difficult it was to paint. That's why it was in the garage.

The colors in the photo aren't quite true. The green is good but the trim is the Chamomile yellow that I am using on the book shop. For some reason it wants to be light green in the photos. I did notice one little piece of trim missing over the right window. I will have to duplicate one of the existing ones. No telling where that one went.

I decided to keep the half timbers brown for some contrast. That really makes the fretwork on the peaks of the roof pop. Unfortunately, those all had to be repainted too. This house is almost impossible to paint without getting one color on the one next to it. So.....I painted green and got it on the half timbers. I painted brown on the half timbers and got it on the green. The same thing happened with the Chamomile yellow and the green.....So on it went. Touch up this. Paint that. Touch up that and paint this.

Anyway, it's done! Hopefully this paint job will last another 10 years.

This is going to be verrrry short today. We are getting ready to go up to Scottsdale for a few days. I will try to keep in touch while we are up there. I will have the new laptop along to play with.

I know I can write on the new laptop, but I am not sure about photos yet. I haven't tried to upload them yet. I guess I should try that before we leave.

If I don't succeed in getting things posted, the worst that can happen is no more posts until Tuesday afternoon. Wish me luck. I hope to see you tomorrow.

I've Got a Secret.

You should never send me out to the garage to look for something that is stored away! Look what I found.

Years ago, when I was working in a mini shop, we got some new kits in from Houseworks. Half inch scale was just getting popular. As I remember, the price was about 40.00. That was a lot of money back then. Since I worked there most of my pay went to minis anyway.

The kit had everything cut of birch plywood and it was pretty much ready to put together. The windows and door were components. The trim was included. I put the kit together and painted it yellow, with white trim. Later I thought I was tired of the yellow, so I got out the Forest green and toffee brown.

As you can see, there is wallpaper inside the front windows. The secret is, that is a false wall. This is what the back of the building looks like. It's a Jewelry box! They advertised that you could leave the drawers out and turn it into a house. It was an awkward size for a house. It's really too small to do more than a room or two. So I opted to make it into the jewelry box. It is on it's own little turntable so that you can swing it around easily.

The point of this exercise is........Yes, I am getting sidetracked once again. I love this little house. I hate the colors that I repainted it. That's why it was banned to the garage. It is SO dark. I am going to whip out some happy colors and paint it so that it can come back to live in the house.

Don't tell anyone that there are secret drawers in the back. I guess it doesn't really matter. I will probably fill it with poly clay jewelry anyway.

I am off to select paint colors. Don't nag! I will get back to the bookshop tomorrow. See you then.

Re: Shelving

I got up this morning and looked at the bookcase that I made yesterday. I remembered that I had planned to make some of the shelves in this one a little bigger. Oopsie! It was all glued together. So.....Back to the drawing board, so to speak.


I ripped out three shelves on each side of the window opening and changed that space to two shelves on each side. I love making myself more work! I needed some space for larger books. There was nothing else I could do. Now I have to sand down and stain the inside of each of those spaces. I know you have heard this before, but GRRRRRRR. OK. I feel all better now.


Onto what else I accomplished yesterday. I made books until I was blue in the face. I am not sure exactly what that means. Are you holding your breath all the time you are doing something? Must be. Why else would you be blue in the face when you finished?


This is the results. I do believe I am making progress. I stuffed all of the books in the downstairs bookcase the other day just to show you how many I had made. I will be stretching them out by doing some of the shelves like Barnes and Noble does theirs. They put some of the books face out so that you will be tempted by the covers. I know this because I have been tempted so many times. I don't resist temptation well when it comes to books. I believe that my daughter inherited this trait from me......Remember? She's a librarian.



I opened my big mouth the other day and said that I had a couple of birdcages waiting to be dressed with minis. My friend Tiffany is a realllllllly bad influence. She is trying to talk me into working on this one. So far I am resisting temptation. It really wouldn't take that long to do. I have some cream colored wicker that would look rather good in there. Maybe there should be a chandelier hanging from the center of the dome? Hmmmmmm. I am thinking a tile floor and maybe draperies in a couple of places around the inside edge.........

NO!!!!! I must finish the book shop!!! Someone come and hide the birdcage. Please!

I will not touch the birdcage. I will not touch the birdcage. I will not touch the birdcage.

See you tomorrow.

Shelving Continued........

I have the second floor shelves that you saw yesterday stained and built up with molding. They aren't varnished and sanded yet. As you can see, I custom built them around the window and miracle of miracles, they fit!

I was going to continue them around the corner to the front wall, but when I put them in place I decided that I didn't really want more shelves. Part of the reason was I didn't want the room to look crowded.........The other part? Less books to make. You know me....I may change my mind and do something else tomorrow.

OK. This is Wednesday. Short day for writing and building. I have to go to the mini meeting. Guess what I am going to do? Hey! You are getting good! Yup. More books.

Here's something to keep you reading a couple more minutes.

About a year ago I found some wonderful French websites(Sakartonn on my list of blogs I read is the one that started it.) on cartonnage(in English that's just plain old box building) They combine that with copies of Antique Quaker red work cross stitch. Some of it can get quite large and elaborate. I took a liking to it and started doing some of the samplers in regular size. I was fascinated by this pattern for a biscornu(pincushion). That is the larger item that you see in the picture. It was about 3" across from point to point. They are very clever, the French. It is made of two squares of fabric, twisted a quarter turn and sewn together by hand to get the shape. When I finished the large one I decided that I could do it smaller. It is a different cross stitch design on either side. I started with a 1" working surface and did the same thing as the 3" cushion.

The one inch one makes a great pillow in one inch scale. Here it is with a mini wing chair that I made and a beautifully crafted table that I purchased at a show. It's another one of those pieces that has no signature. I can see the woman as clear as day, but I can't remember her name. There is a beaded bowl on the table that I made and the plant is one that I made in a class taught by a friend.

This scene is another of those temporary scenes that I have scattered here and there. It is in a curio box that has three shelves and a drawer underneath. It changes regularly. I will let you know when there is something new there.

I am sitting here smelling smoke. There are a couple of fires burning in the mountains around Tucson. They are under control, but it is still unpleasant to be reminded that it is happening again.

I have to go to the mini meeting now. See you tomorrow.

Shelving Again

I had some very positive feed back from yesterday's lantern episode. Thanks everyone.


I'm back inside the bookshop today after taking a short vacation in lantern land. I was putting off the shelving on the second floor, lots of shelving on the second floor. I still have another one to build for the back wall. That means more bookmaking. And no, I haven't even started thinking about the third floor yet. I am trying hard NOT to think about the third floor right now.


I cut 5 strips 3/4" wide out of 3/32"X 3" bass wood. After measuring and remeasuring, I cut the verticals 7" and the horizontals to fit each of the three sections between. Then I cut tiny shelf supports and glued them in on the lines that I marked. As you can see I have the whole thing in the jig, drying. That's the sum total of the work so far today.


When I was looking for supplies in my room I found this. I thought you might like to see a cabinet house for a dollhouse that I made. My friend Jo sent me all of the pieces cut and ready for the shell and I did the rest.


The little windows are Walthers components from the train store. I still need to put in the door and I need a piece of trim to go between the first and second floor.


The whole house is less than 5" tall.
I did the vines on the side with green Pigma .005 pen and white paint for the berries.


Here's the inside. The bed on the top floor has a headboard made from one of those pierced Japanese fans that you find in import stores. The quilt is actually a tiny picture of a quilt cut from a magazine.


The couch is made of balsa covered with fabric and the rug was done on the computer.


I made the fireplace on the first floor but the other furniture is metal miniatures that I painted.


This little house is still looking for a home. I think that part of the problem is the color. I thought it was pretty at the time that I made it, but it really isn't one of my favorite colors. Hey! I just realized that I have a dollhouse shop. This is one of those 'Duh!' moments.....
I am going right now to climb up on a ladder and put it in it's new home. That is, as soon as I put a door in the front.

Hopefully I will have the bookcase done by tomorrow. See you then if I don't fall off the ladder.

Thirty Minute Minis

Today I am sidetracking. I went to K Mart this morning. I was walking through housewares when this lantern practically jumped into my cart! Then I heard this little voice. It said "Buy me!" I looked at the tag and it said 5.00. It was once 9.99. Half price. My kind of sale.


The glass part is only 6" high and 4" wide. It looked so lonely sitting there on the shelf all by itself. I thought it would be much happier if I brought it home and turned it into a display case.


There was a candle ring in the bottom of the lantern. It was glued in with some kind of metal glue. I pulled it out with a pair of pliers and brute strength. Well maybe not brute strength. OK. I admit it. It wasn't glued in all that good. My favorite needle nose pliers got it out in a matter of seconds.


I whipped out some scraps. There was mat board. A piece 4" by 6" would do for the back wall. There was foam core. A piece 4" by 4" made the floor.


Then I went through and found a piece of wallpaper just big enough to cover the mat board and wrap around to the back by at least 1/2" all around.

I also found a scrap of carpeting(upholstery material) to match that was about 6" square. I needed 1" to wrap around the edges of the foam core and glue to the bottom. One 4" scrap of baseboard completed the materials.

The only other supplies I needed were spray glue for the wallpaper and white glue for the rug.

I set to work wrapping the wallpaper around the mat board and the fabric around the foam core pretty much like you would wrap a package. I did miter the corners.

The whole operation took about a half hour. That included talking to my daughter on the phone and not really working while talking.



Here's the finished product. It's just big enough to display a chair and a couple of cats.


The chair is one of the "Take a Seat" resin chairs. You will recognize the cats from an earlier entry. They were my mom's day present from my daughter.


The whole point of this exercise is that you don't have to have whole days to finish a mini project. You can do this kind of project in any lantern, birdcage or terrarium. I have even seen people do something similar in glass jars. Anything that you can see through and that you can put a floor and a back wall in will do.


I am off of my soapbox now and back to work.

See you tomorrow.

Sunday, Day of Rest......

I liked Father's Day last week so well that I have decided that I am going to take Sundays off for a while. I made myself a new rule or two. You get one pretty picture and at least 3 mini websites to go visit. Chances are at least one of them will be someplace that you haven't been before.

Here's your pretty picture. These are three of my coiled pieces. The beige and white one is a little bigger than a quarter. The red one is one of the first ones I tried in openwork. The piece on the edge of the flowerpot is a free form piece that will probably wind up as wall art. As you can see, at the time the photo was taken I was still working on two out of three. My usual operating procedure. The first one was done with two separate colors of over dyed floss an the other two each came from a single skein. I do these baskets with two strands of floss over the smallest covered wire that I can find. This was #32 cloth covered white that came on a spool like thread. I am going to get to work and do a tutorial for this kind of basket pretty soon.......Be aware that when I do you will want a really good pair of eyes or a lighted magnifier to work. I will give you the basics and let you run with it.

Now for the trip to new places.

This is one of those pages that has lots of links to other sites and tutorials. There may be some that you have already run into but there are a lot of different ones too. Elsewhere on the Treefeathers site are some projects and printies too. Dig around. It's fun.
http://www.treefeathers.com/miniref/Projects.html

The next site is one that, if you are interested in making food from poly and resin, is a must see. Unfortunately, Mary Eccher is no longer with us, so I don't know how long the site will be here. I guarantee it will make you hungry. http://pannikins.homestead.com/new.html

The third one is an ezine for doll makers. Most of the issue shown is mini size. You will have to go dig through the other issues to see what's there. Lots of neat instructions are here. http://www.frillsandfancyezine.com/2006/FF5/index.html

Have a great Sunday! I will see you tomorrow.

I'm Rockin' Now!

I did stonework for a couple of hours this morning. If you have ever worked with DAS or paper clay, you will know what I mean when I say that your fingers start to feel like rocks. As you are working the clay kind of builds up on your fingers and dries there. I had to go scrub off my finger tips every half hour or so. It's fun to do but really dries out your hands. I had to quit after I did what you see. Stonework goes slowly. And besides, my husband brought home pizza. Pizza and DAS don't play well together.

This photo makes it look like there is an overhang where I have the two kits glued together. There's not one. I think that the saw cut emphasizes the line.

The part going up the inside corners is hardest to do. If you aren't careful, it can get very thick and then there is no definition of the corner.

In case you are wondering, I am not going to stone the whole house. It will be California 1920s Storybook style. There is no rhyme or reason where the stones are placed on those houses. They are really interesting and literally look like something out of a fairytale. That's what I am going for here.

This is the only other thing I got done today. I drew up a plan for the bookshelves on the second floor to go on the right wall. I will work around the window and keep that where it is. If I blocked it off to make the whole wall shelves it would be pretty boring and not enough light. I also got the long strips cut for the shelving. Now all I have to do is cut them to the right length and put them together in the jig.

Today is Saturday and I am using that as an excuse to quit early. Well not really. I still need to draw up plans for the other bookshelves on the second floor. At least I can sit down and do that and no more rocky fingers!

See you tomorrow.

Two into One

Here we go! Now the fun part begins. I didn't make a lot of progress today because I was doing other real life things. I did get a lot accomplished. The two Buttercups are now one.

The first thing I did was paint all three ceilings Antique White. I was going even darker with the top floor, but I thought that might be hard to see since I don't intend to wire this building. I reserve the right to change my mind on the color at a later date.

I turned the top house on it's little head to paint the ceilings. Actually, all of the ceilings were on that house alone. What would normally be the underside of the base on that house is now the ceiling on the first floor. It is much easier for the house to stand on it's head than it would be for me to stand on my head to paint after it is glued together.

It matched up pretty well considering I didn't dry fit it together before building the two houses.

In this first photo you can clearly see the glued line of the two houses. Tomorrow I will continue building up the rock work on the sides. I think that some of the seams will be either covered with wooden beams or with stucco covered beams. I am leaning towards the wooden ones at the moment.

Sidetrack......The scissors in the foreground are my "fabric only" scissors. No one uses the scissors with the beaded handle upon fear of death......This is the kind of thing that goes on when I am really bored. I mean the beading on the handle, not the fear of death part. I picked up the scissors one day and decided that they needed something to differentiate them from the other hundred pair I own.....Did I mention I collect scissors too?

Back to the house. Here's the front. I have changed the second floor so that there will be a window in the center instead of another door. I did leave the fanlight on that window instead of making it one arch topped window. At least that's how it is so far.

I am thinking that it needs more of a change. I am not sure what yet. I still have to close in the front window by the stairs on the ground floor. That is going to be a blank wall. I probably should have closed the holes before I did the staircase. Oops,I did it again!(Gee that sounds familiar.) I like to make things difficult and then solve the problem. What's the fun in doing it right the first time?

I think that most of the front "tower" will be rock work. Now all I have to do is figure out where it will go from there.

Oh well. Tomorrow is another day. See you then.

More Books and More Books.....

Today I installed the windows on the first floor of the bookshop. I am pretty pleased with how they look.

Someone asked me yesterday why I cut new frames for all of the insides of the windows from mat board. It is simple. They do not come with the Corona Buttercup kit. So I just took the outside window frames and traced them. I had to cut some of them down a bit to make them fit inside.

Here's a first look at the final placement. I glued in the bookcase. I decided that the table for the cash register etc. is going to have to set on a slant so that people can get to the books in the shelf to the side. The chair is borrowed from another scene. I still have to make two chairs like that to go on the opposite side of the tables in front of the bays. That particular table won't have one when I am finished. The door is not officially in place yet. I still have to add the hinges, handle and the grill over the window.

Would you believe that most of the books I have made so far are on the first floor?!? How can that be?

My dad used to have a description of a not very smart person......He said "If you bought him a book, he would eat the cover." I think that there are a big gang of really stupid tiny people sneaking in at night and eating whole books!!

That's got to be where they are going. This has to stop!

On the other side, the bay is pretty much finished except for a couple of pillows. I still have to put the curtain over the front window. Again the chair is borrowed. I am thinking black green for the chairs.

The last photo today is how you can tell if someone is a true miniaturist. How do you like my manicure?

I guess the next task of the day is nail polish remover. Then on to painting the ceiling and readying the second floor for attachment.

See you tomorrow.

Time Flies......

Well. I just pushed the wrong key and published the title as a full blog. I think I had better do some editing..........

As I was saying, time flies. It's Wednesday again already. Short day for blogging. I will however, finish what I started. Here are a few more pics of the window making process.

I finished the first floor windows last night and installed two of them this morning.

Here's the first window for the second story. I glued the plastic to the back of the frame. Next I taped it to the pattern for that size window that I sketched. As you can see, I penciled it in on graph paper. If your frames are painted use blue painter's tape to tack them down. It won't mess up your paint. With the method I use, I have to paint them first. I prefer putting leading around the edge of the window so that they look like they are leaded to the frame. Therefore I have to have the plastic in place so that I can make that part fit exactly. I have started the first side of the leading. When it is cut this thin you can mostly put a fingernail where you want to cut it and just pull off the excess.

In the next photo you can see the front(left) and the back(right) of two of the finished windows for the lower floor.

The left one will be seen from the inside of the house. So the finished frame is showing on that one. The one on the right will be glued to the wall inside the house. the plastic reaches almost to the edge of the frame.

As you can see, I have already added color with Sharpie markers in the one on the left. I am leaving the ones on the entryway clear. I can still add color if I change my mind. Remember that the sharpie colors go on the inside of the window and the clear nail polish that I add for texture goes on the outside. Never the two shall meet. The lead will darken naturally in a short time. No need to add a darkening solution like some people do.

Now. Do you want to see what the finished windows are going to look like? Nope. I couldn't wait to see what the rocks and the washes were going to look like.

Here you go. I don't have the round window added yet. I forgot to cut them yesterday. Oops.

I have added about ten different colors to the rocks. I started with a wash of hippo gray Ceramcoat in all of the mortar lines. Then used various shades of brown, tile red, ochre, the green that I used on the inside bottom And a bit of dry brushed antique white here and there.I did a wash of the ochre over the Chamomile on the walls. I am actually getting excited now. I love it when a plan comes together!

See you tomorrow.

Leading Windows

I am probably going to die of lead poisoning before I get all of these windows finished. I am growling and spending a lot of time peeling lead off of my fingertips. Ask me how it's going......No. On second thought, you don't want to know. These aren't really hard. They are just very time consuming. The first step was re cutting all of the window frames out of mat board and all of the windows from hard plastic. I used a protective document folder that I got at Wal Mart. It is plastic that doesn't bend but it can still be cut with heavy scissors.

The next step was painting all of the frames on both sides so that they wouldn't warp. The ones in the photo are all for the first floor only. Next time I think I am going to build a cave with no windows. This house has way too many.

Next I glued the plastic to the backside of the frames. It will be sandwiched between the inside frame and the wall. Then after they were dry I taped them, one at a time to the paper drawing of what I wanted the finished leading to look like.

Next I made the leading as I went along. Yes it is real leading. I bought it at a golf shop. It is a lead tape that golfers use to weight their clubs. I used a metal ruler and an Exacto Knife to cut the lead in about 1/32" strips. The tape has a very sticky adhesive back. When you peel off the back it sticks nicely to the plastic laid over the pattern. It can be curved to the lines if you want curves.

As you can see in this photo the stripping can be cut and overlapped to make whatever pattern you want to do.

After I did the leading on the front side I flipped the window over and leaded the other side on the same lines. That way it looks finished from either side.

After I finished that, I colored some of the sections with colored Sharpie pens. Have you checked out their colors lately? They are no longer the same few crayon colors that they once were. They now come in every shade that you can imagine. The last step is flipping the windows over again, so that you aren't working on the Sharpie side and covering all of the sections with clear nail polish to get the old glass look. I will try to get a better photo of the colors tomorrow. Why tomorrow? Because this is the slowest thing I have ever done.

Admittedly, I am not working all day on these, but after hours of work for two days, this is the sum total of my efforts. I do have all of the frames and windows cut and the frames painted. All I have to do is spend hour after hour playing with lead strips.

Yup! Three windows are finished! I will take some more photos as I go tomorrow. I have to quit now and remember to wash my hands before I start cooking dinner. Lead in the soup wouldn't taste very good.

See you tomorrow.

Eskiaga's Home

I am working on very boring windows today, so I decided to give you an up close tour of Eskiaga's Room Box. This started out as a wooden packing crate that my husband brought home from work. I couldn't resist trying to turn it into something more than what it was.

I sat down and drew up plans for the inside of the box. Then I started cutting pieces of foam core for the inside walls. The whole thing just came together for me. After a couple of BIG containers of spackle, I had the room.

Then I went to a couple of my favorite books on Spanish and Mexican furniture. With the exception of the two chairs by the door and the Shaker cabinet on the opposite wall, I drew up plans and made all of the furniture from scratch, using the books as guides.

I wired the box to have a chandelier in the center of the ceiling, glowing coals in the fireplace, and sunlight outside on the patio.

The chandelier is made from various jewelry findings glued together and painted black. When I can, I buy bags of junk jewelry at thrift shops. You would be surprised what you can find in broken necklaces and earrings.

The painting behind is an original acrylic done on silk.

On to the woodwork and furniture.

The door and all of the moldings are hand carved with a little help. For the molding I started with commercial molding and then carved the diamond pattern into the center of it before staining. The door itself was one piece of basswood cut to match the size of an antique door in one of the books. I then carved the design directly into the wood. The chairs in this photo are Take a Seat resin.

Next the bed.

It was also hand carved to match an antique Spanish piece from Mexico. The coverlet is #22 hardanger cloth and the "thunder bird" border is actually a pattern from Transylvania!

The pot on the right was a plain terracotta pot. I painted the Native American design on it.

The cupboard in the right hand room on top is a copy of a Santos cupboard from Mexico. Each panel has a different saint hand painted into it. The X chair is Mexican also.

Eskiaga hopes you enjoyed the tour. Now he says you all should go away so that he can eat his tacos and enchiladas in peace! See you tomorrow.

Father's Day Off

I don't very often take the day off from minis or blogging, either one. Today I am getting ready to grill lobster and spend the afternoon just relaxing. Soooooo, I am going to show you a pretty picture and send you to other sites to amuse yourselves.

All of the pots in this photo are made by a lady named Julie Hinkle of Poco Pots. She used to come to our show every year and every year I would make a point of spending some of my money at her table. She threw these pots on a standard sized potter's wheel! The white one in the center with the black lines on it was fired with horse hair wrapped around it. That's what made the black. Most of the rest are Japanese style Raku. The turquoise ones are about the only regular glazed ones. I have her pots in a lot of my room boxes. She does some that are copies of ancient Native American pottery that looks like it has just been unearthed in an archeology dig somewhere. I think those are some of my favorites. I have those elsewhere.

The bookcase that they are in was purchased as an unfinished piece and I added the carving on the front and stained it.

As for the sites I can spend hours looking at, here goes. The first site is Odd Fae and Autumn things. Dawn Schiller makes the most wonderful miniature dolls. Shttp://www.oddfae.com/

Wanna In El Paso seems like she would be a fun miniaturist to sit and chat with. There are great instructions and great photos of her work here. http://www.wannainelpaso.com/fantasy/anachronon_the_wizard.shtml

Have fun looking. See you tomorrow with regular programming.

Curtain Call

Good Afternoon. Sorry to be late, but I have been making curtains for the bookshop. I had a small scrap of the fabric that made the cushion for the bay window. I got it into my head that the bay should have curtains to match. Then I decided that the window over the counter needed one too.

I make curtains with a similar method to the one that I made the bed skirt in the bed tutorial a while back.

This time I had to stretch a bit, literally. The bay has a slanted top. It is 6" tall at the peak. I had just a tiny problem.......I only had enough fabric for curtains that were 5" long. Oops! The answer to the problem was making the curtains look natural. If you pull the center of a curtain back to the side the bottom naturally slants upwards. Sneaky aren't I? Here you see my 5" by 4" piece of fabric. Beside it you see a longer curtain. Magic? Sure it is. Fabric stretches on the bias, so I simply did just that. I started with two pieces of fabric, each the width of the window. They should have been the length of the center. One inch short. I started at the outer edge of the curtain pinning it in three places, top, bottom and in the center where I wanted the tie to be when I finished.

On graph paper I usually simply put a pin in and slide it straight over from the half inch mark to the quarter inch mark. That forms the stand up pleat. This time I slid it to the side and up each time. At the top the curtains had to cover two inches of width. I pinned the inner edge of the top an inch above the outer edge and two inches over. This showed me where I would ultimately end.

If you try this method it helps to draw the window that you are working with on the graph paper and make sure you draw a floor line below and a 1/2" above for the top to cover the whole window.

I have been using this method for a long time so I pretty much know what I am doing. I had never done the slant trick before tho. As you can see in the photo, it looks like it's going to work.

The window over the counter is only 1 1/2" wide so I decided on a single panel for that one. Again, I cut the fabric twice the width of the window and long enough to cover the top and bottom. On all of the curtains I allowed a 1/4" turn under on the sides and bottom. I don't have to worry about the top. That won't show when I am done.

After I have all of the parts pinned I sprayed the whole thing with heavy duty industrial strength hair spray. If I can get it, I use the odorless kind. I didn't have any. This stuff(I won't mention the brand because the company might come and spray me with a big bottle of it) could kill if you inhaled more than a few breaths. I either take it out on the back patio or into the closed bathroom to dry.

After it was dried and didn't smell like chemical waste anymore I took all of the pins out. I stuck a bit of glue on it where I wanted the tiebacks to go and put them in place. Then I simply ran glue along the outside edges and stuck them in place.

I stuck the other curtain up with pins so that you could see where it will be. I still need to make a valence for the top. I imagine that I should stick to the program and make it match the edge around the bay.

I still need to do the actual windows too. Those will be easy enough to install. I will do them on a board and then just slap them in place with glue.

Oh! By the way, I have two pieces of fabric left. They are both less than 2" square. Now I have to think of something to do with the scraps from the scrap. No pillows tho. Too matchy, matchy.

See you tomorrow.

Counterpoint......

I finished the counter that the tea and cookies will go on this morning. This is how it started out. I used some scraps of 3/32" thick basswood. Two pieces were 2 x1 3/4(sides) and two pieces were 3x1 3/4(top and bottom). I simply glued them into a box shape with the smaller pieces to the inside of the larger ones. As you can see, I was working on the trinket box and the counter at the same time. The jig has 8 magnets and will hold as many pieces as you have magnets to hold them together.

Through the miracle of trim and stain, this is what it looked like when I finished.

After the box form dried, I stained it and measured up 1" from the bottom inside and added a shelf. It is recessed by 1/4". then I added small crown molding around the front and the sides, mitering the front corners and cutting the back even with the shell itself. I stained the pieces as I went so that there would be no glue showing. After that I cut a top from 3/32" basswood by turning the piece upside down, tracing around it and then adding 1/1 6" around the three sides. The back is flush with the shell.

I added "bun feet" in the form of the smallest little round biscuits that people building real furniture use for filling screw holes. You can pick these up at your favorite home store, unfinished and dirt cheap by the bag. Then I added small chair rail around the bottom on the front and sides and 1/16"double bead molding to the vertical fronts and the front of the shelf to give the piece a finished look.

I touched up the stain. Then I started sanding and varnishing alternatively 3 times with Deft satin spray. After it was finished I decided it needed a little something extra. I dug through my stash and found some fancy gold adhesive backed paper strips that I picked up at the miniature show last year. I put a strip around the top and bottom trim. You can barely see it in the photo, but it shows up when you are looking at the actual piece.

Here you see the progress I have made. There is still no fastening down of pieces, but this is probably what the layout of the downstairs. I did get the door varnished with one coat and I trimmed the DAS that was at the edge of the windows and door. I am in the zone(whatever that means) and moving right along now. I only have to finish the windows and curtains. Then the second floor goes on!

Back to work. See you tomorrow!

Boxing Day

I promised a tutorial about making boxes from molding. They are really pretty simple, so here we go!

Pick out some baseboard molding and some 1/16"double bead molding. Then grab a scrap of 1/16"basswood for the base and the inner top. You will need some stain and white glue. If you want a nice finish you will need some varnish. I use Deft satin spray varnish.

I don't give exact measurements for this box because it can be made any size you want. All you have to do it get the two pieces of bass wood the same size. This one was about 1/2" x3/4". The box will be bigger because of the thickness of the baseboard. Then you have to get the side pieces the same length as the base edges. Have fun! Don't forget that you can poke the photo to see it better.

1. Cut two pieces of the 1/16" basswood the same size for a base and inner top. Cut 4 pieces of molding to fit around the edges with 45 degree mitered corners.

2.The inner side of the molding should be the same size as the board edge. The outer edges should meet at each corner if you did it right.

3. Stain the pieces with the color you want the box to be. If you want to paint it, wait until the box is put together. Glue the molding around the outer edge of the base and be sure to put glue on the mitered corners. I use a gluing jig. If you don't have one use clamps or some other means to hold the pieces together until it dries.

4. After it is dry, turn it over on a 1/16"scrap of basswood and trace around the top edge. Stain this piece. Take the inner lid piece that you cut earlier and sand it down around the edges. I left it unstained for the photo so that you could clearly see how to glue it to the stained piece. I usually put it on the box before it dries to make sure that the inner lid is in the right place. You can move the stained outer lid until it sits correctly on the box. Take it off carefully and let it dry.

5. Find a tiny picture that you like for the box lid and glue it on. Then stain and cut 45 degree mitered pieces of 1/16" double bead molding to glue around the top edge.

6 Varnish and sand a little if necessary.

Display wherever you want. It can be used in 1" scale as a jewelry box or tea caddy or whatever else you can think of. If you make it longer it can be a Victorian glove box. I have used them in 1/4" settings as hope chests at the end of a bed. Let your imagination run wild. I am sure that you will think of lots of other things to do with them.

I have also made the food and tea stand for the bookshop this morning. I have the first coat on each of these items. I have sanded and re varnished. I am waiting for varnish to dry right now. I will take a better photo of the little box tomorrow and tell you how I made the tea stand. Things are coming together. YAY!!!

See you tomorrow.