Progress on the French reno.

 Hi all. I had great plans of cracking on with the French house renovation in any spare time, but it hasn't happened. I have been reorganising my craft room so I could fit an armchair in there. It's on castors, so I can move it super easily to get at stuff tucked in beside it. I also rejigged one set of shelves to house (part of) my Barbie collection. (Apologies for the naked Francie - I got into trouble from her former owner for that!)

Here is the upstairs/attic floor with the guest bedroom and the stair hall/whatever room:

The painting propped on the table is one I copied from a Charles Garabed Atamian painting. If you haven't seen his paintings, look them up. They are truly stunning. To be honest, it's not finished. I might try finishing it. Or not. But I like it in here.

The main bedroom and antechamber: 

And the reading room:

I removed the window in the reading room to put a French door in. Now I need to cut the opening to the floor and rejig a door I had in the stash. I don't want to make a dusty mess so the wall cutting is on hold for now. FYI the spiral stairs are not yet glued in. But the interior is so close to being complete, save for a few minor details like door handles, a piece of moulding and the stair rail for the ground floor stairs.

I must say I love this house. I have always loved it. And the Lea Frisoni house I based it on. But I had never quite finished it. I guess I just felt it was time to make it more my own. I did retain a lot of the original details though. Now I am starting on the exterior finishing.

I have also been painting more mini dollies, made from Jean Pardina moulds. I love these tiny dolls. I love Patsy dolls. So in the photo there are two A Marque dolls, two Patsy dolls and a vintage style baby doll. I am pretty happy with them, although they need some neatening up. I have just painted them with acrylics. 

I've been up to all sorts of stuff and really enjoying working on new skills, but will post more another time. I have had a lot of counselling over the last 12 months to sort through some stuff from the last 10 years. It has been very enlightening and I have learnt a lot about myself. It has helped in many ways, not least of which is the desire to work on stuff that intimidated me or I just didn't have the heart to tackle. I can highly recommend it.

Anyway, on that note, I hope you are all well and enjoying your mini time. Take care until next time.

A little Sunday update

Hello from a happily rainy Victoria. Not a lot of mini news here, but I did get a very exciting little parcel in my mail this week. I received my beautiful tiny Christmas gift basket from Deborah at The Half of it: My Adventures in Half Scale. I have to say that this little gift basket is even cuter in real life. So much so that I haven't wanted to unpack it - it just looks so cute with its tiny bow! Here it is on the doorstep of my Black Walnut cottage, and then on the dining table. It looks larger in the photo than it really is, but the table is quite small.

Thanks so much Deborah, I adore it, and one day it will take pride of place in a future Christmas cottage.

I have also done a bit on my doll shop. It went through yet another iteration and ended up with new wallpaper.

Here is a close up of the counter, which you have seen, but I have added some yellow glaze to get a closer match to the peachy tones of the wallpaper. Toy arrangement still in draft phase.

 I made some filler boxes for the shelves (which need labels I think).

Some close ups of my teddies I made from air dry clay and flocked (the teddy with the red bow is a painted metal mini I did years ago).

Lots more to come on the doll shop but I feel like I am pretty happy now with the interior decoration. Now it's really just filling the shelves. Oh and I need a couple of pieces of small furniture of undetermined size/style.

And lastly, unrelated to minis, I sold a painting today! I have been taking painting lessons for over four years now and we have an exhibition at the end of each year, usually with a theme. This year I had to paint on a palette and the theme was 'The Nature Palette'. I painted these cherry plums from my garden. You can't tell from the photo but the cherry plums are dimensional - I made rounded shapes from Paperclay. I am pretty happy with it, so a little sad it sold, but nice to recoup a little money.

Anyway, that's about it from here. Still arguing with the Chateau but that's OK. I will press on in baby steps. Take care all. x

Happy new year!

Hello all. I hope your new year has got off to a great start, although I am sending out lots of love to all those affected by the shootings in Paris in the last few days. It's an horrific event and sad for everyone across the globe.

But on a brighter note, I have made some little bits and pieces for my Mountfield, so it is slowly nearing the end point. I still can't decide on three major pieces of furniture, and until they're found, some rooms just can't be finished. There is also the matter of fincances! I have just recently gone back to full pay, so money is less of an issue, but I want to save as much as I can too (holidays, laser cutter, general spending money for when I quit work, etc). But for now, I will show you my shadow box for the front bedroom:

There are a couple of little printies and a real seashell. The remainder of the accessories I painted myself. On the bottom shelf at the front is this very cute little basket with roses in it. I can see a little paper flower garland draped over the shadow box in the near future I think.

Here it is in situ:

Sorry about the bad lighting, it's a very overcast day. 

I made the little shelf with the books and painted the cat bookend the little scotty dog: (the chair is just a fill-in for now)

I have put white tiles in the laundry, and although the tiles themselves are great, they are very white and stark. They are also very shiny and don't take paint. Now I am contemplating spray painting them with a matt varnish so that I can antique them and then respray with a gloss. Just a little worried about getting gloss paint everywhere! What are your thoughts? Has anyone else tried to antique/age gloss tiles?

I am also working on a little front garden of the Mountfield. I hope to get my butt into gear and show some exterior photos soon.

I have also tried making some dolls from Liquache. Not sure if I have reported on that in this blog yet, but here you can see some examples:

I am still playing with getting the right consistency, and as the pour holes in the moulds are so tiny, it's hard to get enough slip in to get the shell of the doll thick enough. Consequently, I have broken quite a few, or the slip hasn't poured right. But I am progressing slowly. The girl in the pink shoes now has a lace dress and arms, so will try to get her finished and photographed so you can see her. The little one is a tiny Patsy doll. These tiny dolls really are adorable.

Hope the new year brings good things for you all. And much love to all those amazing French people to remain strong.