Building with blocks

I was going to make a dressing table for my bedroom, but it turned out to be a chest of drawers for the drawing room. It took me several days to make because I needed to stain the wooden bits, and the stain takes a long time to dry. Lesson: stain won't work on top of glue. Stain first, glue after. You can't cheat. (If you have made miniatures for your whole life, you are laughing now. But remember: this was just a week since I started. I didn't even have a mitre box). I used wooden blocks that I had bought at the flea market and put in bits of venetian blind between them. I didn't have a model, like I had with the bed, so I was using imagination. The top had to be sand-papered to round off the edges. It makes such a difference with neat finish. Bits of a photo frame became base and top front. 

What I found myself doing, to my great amazement, was handles. Just a week before I was reading a description in Eva Malmsten's book of how she drilled tiny holes, cut off ordinary pins to make miniscule nails and painted them with gold. I was laughing then, but here I was, doing exactly the same and being proud of it. The handles are cut from golden foil (champagne again). It was delicate work, but I was proud of the result. I must admit that it doesn't look as neat from behind, but who cares? On the chest, I displayed a goblet and a photo frame from Barbie (although I replaced Barbie and Ken). Don't remember where the little elephant came from, but the book I cut from a real book. I don't normally mutilate books, but this was a boring conference volume. 

Then I made a writing desk in the same style. The book and binoculars on the desk are also from Barbie, but I painted them from horrible pink. The rug is cut from ny husband's old shirt. The wallpaper is of course a paper tablecloth left over from a party. 

The clock is the first object that I bought from ebay. There were more to follow because at the beginning I didn't have enough confidence to think I could make clocks, barometers or telephones. I can now. But every now and then it's nice to put in an elaborate detail.