Painting wooden furniture

I bought this wooden set in my favourite antique shop in Ely. There was no label, and I have no idea where it comes from. I very much like the furniture, but I hate the pink colour. For some time I could not decide where I might want the set so I kept it in my antique shop. Then it occurred to me that I could have it in my modern house, in the upstairs sitting room. Surely you can have two slightly different sets in the same room. The pink didn't fit with the other set, and I hated it anyway so I needed to make it over. I considered covering it with fabric, but thought it would be a pity because it was such a fine wooden surface. I tried to paint it red, but it was wrong red. I then tried to stain it, and it was a disaster. I was so upset that I put the miserable armchair away and didn't look at it for a long while. But I felt bad every time I saw the lonely pink sofa. So eventually I simply had to do it. It took ages to sand-paper away the failed stain, but I felt it was my duty to do it properly. I mixed some green gouach with off-white hobby paint, with this result

And this is how nicely they fit together with the other furniture.

 

More egg-shell mosaic

After my first success with egg-shell mosaic I decided to make more, so I painted shells in two shades of gold.

I took a piece of my famous venetian blind (I am sure it will last for the rest of my life) and sand-papered the corners. Then I crushed the shells as I described in the previous post and glued the bits onto the tabletop.

I used a banal chess piece for table base. I may make something more interesting later. But the table fit nicely into my Victorian living room. You can have as many tables as you want in a Victorian house.

Egg-shell mosaic

I have now described all my dollhouses and roomboxes. I have two ongoing projects that I am not ready to share yet, and I also have an empty dollhouse that I haven't yet decided what to do with. Meanwhile, I will show some small projects, for instance, egg-shell mosaic technique that I have learned from my Swedish miniature group. It needs a good deal of patience, good sight and good tools.

I used shells from our boiled breakfast eggs. The trick was to keep as much as possible of the shell whole  - but you don't have to blow eggs as you would do for Easter decorations. I painted three shells with light green, dark green and white acrylic paint. It takes about 24 hours to dry so you cannot do it all on the same day.

You then crush the shells into ever so small bits. It is amazing how small they need to be to look natural. I had to take off too large bits and crush them into smaller ones. There are lots of things you can do with mosaic, and I wanted to make a table. I used a plastic container lid which I filled with clay. I first thought I would simply press the egg bits into the clay, but they were far too delicate. Therefore I simply glued them on. I used tweezers and toothpicks to fix the bits. I did not use any special pattern, just mixed the three colours.

When the tabletop was finished, I used a doorknob for base.

 While I was at it, I also made a vase.

Another frame makeover

Whenever I do my usual round of thrift shops, I find a couple of miniature photo frames for 30p a piece that are highly useful for all kinds of projects. The problem is that they are unevitably ugly so I paint and decorate them in any number of ways. I had this frame with a nice oval shape for a while and finally found a good picture to put into it - not all pictures go well with an oval frame. For the picture, I wanted a heavy, ornate frame. I had a jar of old, almost dry gold paint that I used more or less like modelling clay to mould the frame. Please judge the result for yourself.

 

Dollhouse Christmas

The only recurrent change I make in my Victorian house is Christmas decorations. I always have a tree in my 1:1 life, and I use a reasonable amount of decorations, but it is fun to make miniature Christmas things. Four years ago was the first Christmas season for my dollhouse, and to begin with I needed a tree. At that point I was still exploring miniature resources in and around Cambridge so I wasn't sure where to find a tree or something recyclable to make a tree. Finally I found an incredibly ugly tree in a local superstore, which I improved by painting.

I made the ornaments with junk jewellery and beads. The present  is a small wooden block wrapped in paper. 

This is a Christmas-decorated living room. The large boxes are cut from Dollhouse and Miniature magazine that always has some nice patterns in their Christmas issue. The Christmas cards also come from it, although you can take any seasonal magazine or catalogue. I made other decorations as well.

 

 Of course there is a lot of cooking and baking going on before Christmas so last year I made a baking board and let the little maid make gingerbread.



At 1:1 Christmas parties, I collect junk from crackers. Perfect to make Christmas miniatures with.

A half-scale spa

With the rest of the ugly plastic furniture I decided to make a relaxation room in a spa. I know this is not quite right, because it is more of outdoor, terrace furniture.

 But I had this vision of a room in a bath house, with a large window opening into lush vegetation. Anyway, I had a small wooden box which had contained a gift of wine and cheese, and it was just the right size for a half-scale room.

 

I had it like this for a long time because I could not think of what else to do with it. Obviously it had to have floors and wallpaper, but I couldn't decide what would fit. Finally some time ago my son's girlfriend, who had been bitten by the dollhouse bug, sent me a parcel of small things she had found at flea markets, including a container of tiny mosaic tiles. Just what I needed after long days of work. 

I think the result is stunning. It reminds me of Gaudi. Perhaps it was the intention. I still need to decide what to do with the walls.

Half scale

In a comment to my previous post a fellow miniaturist asked whether I was sure about the half scale. She said she had similar furniture in 1:48. Here is a picture with a measuring stick:

Scales are tricky. I am not sure this furniture is in scale at all, but I can imagine that it is available in different sizes. Just as most of the manufactured dollhouse furniture is available in full scale (1:12), half scale, 1:48 and 1:144. The latter makes me dizzy, but I have just bought, in a large lot, a dollhouse for a dollhouse, which is 1:144, and I have already made some furniture for ut - will share soon.

In my modern house and in some room boxes I mix scales, mostly 1:12 and 1:16 (Lundby/Barton), and sometimes is works just fine, but sometimes it doesn't look natural. Eva Malmsten says in one of her books that if you make things yourself scale doesn't really matter as long as you are consistent. I won't miss a chance to put a lovely object into a house or box if it's slightly wrong scale; I will just find a way of placing it so that it melts in.

As I mentioned in the previous post, this is an excellent way to train your dollhouse eye.