Frames makeover

When I was looking for materials to use in the dressing table makover, I discovered some picture frames I had bought a long time ago in a charity shop. If you have followed my blog you may know that I like frames and have made all kinds in different techniques, from lolly sticks, and various recyclables, and more, and I have also done some makeovers. The frames I have found are not particularly imaginative. Someone started painting them and gave up.

But they are a very good starting point for a makeover. For the first frame, I just added another, outer frame of small lolly sticks.

I then painted the whole thing gold and "aged" it by painting a thin coat of white and wiping it away immediately.

Plain and sober frame. But I wanted to do something more challenging, so I started by shaving off the outer and inner edges and sanding them for a softer, rounded effect. Then I added bits of grill sticks, shaved to produce a flat surface on one side. The frame on the left is the original for comparison.

I am very pleased with the result. I have four more frames and will need to think of four interesting ways of improving them.

 

Dressing table makeover

A couple of weeks ago one of my dollhouse groups started sharing pictures of their bargains from Poundland. I must admit that Poundland is not my prioritised shopping target, and since it moved from the shopping mall where I park when I visit my hairdresser I hadn't been there. But the bargains were too good and besides a challenge: I like making ugly things pretty. Not that they are really ugly, but not quite the furniture you put in your dollhouse and feel proud of.

As a first try, I made a seat for one of the chairs: 

I am not sure I am happy with the result, but I don't know yet where these chairs are going. 

My next attempt was a dressing table: 

There is nothing radically wrong with it, but it is plain. Plain things beg to be made over.

I made a dressing table for my Victorian house some time ago.

 

I still like it, but because of the clothes-peg legs it is larger than 1:12, and when I put a chair in front of it, it looked ridiculous. And anyway, it was time to make something new. I like the ornate mirror, so I decided to keep it. As I was looking for a suitable contraption to fix the mirror, I found a plastic ice-cream spoon. If you think it's a strange way of fixing a mirror on a dressing table, let me tell you that my genuine eighteenth-century dressing table is made exactly like this (although admittedly not with a plastic spoon).

Then I painted the table ivory-white, and just to show how a tiny detail makes a difference, here are pictures of before and after I added a length of lace on the front:

Here it is now in its interior, and the scale is right to go with the chair. The perfume bottles, by the way, are made of beads.

Waiting for the dream

I haven't done anything miniature-related for a long time, and that for a reason.

For several years now, I have been promising myself that when I retire I will get a huge dollhouse that I will build from scratch, according to the rules, in correct scale, with all details, and keep doing it for the rest of my life.

I even found the house I wanted. Here it is. Dream big.

About six weeks ago I had my old childhood friend visiting, and I wanted to show her my dream in an online shop. And it wasn't there! My dream house wasn't available any more, and the dream got shattered in millions of shards. I quickly started telling my friend about something else, but later I went online again and checked. The house was gone. And I had been so stupid that I hadn't even remembered what it was called.

I found it on ebay of course. But the incident got me thinking. Why am I waiting for retirement, which is still quite a few years away, and with my usual optimism I always say that we may all be dead by then. Why not get it now and start working on it and let it take the time it takes. A dollhouse is never finished. Why not have all the joy now rather than some other time which may never come.

My friend supported me. My daughter supported me. My husband supported me. My dollhouse group supported me. (You see, I know where to seek support).

It is undeniably a very expensive toy. But I know I spend significantly more on my miniature projects every year, so it is just a matter of paying it all at once.

Anyway, I bought it!

For a couple of days I was the happy future owner of the dream house. Then I ran out of luck. The delivery was delayed... and delayed... and delayed... The seller emailed me with apologies, she even called me and promised to throw in some extras for my patience. I don't know whether it's a fraud, and if it is, I am not sure I have the energy to complain.

What happened, however, was that I lost interest in my current projects. It makes no sense to be doing anything small when a gigantic project is imminent - or maybe not. I know this is totally irrational, and I am sure I will still do other projects if the Dream House arrives one day. And yet...

Today is my first free weekend in ages, and it's raining, therefore perfect time for miniatures. See next post for what I have made.

Easter scene

I wanted to make an Easter scene with some typical Russian Easter food, which is saffron bread and spiced cottage cheese. These were easily made from air-drying clay. I painted the bread with watercolours, and I decorated the typical pyramid of cheese with black pepper that is supposed to be raisins. So far so good, but then I needed some painted eggs. My first idea was to take miniature eggs that I use to decorate the Easter tree:

You would think that they are small enough, but when I arranged them around the bread they looked enormous. Now, I know what while I can make bread and some other things from clay, I would never manage to make a credible egg, still less a dozen credible eggs of the same size. So I started looking around for something to recycle. In my Victorian kitchen, I have a basket of eggs which are codliver-oil pills (scroll to the bottom of the post for a close-up). Strangely, I have never since found pills in his shape, so I was a bit reluctant to take them, but the desire to have an Easter scene was strong.

I left the paints, brush and scissors in the picture for scale. Watercolours didn't stick on the coated pills so I used water-based acrylic and varnish. I also tried to paint some patterns with a gold pen, but it didn't look as good as I wanted it so I decided that simple was best. (Maybe next year I will make something more advanced).

Here I have set the table for Easter breakfast.

I decided to allow my English dolls to have a Russian Easter breakfast. So far they have only had English tea.

 

Half-scale kitchen

For the half-scale kitchen, I made a stove of the same model as in my Victorian house, just half the size.

The body of the stove is made from cardboard, simply painted black. The doors are bits of cardboard glued to the front. You cannot have as much detail in half scale because they become too conspicuous, so I just made simple handles from wire. The pipe is of course a drinking straw. The pots and the kettle came in some large lot, and strangely they fit perfectly in scale. I will make some utensils to hang on the rack.

Next I made a butler's sink with instructions in Vivienne Boulton's book, only she makes everything from clay, while I found an old butter container, the kind you get in hotels. I think I have had this container ever since I started making miniatures, just waiting for the right occasion. I wanted a butler's sink rather than a more modern sink like I have in the Victorian house simply because I wanted to make something new. Let's agree that this kitchen hasn't been modernised yet.

The room is very small so I cannot put as much in it as a typical kitchen would have. But at least a table is necessary. It is very easy to make a simple table: take a wooden strip and attach legs with blue tack...

However, this feels highly unsatisfactory for a furniture maker with self respect. Instead, I made it using my experience from making the Tudor and the Georgian tables - very difference experiences, but both proved useful. I also studied carefully the very first kitchen table I had in my very first kitchen. And this is what I did:

First, glued a smaller strip (a domino piece) on the underside. Cut four legs and the bars. Glued the legs at the corners of the smaller strip and glued on the bars - I promise, that took some time!

This feels much better. I had some half-scale dishes and food, but I will make more. And add more details. But so far, this is what the kitchen looks like. A bit crammed for a Victorian kitchen, but will have to do.

For a comparison, I took a picture of a full-scale and a half-scale table. It gives you a good sense of scale.

Further half-scale development

As I mentioned in the previous post, there are three shelves on he inside of the cabinet door, and although they are shallow, they provide some additional space. I have made an attic and a bathroom.

I only made the attic because I have these Avon miniatures, and they are sweet. I have borrowed the maps from another house, but I am not sure they fit. There must be something on the wall. I will also add more objects that belong in the attic.

The bathroom appliances, possibly Mattel, came with another lot, and I have saved them until now. I will add more things here as well: towels, toiletries, maybe a shelf.

It is beginning to look really nice. Next, I will do the dining room and the kitchen.  

Half-scale development

I am going on with the half-scale house, and I have now put wallpaper in most of the rooms. The floors are tentative, and the bedroom floor needs to be replaced (the cardboard has bent, so the whole room is lopsided). The table in the future dining room is wrong scale, but I put it in because the room does not look natural otherwise. The same about the adjacent room which I am not sure yet what it will be.

On the inside of the cabinet door, I have made a fake entrance door, and I wll also make two fake windows. The two shelves above will be bathroom and attic.

I am excited about this project: it is becoming so much more than just displaying existing miniatures. Because I have given away the plastic house and Helen Hall, I can use some of the same wallpaper and flooring. And I know how to print them in half scale.

I will not get another half-scale furniture kit because I wasn't satisfied with it, but I will make some furniture myself now that I have better skills.

Come back soon.