Fruit and vegetable market stall, finished

 I will not keep you in suspense about my market stall display. Here is the final project: 

I must admit that I didn't spend a lot of time making the display, but I am still quite happy with it. 

I used the market stall I had before, with al the stuff I have now discarded, but of course it was too small for the amount of produce to display. 

Therefore I made a simple diorama from cardboard, then made two long benches to put crates on. I wasn't very careful with crates either. I probably won't keep this display and will use veggies and fruit in other projects, for instance in my Victorian house and even in my Tudor house, although Tudors weren't too keen on vegetables. 

In fact, I have already used a lot of these minis for a different project. And now it's time to move on. 

If you are curious about what I am doing, here are some pictures. 

 

 

 

 

These are stitch markers, and they are for sale. If you are interested, let me know. 

Fruit and vegetable market stall, part 2

I could of course make more vegetables for my market stall, like Brussels sprouts (ugh!), avocado, various lettuces and cabbages, but somehow it would be repetitive, and anyway I wanted to leave room for fruit. I had made fruit before as well, mostly apples and oranges because they are easy to make from air-drying clay. I also dried berries that look like fruit, and I made a pineapple from a pine cone. 

 

 

But now I wanted to use my newly acquired sculpting skills to make more realistic fruit. And a larger variety of fruit. 

Unless you make sliced fruit (which I will do at some point) I think fruit is easier than vegetables because they do not need as much work on texture. They are sort of smooth - although not oranges of course. 

 

I found two techniques on the web for making oranges, and for these I pricked them with a toothpick, then rolled a crumpled ball of aluminium foil over them. The other method that I haven't tested was to roll them in salt before baking, then dip them in water to dissolve the salt. You can also use sandpaper. Oranges did not need additional painting because they have even colouring. 

 

I then made apples, and I decided on green apples for colour variation. As with vegetables (and oranges) you cannot just use commercial clay. With oranges, I added white and yellow, and with apples I mixed and mixed until I was happy with the colour. Apples have  a deeper indent on top, and I used a silicon tool to form it, but a toothpick would have worked too. Then I shaded one side of each apple with several layers of chalk pastels. 

 

I will probably make several other apple sorts - there are so many, green, yellow and red. 

From apples, it was a natural step to pears: more or less the same technique, just shaping each ball into a pear shape. Again, mixing several colours of clay, then shading with pastels. 

 

Pears, too, come in different colours and even shapes so there is room for further creations. But I moved on to peaches. They are a bit like bell peppers, with prominent indents along both sides: 

 

 

I made apples, pears and peaches without consulting any tutorials, just looking at my full-size fruit bowl. But when it came to bananas I felt I needed instructions, which I found in a book. The opening sentence of banana instructions was a revelation: bananas are not round, but square. I didn't have bananas in my fruit bowl, but I looked on the web, and while before reading that book I would have sworn that bananas were round, I could clearly see that they weren't. Which is just another example of how much you learn from miniature-making. The true shape of bananas is essential knowledge. 

So for bananas you make a square rather than round "sausage" (the book I consulted called it prism) before cutting it into suitable lengths and then sculpting them at ends and bending. Partially following the instructions, I painted the ends of my bananas with light green pastel before baking, but then painted the stalk and the opposite end with brown acrylic and used the same acrylic for lines and spots along the edges. (There is, by the way, a reason why I made individual fruit rather than a bunch).

 

 

 

I am really pleased with my bananas. I had never expected myself to be capable of making bananas so I am getting much more confident about my skills.

Finally, I made water melons. Most melon instructions are for sliced melons where you need very complicated colour transition with five shades of pink. I made whole melons which still involved a lot of work to produce realistic stripes. You put tiny strings of a different colour onto your melon, distress it with a toothpick, then roll and shape until you have a smooth surface. I can see in the picture that it isn't smooth enough, but there isn't much I can do about it now. 

I also made some melon halves and slices, which needs, as I said, elaborated colour transition and a lot of texture work, as well as inserting seeds. 

 

 

 

 

I am not quite happy with these, but I have tried and will need to practice more. But for the time being, I varnished all my fruit, although peaches should probably not be so shiny - let's say they are nectarines.

 

There are many more fruits I could make: lemons, plums, grapes, figs - even before I move on to something more exotic like papaya, mango or passion fruit. However, once again, I only have limited space in my market stall. I am sure you are already puzzled how I am going to display my produce. You may have noticed all the various wooden crates I have made from cheese boxes and coffee stirrers. They all need space. So come back soon to see how I have solved the issue. 

 

 

To be continued.

 

Fruit and vegetable market stall

Inspired by my miniature baking, I decided to try making other food stuff from polymer clay and, perhaps not surprisingly, chose vegetables. 

I made vegetables a long time ago, when I was a beginner, and I made them from air-drying clay because I thought it was easier. Now I know it isn't, and the results are far better. Air-drying clay dries quickly, it often crumbles after a while, you have to paint it. Having now tried both I clearly prefer fimo.

Back then, I even made a fruit stand that I filled with veggies and fruit, that I was quite happy with at that time. I also made fruit and vegetables for my large Victorian dollhouse and for my retro house (the Tudors didn't eat vegetables). Here are some of my old groceries. 

 

 

Unlike bread and cakes, I didn't attend any classes on making vegetables. (I was enrolled in one that was cancelled because of the current situation). There are zillions of tutorials on YouTube, some more helpful than others, and in the end you just need to decide what suits you best or merge the various techniques according to your tools and skills. I also have several books - yes, physical, printed books - on making fruit and vegetables, not all of them from clay. 

I started with something that felt easy enough and followed one of the tutorials closely, to understand the principles. After you have done that, you can start improving and improvising, but it is important, I believe, to master some basics. A good thing with fimo, unlike air-drying clay, is that it doesn't dry, and you can start all over again as many times as you need. 

I didn't use any sophisticated tools, practically only toothpicks and a blade. I do have a special rolling pin, but you can also use a bottle or a glue tube or anything round and smooth.  

 

So to begin with, I made tomatoes, bell peppers, cabbage and carrots. First rule, that I had already adopted when making bread, is that no commercial clay is quite the colour you can use directly - you need to mix and mix and not compromise. For instance, I should have added more yellow to carrots. You also have to work a lot on texture to make veggies look realistic, and every now and then I had to check my fridge to see, for instance, how exactly bell pepper stalk sat. I had never really considered that every vegetable has a different shape of stalk, or how the indents go in tomatoes and bell peppers, and so on. The cabbage was the most time-consuming, since you had to make 12 separate leaves in three different shades of green, shape them, add texture and carefully layer upon each other. It took me three attempts to feel satisfied. After baking, I applied fimo varnish to peppers, tomatoes and carrots. 

Just to give you a sense of how much better your minis are when you take the time to develop your skills, I took some "Then and Now" pictures.

 

 

The bottom row is cucumbers, and the new ones I made from a tutorial I wasn't very happy with, so I found another one, and you can see the difference.

 

 

For cucumbers and quite a few other veggies I made later, you need to blend two colours of clay to create a smooth, gradual transition. Again, I had never considered that there are no sharp colour borders in nature. Blending is done by folding and rolling out clay until you drop dead. It can be done in a pasta machine if you have one. I don't so I did it all manually. No shortcuts. It took me a long time to understand and then practice, but it makes such a difference. Just look at these leeks.

or radish, or rhubarb.

You cannot get this effect by painting. 

So I went on, from more simple and straightforward veggies to more complicated, learning as I went.

 

 

Cauliflowers were quite demanding, as were broccoli - they had to be assembled one by one; but the patissons were just a joy to make, as were pumpkins. I only used toothpicks for shaping.

 

For pumpkins and patissons, I used chalk pastels before baking, just as with breads, layering from the palest to the darkest. After baking, I used varnish.

Aubergines and butternut squash were easy. 

But for courgettes, that are the same shape, it was necessary first to make a cane of two colours to create stripes. 

 

Artichokes and asparagus were very demanding. First, you had to pre-bake the stalks, then add the teeny tiny leaves one by one. Then paint with pastels before final baking.

Beans and peas were relatively easy, but because they have to be very small if they are in scale with the other veggies, it was exacting work. I used a magnifying glass.

 

Beetroot, fennel and onions needed colour transition again: 

And garlic, in addition to colour transition, also needed to be arranged in a braid. 

For corn on cob, I found a tutorial with a very smart technique using mesh for texture. 

 

Here are some more Then and Now pictures: 

My self-esteem has soared. I now know that I can make anything from polymer clay, it is just a matter of practice - like with everything else. I am not in a hurry and can spend hours on just one vegetable until I am fully satisfied.

Now you may wonder how I am going to display all these vegetables in my little market stall. Come back soon, and I will show you. 

To be continued.

 

Plastic house makeover, part 2

I hadn't finished the exterior of the house yet, but I was eager to test what it would look like on the inside with some effort put into it. I painted the ceilings white. The first room I decorared will eventually be the bathroom. The wallpaper is a printie. I decided to have the same pattern on the walls and the floor because it a small scale it feels too much with two patterns.

I cut out the shape of the windows, cut out window frames from white card, then glued transparent film and another pair of frames on the back of the wallpaper .

This "before" picture is a reminder of how ugly it was

 
before it turned into this:
 

To be continued.

Fruit stand

I bought this market stand in a thrift shop. This is not even a room box, and I don't know what to call it. Maybe just a miniature?

I had the scales from something else, and they fit in precisely. I took some fruit and vegetables from the Victorian house (Victorians didn't eat much vegetables anyway, they thought those were unhealthy). Then I added a lot more, all made of clay, except the tomatos that come from a Christmas candle decoration. I had not made any elaborate fruit or vegetables before, and it was fun to make. I even ventured to make roses.

But I am especially proud of my artichokes.