A bookcase for the Hogsmeade cottage

In Oktober I'd started on the first piece of furniture for the living room; the bookcase from the first book of Julie Warren, and after a - very long - break I've finished it this weekend.

I'm so very happy with it; can't hardly believe I managed to do the drawers and glass doors ;)

I'd almost finished the base before birthdays
and the holidays and 1:1 painting got in the
way :)

I've used a light oak stain and I'm thinking about polishing it with the beeswax I've bought for the (mini) living room floor. Next: making lots and lots of books :)

Beewax candles by accident :)

A good friend (not miniature) has asked me if I could make something fitting for a display of Lemax Scary Town Theme figurines. I'd already promised before realising that those are 1:32 scale :')

Photo from Lemax site

I suggested some dripping candles on pumpkins and skulls, thinking that would be the easiest to do something like that for that scale. Fortunately she liked that :)
I've made the candles just the way I always do; learned from a tutorial in the DHN (Dutch) magazine by Marike's Magical Minis, with translucent white and a scrap of cognac fimo.
After baking them however they'd turned out yellow-ish and had tiny cracks. Not sure what I did wrong; the mixing or the baking.
A friend told me that they look the same colour as church candles, the beeswax ones. The colours were not the worst though, I was worried about the cracks. Didn't want the candles to break.

The 'original' candle on the left, unbaked clay on the right.
I've painted some tiny pumpkins I had a brighter orange than I
normally would since that seemed to fit the Lemax style better.
 I also added some washed down paint on the skull(bead)s.

I think I didn't like them much because of the previous candles (in the back); they look so much better.

But the next day I discovered that the candles looked so much better in daylight :)

From the left over clay I've made some 1:12 scale candles, since you can never have enough of those ;)

Crafting together (the Italian project) - January

Yesterday we had a nice afternoon with the craft club while we each worked on our own project. Unfortunately Wil couldn't make it, but Jolinda worked - brick by brick - on the Greek stairs again, and Monique had made a new layout for the garden and painted a background.
I made a planter to hang under the window of the trattoria and after that I have punched leaves and petals, so I can make petunias for the planter :)
Back home I've stained the planter and tried to figure out how to make an awning.
First I made a test model from paper and then an inside frame from card board. The paper will be replaced at a later stage by fabric.
For now it's time to focus on the Hogsmeade cottage again ;)

Gisteren weer een gezellige knutselmiddag gehad, waarbij we ieder aan ons eigen project verder gingen. Wil was helaas verhinderd, maar Jolinda werkte - steentje voor steentje - verder aan haar Griekse trappen en Monique was met een nieuwe indeling voor een tuin begonnen en was de achtergrond aan het schilderen.
Zelf heb ik een plantenbak gemaakt om onder het raam van de trattoria te bevestigen en ben daarna nog een poosje bladeren en bloemblaadjes aan het ponsen geweest, zodat ik de bak met petunia's kan vullen :)
Thuis heb ik de plantenbak gebeitst en geprobeerd uit te vogelen hoe ik een luifel kan maken.
Eerst met papier een testmodel gemaakt en daarna van karton het binnenframe gemaakt. De papieren kap wordt in een later stadium door stof vervangen.
De komende weken schuif ik dit project weer even aan de kant en wil ik me weer op het Zweinstein huisje gaan focussen ;)

A rug for the living room

I alway got the impression that after building a house or room, and decorating it, the fun part began. Well, guess what ... I find it the hardest part so far :')
So many chooses, about colour and style, decicions to make, what to do when. I've known from the beginning that I want to have rugs in most of the rooms of the cottages. Lots of work, but I like cross stitching and I have splenty of time before a room is done.
But ... to know the colours for the rug, I'd need to know the style of the room, or at least the colour scheme, and I still don't know (for sure ^^). Same with the size of the rug; I know the furniture I want to place against the walls, but I'm still in doubt about the couch/armstairs.
And so I keep running around in circles; should the rug fit the couch cushions and the curtains or the other way around and so on ;)

My pinterest board with (designs of) rugs and carpets alone has 65 pins and I'm sure I have more (a)
Well, browsing again saturday evening I've found these needlepoint charts, designs by Anna-Carin Betzén, based on full-scale rugs. Her designs are all 1:48 and 1:144 scale, but I looked anyway :)

© Anna-Carin Betzén

I noticed an Afghan rug, circa 1900. It has 49 by 73 stitches and uses only 4 colours. While I was wondering how it would look in other colours I saw a note, saying: "Add more repeats for a larger rug. Many afghan rugs have much smaller octagons, so with more repeats this design could easily work in larger scales."

So I selected DMC embroidery threads in four colours, fabric I already had (might be 16 stitches?)  and started right away :) I figured beginning in one corner would give me an idea of the size and how many times I would have to repeat the octagons. 

When I'd done the top row of the pattern it was 4,5 cm, so I might have to repeat the original designs twelve times :')

Since I didn't want a repeat of the edges everytime I spent an hour copying and pasting in Paint untill I had a design I liked. I can alway decide to add or skip octagons when I've furnished the living room of the cottage :)

Only bad thing about starting right away; I had choosed the colours to match a scrap of the wall paper I used for the living room (left). It matched great in the evening but a lot less in the morning, and then I discovered it wasn't even the right wall paper to begin with (that's the one on the right ^^).

Anyway, I like the colours - and I didn't want to start over :P - so I'll just keep these and we'll see if it will match the living room.

Of course, once started I can never stop until the design and colour scheme starts showing, so ... this is the progress so far :)

Update on the Italian project

It's been awhile since I had some progress to show you on the Italian project. I think it was back in August :')
In the months after we did some other things at the meetings of the miniature club (making dolls, well body parts at least ^^, and nutcrackers) but at the next one - in two weeks - we'll start working on our projects again.
With that in mind this week I did some work on the outside of the trattoria, because that's kind of hard to do somewhere else. I can't take the mountain with me ;)

First though, I thought I'd show you some photos, I hadn't before apparently (from before August);

I'd added some green paint to the mountain.

Working on a wooden balustrade

Starting on the staircase. Had seen a tutorial
 about airdryed clay covering wooden steps, so
I dismantled one of the earlier cottage stair-
cases and used a glue gun to make the base. 

Covered in air dried clay.

The balustrade got a walnut stain.

And then, this what it looked like when I blogged about it in August:

So back to this week :)

Instead of using paper shutters I've started
again and used an old (cottage) door :)

I cut the door in half and the right length
and resized and printed a picture of
shutter hinges.

The window frames have been painted, the hinges
cut out and painted with black lamp acrylic.

 

The hinges and shutters are just glued in place. Since the front
of the frattoria is supposed to be the background for the project
 (don't laugh :P) I didn't want to bother making movable
shutters (a) Behide the window is the Chianti fiasco
Kim made me.

Although the inside of the bistro will
stay empty, I've decided it still needed
same painting because of the glimpse
you get through the window and door. 

 

So after painting the walls and adding a paper floor, I glued the
 door in place and added an 'Aperto/Chiuso' (open/closed) sign :)
I've also added some off white chalk paint to the
staircase to highlight the cracks.

Next step; if I am absolutely certain that I
don't need to be on the inside again, I can
glue the front wall in place and finish the
 balustrade. 

I'd like to make a flower box just below the window and maybe a awning above the door or window, so that will be something I can work on at the next meeting with the miniature club ;)

The last miniatures of 2018

First week of 2019 is almost gone. About time to wish you all the best for the this year, in good health, with time for loved ones and lots of creativity :) 

Before I'll make all sorts of plans for 2019 I want to show you the last mini's from December  #planningprovidespeaceandquiet;)

We zitten al weer bijna een week in 2019. Hoog tijd om jullie het allerbeste voor het komende jaar te wensen, met gezondheid, tijd met dierbaren en veel creativiteit :)
Verder wil ik nog even het eea van december laten zien voor ik allerlei plannen voor 2019 ga maken  #organiserengeeftrustenruimte ;)

I made some more workshops from the Advent Calendar of the Actieve Poppenhuisforum FB group. 

Ik heb nog een paar workshops gemaakt uit de Adventskalender van de Actieve Poppenhuisforum FB groep.

 

A pouffe with an open lid (quilt fabric from Minidoor), a rustic twig star covered with moss, and a candle with wreath. 

Een poef die open kan (quiltstof van Minidoor), een bemoste kerstster en een kaars met krans.

 

The last workshop I did was this centerpiece, from a flat beer bottle cap and a push pin :)

De laatste workshop die ik gedaan had was van dit kerststukje, met een platgeslagen bierdop als schaal en een punaise als poot :)

It's the one I am the most happy about <3

Het is gelijk ook degene waar ik het meest tevreden over was <3

My own contribution to the Advent Calendar was a workshop for a bird feeder. A lot of fun to make. It was posted on December 22nd, maybe a little too close to Christmas so not many people did get started, but I have seen at least two very nice versions :)

Mijn eigen bijdrage voor de Adventskalender was een workshop voor een vogelvoeder huisje. Erg leuk om te doen. Het werd gepost om de 22e dag, dus iets te dicht tegen de kerst aan dat veel mensen er nog mee aan de slag gingen, maar ik heb iig twee erg leuke versies langs zien komen :)