Crafting together (November) and birthday swaps

Deze week zijn Jolinda en ik weer aan het miniaturen geweest. Ook konden we verjaardagscadeautjes uitwisselen. Met een verjaardag in september en de andere in oktober vinden we het leuk om ze op dezelfde knutselmiddag uit te wisselen.
Ik was dit jaar voor Jolinda voor een herfst thema gegaan en heb een vogelverschrikker en een herfstkrans gemaakt.
Als basis gebruikte ik de gedroogde wortels van een aardbeienplant, die erg breekbaar bleken te zijn. Een geduldwerkje dus :')

This week Jolinda and I have been working on miniatures again. We were also able to exchange birthday presents. With one having a birthday in September and the other in October, we like to exchange them on the same day.

This year I went for an autumn theme for Jolinda and made a scarecrow and an autumn wreath.

As a base I used the dried roots of a strawberry plant, which turned out to be very fragile. So it took a lot of patience :')

Inspiratie voor de vogelverschrikker kwam van Joann Swanson's blog. Ik vond het eindresultaat zo leuk dat ik er volgend jaar misschien wel een voor mezelf ga maken :)

Inspiration for the scarecrow came from Joann Swanson's blog. I liked the end result so much that I might make one for myself next autumn :)

Ook Jolinda had gekozen voor een herfst/natuur thema. Ze had twee miniaturen gemaakt die vast heel mooi in de cottage zullen staan. 

De wandversiering heeft onder andere hele kleine echte besjes, heel mooi. De hangende (advents)krans is ook prachtig, heel fragiel <3

Jolinda had also chosen an autumn and/or nature theme. She had made two miniatures that will look great in the cottage. 

The wall decoration includes very tiny real berries, very beautiful. The hanging (Advent) wreath is gorgeous and very fragile <3

Ik was vooraf in m'n doos met kerstminiaturen gedoken om te kijken waarmee ik die middag aan de slag kon gaan en kwam de onafgemaakte mantel van de kerstman tegen. Daar ben ik dus mee verder gegaan. Hopelijk is hij nog voor de kerst af en kan ik hem in de volgende blog laten zien ;)

I had delved into my box of Christmas miniatures beforehand to see what I could work on that afternoon and came across Santa's unfinished cloak. So I continued with that. Hopefully it will be finished before Christmas and I can show it in the next blog ;)

Crafting together (autumn) - November

It was my turn to get birthday swaps when we met two weeks ago :)
Jolinda and Monique surprised me with wonderful presents for my Hogsmeade cottage!

Monique had made me a Mandrake in a pot, and a Halloween themed cross stitch cushion. The flower basket with the red roses and the macramé wall hanging was made bij Jolinda. They'll get a good spot with Bianca and Penny in the cottage :)

As I mentioned last time, we wanted to make a crow or raven for the small autumn themed scene and maybe, if we'd have time, a scare crow :)
I'd found this tutorial on Youtube that looked very clever. A bit bigger than 1:12 scale but that shouldn't be a problem.
Just getting a proper basic shape for the bird's body, however, certainly was! :)
Monique succeeded a lot faster than Jolinda and I did, but at the end of the time together we all had at least the body finished. Legs, feet and tail were another story though ^^

I finished it a few days later. It wasn't the most easy thing to do, but I felt very accomplished when I managed it! The 3 feathers I used for the tail are form my own lovebird Taco. I cut them and painted them black :)

Time for the crow to go and sit on the fence.

I didn't make the scare crow after all, because I didn't want to add more things in the scene, but I know Monique and Jolinda did. Jolinda's can be seen here in her autumn scene; click!
The little toad is made by Kim from Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.

 

Next time, in December, we'll be making some Christmas miniatures. And then next year it's time to continue with the Italian project ;)

Sunflowers and a kite

In October we'd started a small autumn themed scene with the mini club. Afterwards I've  added some sunflowers and a kite.

I started without a tutorial, at first following Jolinda's example. The flowers are made from tissue paper, painted with acrylic paint in different shades of yellow and orange.
I used Jolinda's daisy punch, which looks like this one, I think. Each flower has three layers and in the middle I attached an extra paper circle with a bit of herbal tea/coffee mix glued on :)
The stem is made with floral wire and floral tape. I added some extra layers of tape at the end to get it tapered. Then I glued the stem to the back of the flower.

With another (flower) punch and some green painted tissue paper I made tiny bracts (leaves) and attached 5 or 6 from the stem to the back of the flower.

So this is what it looked then;

When I started working on the next flowers I realized I wasn't entirely happy with the transition from stem to (sun)flower. It wasn't fluently enough imo.
So I experimented a bit and figured out a way. I put a drop from a glue pistol on the end of some floral wire, wiggled it a bit while it hardened to get a tear shape, and after that taped it with the floral tape.
I cut the end straight and glued it to the back of the flower, and then did the brackts like I showed before.

On the left is the one without using the glue(gun), on the right is the one with it (first photo without brackts, second photo with them xD);

For the leaves I used a holly leave punch and the green painted tissue paper (two layers glued together this time). The photo shows from right to left how I cut and shaped the leaves and glued them to the floral wire and attached it to the stem. I wrapped some flower tape around that part as well.

The finished sunflowers together against the fence.

Because the glass dome was a bit higher than was needed only for the fence, I thought about something to add that could fill some of the space in the dome.
The idea of a kite, blown away by the wind untill it's string got tangled in the fence :)

The kite is made of an old plastic bag, two cocktail picks, a piece of wire and Durabel cotton nr 6.
I searched for 1:1 scale tutorial for proportions and came up with these measurements (cm).

To get the kite in the air I've put some glue on the piece of wire and tightly wrapped the cotton thread around it.

In the next blog I'll tell about what we did with the mini club two weeks ago ;)

Crafting together (autumn) - October

We've decided last month to put our projects on hold for a couple of times and work on a small autumn themed scene. Our initial inspiration was this lovely fence.

Though I'd decided to do a wooden fence like this one.

 

So I've worked on the base and the fence while they were here and then did some more that evening and yesterday 🙂

I'll add some more sunflowers to the single one and next month we'll try to make a raven with Fimo and a scarecrow.

The little toad Kim from Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo made is very content now that I finally found him somewhere to live :)

Halloween stuff

Oeps, echt al heel lang geleden dat ik een nieuwe blog geschreven heb. Dat gaat vast veranderen nu het december is, Maar voordat ik helemaal in de kerstsferen raak, wil ik nog even laten zien wat ik met name in oktober gemaakt heb voor het thema herfst en Halloween.
Voornamelijk foto's dus, maar mocht je iets willen weten hoe ik iets gemaakt heb of waar ik iets vandaar heb, vraag het me gerust ;)

Oops, it's really been awhile since I wrote a new blog. I'm sure that's about to change since it's December :) But before I'll get in the Christmas spirit, I want to show you what I made for the autumn and Halloween theme.
Just some photo's, but if you want to know how I did things or where I bought them, just ask me ;)

Spoken / Ghosts

  

 

Grafsteen / Tombstone

 

 

Spookachtige begraafplaats / Creepy graveyard

 

Samen knutselen / Crafting together - September

Teacup, toadstool & snail, made by Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.

 

Afgelopen maandag zag ik Jolinda en Wil weer voor onze maandelijkse creamiddag. Natuurlijk was het weer erg gezellig, maar ook best intensief omdat er vooral veel moest worden (om)gerekend, gemeten en gesneden.We hadden vooraf een workshop voor een tuinbank gevonden bij Judith's poppenhuizen en hadden besloten die van karton te maken. Een mooie aanvulling voor ons tuinproject :)

Last monday I met Jolinda and Wil again for our monthly crafting afternoon. Of course it was as enjoyable as alway, but also pretty intense because we had to do a lot of converting, taking measurements, and cutting of materials. In advance we'd found a workshop of a garden bench at Judith's poppenhuizen and had decided to make it out off card board. A nice addition to our gardenproject :)

Linkerbankje van Wil, rechterbankje van Jolinda.

Halverwege bleek al dat we de bankjes niet in een middag af zouden krijgen. Maar toen het tijd was om op te gaan ruimen hadden Jolinda en Wil toch de basis van het bankje al vastgelijmd. Jolinda had heel slim een chocoladeboontje gebruikt om de vorm van de armleuningen te tekenen.
Ik was weer zo'n Pietje Precies dat ik net klaar was met het uitsnijden van alle onderdelen :')

Halfway through it became clear that we wouldn't be able to finish the benches in one afternoon. But when it was time to go Jolinda and Wil still had glued almost all the parts together. Jolinda'd very smartly used a chocolate bean for the shape of the arm rests.
I was a fusspot as usual and just had finished cutting all the card board parts :')

Tegen de avond had ik het bankje ook in elkaar gezet, nadat ik alle onderdelen eerst geschuurd had (a)

Later that evening I too had put al the parts together, after I'd sanded them first (a) 

Na een basislaagje Gesso koos ik voor een mengsel van dark sienna en yellow ochre olieverf. Die eerste kleur olieverf had ik ook voor het hemelbed gebruikt en was daar erg tevreden over, maar nu iets minder. Misschien is het enkel de kleur, misschien heb ik de verf er iets te dik gezet.

After a coating with primer I choose a mixture of dark sienna and yellow ochre oil paint. I'd used that first one for the four poster bed and liked the result, but this time I wasn't as pleased. Maybe it's the colour or maybe I used too much paint.

Teacup, toadstool & snail, made by Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.

Teacup, toadstool & snail, made by Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo.

Gelukkig valt het wel mee in het tafereeltje dat ik met veel plezier samengesteld had voor de foto's. Al kan het zijn dat ik het bankje binnenkort toch nog wat opschuur en verouder (a)

Fortunately it looks better when it's but in the little scene I put together for the photo's. Though it's possible I'll still do a bit of sanding and aging sooner than later (a)