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 ;)

Bits and bobs, or, what I've been up to in Oktober.

It has been a bit hectic the previous weeks. As well inside as outside of my head :')

I'd started on the first piece of furniture for the living room; the
bookcase from the first book of Julie Warren.
(Though I have my own crafting room with everything I could
need, I do most of my crafting here in the living room ^^)

After I was almost done with the base I needed
to take a break because unfortunately wood-
working is a bit to straining physically atm.

So, mainly, I've been cross stitching and made a couple of new cushions.

I wanted to make a couple of Halloween related cushion for my
Etsy store, but I started a bit too late and only got to finish this
one. Maybe next year I can do more to sell :)

Last year I've made a series of Santa cushions, and this year
I'm working on three snowmen :)

I also finished the three geometrical cushions I've scross
stitched in September. I need to make a few pretty pictures
and then they be listed in Etsy.

  

But, I didn't have a couch that I could use as a prop for taking those photo's, so needed to remedy that ;)

This tutorial got me started on a simple couch but I didn't like
the straight sides, so I carved and sanded untill the arms had
a rounded shape :)

I covered the back part and the arms (partly) with fiberfill,
and tried to figure out how to go from there.

I used flat head pins and texile glue to attach the fabric. They
easily went through the Balsa wood and I could snipe
them off before covering that part with fabric.

Three extra pins gave my couch the tufted look I wanted.

Hopefully I can finish the couch in the next couple of days, but I had to tidy my diner table this weekend because we had a little party last night. As soon as I'd put the half finished couch away, Harry claimed it to get very comfortable. Before the first guest arrived he had already started on a bottle of elf-made wine!
I guess I can wait another day before I continue with the couch ;)

A bunch of things

Life has been so chaotic this last month that I've spend nearly as much time in the mini world as I would have liked.
But still, I've managed to work on some crafts, so I thought I just squeezed it all in one blog (a) Maybe that way I can finally get back to the cottage ghe ghe

After I'd made the Hogwarts trunk I had some fun with these marbles from De Knikkerprins (word play on the frog prince) and made some fisherman floats.
 

Then I started making cushions, which turned out to be a new addiction ^^
First I made some Halloween themed cushions for my Etsy store. To my surprise they were sold within 48 hours o.O
 

  

  

I started making a dress for Sophie from the Quill shop ...
 

... but got distracted by the mold I'd bought at Georgia Marfels' at the fair in Rijswijk. So I had an enjoyable afternoon making Gingerbread Man Cookies ;)

Being in the Christmas mood by then I made some cute Santa cushions, on even finer embroidery mesh, which are in my Etsy store since yesterday.

Switching back to Halloween, I've made  a smoked filled globe with spider. Total length 8 cm.
It's based on this 1:1 tutorial.
 

And last but not least; we've had two afternoons with our crafts group. We started a macrame cushion the first time, and worked on walls and window last wednesday. I finished the walls the next days on my own. The next time we will work on something new for this roombox together.

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

 

Meer pompoenen / More pumpkins

Nadat de eerste pompoenen gelukt waren, ging ik een volgende uitdaging aan :)
Een uitgeholde pompoen met een uitgesneden gezicht, de zogenaamde Jack o'lantern.

After the first pumpkins turned out okay, I took on the next challenge :)
I wanted to make a Jack o'lantern.

Het uithollen stelde natuurlijk weinig voor vanwege die glazen kraal aan de binnenkant; ik hoefde alleen met een scherp mesje de pompoen overlangs halveren. Precies in een groef zodat het na het lijmen het minst zichtbaar is. De kraal er voorzichtig uitpeuteren et voila :)
Om het gezicht te snijden heb ik de kraal trouwens wel weer even teruggedaan in de halve pompoen. Dat gaf iets meer houvast.

To scoop out the pumpkin was easy enough because of the glass bead inside; I only had to divide it in two with a sharp knife lengthwise. Just used one of the lines I made on the clay so the cut would hardly be visible after gluing both halves together again.
After carving the face I removed the bead.

En als je dan een uitgeholde pompoen hebt, dan wil je er natuurlijk ook een lichtje in ;)
Ik bleek nog losse poppenhuislampjes te hebben liggen, die simpel aangesloten kunnen worden op een batterij.

Of course a Jack o'lantern isn't a lantern without a light ;) 
Fortunately I still had a miniature lighting set, including a battery.

Aan de onderzijde een uitsparing in de pompoen gemaakt en het lampje er voorzichtig in gelijmd. Na het testen van het lampje heb ik de andere helft van de pompoen erop gelijmd.

At the bottom I cut away some clay and carefully glued the little light. After testing it I glued the other halve of the pumpkin on top.

Omdat foto's niet echt een goed beeld gaven, heb ik de brandende Jack o'lantern even gefilmd. Je kunt gelijk zien hoe simpel het lampje aangaat :)

Because photo's won't show it very clearly, I make a little vid from the Jack o'lantern with the light on :)

Hier de verzameling pompoenen die inmiddels wat uitgebreid is. De Jack o'lantern 'hangt' nog wat tegen de muur; omdat het lampje iets uit de pompoen steekt, moet ik nog iets knutselen om dat - en de draad - te verbergen.

The collection of pumpkins in front of Miss Sophie's shop. Made some more of them, including a white one. The Jack o'lantern isn't quite finished because I need to find a way to hide the wire.

JACK O'LANTERN

De traditie voor het maken van jack-o’-lanterns stamt uit Ierland.
Er zijn veel verhalen over de oorsprong van de lantaarn. Een van de bekendste is het verhaal over de smid Jack. Op een avond kwam Jack de duivel tegen die hem naar de hel wilde meenemen. Jack wist met een list de duivel in een boom te lokken, en kraste vervolgens een kruisteken in de stam van de boom zodat de duivel de boom niet meer kon verlaten.
Pas nadat de duivel Jack had beloofd dat hij nooit naar de hel zou hoeven haalde Jack het kruisteken weg en liet de duivel weer vrij. Toen Jack jaren later stierf mocht hij door zijn slechte levenswandel niet naar de hemel, maar de duivel liet hem ook niet binnen in de hel wegens de gedane belofte.
Sinds die tijd doolt de ziel van Jack volgens het verhaal rond over de aarde. De duivel gooide Jack nog wel een gloeiend kooltje achterna toen hij hem wegstuurde bij de hellepoort. Jack stak het kooltje in een knol die hij aan het eten was en kreeg op die manier een lantaarn om zijn weg mee te verlichten. Volgens deze legende is de jack-o'-lantern vernoemd naar de smid uit dit verhaal.
Oorspronkelijk werden knollen gebruikt om de lantaarns te maken, maar naar Amerika geëmigreerde Ieren ontdekten al snel dat de pompoen een stuk geschikter was voor dit doel.

It is believed that the custom of making jack-o'-lanterns at Halloween began in Ireland. 
An old Irish folk tale from the mid-19th Century tells of Stingy Jack, a lazy yet shrewd blacksmith who uses a cross to trap Satan. One story says that Jack tricked Satan into climbing an apple tree, and once he was up there Jack quickly placed crosses around the trunk or carved a cross into the bark, so that Satan couldn't get down.
Jack only lets Satan go when he agrees never to take his soul. After a while the thief died, as all living things do. Of course, his life had been too sinful for Jack to go to heaven; however, Satan had promised not to take his soul, and so he was barred from hell as well. Jack now had nowhere to go. He asked how he would see where to go, as he had no light, and Satan mockingly tossed him an ember from the flames of Hades, that would never burn out. Jack carved out one of his turnips (which were his favorite food), put the ember inside it, and began endlessly wandering the Earth for a resting place. He became known as "Jack of the Lantern", or jack-o'-lantern.

Zin in het herfstseizoen / Looking forwards to the autumn season

Ondanks een ongewoon warme nazomer - 30 graden in september?! - begon bij mij het verlangen naar het najaar te kriebelen :)
Koeler weer, lekker knus binnen en weer meer tijd om te knutselen. Plus allerlei feestdagen in aantocht; verjaardagen van mezelf en mijn zoon, Halloween, Sinterklaas en de hele kerstperiode :)

Despite an unusual warm Indian summer - 30 degrees in September?! - I already begun to long for the autumn.
Cooler weather, staying cozy inside and more crafting time. Also lots of high days and holidays on the way; birthdays of both me and my son, Halloween, Sinterklaas and the Christmas season :)

Laten we met pompoenen beginnen, dacht ik. Nadat ik een flink aantal filmpjes en foto's bekeken had op Youtube en Pinterest, had ik wel een idee hoe ik ze wilde maken. Met Fimo klei maakte ik een paar verschillende pompoenen en verfde ze met oranje acrylverf. Toen ze gebakken waren heb ik ze een kleurtje gegeven met verschillende kleuren pastelkrijt(poeder) (met een drupje water).

Well let's start with pumpkins, I thought. After seeing lots of tutorials on Youtube and Pinterest I figured out the way I wanted to start and made a few pumpkins from Fimo clay. I painted them with orange acryl and, after baking them I added soft pastels (with a drop of water).

Door het krijt kregen ze een wat poederachtige uitstraling (links). Het laagje kleurloze nagellak beschermde en verdiepte de kleuren (rechts).

Due to the pastels they got a powery look (left). A coating of clear nailpoilish protected them and enhanced the coulors (right).

 

Meer glanzende, oranje pompoenen. 

 More shiny, orange pumpkins.

 

Hierna wilde ik wat grotere pompoenen maken, dit keer gelijk met oranje Fimo. Eigenlijk meer een mix van oranje, geel en roze xD Vanwege de grootte wilde ik een kern van ander materiaal gebruiken en ik vond een paar glazen kralen die de perfecte pompoenvorm leken te hebben ;)

After this I wanted to make some bigger pumpkins and use orange Fimo this time. Well, more a combination of orange, yellow and pink xD Because of the size I wanted to use a core of other material and I found these glass beads who happen to have the perfect shape for a pumpkin ;)

Na het bakken was ik er zo tevreden over dat ik besloot om ze niet te verven of te lakken.

After baking them I decided I liked them as they were and didn't paint or varnish them.