A miniature theatre

I'm so excited I can finally show this great new project I got. Yeah, I know, too many projects, so little time (a)
I got this lovely old fashioned theatre as a birthday gift! My friend Wil had seen it in a FB group - where I had admired it - and secretly had contacted the seller.

The theatre previously belonged to Jaschenka (from MythReal) and it had been handmade by her grandfather. She did the decorating and though it wasn't finished completely, and there was a little bit of damage, it still looked amazing :)
It has the same size as the Hogsmeade cottage, approx. 80 cm wide, 42 cm deep and 50 cm high.

I've started with dusting and cleaning everything, including
the drapes/curtains for the side wings and glued the little
angels back on the proscenium arch. I hope I'll get the
(theatre) therminology correct btw). 

I cleaned the red velours front curtains as good as possible,
since the sides are glued to the walls, so I couldn't get them off.

 

The left wing (bottom), with the curtains
hiding the openings to the stage.

The left wing (top) with another staircase.
The roof is open to get better light for the
photo's. It's nicely decorated and I love the
little ballet shoes hanging from the wall lamp.

That staircase leads to the roof, which makes it
possible to expand the building with dressings
rooms e.g. or maybe a roof top garden? ;)

The right wing goes al the way up to the top,
and has a stage door door, a prompt corner
and two lights.

This view form above in the right wing
shows the pulleys of the flying system. 

There are two drapes (painted canvas), suspended
from battens that are controlled by a fly system. 

One of the drapes.

You can see there's also a trap in the stage floor,
a prompter's box (souffleurshokje) and a cute
balcony for a Romeo and Juliette scene :)

Because of my other two big projects, the Hogsmeade cottage and the Italian project, I'll only plan to get the lights working and maybe make/paint a new drape. Maybe something snowy, so I have a little Christmas scene in the theatre in December :)

But, oh, think of all the possibilities; plays, musicals, fairytales and Disney movies. maybe even A Very Potter Musical can be performed one day ^^

Crafting together & birthday swaps for me :)

Yesterday I met Jolinda, Monique and Wil for the second-last crafting afternoon of this year. It was also the fourth and last time there would be a birthday swap this year, mine actually :)

They really spoiled me with awesome gifts <3 Btw I apologize in advance for the bad photo quality.

Wil made a 1:24 scale double bed for me.
Without any help from a tutorial or
measurement, she had that scale down
to a tee ;)

Jolinda made me - a rather Harry ^^ - a
replica of his wand and the box in which
mr Ollivander had kept it. She did a
really great job, escpecially with the handle.
Looks just like the original wand.

Last but certainly not least; this adorable Dobby
was made by Monique! She also felted a little
teddy bear for me (seen in de first photo), just
like she did for Wil and Jolinda.

After the swaps and the coffee with donuts we got started. Since Monique had bought some kits (Ria Odijk) for making dolls, we had decided to bring out the Fimo and have fun with those.
Monique worked on making a baby doll, Jolinda wanted to try a female doll, and Wil unfortunately had to leave early. I decided on focussing on heads since I was more confident that I could do bodies at home without a mould than heads ^^

The lady on the left was from another mould than the others
as you might've noticed. Her face is less detailed but maybe
that will make her a good choice when I want to make
Bianca, the witch who rents the Hogsmeade cottage :)

After I got home I've worked on the heads a little more. Give
the men eye balls and better necks, glued 'Bianca' together
after her neck broke (a) And made a half face/mask from the
last head, maybe for a paranormal portrait :)

I even gave them ears, though it probably is
better to cover them with hair lol

So, another miniature challenge to add to the list. But first I want to finish the couch, so hopefully I'll have another update soon.

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 ;)

Craft of the Month - September

After a long summer break there was a new monthly challenge at (Dutch) FB group Actieve Poppenhuisforum. 

For this month's challenge you had to make something with at least 3 of the following materials:
1. paper
2. some waste material (like a cardboard box or packing material)
3. thread
4. metal push pin

One was optional or could be changed in something else. Paint and glue was free to use.

Since there were four instead of five materials, I wanted to challenge myself and use them all, but the pin gave me a really hard time :)
I also wanted to make something for the cottage instead of just making something that would end up in a corner of my cupboard. After a lot of hard thinking I got the idea to make a miniature painting (my first one ^^). 
Paper for the painting itself, a frame from a pizza box, decorated with embroidery thread and I wanted to cut and bent the top of the pins so they could cover the four corners, but in the end that didn't work as I couldn't cut them :') But first the painting!

I decided on a painting of Hogsmeade
for my Hogsmeade cottage :)

First step

I was a bit unsure about the bright yellow.

After adding the finishing touches.

The frame was made from a pizza box ^^ First layer was a brown oil paint, then after sanding a blue with black watered down acrylic and then I drybrushed with the creme chalk paint I've used for the fire place previously (need to buy more of that!). Because cutting the pins didn't work, I thought I could decorate the frame with it, but it didn't feel right.

I ended up using them on the back to attach a thread (a)

Not sure where the painting will be installed by Bianca and Penny but I'm sure it will look nice in whatever room they choose.

Baquettes for a birthday swap

Last week the crafting club met again :) I'll tell you about the (Italian) project in another blog, but since we had another birthday girl, I want to show you the swap I've done.
I knew Jolinda likes brocantes and is working on a French doll house. So for inspiration I spend some time on her blog and thought something for the kitchen would be nice. So I started looking for French bread and found this (Dutch) tutorial for a box to store a baguette.

For the baguettes I found these tutorials on Pinterest that were helpful, by thinkpastel and The Enchanted Gallery. In March I'd bought a mould for bread at Stella Que Passa, so I made two loaves of bread with the leftover Fimo :)

I think the bread and baguettes are a bit too yellow, so next tine I'll add a bit of brown Fimo to the mixture, but for a first try I liked it :)

For making the knife this tutorial from SugarCharmShop was helpful. I used little dots of silver nail polish on the handle, and a tiny strip from a peel off sticker sheet.

This is the finished swap for Jolinda:

Happy I made enough bread to fill a basket for the cottage :)

The living room is decorated!

After I had finished the living room floor, all that was left to do was finishing the fire place and then I could get all the removable panels in place.

I painted the bricks on the inside with black, grey/cottage green
and white and repainted the outside and on of the walls
with chalk paint (no 2 van Het Kabinet).

I love the shade so I decided to repaint the
ceiling as well :)

Inspiration for making the fire came from this blog.
The flickering fire is a camp fire block from Nalladris. 

And then finally I could slide the ceiling with beams and
the fire place back in the room, which wasn't easy because
the chandelier and the wires from the fire place all needed
to get into place at the same time. Getting all the lights on at
the same time was the next challenge but I managed :)

To see the flickering fire - and all the walls - here's a short (and not very good :P) video:

The arm chair won't stay in the living room, but for now Penny can sit very comfortable with Blast in front of the fire, her book about toadstools next to her.

It's so exciting to have finished decorating the first room of the cottage. Can't wait to start furnishing :) I've already chosen a bookcase and a writing desk (from Julie Warren's book) I want to make and put against the back wall but I still haven't found the right furniture for the sitting area :)
And of course I still need to wax the wooden floor (a)

The living room floor

I've been really busy working on the living room the previous week.
I'd decided that there would be no wall paper in my Hogsmeade cottage, but then I put some removable wall paper on two sides anyway, just to see how it would look.
I had been afraid it might be too dark and 'busy' with a design on the wall, but with the fire place and the opposite wall still plastered white, I thought it wouldn't :)

Hardest part of the flooring was making the template. I kept cutting a sliver here and one there and then it turned out just 1 mm too much and ... aaargh :')
I guess that's the problem when you build a house from scratch; the measurements of every floor and every wall, the fire places and the door openings, they all differ just micro millimeters (a)

Next was choosing the wood. Well, that was the easy part. I hadn't considered the thickness of the floor when I'd made the doors and thresholds, so those popsicle sticks people often use, were too thick. Which I was glad for because I'd rather work with Balsa anyway ;)
Normally I would've choosen 2 or 2,5 mm Balsa, but because of those doors, I've used 1,5 mm Balsa.

Based on this decorative paper the boards
will be 1,5 mm (just 2-3 mm smaller than
this decoration paper has xD

I've cut the boards at random lengths because I'm going for the rustic look. Well, random meaning not one size, but multiple sizes from 6 to 10 cm ;)
You can lay the boards horizontal or vertical in a dollhouse, depends on the look you want and how narrow a room is. I am going to lay the boards parallel to the longest wall.

After fitting the boards on the template, I sanded the edges of each single board to give them some signs of wear.
I also painted the template dark brown with arcylic, just in case there would be small gaps between the boards that would show the white paper. In hindsight that wasn't neccasary because of the stain.

I tacked the boards to the paper with wood glue. Note to self:
don't blow away the dust while flooring with Balsa :)

The floor is sanded and wiped clean of sanding dust with
a damp cloth. I put four nail holes in every floor board
and tested to see if it would still fit in the living room.

When the Balsa was completely dry I brushed
on the oak wood stain.

You're supposed to let the floor dry for at least 24 hours, but
of course I was out of patience after 14 hours (a) I sanded
the floor again, wiped it clean and gave it a second staining.

I've read somewhere that rubbing the floor with a few layers of bees wax instead of varnish will give it a beautiful natural glow, so I want to try that. Once I've found bees wax. Fingers crossed I won't forget :)