Bedrooms Provencal

My nativity model (last blog entry) is ready in scale 1:10 - but mary, joseph and family have not made it from the U.S. to Switzerland yet - maybe they are having too much fun in California 😉
Well, no photoshooting for x-mas card this year. But I am ready for next Christmas 👍

In the meantime I have completed the two bedrooms upstairs.

The proportions of the rooms were not cosy - so I added ceilings instead of leaving them open to the roof - worked!
I divided them with a wardrobe made with wood veneer. Gives it that country-side look.

Mum wanted hers with wallpaper and a bedside lamp from Miniarquitect (she has excellent taste...)

I did mine in a more Provencal style. The bedcover is a knitting pattern Mum started some 30 years ago, never finished it - but kept it! (This would not have happened to me: I am not a collector and things get thrown away....). Perfect color and size, just had to knit the one ending 😃

Recognize the sneakers? Gift from Carol... ;-)

Electrical candle: made with Fimo, a candle light from Nalladris, and bought some of these cylinders the florists use for putting single flowers in water. There is a glass workshop for disabled persons nearby and they cut it for me into the right length. I was lucky: if the glas were Pyrex (and most of e.g. lab equipment is) they could not have have cut it! This was quite an exercise beause for them it was not routine work and it was all trial-and-error.

at the glass workshop - grinding them straight was tricky...

Busy with landscaping and roof right now...
Enjoy the Festive Season - whatever you are up to!

Regards, Marion

P.S. My tree is already done :-)

Modern Miniature Nativity

I am so excited! Just found and bought these miniatures....

Supplier

Now I will give them a different shelter and put them into a more urban environment.
How the heck can I intergrate a cow in this?? Or a sheep? mh....
My mind is just boggling with ideas!!

Only four weeks to go  - this will be fast and furious!

Update, January 24 2017

Well, the figures did not make it for the christmas card fotoshooting. Never mind, it is now ready for this year's card.

The bus stop seemed to be an ideal scenery for them :-)

Garage with laundry and work bench

The addition of the garage with the workbench and the pottery studio is completed - except for the tiles on the roof and the light above the entrance of the studio.
With this addition the house is getting bigger... and intended to make something small again... haha.
I even had to make it in two pieces so that it would fit through the room door!
Definitely too many ideas I want to see in mini format 😉

Short Video

Carol gave me lots of inspiration for the workbench with her tutorials - and even sent me a few goodies I was not able to make, such as the perfect paint tray. Thanks my friend...
And I finally could use her tool and stacking boxes - yipee!!!

The pegboard is made from stuff one needs for circuits, copper lined on the back. Got it as a electronic rummage shop nearby.

Most of the tools (and especially the vice!) are from Superior Dollhouse, and Miniatures World.
Obviously all shipped via my friend Cindy in the U.S. - thanks Cindy!!


The garage door was tricky: the house is situated in a narrow road that does not allow the garage door to protrude into the road - otherwise one can never get into it with a car.
For a minute I thought about automatic openin/closing .. but only for a minute ;-) I mean, how crazy can you get ???

here the meachnism, made it with plastic ASA

  

This is what the addition-to-the-house project looks like right now - I wonder whether there is actually space for the car ?!

Pottery studio en miniature

Leaning back... all done ...  :-)

For my pottery wheel...

...I used what I could lay my hands on..

making the guiding rings on the wheel itself was a bit challenging..

Every potter needs a kiln...

And every potter needs tools - no matter how fiddly they are to make...

I rummaged through electronical waste box for the some of the metal parts

Bad NEWS though: for one or the other reason my blog links, etc. have disappeared! 

I am not amused... to say the least..

But I heard that this has happened to other bloggers as well, recently.

I am in the process of getting the links in again, please let me know if your blog is not listed.

AND: if anyone knows how to get the previews to these links in - please help!

Many thanks...

Pottery Studio and landscape

Not finished inside... lured by something else than bedrooms ;-)
Great that there are no deadlines in this project... hihi

South European gardens do have Cypress trees! No question: I want...
And I found a great tutorial that works in 1:12 as well.

I used the coarsest steelwool on the market, sprayed it brown, and then added NOCH moss green. Worked like a charm :-)

Southern European gardens do have plane trees (Platane) as well... mh....

Found a piece of wood (seems to come from special oak species, maybe a bonsai..) at the local nursery that could work. Poor thing is going through a tough few months now: the wood is still a little green and I hope that I can straighten out the stem. And then I will be in for a bit of punching and gluening... eventually.

And I made a climbing plant (to cover the cracks in the wall...): using paper covered wire which I could paint and glue on, a mini punch from the punch bunch and tissue paper, which I sprayed with all sorts of greens, a bit of red and orange. Wonderful work to do when 'hearing' TV....

I thought that adding a garage and potters studio is not going to make much of a difference - the project is big anyway... might as well.

I have decided on pottery studio because I did pottery many years back and know what that should look like. The nice part: here, things do not have to be perfect...

After getting that far, I noticed that I forgot old newspapers, which are quite important for a potter to cover pieces so that they can dry slowly. 

Another great turioal on how to print on tissue paper! 

I made some tools already - but need a different container...

and am quite ambitious now to get anywhere close to this potter's wheel...

What fun this is!

Lounge, Pots, Plants, roof tile test

About the lounge, dining area and kitchen...

A big moment when I could install the modern 'metal' doors I made a few months back already.

They open an close because I fed a steel wire through the hollow frame (brass) on the side, inserted 1mm of the wire into the frame of the upper part window and the wood strip at the bottom.

This lower part outside wall was supposed to be fixed so that I could attach lights outside. But alas - plans change as one goes along... no working lights outside ;-) but able to have a full view of the ground floor.

short description: making of

About the roof....
Thanks for everybody's input and ideas. Spent time on researching hoping I could find ready made terracotta barrel-type roof tiles. No such luck up to now...
So - rainy weekend was perfect for testing different materials to make them myself.
Here my findings


About the garden....
Was busy making flowers from Pascale Garnier. The hortensia was the toughest, the lavender like a walk in the park...

I realized that I needed more pots for the garden though and found old coffee capsules in my box (Tschibo or Chicco d'oro - they are identical and the right size).

I primed them and gave them a first coat with terracotta clay slick mixed with white chalk paint. But the color was not intensive enough. So I did a 2nd and 3rd coat with terracotta clay slick mixed with a little white glue.

the square one is made from foamboard

I added a ribbon to the rim on this one

I did not want them to look too new and I dry painted them with a little mossy green and chalk white.
Very carefully... because you cannot sand them (without ruining everything) !


About recognition....
And to top it all: my container home model made it onto the front page of U.K. Dolls' House Magazine :-)

PLEASE NOTE: I do not expect praise for each new blog from you.
I am just happy to share my diary with you...  :-)

Marion