SIMP Miniature Fair in Paris 2016

Spending more than 4 hours to get that little???
Seems crazy - but it is always difficult to avoid kitsch...

And then: to meet all the FB friends finally in person :-)))

Probably the greatest decorator is Janny Warnaar of Artofmini. She has a wonderful way of presenting things... I am very impressed! And therefore it was rather difficult to get access to their showings because the rock the market somewhat with their products (good business sense..). Janny, wonderful finally meeting you in person. Wish I could hire you to decorate my new house :-)

With Catherine Ferouelle of  l'atelier du chat botte I shared a salad, a smoke and we just took to each other instantly! What an admirable artist: totally uncomplicated, ready to share knowledge and she simply seems to have fun experimenting. One day, Catherine, I will be as good at painting as you are... long way to go though.. Looking forward to getting your garden chairs though :-)

And I finally met Francisco and his lovely (good looking) mother from Artmajeur! We have been exchanging so many mails about perfect stone wall, LED for his lamps and his perfect models.. I could obviously not resist and chose the lamps that are least retro to fit into my present project.

I promised Susanna Alberti of MiniatureFashion to come to the Milan Fair! Susanne, glad that we met in person and I could see your delicate work! You should be very proud of your sense of fabric and fashion...doing creations like you do is totally beyond me :-)

I always worked with LED light from modelltrainsoftware in USA. I few miniaturists have mentioned Nalladris and I had a look at their LED products. This is really an alternative AND their lamps to not have these terrible resistor units I always have to hide somewhere. Bought a few and will check them out...

And: Elisabeth Causeret with her pottery...

And: Elsner van Gronow with an incredible choice of metal ornaments....

When unpacking my 'loot' it looked like so little...
But I am so excited about using all these things eventually :-))

Working with Versi Flags Flooring

After all this I am now highly qualified in laying tiles!

And I have to admit that I had to rip out the entrance area again after I messed it up with the grouting... grr. But it was only a question of patience - and having enough spare tiles ;-)

I got them from MinimumWorld and they are great because one side is sandstone and the other slate - so, one has the choice. I opted for sandstone inside.

I drew some lines to help me keep the directions.After trying a number of glues, Pritt stick worked best and was least messy.


Once dry, I did NOT varnish them but spread polyfiller on the entire surface - covering everything with a VERY fine coat.

Just to immediately wipe it off with a damp cloth. Looked as nothing was left ....

... but after 4 minutes it shows that a thin white film remains. Perfect because I wanted a more homogenous look - without this 'whitewash' the floor seemed to busy.

Weights come in handy as well...

I made a test to see what varnishing the floor would do - and it showed that the white did disappear somewhat. So, I left it unvarnished, even though a little shine would have looked great as well. Can't have it all!

Here what it looks when all is dry. In the background under the newspaper hides that great door I got from Pipi Turner! Fitting it without a door frame meant that I had to polyfill around... will show you once I have it perfect.

Take care

Marion

French style antique window handles and latches

Oval handles and latches like these in 1:12 cannot be found in any hardware shop.

After having this great response from the mini community about the windows I made I tried something in 3D. My designer Vijay drew them up as small as possible - after all it still had to be printable...

And today the I got the prints in white plastic!



Of course I had to paint them immediately!


Next time I thin down the paint so that details of the print are more pronounced.
And I would use a 1mm wire to keep the proportions (can feed up to 1.2mm).

Voilà!

Thought I share this with you all..