Minis at last!

It seems to be taking me a while to get back to my normal routine after all the holiday's visitors but I finally got around to doing some miniatures this week even though there's not really very much that's new. I added some bits and pieces to the Manor House kitchen but I'm going to wait until I get the curtains up at the window before I show you that - later this week hopefully.

It's competition night at my local Minis group and this is my entry. I know it's a little late (or very early) for Halloween but we were given this tiny board and had to make a scene showing an annual event - and this is what I chose to do.

 Sorry about the veg box showing on the side of this one! I just realised that I didn't crop this particular photo but it's the only one that shows the chest with the witch's hat in it.

I don't expect to win, and I really don't mind as I enjoyed doing this little scene so much!

The other thing I've done is to change this little display box around to show off my small collection of shoes. The hats are ones I've shown you before and I made those. The shoes and boots were bought at the Pudsey Miniatures Show last autumn and I intend to add more when I get the opportunity.

 Can you see the giant cat outside the window, looking down at the miniature one on the windowsill?
 Here he is in person ... my beautiful Willow.

New Year Giveaway

I wish every one of my 52 lovely followers a very happy and healthy new year!

I've had family visiting over Christmas and New Year - first my son arrived and stayed for ten days, which was wonderful! My daughter had recently begun a new job and had to leave to start work on the Wednesday after Christmas Day but we managed to spend four days together. Then my brother arrived and just left yesterday. He is an Anglican minister so never gets a holiday at either Christmas or Easter of course so he arrives just before New Year's Eve and stays for a week.

In and amongst all the cooking and talking there has been no time for minis, or for much crafting of any kind. I did manage to crochet myself a scarf but have taken no photographs of that yet - maybe this weekend. So I'm sending you all some photographs of early spring flowers from my garden. I do so love snowdrops don't you? I have clumps of them all over my garden.

Here is the giveaway I've been promising you ... at last! I decided to give this tiny doll for the child in your dolls house (or maybe an old favourite of a young at heart adult?). The cushion and chair are included too. 

All you have to do to be entered into the draw (on Saturday 28th January) is to be (or become) a follower of my blog and to leave a nice comment underneath this post.

Good luck everyone!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I'm sorry I've not been on here for a while. I spent a week in London visiting my son and daughter and since I got back my feet have barely touched the ground as there was real-life Christmas to organise.

These photos are from last year, showing Willow trying to decide whether he could reach the baubles. Of course he could! Nothing is safe from a cat! This year we don't have snow so no white Christmas this time around.

I'll be back in the new year with a give-away to celebrate my 50th follower, and news of the quilts I'm going to sell on Etsy, but in the meantime ...

... thank you for continuing to visit my blog, thank you for all your support and your lovely comments, and I hope that each and every one of you have a wonderful Christmas with those you love.

A stitching frenzy

At least, that's what this looks like. Actually I've been working on these over a couple of months - just not told you about them before. So this is what I've been doing in between working on the manor house ...

I've had this old wooden box for years and never done anything with it. There is a lift out tray inside which my daughter uses to keep her jewellery in when she comes to visit, but it wasn't ideal really. So I decided to line the box with some leftover fabric from a pair of silk curtains.

And I stitched this piece of needle lace onto the padded piece that sits inside the box lid. Now it looks like a casket fit for jewels.

I've been wanting to try decorative darning for quite a while now and I finally got around to making this sampler.

I made a patchwork bag to hold all my miniature knitting and sewing yarns and needles, etc. I thought the little houses pattern was ideal for holding things for my dolls houses.

Inspired by a beautiful sunny October morning where the sunlight turned the falling leaves to gold, I made this autumn leaves picture in needle lace and goldwork.

And we had a workshop at our local Embroiderers Guild learning how to do stumpwork (raised surface embroidery) and I made this figure. The skirt is needle lace, the jacket a piece of textured silk fabric, the scarf a tiny snippet of georgette and the boots and handbag are real leather - inspired by my beautiful daughter.

I've also been busy finishing off some miniature quilts which I'm planning to sell on Etsy, but I'll show you those another day, when I get that organised.

Additions to some of the rooms

I've been adding some of the accessories that I've bought recently for the manor house so some of the rooms are finally beginning to feel a little more homely and ready for a family to move in.

 

The dining room now has a table with four chairs and a display cabinet in the corner. There's nothing in the cabinet yet but there is a vase of flowers in the centre of the dining table.

There are some pans on the kitchen stove, some dishes on the sink draining board and more on the worktop and on the dresser, together with some jelly moulds and a jug. A kettle sits on the kitchen table along with a glass bowl, waiting to be filled.

The front door has a letter box, door knob and keyhole and a house sign.

The settees in the sitting room are now covered and there are a couple of letters on the writing desk.

And this is the dressing table in the bedroom, complete with perfume bottles, hairbrush, combs and mirror on a second silver tray and a vase of rosebuds.

There is still lots more to do and lots more to make but progress is happening - slowly but surely.

When I went to Pudsey miniatures Fair earlier this month my main aim was to find a bathroom suite. I did buy one and at the time I felt it was a little large but the woman on the stall assured me that it was 1/24th scale. She was wrong; I was right; it isn't. It's also not 1/12th scale. So I made a tiny roombox just to fit the bathroom suite.

I have pictures, towels and a bath mat to add to this yet but at least the bathroom suite isn't wasted. In the meantime, the search goes on.

Furniture and dipping a toe in 1/4 scale

First of all I want to say a huge welcome to all my new followers! Thank you for taking the time to stop by and look at my minis. I really appreciate your interest and your comments. I'm also thinking that maybe it's time I started to think about a giveaway for when I reach 50 followers - almost there!

It's been a pretty busy week this week on the minis front. I've been making lots of furniture for the manor house. If I'm going to paint the furniture that I make in 1/2 scale then I use mount board as I find it more stable and much easier to work with than very thin wood.

I made a toy box and a single bed for the children's room. The bed is made from two pieces of foam board stuck on top of each other with pieces of mount board stuck around the edges to make the divan base. The mattress is a piece of polystyrene covered in a used tumble drier fabric softener sheet and the top sheet is another piece of the fabric softener. Not only is this really soft and easily draped, but it also smells good. The bed head is mountboard again with a border of cereal packet card.

I also made an armchair for the study. As you can see from the photos below, the seat is again two pieces of foam board stuck together. I didn't have a pattern for the winged back - just guess work and trial and error and made from cereal packet. I stuck a bit of thin wadding on to the top part of the back and then covered it with imitation suede fabric, turning the edges over on to the back and then covered the raw edges with another piece of cereal packet cut slightly smaller than the back and also covered in the suede effect fabric.

I don't know whether you remember but the sitting room has green wall paper so the red velvet on this little bought settee didn't really look right so I've decided to re-cover it in this gold silk fabric. I prised off all the red fabric with the tip of my craft knife and will use the pieces as patterns to cut the silk material.

I'm also making a knoll settee for this room. Again, no pattern. The seat is yet again two pieces of foam board stuck together and I then used this for the measurements to make the back and side panels. I scored them just a fraction above the top of the seat so there is room to put cushions on the seat, and then stuck wadding onto the back and sides. This is also destined to be covered in gold silk.

It was our miniatures group meeting on Tuesday evening and a clever lady who always works in quarter scale or smaller taught the workshop. We made a quarter scale Tudor shop. It's the first time I've ever ventured into this scale but I have to say that I loved making it. I don't think I shall be doing more on such a small scale but we had a lot of fun and I'm quite pleased with the results. I shall be looking out for furniture and bits and pieces to fill it on Saturday at the Pudsey Miniatures Fair.

Racing towards the finish line

I'm sorry I've not posted for a while. I have been busy on the Georgian house, but there really hasn't seemed to be much to show for the work. It's a matter of catching up on all the bitty jobs that make it possible to fit it all together... odd bits of painting and the like. So here are the fruits of all that labour.

The fronts are painted on the outside. Gosh those quoins were tricky to do but I'm quite pleased with the result. The doors onto the balcony still need work but I couldn't resist putting the letterbox onto the front door.

The roof tiles are painted. I've splodged a little white paint on the back of where the dormer windows will fit. I'm planning to put blinds or curtains at the windows before I glue them in place so that it looks a little more realistic at least.

Here are those dormers ... all painted.

The porch and balcony are painted and glued together but I need to finish those balcony doors before I fix them in place.

The bathroom is decorated and I fixed a light to the back wall. The ceiling is far too low to have a light hanging in the normal manner so I thought this would be an acceptable compromise. I'm going to the Pudsey Miniatures Fair next weekend so am hoping to find a nice 24th scale bathroom suite to go in here.

The children's room is decorated, complete with safety rail around the top of the staircase. There is a lamp up against the back wall which will eventually sit on a bedside cabinet when I've made one. In this picture you can also just about see that I added curtains to the bed downstairs and a tiny lace motif on the silk coverlet. When the house is complete I'll go through each room in turn and show you photos of everything in there so better pictures will come in due course. 

This is the carpet I made for the children to play on.

I put lots of pictures on the walls in the study

The light fitting looks a little crooked. I must have caught it with my hand when I was fixing those paintings in place.

There are more portraits in the hall

and yet more pictures in the sitting room.

You get a better view of the cameos on the back wall here too.
Lots of furniture still to make and the inside of the front of the house to decorate but, after working on this for the past ten months, I do feel that it's finally coming together.