The Florist shop is finished!

I finally managed to finish the flower shop. It took me a little longer than I'd hoped - largely because I'd underestimated the length of time it would take me to finish the beautiful orchids that I bought from Georgie (http://theminiaturegarden.blogspot.com/). I got the begonia plants on the shelf unit from her too. Aren't they gorgeous? I'm sure that she could have made them much better than I did as the pieces are very tiny but I'm very pleased with them. Anyhow ... you can see for yourself and make up your own mind about the shop ...

This is the view through the front door - with the orchids in pride of place.

 

This little shelf is on the wall behind the shop counter.

And this is the door into the garden which I showed you the other day.

 These are the shelves outside the windows

I had to stick the ivy leaves on individually as the wire kept pulling the whole thing away from the wall. There is a pot which stands in front of the wall so it does look as though the ivy is growing out of the ground and, now I've seen the photos I think I'll paint in some stems with a fine paintbrush and some brown paint.

And finally, this is the view through the door from the garden.

The garden is finished!

At last! I have no doubt I'll tinker with it again later, as I usually do, but for now I'm counting this as finished. I'm determined to finish the florist shop too this weekend as next weekend is our miniatures group show and I still have things to do for that. So ... would you like a guided tour?

The paths are lined with lavender

The flowers are a mixture of haberdashery finds, kits, flower soft sprinkles and fimo and some of the leaves are aquarium plants, some are model railway scenic materials and others are cut from paper.

 I couldn't resist putting a bird in the bird bath...

 

 and another one perched on the end of the railing hoping for some crumbs left behind now the customers have finished their cup of tea.

There are flowers in the garden

... In the florist's garden that is, and then only a few, but it is a start. My daughter's been home for a few days so there has been very little progress on the flower shop this weekend as I wanted to spend all my time with her. We had a lovely time catching up on all the gossip that somehow got missed from the regular phone calls. Today, though, I'm home alone and working on that mini-garden.

I laid the lawns and finished off the flower beds with some 'soil' sprinkles and then started on the lavender borders to the paths. I had made 40 of those little lavender flowers and they soon got used up so I've had to make more - lots more.

Obviously there is lots more to be done here - leaves for a start - but I just had to get some flowers in and see how they'll look.

I bought another bird bath and now I can't decide which to use. The first one (the one that I painted with that stone coating a week or two back) is taller and narrower and this one is shorter and wider. I just can't make up my mind.

There are flowers in the pavilion!

Yes, I've finally managed to make a start on the interior of the pavilion ... or the Secret Garden florist as it is now known.

I'll be adding more things to the shelves but I thought I'd show you what I've done so far. There's that little gremlin I bought a couple of weeks ago - remember? I still think he looks really cute.

I need to add some skirting board around the bottom of the walls. It's funny how you can forget about doing things until you see the photo and realise what still needs to be done.

These sunflowers are from a haberdashery shop. I am making some flowers for the garden but I thought these looked fine and they match the pattern on this little jug and brighten up an otherwise quite dark corner. 

I need to make more birdhouses as these have been 'borrowed' from the Pretty Little Things shop so there's a big gap on the sales table in there now. I'll be adding more things to the top of these cupboards too - I just haven't decided exactly what yet, so watch this space.

Out in the garden this pot of geraniums is the only sign of flowers yet though the flower beds are beginning to take shape and I've been making lavender flowers to edge the path and agapanthus from a kit from Ladies Mile Miniatures (www.ladiesmileminiatures.co.uk/pages/plants-flowers).

I put some display shelves beneath the windows to entice customers in and added some pot plants on one ... and a summery wreath on the other. More to be added here too. Got to fill all those gaps!

I added signs - the Garden sign on the inside of the side door and then a shop sign on the front and a welcome sign in the door.

My daughter's coming to stay for a few days so there will be no more work done on this until next Monday now.

The Pavilion is taking shape

I'm determined to take control! My natural instinct - and I know I'm not alone here - is to start work on lots of different projects. You'll have noticed this already. I always seem to get excited by something new when I'm a few weeks (or sometimes days) into a project and then the new project is overtaken by something else ... and so we go on. So this week I'm determined to finish one project ... and the chosen project is ... the Pavilion.

I have the roof tiled at last. Those tiles are just made from strips of painted cereal box but I think they look quite effective.

The garden is starting to take shape too. The decking is complete and the walls are covered in bricks - yes, more cereal packets painted and then cut up into individual brick shapes before being stuck onto the wall. That took me a couple of days to do. The gravel path is laid. I sprayed it with hair spray to set it in place and the colour has darkened considerably, which I'm not too happy with but not sure what to do about that. I'm hoping I like it better once the grass and plants are in place. I don't think that those plant pots will be staying there in that corner. You'll see that I bought and fitted lights too - a little lantern by the door ...

... and two beautiful flower shaped wall lights inside. They don't show up too well on this photo but they seemed the most appropriate choice for a flower shop. The only way to access the Pavilion is by removing the roof so all the lights have to fit on the wall.

I've decided to put the two cupboards on either side of the side door rather than underneath the windows as I'd originally planned. The wire from the outside light will be covered up eventually.

I made a shop counter/florist's bench too. This still needs a coat of that darker green paint so it will match the cupboards rather than the doors and windows.

And then I went shopping. The bird bath was plain white resin until I painted it over with stone coating paint. I just love the little gremlin! The rusty watering can will have flowers 'planted' in it eventually.

And finally - just because I can't resist him - here is Willow waiting patiently for me to stop making minis and do something more entertaining instead.

Dressers for the flower shop

I had a lovely day yesterday meeting with a friend at my favourite tea room here in town - a whole menu of teas served in mismatched old china and delicious home made, locally sourced food, mixed with a generous helping of good conversation - a perfect day!
On the minis front I've been making some furniture for my flower shop and now have two dressers to fill. I made a corner shelf too but that's not quite finished so no photos of that yet. Today I've made lots of plant pots too but they're still baking in the oven so, again, no photo yet.

They're just made from mount board and card but I'm quite pleased with the way they've turned out.

The weather here in Yorkshire continues to be warm and sunny - not too hot - but we've also had a few showers during the past couple of weeks so the garden is looking great. My little plot is very small but I've turned the back patio over to growing vegetables this year and it's crammed full of pots filled with potatoes, onions, garlic, chard, kale, broad beans, beetroot, carrots, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbages, tomatoes, spinach, courgettes, salad leaves, raspberries, wild strawberries and blueberries.

 OK, there's not a lot of each, but I'm only feeding myself here and I'm already picking chard and salads.

 Aren't the stems on this chard beautiful? I love the colours almost as much as the taste!

And this is a picture of Willow having a post-dinner wash before settling down for his evening nap :-)

Progress on the pavilion

Well, I'm obviously going to finish the build on the pavilion now I've started as it's going together really quickly. I really should be getting on with the manor house but I hit a snag with the lighting and this looked like a lot more fun than struggling with 1/24th scale light bulbs and wires the thickness of cotton thread.

You can't really see the colour too well from this picture but the doors and windows are painted a soft green. I purposely didn't do a great job with the painting and then I distressed them further with some dark brown paint as I want the outside to look a little worn and scruffy.

You can see the exposed bricks on this one at the top corner of the window.

This is the front exterior. The plasterwork needs dirtying up a little yet but I'm getting there.

And finally the interior.

The building has turned out to be larger than I'd anticipated. Yes, I know I should have checked the measurements before I bought it, but I didn't ... so now I'm wondering where on earth I'm going to put it on display as there's also a garden, which will just have to go alongside it, rather than in front.