Free Image, Vintage Calendar Image, Sweet Girl Feeding her Dog

This is a lovely image I thought you might like from an old Calendar printed in England. The bottom image is in one twelfth scale and the top image is a higher resolution to be scaled down for your setting.

Cheers, Jean

Eulalie's Original Watercolours arrived!!

I was so excited to receive a parcel in the mail the other day with a second original Eulalie book and illustration from a dealer in England. He was selling his original watercolours and sketches
by the artist Eulalie Banks 1895-1999. I was fortunate to have won two of her small books and a sketch, Alice in Wonderland ABC and My 123 book, he also included some tiny sketches as well! Eulalie illustrated over fifty books, gifts cards and ads, I have shown just a few of her books from my collection in the bottom photo. She also did The Three Bears, Cinderella, and Little Red Riding Hood that are a few of my favorite that I have reproduced in miniature. She also decorated nurseries with murals, one was for Charlies Chaplin.

After reproducing a few of her books in miniature, her daughter and granddaughter got in touch with me. Her daughter, Athalie is a miniaturist and said her mom loved miniatures too and would have been really pleased to see her books reproduced. I just wanted to mention this so you could imagine my extreme excitement at being able to purchase her original books and illustrations. The two books are not finished and only have two or three coloured pages but the rest of the pages are lovely sketches as you can see from the photos above. They have never been published. It is so beautiful to feel the texture of the gauche paints she used and see her brush strokes. I hope to reproduce these originals in miniature some day too.

There is a page about Eulalie on my web site here
http://members.shaw.ca/jday1/gallery/eulalie.html if you are interested in reading more.
I also wrote a page about her daughter Athalie McNeely who is a miniaturist and We have some photos of her lovely original dollhouse and minis. She sent me old photos of her mother to use on the page as well, that are just wonderful! Miniature connections can be amazing!!!
http://members.shaw.ca/jday1/other/tpt_athalie_ms013.html

Thanks again to the new bloggers who are following me, very thrilled you are interested and I love visiting all your pages.

Cheers, Jean

Free Images from my Apothecary Manuscript

Yesterday, Debbie from Tiny Treasures acquired the most amazing, hand blown laboratory glass equipment. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who was jealous, you just don't see beautiful pieces like that! You might like to go and have a look at them. Can't wait to see how she uses them. I'm so pleased she shared her great photos with everyone.

Her purchases reminded me of the amazing, very old, Apothecary Manuscript/book from 1800 I found in an antique store while visiting Toronto. It has such beautiful penmanship and is full of recipes or formulas written with a quill pen. One of the formulas is for black ink, which is called Marking Ink in the book and another for keeping your quill hard, which I guess was important. There are also many formulas earlier in the book that I don't understand but look very traditions with labels and ingredients just like the old apothecary bottles I have, probably because they are written in Chemist's French or Latin.

There are perfume formulas too, which really interested me, because I enjoy aromatherapy and oils for making soaps and fragrance oils. I hope to make a miniature book of this one day but thought I would share a few of the pages with you. The middle images printed should be one twelfth scale, the bottom image quarter scale and the top images is a larger dpi to reduce for better detail.

Cheers, Jean

Miniaturists from Victoria B.C.

I have always loved living in Victoria B.C., especially because I have some wonderful friends here, who are very talented and interested in miniatures too!

Shirley Rose has made an entire town called Rosetown. She has made over seventeen stores and the most beautiful homes. You can see the shops under the Shops link. It is amazing, she designed all the buildings herself and has finished them with the most wonderful landscaping and interior details. There is a library, shops, artist studio, meat market, candy shop, just to name a few. As well as having Shirley for a friend, I had the good fortune, when I was a porcelain doll maker, to be commissioned by Shirley to make many of the dolls for her houses and stores. You can see many of my porcelain dolls in the photos above, she was always coming up with a challenge for me. She is always so excited and passionate about what she is working on and does amazing miniatures as you can see from her web site. I think you would love to see Rosetown and all her other
wonderful projects. Here is her web site.
http://members.shaw.ca/shirl.rose/index.htm

Another very talented miniaturist from Victoria is Lesley Shepherd, not only does she make amazing plants and kits, she is a botanist and designs gardens as well. You can visit her web site at Lesley's Garden. She is the guide of the Miniatures at About.com web site and also has an About blog. She designs terrific printables and always has some interest project on the go. Recently it was a tiny chick and woven Easter basket, so adorable.

Johannes Landman is also from Victoria, we used to be in a sketch group together and he is always so quick to share any tips about making minis and painting. If you haven't seen him at the big shows you might enjoy seeing his paintings. I have the good fortune of owning a couple of his miniature paintings and they have exquisite detail. You can see a description of his painting through the IGMA web site.

Free Images, More Valentine Cards 1920's 1:12 & 1:48

Here are a few more of the Valentine cards from my collection, the middle image is in quarter scale, the first is a larger version to give more detail if you want to scale it down and the third image, if you click on it to print, it should be one twelfth scale. It is lovely to be able to share these unusual images.

I was visiting the Fairydoor blog with beautiful sculptures by Daniela Messina, the most recent shown was the sweetest mouse sleeping in a teacup, just adorable! If you scroll down the page you can see her lovely babies and children.

Cheers, Jean

Blog Award from Debbie

I'm very pleased to have been given this very attractive Award by Debbie at Tiny Treasures.
With this award I must list five addictions and pass it on to five great blogs.
Thank you so much Debbie.
My five addictions are as follows:
My husband John, we always have the most wonderful times together
My two sons, love their excitement and zest for life, and their partners
My two cats, Slippers and Smokey, so loving!
Miniatures with the excitement of designing and blogging
Line Dancing, two or more times a week for fifteen years, must love it, lol.
Since the image has a modern French look to me I thought I would pass it on the my favorite five blogs that seems to have a love for French, French Country and Country style. (there are so many blogs I love)
Linda at Une Petite Folie
Zaphia at Aminha Casaem Miniatura or O-Mundo-de-Zaphia
Jen at JemJoop
Rita at Rita's Miniaturas
Jody at Mini Leaps and Bounds

Thanks again, Cheers, Jean

Free Images, Snakes and Ladders Game

This Snakes and Ladders game has special meaning for me because I played it for hours with my grandmother. It seems to be from the early 20's. I used to love all the little children on it. If I landed on a square with child doing something nasty, I used to slide down a snake to a lower part of the board. If I landed on a square with a child doing something helpful for someone, I got to climb a ladder. I just realized my grandmother was probably trying to teach me something, lol.

The smaller images of the two boards glued back to back, make a reproduction in one twelfth scale. Since the smaller images are not a high resolution, I am including larger images for you to scale down as well.

Here is a link to a download of stacking blocks I designed from a Vintage Book a while ago.
http://www.4shared.com/file/38627317/58ed598e/VictorianNurseryBlocks.html

Thanks so much to my new followers. Please have a look at their wonderful blogs by clicking on their profiles in the upper corner of my blog. It always amazes me how miniatures can include so many passions and loves. Miniature blogs are like going for a walk but instead of just looking in the windows, I actually get to be in the homes, thanks so much for sharing.


Cheers, Jean

Free Images, Valentine Cards 1920's 1:12 & 1:48

Quite a few years ago when I was visiting antique shops in Seattle, searching for Victorian children's books, I found the most amazing scrap book from the 1920's to 30's. It was filled with the most beautiful cards from a daughter to her mother, mostly Mother's Day cards but many others. All of the cards seemed to be illustrated by the same illustrator but I've never been able find out who it was. I've reproduced a few of the Valentine cards her for you as printables. Two of the cards I was able to open into so they can be folded into four parts, the others are postcard style. If you click on the link you can print them out in on twelfth scale for a miniature scene. The first set is for a quarter scale scene. You might not want to fold a card in quarter scale but you could cut out the main images. Love the scottie image.

Thank you so much to those who have linked to follow my blog, it is so much fun to be able to click on a face up in the right corner of my blog and visit your wonderful blogs, so much talent and very interesting! I was delighted today to be given an award and a lovely write up by San,
Day 20 of her blog Doll House Diaries http://sansdollhousediaries.blogspot.com/ I can't believe the Maharajah's Palace she is undertaking, I love her passion and all the wonderful detail she is putting into her project.

I've recently found the most amazing resource blogs for Vintage images, if any of you love digital or other scrapbooking as I do, or make smaller images for a miniature scene and for those who enjoy making mixed media collages and art pieces. One I love is The Graphics Fairy http://graphicsfairy.blogspot.com/ Karen's vintage wall paper from her collection is beautiful. On the right side of her blog are links to the various themes, there are 83 French images and beautiful labels for those making fragrance sets. Another blog is The Vintage Moth,
http://thevintagemoth.blogspot.com/ Abbie and Karen both put images up nearly every day, imagine the dedication that takes! They both also have inspiring blogs of images and art work. Abbie's is called Down Abbie's Road and Karen's is Fleurish they both with wonder photos and works of art.

Cheers, Jean

Free Images from Romance magazine 1:12 & 1:48

About thirty years ago, I was at a book sale and under one of the tables were a few boxes with True Romance and other romance magazines from the late 30's and 40's for 25 cents each. I was so thrilled, the images are so soft and beautiful. I was also always impressed with the dramatic black and white images inside the magazines. This magazine was one of the reasons I started collecting vintage magazines and books.

The cover has always been one of my favorites, isn't she gorgeous, the artist was A. McCowen. I thought they would be great images for February with a very romantic look in here eye. I reproduced this cover in one inch and quarter inch scales, with two pages from inside. It is from March 1938. Just right click and file save, the images should be printed at 100 dpi to keep them to scale for your miniature scene, or you can just lick on the images so they open in a new window and print them out, hopefully they will be to scale for you.

Miniature Community and Wonderful Blogs

I just wanted to say thank you to all the wonderful, inspiring miniature blogs!!! I have always heard that you should feed your interests to keep them alive and these blogs do just that! Blogging creates a great community for mini minded people as since we are able to leave messages. My wonderful new blog discoveries started with Heather of This Little Dollhouse blog www.thislittledollhouse.blogspot.com after she mentioned her new finds on eBay in facebook. It was great to see all her treasures and discussion of her miniature interests. One link on her blog lead to another and another....

There are blogs that are just like a magazines but you get to read new pages more often!! One excellent example is Jody Raine's Mini Leaps and Bounds http://minileapsandbounds.blogspot.com/ Jody's blog is filled with her own miniature adventures and wonderful articles about other blogs and miniature web sites or artisans she admires. So inspiring!!

I love French Country and decorate my full sized home in a Victorian/French romantic country style. I have enjoyed reproducing a few French books and would love to make a French Country scene in miniature. When I came across Linda Carswell's Une Petite Folie blog http://une-petite-folie.blogspot.com/ I was in heaven. Everything in her blog is French Country and inspired by her love of Paris and everything French. She is making the most fantastic Petite Maison. Linda has taken inspirational photos and created her miniature home based on the details in the photos, absolutely beautiful. It will be so exciting to see the rest of the home develop, the photos of her first room look like a full size interior.

Mico miniatures have always been a passion of mine so I was really excited to find Nell Corkin, I've loved her micro scenes for years. http://nell-miniminis.blogspot.com She is taking her viewers through the process of making her amazing Tower House.

I'm always interested in environmentalism and was delighted with Pam's blog Small Serendipities http://smallserendipities.blogspot.com/ , isn't that a great name! She has "do it yourself" home recipes and she makes miniatures too, fantastic quarter scale sculptured pieces.

There is also my dear friend Michelle from Greece who does amazing florals and needlework in her Little Rabbit Miniatures blog. http://littlerabbitminiatures.blogspot.com/
She has a really interesting video up right now about an experiment with cornstarch in water.
Michelle is such a great resource for embroidery ideas and projects.

Thank you also to Debbie at Tiny Treasures, http://debbiestinytreasures.blogspot.com/
for her lovely welcome to her blog. It is miniaturists like Debbie who really make looking at blogs feel like you are actually in their home or studio for a visit. Loved her chocolates and candles, still want to have a look at her older blogs. She has a fabulous Mini Web Links page blog you can access through a link on her profile.

You can see many of the blogs that I've been enjoying on the left side of my page, too many to mention everyone but always so much fun to spend time browsing there and see what is inspiring them at the moment or what they are creating. Blogs are so nourishing for the visual spirit! Thanks again everyone!!

Presentation Box Kits

These are some presentation kits I offer through my web site and eBay. I'm showing a couple of the covers too. I have always loved dolls in presentation boxes and had always wanted to make a Victorian doll in a presentation box and finally did last year. I the long way getting there. I started with the sewing kit, then I designed a jewelry box kit, baby doll and her clothes then a quarter scale version, a paper doll sewing kit and finally I designed the Victorian doll in a presentation box. It also works very well for a quarter scale girl and her Victorian clothes. It is funny how creativity works for me, I don't seem to just think of an idea and then make it, it seems to evolve, lol.

Cheers, Jean

New Kits for February

It has been a while since my last post. My mother died in October after battling Alzheimers for eight years. She was in the final stages and after a seizure she couldn't eat or drink. Always hard to loose a parent and have life changes. She always recognized me when I would visit.

I bought a new lap top and it has Vista so one of my old paint programs wouldn't work. It has been a bit of a learning curve, which I have enjoyed but it has been hard to feel productive. I'm really thrilled my new program, Corel Draw Graphics Suite X4. I'm also getting used to Corel Designer. I love Corel's Paint Shop Pro and Corel paint both of which I have used for quite a few years. I really enjoy digital scrapbooking and use many of the same ways of designing for my kits.

For anyone who might love colour as much I do, you might like to visit or join.
http://www.colourlovers.com
I joined recently and I've been having a wonderful time. I especially enjoy designing palettes and patterns to lift my spirits or represent how I'm feeling or use photos as inspiration. All the colours and designs are so inspirational.

Recently, I've designed a new kit in my new program and have it available in three colour patterns shown above. It is called Newborn Cheerful Baby in Aqua, Mauve and Blue.

Cheers to everyone, Jean
http://jdayminis.com