Fairies

I've been thinking a lot about fairies lately, probably because of the Spring flowers and gardening. Flowers often remind me of fairies. These are some tiny fairies and dragons I made of fimo a few years ago. I used to make porcelain, teacup and half scale fairies etc, really miss the fantasy.

I gave a Fairy Theater workshop, as partially shown in the girl's room, a couple of years ago and used ProSculpt for the tiny fairies. ProSculpt works really well and there to be a lot of great tutorials on line for larger fairies.
http://www.goddess-dreams.com/tutorials.html
http://blogs.ebay.ca/thelittleblueraven
http://magicalfairysooak.blogspot.com/

Oak Bay Farmhouse Girl's Room

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned I was fixing up my dollhouses and did a blog showing the bathroom in my Oak Bay dollhouse. Here is the room beside the bathroom which is the girl's bedroom. You can see the mother getting the baby, Flora, up and ready for the day, the older daughter, Rosie, is looking out the window to watch the birds in the trees.

I sculpted Rosie's face in porcelain and costumed her from a vintage photo. The lady and baby I poured using commercial molds, I attached the mother's hands to the baby and the babies limbs together at the greenware stage so the mother would be actually holding Flora. I also gave Flo a smile. I also made most of the other dolls, figurines and china painted plate.

The lovely doll in the basket was from a wonderful doll artist at a Chicago show one year and the porcelain sculpture of Jack and Jill on the shelf was by C. K. Uno. The lovely bed was made by Frank Preenie.

The books I've reproduced from my collection from the late 1800's and they are all filled with colored pictures the girls enjoy. Rosie loves fairies and being read fairy stories, so her mother made her a fairy theater on the left. Rosie loved helping to make the fairies. She also loves dolls and doll books. She enjoys drawing as best she can in her drawing book.

Since we made this house in the mid 80's the wallpaper has mellowed with age, I think I like it better now.

Our Studio

I love to see people's workspace and I did a blog with a couple of photos of our studio last spring. It seems to be the time of year I enjoy fixing things up and trying to bring a bit of spring into the house. Really seems to help my creativity if I organize, find things I forgot I had etc. I didn't show the other sides of the studio so I thought I would add them today. We really enjoy this work space and seem to live in this room, it is also where we sit to watch TV. The second photo is one of my watercolours of a small part of our garden in the summer.

Collectibles Room

This is a very full room, many people who aren't collectors look in it and I'm sure they are so relieved they don't collect, lol. I have collected smaller vintage Snoopy figures in the antique metal hospital display and Disney figures, old books and albums, antique children's books and old toys, sewing buttons and ephemera. Thought I would give you a peak. You can see my two country style houses I am rearranging and changing, a half scale house and some of my room boxes. John designed the house shown in the photo above from a heritage country home from about 1880 here in Victoria. I have my other room boxes that are shown on my web site in my studio.

You can see my great grandmother's antique grey wedding dress behind the door, it has a basque too that isn't on it. They were married in 1872 so that would be the age of the gown. You can also see many of the photo albums I've reproduced in miniature.

Attic Treasures

My sister and I have been busy going through my mom's attic, getting her house ready to sell. I really felt it was overwhelming at first but all the hidden treasures have been really exciting. I took apart a vinyl covered pillow to find two lovely brocade satin pillows, they were perfect on our antique bed. They went great with my grandmother's satin quilt at the end of the bed. I've had it since I was ten years old, it is so comfy.

I thought I would show some photos of our bedroom with the pillows. I found the bedroom suite at an auction years ago, I didn't even know if it was a double bed when I bid on it, lol. The marble topped wash stand we bought when we were first married. There is a photo from the far corner of the bedroom that shows my vintage metal bathroom cabinet, really like it to store old perfumes, soaps, glasses and drug store bottles and other old items I have saved and collected. The two pictures over the marble wash stand are cloisonne pictures I had to buy a suitcase for to bring them back from a trip we took to China.

There were also old trunks and suitcases in mom's attic that no one else wanted that I've stacked in my sewing room, they were filled with vintage upholstery fabrics and seventies hand screened linens and bark cloth, so perfect now for designing purses or pillows. Fun!

Free Images, Wizard book for Boys

Since one of my son's is a Magician, I had thought he would enjoy this old book from the late 20's or early 30's, he always has enjoyed vintage tricks. I've reproduced the cover and a couple of the trick pages in one twelfth and quarter scale. The original book is filled with adventures, jokes and magic tricks. If you would like to use this image in your dolls house or scene just click on the bottom image and it should print to scale. I've included the larger, higher resolution image to be made smaller with more detail in a print program.

Mini Hugs, Jean

Coastal Miniatures, Tidal Pool Mini Homes

We have spent the last few days at a resort on the coast of Vancouver Island. I have lived by the sea most of my life and currently live across the street from a beautiful beach, tan sand and wonderful sunrises but it is such a treat to stay at a resort up on Vancouver Island in Parksville because the tides go out for what seems like a mile and it leaves the most amazing tidal pools. When I was young I would spend hours at the beach across from our house that had a large rocky area with the most amazing tidal pools. These were filled with tiny crustaceans, shells, crabs and other tiny fish. I can't help thinking of them as miniature housing for crabs and sea life. I took so many photos, every grouping of shells seemed to be arranged so perfectly. You can see a photo of my husband John taking a video. John and I always wear our gumboots and feel like kids playing in the sand. I really like the very faint hint of a rainbow in the first photo, sea life is better than a pot of gold. It was wonderful to take my computer with me and look at blogs, so great to keep up with what everyone is doing.

Micro Ladies Room, 1:144 scale

This photo gives a better idea of the micro room size which is 1" deep.

This is a small sculpted room I made in micro 1:144 scale a few years ago. I was taking some photos of it to try out a new macro lens I bought for my camera. This room is a Victorian dressing room with two young ladies looking at fabrics in front of the window. I was inspired by an old etching. The interior of the box and ladies, dressing table, curtains, walls, fireplace, sculpures etc. were all sculpted out of cernit. I printed the tapestry and carpet. It was fun to make the curtains and dresser because cernit drapes so well. I painted over the cernit walls to make them look like plaster. I added the penny to give you a better idea of this project's size. I have really enjoyed micro miniatures and made my version of the chocolat shop from the movie Chocolat and a decorating room and many other rooms which you can see on my web site under My Projects if you are interested in micros, there is a fabulous yahoo group you can join.

I have just added another photo on top with a ruler. I used my close up camera feature and macro lens but I'm still getting parts out of focus, I should try reading my camera and lens manuals.....!

Free Images, Vintage Labels 1:12 & 1:48 scale

These are four labels. Toilet Water, Balm, Crown Tooth Wash and Hair Tonic that I was sent when I purchased an old Witch Hazel brochure. Thought you might like them for a mini setting to add to cut down light brite pegs or bottles. I've also added images in a larger dpi to be reduced. You can just click on the smaller ones to print out directly.

Thank you so much for my blogs new followers! I just love looking at everyone's blogs, please click on the faces in the upper right corner of my blog to have a look at their wonderful blogs, so much variety.


Thank you so much to Karin Foster for her lovely, fabulous blog award, I was delighted! She has the blog Mini Ramblings and Musings Karin's blog takes you though the development of her Fine Sewing & Millinary Emporium. She has recently finished the outside and it is great! Can't wait to see more. Thanks Karin.

Oak Bay Farmhouse Bathroom

After being totally inspired by so many of the wonderful dollhouse photos on the miniature blogs, I became motivated to spend some time in my houses, up until 2:30 the other night moving things around. Of course the next day I realized the two mini girls would probably rather be in the other house, this will go on for a while I think because I'm having so much fun. It was about twenty years ago John and I built the two houses. John did more of the building, I did the all the interiors and decorating. Both of my houses represent the late 1800's early 1900's, my grandparent's era, so it has always interested me. This house is called The Oak Bay. I have never put photos of my dollhouses up on my web site so I thought I would do it here on my blog. I made the bathroom set of porcelain, the bottles I turned on the lathe, two of the other containers and vases are glass and the other talc and other fragrance boxes I made using computer graphics. The mother has just recently spent time washing the linens and hung them over the tub to dry. If you click on the images they will open up larger.