Painting Workshop, Illuminating in Miniature

First I would like to say how thrilled I am to have 300 followers, please have a look at some of their wonderful blogs.

Recently I joined the AIM or Artisans In Miniature magazine group who create a fabulous, "free" online miniature magazine with Bea Broadwood as the tireless editor and the editorial team. In this months issue you will find three articles I wrote and many other interesting articles and amazing photos by fantastic miniature artists. One article accompanies the Inspiration Board I created above called Illuminating in Miniature. I had purchased a fabulous book on the Art of Illumination last time we were in England that I reproduced as a book in miniature. I also explain how to create your own Illumination of a Gothic letter A shown above, if any of you are interested in this style of art for you castles, medieval or religious scene. You can find more information in this months issue of AIM, Clicking here
It will take you to a free online issue of the magazine that can also be downloaded.

  AIM Magazine

Since this issue has an ecclesiastical theme you can find my article on Worship Furniture, using my grandfather's examples and vintage brochure. I also did another Inspiration Board showing the fabulous stained glass windows and churches we visited in Brazil and Barbados, Spain shown below.

http://www.artisansinminiature.com/

Have a great week! Cheers, Jean

My First Books, LOL

Not quite what you were expecting, LOL!! I thought I designed my first book in 2000 as a gift to Brooke Tucker. She came to our studio to give one of her wonderful workshops and I thought she might like a mini book about Victoria B.C. including antique postcards.

It turned out I had made books a few years before. It was surprising to find mom had saved these small books, I found these when I was going though her things after she passed away last year. I made these books in Regina Sask., when I was eight years old. While trying to figure out how old I was when I made these books for mom, I discovered after looking at the Birthday Cake page it says Jeanie 8. Don't think I would put a picture of me jumping in a book nowadays, lol, but I was pleased to see I had added a doll.

Mini Hugs, 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

July book of the Month and Magic Kit

Our son has been performing as a magician since he was three years old and he is 26 now. I have always wanted to make a magician's scene. I finally did it in quarter scale as a silk fabric kit. There is a shelf with a Merlin costume, hat and books. It also includes a magician's table, fold out suitcase filled with magic tricks and posters etc. It was so much fun and I hope others might have a miniature quarter scale boy in a scene who would enjoy practising all these tricks. It is available through our web site and eBay store.

My new Book of the Month for July, shown above is available through eBay and our web site for half price for the month of July. It is called Flower Children of Summer. This book has such wonderful, whimsical illustrations by Elizabeth Gorden and was originally published in 1910. I was so pleased to notice in a Romantic Homes magazine this month that they featured a beautiful Enchanted fairy tea party for young girls. It is a great magazine for miniature ideas. In this Once upon a time tea party, they had young girls looking at a vintage Flower Children book with illustrations that I used in my Flower Children of Spring book. There were beautiful dragonfly cookies with everything in mauves, pinks and green pastel colours mixed with vintage items. Very inspiring! Diane Sedo who produced the article has a web site with wonderful fanciful ideas. http://sentimentalcelebrations.com/home

Cheers, Jean

Summer's Here!!

The first photos shows two new quarter scale French Country kits I had fun designing. The first kit is a French Country Chair, Table, ottoman and lamp. The second kit is a dresser with mirror, accessories and the settee.

For June on eBay and from our web site I'm offering two new books because we were taking a bit of a break in May and I was late getting my May Book of the Month finished.

The first, photo shown above is the Book of the Month for June, Gimbels Summer 1909 Catalogue that I reproduced from my original showing from Paris, London and American fashion styles.

The Book of the Month for June is reproduced from my beautiful antique transformation children's book called The Fairy Ring. This one twelfth scale version is not movable but has many of the rings with the stories.

The last photo shows a new quarter scale kit I recently designed which is a doll house for a quarter scale house. It has two finished floors inside that you can see from this photo.
Included in this fabric kit is the shelf, apron, bag, tiny house, doll house with extra wall covers, shingles and flooring covers. I was thinking that a miniaturist who likes to work really tiny might enjoy making fimo furniture for this kit. Or you can do what I did and leave the furniture for your quarter scale family to make, lol.

While I was having a break, I organized my collectibles room. I had so much fun arranging various collections into vignettes. I have enjoyed seeing vintage displays in so many beautiful blogs. You can see many of these through my favorite blog links on the right. I hope to add photos of some of these arrangements soon. Sure feels good to get so organized and it has really helped me appreciate what I have. By for now, Cheers, Jean

April's Book of the Month and Newborn Kit

This week I finished my new Miniature Book of the Month for April called Funny Animals. I have it offered at half price for April through my eBay store and website. I reproduced this mini book in one twelfth scale from my Victorian original ABC book published in 1906, it has the most delightful illustrations.

The "new" newborn fabric kit was designed as a smaller version of the toddler kit you can see in a previous blog. The shelf and books are not included. I loved designing this kit to use scallops, polka dots and stripes in my favorite pink and white. This set could also be adapted to dress a very tiny miniatures baby.

Cheers for now, Jean

Feels like Spring!!

It feels like Spring, a great time of year to work on new minis.

I've been designing quite a few new quarter scale kits

and a new miniature album for March.

New Quarter Scale Chair kit, Purple Iris

New Quarter Scale Blue Iris Couch and Chair Silk kits

1900 Family from Brussels

Book of Month Miniature Album for March

I designed this album from my original album, it was filled

with wonderful, artistic photos, I just had to reproduce

some of them in miniatures. You can read more about this

album on our website, http://jdayminis.com/ Victor Hugo stayed at the residence

where this family had their business.

Cheers for now, Jean

Wow, I did it!

That was easy! Just thought it would be fun to have a blog spot where I could add free miniature printables and talk about what's new.

Our web site http://jdayminis.com/ has some printables and projects as well. My latest interest has been a book of the month. Each month I hope to list one new book at half price for the month only. Very excited about reproducing my favorite children's books that have been sitting in my collectible room getting dusty. February's miniature book of the month at the special half price is shown above called Make Believe Men and Women.

Lately I have designed a new Valentine Loveseat Kit, it is heart shaped and very romantic. I also designed a new toddler fabric panel kit, Precious Pink. I am showing it on a Heidi Ott doll but it can also be hung in a miniature dollhouse bedroom. Another kit I had fun with was a dress for a dollhouse girl doll called Julia Visits Paris, I did line drawings of the Eiffel Tower, poodles, etc combined with images from my antique French postcard book. January's book of the month was also French, La Maison de Lilie, reproduced from my beautiful Victorian french children's book about a young girl and her doll house.

Cheers, Jean