Mico Miniature of a French Chocolate Shop

Here are some photos of my micro scale, (1/144 scale or one twelfth of an inch is equal to one foot) French Chocolate Shop. It measures less than two and one half inches in width and is three and one half inches in length. In 2000 I came home from the movie Chocolat and immediately wanted to make a miniature French Chocolate Shop, a version of the one I had loved in the movie.

Grains of sand were used for the cookies, I turned tiny bits of plastic for all the jars, a watch stem for the stool and other watch parts for the containers. I made everything except the tiny metal bucket in the sink. The front of the shop I made with paper clay and I painted it to look like stone with watercolour paints.

Two of these photos are on my web site, but I wanted to try my new camera and lens for more detail. I could get closer but parts are always out of focus, really must read the manual!!

Thank you so much to all of you who take the time to look and leave a comment, that is so kind of you to take the time to do that, I feel like you are all close friends. This is the best mini community ever!!

I have just added a collage photo, it is old but has a better view of the work table. I found a really great tiny watch part for the rolling pin that I remember being very excited about, lol. If you click on the photo you can see a larger picture.

Oak Bay Farmhouse Front Porch

Here are some photos of the porch of my Oak Bay Farmhouse that I have shown a couple of the rooms previously. The farmhouse was a discontinued house by Greenleaf from the early 1980's, they discontinued it shortly after we had made it and started selling dollhouses with our miniature business. I really liked it because it has a front and is open on two sides so it doesn't need to be turned around to few the inside. I can't remember the name of it though but people really were interested in it. I hear Greenleaf is bringing back a dollhouse and hope they think of this some.

I wove the chair in the early 80's when I was moving away from weaving and getting into miniatures. I wasn't happy with it at the time because of how rustic it looked but now I like it and it has aged even more, lol. The wonderful table I found in England by Rosie Duck. The veggies were from for a workshop I gave. The lovely daffodils were a gift from Michelle at Little Rabbit Miniatures, the tulips are by Carol Jones and the other plant in the basket is by Judy Lawson from Vancouver. The tiny crocheted basket is amazing and was made by a lady who used to own a wonderful miniature shop in Port Orchard, if anyone knows her name I would love to know. Shirley Rose, I mentioned a previous post about her miniature town, made the plants by the rocking chair. John made the bricks from clay and even fired them, I love them! One brick seems to be missing but there is always a lot of work to do on a farmhouse.

More of Titania's Palace, My Tutorial Blog

There was another lower floor plan in on of the books for Titania's fairy Palace with more detail.
Here is also the upper floor plan, I loved the idea of a day nursery and night nursery for the fairy babies. These also have scale charts on them. The second photo is the Palace Facade and the first photo is The Throne Canopy.

I created a new blog a few days ago to post photo tutorials for some of the kits I sell in twelfth and quarter scale. This week I have been enjoying the Yahoo group's Quarter Connection on line convention. I made 53 Quarter Scale tote exchanges, ( QS photo albums) and have been thrilled with all the wonderful totes and conventions favors I received. The tutorial is for my presentation boxes and the workshop I have offered at the convention. http://jdayministutorials.blogspot.com

Free Images, Floor Plan for Titania's Palace

Debbie from Tiny Treasures mentioned Sumaiya's new blog The Fantasy Forest, there are many inspirational photos for miniature projects. Great blog to visit if you haven't already.

Yesterday I noticed Sumaiya had recently posted information about Titania's Palace by Sir Nevile Wilkinson which that now resides in Denmark. Years ago I had purchased five books written by Sir Nevile Wilkinson, four of them were written to be educational but told in fairy stories with travel photos and photos of Titania's Palace. There were two floor plans in two of the books, for both levels of the Palace. Since they were printed in 1922 they are not under copyright so I thought I would share some of the images with you. I have enjoyed reproducing many fairy books in miniature and hope to do that with some of the pictures in these books some day. I used to read my mother's old children's books with fairy stories from the 1920's. They used to have the most wonderful illustrations that always helped me to believe in fairies.

The second illustration from the same book "Yvette in Italy and Titania's Palace" is called Queen Titania's Country Home, it looks just like a tree but Nevile knew better than that, lol.

In one of the books was an old newspaper clipping from Oct 27, 1967. It mentions that Titania's Palace built in 1907 sold at Christies art auction house for $85,500. Since that time it was moved to Denmark. A lovely friend visited Titania's Palace a few years ago and sent me some postcards and a new brochure from Denmark, I was so pleased! While going through my mother's clippings (they were really fun) I came across a wonderful dollhouse article written by Flora Gill Jacobs in 1968 for the Reader's Digest where she also described the auctioning of Titania's Palace at Christies, she mentioned it raised $100,000 for charity. Sir Nevile Wilkinson was a soldier, artist and a member of the Royal Society of Miniature Painters. You can enjoy more about Titania's Palace here http://www.egeskov.dk/en/node/377

Free Images, French letter from 1845

I was thinking of reproducing my other French antique book from 1925 and inside I came across a reproduction of a letter in French written by Charles-Jean Avisseau, a ceramist from Tourangeau saying he refused to sell his reproductions by De Bernard Palissy to merchants of bric a brac , it was written in 1845. It was sent to Monsieur Alexandre, Valtimare 48 Rue, De Clichy, Paris. I thought someone might enjoy this. One set is in one twelfth scale and the other has a higher resolution.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! I have set up a small Easter scene in my Toy Store. I used to love making bunnies and tiny bunny scenes out of fimo. The girls, Mary and Sandra have been enjoy playing with the bunnies in the toy store instead of the Dollhouse they have been decorating for years. The girls and mother, I made from porcelain using commercial molds years ago. I'm hoping to take more photos of the toy store in the future. Barbara DeCruyenaire, who I used to enjoy seeing at the Vancouver mini show, sculpted the bunny in navy at the back with the baby bunnies in her skirt, I thought it was such a sweet idea.

Miniature Chinese Room, Making Tiny Chinese Dolls

Thought I would show you some photos of a simple Chinese room box I made years ago. I made a false back to add shelves and a window with an inset sunset, the sunset can be lit. I framed the windows with an old folding screen parts and put smaller folding screens on either side. When I first made it I had different figures on the shelves. When we went with out son's to China, John bought me a set of the tiny teapots for my Birthday (I actually lost my Birthday somehow during the fourteen hours it took us to get there, lol). I love the teapots very much because each was different and made of stoneware. I china painted and made the plates of porcelain and the bowl and plate on the table. While in China I also found the tiny mud figures. The large doll at the back my mom bought for me when she visited china, it is so delicate and sculpted. The lovely green turning on the table was by Rob Tukhum of RJT Miniatures The funiture is commercial but while we were in China we were fortunate to attend the Peking Opera and we sate in chairs and had a table exactly like these.

We also went to a cloisonne factory in China that was amazing, where I bought the tiny vase on the right front. The factory was so interesting, the kiln was built into the ground and a leaver brought everything up and down somehow. I also bought the two cloisonne pictures that were in a photo the blog about our bedroom from my March 24 blog. Couldn't resist a tiny cloisonne teapot too.

The little Chinese Dolls are some of the first miniatures I ever made to sell in the early 80's, can't believe it was that long ago. I put a covered wire through two beads and twisted the wire on top for the hair. Then I painted them with enamel paints. I arranged them on a button and added a bit of tiny white stones. They were really fun to make and there are so many things you can make with plain beads.

Free Images, French Book of Antiques 1:12 & 1:48

These free printable images I reproduced from an old French book about antiques printed in Paris in 1926. I was so fortunate to find a couple of these books in an old book store years ago and they are so inspiring for furniture and accessory ideas for quarter and twelfth scale miniatures. The bottom image should print out in one twelfth and quarter scale by clicking on the image and printing. If you would like more detail you can take the top image and reduce it in a print program. Under the labels on the right side of my blog is a link to more free printables.

Baby Chick, "Not"

When my sister and I were going through mom's attic I was looking at my dad's very old golf case, one of those brown canvas ones from the 20's or 30's. I put my hand in the pocket and screamed, I really hadn't thought that what I was touching was this burst open golf ball. Apparently it is dangerous to burst open old golf balls because of gases but this must have happened naturally quite a few years ago. Donna thought it looked like an Easter egg and I agree! I have displayed it in front of a watercolour painting I did a while ago to try out new pencil crayons.

They are called Derwent Inktense pencil crayons that my friend Leslie from About.com was mentioning to me one day, she loves to find new and innovative supplies and tools. They are vibrant water soluble Ink pencils and much more intense than regular watercolours pencils. I mixed them with regular watercolour in the painting and they were really fun to use, the turquoise is one of the colours I used. They might work well for colouring silk ribbon and cotton fabric for miniatures too.

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.