New England Miniatures Blog

What's new at New England Miniatures

2012-01-26T15:58:00.000-05:00

I added several new pieces to New England Miniatures today.
Among them are a maroon leather sofa and loveseat from Aztec Platinum. We already carry the matching chair and ottoman. One of the nice things about this set is that they can fit both modern and traditional room designs depending on what kind of tables and accessories you use.

Other Platinum items are the British explorer's desk and British colonial chair.

I also added a wire rattan style couch. I really like the ones that are true to period designs.

See these and the other new items at New England Miniatures.

It's been a while since I posted

2012-01-13T19:37:00.000-05:00

Today is January 13, 2012. It seems like there just aren't enough hours in the day lately.
I've had no time to work on the wash house, I just finally got my Christmas tree down and my living room straightened up yesterday!
Since I feel guilty that I don't have new pictures of the wash house to show, I've dug out a couple of links I found recently.
Here's one to a model railroading site. DIY Layered Rock. Keep in mind that the author is working in smaller that 1" scale, but the technique will work in 1" or 1/2" depending on how thick you make your plaster. He goes on to make a cast of the resulting stone wall which could be helpful to small scale builders.
Also, check the Scenery and Weathering sections for more tips and ideas.

I found a bottle of Liquid Sculpey when I was clearing out a drawer. Obviously I wanted to try it for some project or effect, but I've forgotten what it was. Here's a link to Translucent Liquid Sculpey Techniques. I just skimmed through it. I didn't want to get too excited and want to try something new when I haven't even managed to finish my current project, for pity's sake.

OK- here comes the commercial....
A few of the new items I've added to New England Miniatures:
Here's Bespaq's retired lace Front Curio shown in walnut. I also have mahogany, but both are in extremely limited amounts. Once they're gone - they're gone forever.

Next comes a window air conditioner. That's something you don't see everyday, a dollhouse air conditioner.

Here's Lee's Line Ashley desk. We carry many Lee's Line items at New England Miniatures.

Besides this new runner, a few other rugs are back in stock.

We show new additions on our new items page for about 3-4 weeks. I'm always looking for something new to add. The other day I wondered how many pieces of furniture were in our Living Room section. I counted 226 sofas, chairs, rockers, end tables, coffee tables and assorted cabinets! That's a lot of mini furniture.

A reprint of my Non-Working Venetian Blind tutorial. Hope this works for you Kathi.

2012-01-13T18:00:00.013-05:00

This project is pretty easy to do. The materials are cheap, so if you make a mistake, just start over. The result looks pretty impressive.

Materials:
Cardstock
Ribbon
Dollhouse molding or strip wood for the valance
Hot glue or other glue for attaching ribbon to paper
White, wood glue, (or optional contact cement)
Thin scrap wood

The slats of the blind are cut from cardstock. I happened to have a paper cutter, which made cutting the paper strips a quick job.
Cut a sheet of cardstock to the width of your window frame. You’ll then cut the strips from this sheet.
Ideally, the paper strips should be 3/16” wide, which equals a 2” wide real life blind slat, but ¼” wide strips work just as well.
You’ll need enough strips so that when laid side by side, they’ll cover the window. I saw right away that not all the strips I cut were exactly alike. Some were a bit too narrow, others a bit too wide, so I cut more than I needed.
Once I had a nice little array of paper strips I started matching up the ones that were closest in size, and I arranged them so that they’d cover about half my window. I then set these safely to one side, keeping the other strips to stack at the bottom of the blind.
If you want your blind to cover the full length of your window, you’ll just have to make sure you have enough paper strips that are the same width.
I then cut 2 lengths of ribbon, making them quite a bit longer than I needed, in case I made a mistake somewhere.

I drew a picture of the window on a piece of paper, then I drew on how I wanted the blinds to look, measuring the distance between the tapes (ribbon).
and checking how many slats I was going to need. A standard single dollhouse window needs about 13 slats to cover it halfway and about 26 for full length.

Iron the ribbon before you use it, so that it stays nice and flat. I used a bit of spray starch to stiffen it up a little, and make it easier to work with.

I decided to use hot glue, because I didn’t feel like waiting for glue to dry, and I wanted to make sure my paper slats or ribbon didn’t crumple from the glue. You can use any other glue that you feel works well for you.

Lay a length of ribbon on the table, then squeeze a thin bead of hot glue on the ribbon, about 1” or so long. You don't want the glue to harden before you get your paper strips attached. Carefully lay your paper strips on the glue, pressing down gently. You’ll want to leave about a ½” overhang.
You’ll also want to leave an extra 1” or so of ribbon at the top.
Once you’ve got one side done, carefully flip the paper strips and ribbon over.
To attach the second ribbon, you’ll need to glue the ribbon down onto the strips, instead of gluing the strips to the ribbon. From my experience, I found this the easier way.
Mark your ribbon, so you know where to bead on the glue. You don’t want it to go up or down too far, or it will get in the way during the next steps.

You should now have what, on the face of it, looks like an unfinished tiny Venetian blind.
If you’ve decided to make a blind that completely covers the window, you can skip the next section I call “stacking”.

Remember the extra paper strips, that may have included ones that were maybe a tiny bit too narrow or wide? You can use these at the bottom of the blind.
If you look at a real size Venetian or mini-blind, you’ll see there’s a wooden or polyvinyl slat at the bottom. I used a Skinny Stick to make one for the miniature blind. You can also cut one from a 1/16” thick piece of basswood, or a craft stick. Cut it the same size as your paper strips, and paint it white, and let dry.
Next, glue a paper strip to the wooden slat. Use just a narrow bead of white glue down the center. Keep gluing on strips of paper till the height of the stack looks right. How many should you glue on a stack? That’s up to you.

If you’re making your blinds full length, you’ll just need the wooden slat.

Position your slat, with the stacked paper strips, on its side, just under your unfinished Venetian blind. You’re going to hot glue the ribbon to the front of the stack, then down under the bottom and up the back.
When it’s all cooled, dry, and secure, you’ll need to glue the ribbon up the back of the paper strips.
At this point, you’ll have a cute, very mini Venetian blind. All you have to do now is attach it to the window frame.

Next I cut a length of dollhouse molding, though I could also have used stripwood, for my valance.
I lined the top of the blind with the bottom of the valance. I chose to overlap my blind slightly (about 1/32" or less), gluing it to the very bottom edge of the back of the valance. I thought it might make the blind a little bit sturdier. Then I glued the end front and back ends of the ribbons to the back of the valance, cutting off any extra ribbon.

I used a short piece of bass stripwood as a spacer, and also to help in firmly attaching the blind to the window frame.
The spacer makes the top of the blind come forward slightly, so that the bulge at the bottom isn't noticible unless you peer closely at a side view.
I glued the spacer to the back of the valance, sandwiching that tiny edge of the top paper strip between the 2 pieces of wood.
When the whole assembly was dry I glued it to the window frame. Since I was using wood glue, which can sometimes take a while to set, I turned the house on its side, so that the wall be more or less horizontal.

It occured to me now, that contact cement is another solution. You'd need to spread a little of the glue to the back of the spacer, and some to the section of the window frame where you were going to attach the blind. Wait 10 to 15 minutes til the glue was dry, then set the blind into place. You have to be careful and do it right the first time, because you will probably not be able to reposition it.

The last step is to cut tiny pieces of valance molding to glue into the space between the valance front and the wall. See side view photo.
You can skip the side pieces if no one is going to see them. I believe I attached one to only to one side, because no one will ever see the back side view.

When gluing the paper strips, I placed them side by side, and when the light shines through the window, you can see little glimmers of light. If you want to block the light, overlap your paper strips slightly when gluing them to the ribbon.

Part 8 - the stone sink

2011-11-21T16:29:00.001-05:00

I finished the stone sink a few days ago, and added a little more plaster, I wanted to smooth the plaster a bit, and fill in some gaps, but I haven't had the a chance to do so, so the area around the sink is a bit rough. Just ignore it, ok?

The sink is a box made of basswood, covered all around the sides with a strip of Rigid Wrap. I've used the product in several projects. Here's a link to the manufacturer's page, with information about the product.
I wanted to be sure the box stayed firmly glued together, and also thought the Rigid Wrap would be a good base for the faux stonework.
Here's a closeup of the sink. The bits of white you see are from the plaster, I wanted to take the picture before it got dark and I didn't have time to wash the plaster bits off.

I covered 3 exterior sides of my sink with a thin layer of plaster. I also added a thin layer to the top edges and inside walls. I left the sink base bare wood.
When the plaster was to my liking, I stippled it a little with a small stenciling brush, then I patted it a bit with my finger so it wouldn't be too dimpled or lumpy.

When the plaster was dry I began to paint. - Remember, as long as your plaster,(drywall compound, stucco, etc.) is unpainted, you can smooth it or fix any cracks, or add more plaster with no problem.
The colors I used to create the stone look were: Payne's Gray, Medium Hauser Green, a dark brown and a warm white.
I described Payne's Gray in the timbering section. You can use any kind of off white when you need to lighten a stone color, just don't use plain regular white. It just doesn't give the right effect.
Terre Verte, or Green Earth, adds a nice touch to painted stonework. I didn't happen to have any handy, so I used the Medium Hauser Green instead, which worked very well.

I squirted a bit of each color onto my palette, which happens to be a foam plate. I took a dab each from my Payne's Gray, warm white, and half a dab from the green and brown, then I swirled them together till they were somewhat mixed, but splotchy. I could then see what color I needed more of, and I added more of the warm white, then a little of the gray, etc., always keeping the color on my plate not quite mixed. Having the color all smoothly mixed on the plate is bad, so don't do that. if your color has been over mixed, add more of the colors so it'll be splotchy again. If you try it, you'll see what I mean.
Next I started putting paint on the sink, adding dabs of color, then spreading the color around with a stippling movement - never brushing it on. I'dd more paint as needed, sometimes adding more green, brown or off white to my mixed swirl of paint on the plate.
The stone effect you see on the sink is more the result of the paint than the plaster, the plaster just helps a little.

Stone sinks come in different shades, grayer, browner, greener, whiter. Some are smooth, others rougher. My wash house sink is supposed to have a rougher surface than perhaps some stone kitchen sinks.
Don't be afraid to experiment with faux painting techniques. Use scrapwood if you have it, paper or cardstock if you don't, but plain paper will absorb the paint differently and sometimes results will look different than they would on wood.

On a final note, I'd also like to mention we added a few new items to New England Miniatures last week. The miniature keyboard now has the option of a case/gift box. We do have a few of them left without the gift box at the original lower price. There's also an ice cream maker. I checked each and every one to make sure the handles fit into the holes, too. Some of them didn't want to, but I fixed that. There's a nice iron look chandelier with wooden candles. We've also added a sconce light with matching ceiling lamp.

But the picture of the ceiling lamp is upside down, you say? Well, that depends on how you look at the lamp. My husband unpacked the shipment and noted that they were table lamps, and I had to admit they do make a nice dining table or sideboard lamp, although the order form read ceiling light.

New items at New England Miniatures

2011-11-02T09:48:00.000-04:00

We've added something new from Lee's Line - their half inch scale shabby chic sofa and chair in pink - so perfect and uber cute!

This cute guitar, complete with chrome stand (and guitar case) have been added to our miniature musical instruments collection (we keep them in the Music Room, of course)

Bright deLights calls this a lavender lily of the valley. Well, it is kind of big for lily of the valley, which comes in white anyway, but it's sooo pretty!

We found we had 2 single Bespaq Sweet Sue armoires. One in mahogany and one in walnut. We're not planning on getting more Sweet Sue bedroom pieces, so we're selling them at a very special low price, first come, first served. Can you just imagine one of these in a sweet country cottage room?

By the way, I've put together some retired Bespaq chairs and a retired table together into a nice little circa 1900 dining set.

See these items and the other recent additions to New England Miniatures. Click on the New Items page.

------I haven't had much time to work on the wash house this week, not enough worth showing right now anyway.

part 7 - a lattice window

2011-10-25T13:52:00.003-04:00

I wanted a lattice window. I've used Gallery Glass to make dollhouse leading. I also have some fabric paint by Tulip that I got years ago, that works similarly to the Gallery Glass, but I didn't feel like using either of them for this project.
I found some nice screening and thought about using that, but it wasn't quite the right size, so I'd have had to go to the hardware store and maybe the builder's supply store to see if they had what I wanted. I remembered that I had seen plastic mesh at the crafts supply store, and wondered if it would be in the correct scale. I really didn't feel like going to stores and hunting through them for maybe hours (including driving time) when I remembered the clear dollhouse tile sheets. I was pretty sure I might still have some leftover from another project, and here it is.

I measured out the size of my window opening, and cut a piece of the plastic sheeting to size.

I then took out a marker, and started drawing atop the lines. You could also draw them on a sheet of plain acrylic if you wanted to. I wanted to have a bit of texture on my "glass", and drawing with marker over the raised areas of the plastic "tiling" gave me that, without the worry of the Gallery Glass or Tulip fabric paint clogging or blobbing. I hate it when my hand shakes a little. It always seems to when I need to draw a perfect straight line.

It also occurred to me that you could stick 2 sheets back to back and have the raised leading on both the inside and outside of a lattice pane window if you wanted to.
here's a closeup of the window, framed. I still have to fill in a few little gaps with putty or plaster, then paint the trim.

All of the molding on the window is made from bass stripwood.
Here's a picture of the room so far. There's still a bit of plaster on the sides of the timbers. I can either wipe some more off with water, or even better, since the plaster is smooth, dab some paint over it.

Ooops, I forgot about the plastering. I wanted lots of texture to the wall, so I needed to plaster.
Usually I'm inspired by a picture of a house or part of a room and take off from there, but this time I wanted to reproduce a picture of a room I found in a book. Later I'll show you the picture of the original wash house.

ADDED NOTE:
You can get the clear tile sheets from Model Builders Supply. You can see if there's a store in your country who carries their products by checking their 'retail stores' search feature under their information section.
Miniatures.com also sells these sheets. I have to admit I'm not sure if they're the exact same product. I think I bought mine through Miniatures.com a few years before I started New England Miniatures.

ANOTHER ADDED NOTE:
Fran Casselman left a comment saying that yes, the tile sheet sold by Miniatures.com is made by Model Builders Supply.
Thank you Fran! Thanks also to everyone who commented on the wash house so far!

part 6 - some timbering

2011-10-13T10:27:00.000-04:00

Sorry, I got sidetracked this week, didn't get as much done on the wash house as I'd hoped, but here's a picture with the side wall timbered (still one to add), just to give you an idea of where I'm going. There's still more to do to the wall. I plan on adding plaster between the timbers, and an extra layer of thickness to the lower section. For now there's just a coat of white paint.

I took pictures to show how I applied the final paint to the timbers, but I was in a hurry to get done and didn't notice I had the focus set wrong on my camera, so they all turned out fuzzy. I did take a couple of pictures of the last timber this morning.

Yes, it's pouring rain of course, supposed to rain all day today and tomorrow.
I used a dark brown, in this case it happened to be Bittersweet Chocolate by Americana, though any kind of burnt umber type brown would do. Burnt umber, by the way, is a basic dull brown.
I also used streaks of Payne's Grey, which is a mixture of black and blue, sometimes with a bit of red in it. I've been using one made by Americana paints that actually looks rather like a deep, very dark purple. I also used a little raw sienna to lighten up spots where I felt I used too much Payne's Grey.
The photo above and below show the same painted stick in different lighting. I had to use a flash in the lower picture, so the colors aren't right, but you can see that the paints are sort of streaky.

If you're going to try and use several shades of color on your timbers, don't be afraid of streakiness. You don't want long wide streaks of color, but little streaks are good. If you hold the stick away from you, you want to see slight variations in color, just as you see in wood products around your home.

I have to do some plastering next, and paint the sink to look like stone.

part 5 - Timber!

2011-10-09T19:25:00.001-04:00

The subject is timber - miniature dollhouse timbers, how to cut, shape and age them.

In the past, I've cut timbering strips from scrap wood or even scrap plywood. The plywood timbers give a satisfactory look if you're going to paint them a dark brown, especially if people will be viewing them straight on, so there's no chance of seeing the wood layers on the sides. I've tucked plywood timbers in here and there in Miss Frobisher's Cottage and Tall Chimneys. Nowadays I've become a bit lazy and prefer to use square dowels, and I don't have very many 2 x 4 board scraps anymore anyway.

So - for this demonstration, I'm using 3/8" x 3/8" square dowels. I got these at a craft and hobby shop, though I've also bought them in hardware stores and at places like Home Depot and Lowes.
Hobby shops carry dowels made of basswood or balsa, I like to use the basswood ones. Hardware and lumber dealers tend to have dowels of pine, oak, or other hardwoods.

The wash house needs a few timbers on a side wall, so here's how I make them.
First I cut the dowel to length, then, using my band saw, I cut a wiggly strip off the edge. A scroll saw would be great for this, but I don't have one - always meant to buy one, but just never got around to it.

And here's the future aged timber....

Below you can see the 2 pieces separated.-----Note----if you don't have a scroll saw or band saw, you don't HAVE to do this cut. You can make a perfectly nice old timber skipping this step. I just do it because, well, I'm me, and I have this need to do this split cut for this particular project.

A little tip, I like to jot down which side goes against the wall or ceiling, etc.

The next step is to beat up the poor little strip of wood with a vengeance. I have found that a rotary tool, like the Dremel, is great for this. I'll stick one of those little drum sanders on and start working. First I'll sand down the wiggly cut side till I can't see the saw marks. Next I'll round off the corner edges of the dowel, so they're not quite square.

After that it's time to attack. I pounce and swoosh my little rotary drum sander up and down and around the little dowel. I heard the baseball chant "ssswing-batter-batter" running through my head. It's the playoff to the World Series as I write this, and my husband and son have been watching all the games. The way I work the sander is to do batter the dowel, then do a swooshing swing every once in a while and some more batter-batter till I'm satisfied. This is what I wind up with after I've sanded the dowel a bit with a foam sander (not too hard) to remove the excess fibrous bits. If you've never used a foam sander it's sandpaper that's bonded to a piece of foam. There are thin sheets and nice fat blocks. They're great for sanding moldings or even just flat boards too. If you've used them to sand a painted surface, you can rinse out the paint, then let the pad dry and use it again.

Next I gave the timbers a base coat of brown paint. It doesn't really matter what shade of brown you use. In this case I used some raw sienna. This coat of paint is in effect, a primer. Once the paint is dry you can give the timbers a little more gentle sanding with fine grit sandpaper to remove the bits of wood fiber that have popped up.

As you can see, the timbers are looking pretty good, although in this picture they are still drying, and I haven't given them their final gentle sanding. Using a brown like burnt sienna will give a warmer, reddish brown color.
After this sanding, sometimes the timbers will look perfect for your project. They may have just the aged look you're looking for. That's great - stop right there and use them as they are. Sometimes another light wash of color may be needed to cover up a few bare spots that may have cropped up after the sanding.
For the wash house, though, I'll want mine dark, so I'll be doing some more paint and brush work on them.

PS: for a true, beat up aged look, stick to basswood or pine. Hardwoods are just too hard. Balsa is a fine substitute if you don't have a rotary tool, because it's very soft. You can get many of the same effects using a hammer, screwdriver, old dried out pens, etc. to rough up the wood.

That's all for today. This tutorial has been brought to you by New England Miniatures.

How's that for a commercial advertisement? Please, go - browse, and thank you.

part 4 - the cottage wash house

2011-10-07T09:30:00.000-04:00

It seems that the last time I posted about progress on the wash house was in early July, and I thought I'd get it done in no time. Boy, was I wrong.
Is it hard for you to get back to a project you haven't worked on in a long time? It is for me.

During the last few days I did most of the "brickwork".
What bricks? I don't see any bricks, you say, ah, but they're there - under the plaster.
Here's how far I've progressed.

I bricked up the set kettle (a.k.a. boiler) once before, but then ripped off all the brickwork because it looked all wrong. the "bricks" were a bit too small. Actually, they weren't REALLY too small, they just looked too small. The brick boiler would have been too messy and lumpy looking in the end. I had to cut a whole new set of bricks.

What did I use to make the bricks? I used pressed paper egg cartons.
Here's a well I made for of my Gnome's Cottage. I made the stones out of egg cartons.

Here's a plastered over stone fireplace from the Kitschy Kitchen. I used the egg carton to make stones

Here's a link to Connie Sauve's egg carton brick tutorial. Lots of pictures and a good tutorial on making bricks. The first time I tried it, I admit I was dubious if I'd like the finished results, but I was very pleased with how my stones came out on that gnome's well. Yes, that was my first egg carton work.

For the wash house I wanted the look of bricks that had been plastered over, but with a bit of brick color showing through here and there. There's actually a good reason why people used to cover bricks with plaster. Before the early 1800's interiors of brick fireplaces were often coated with plaster because the heat of the fire could cause the bricks to crack.
Some bricks, like those used in many old English cottages, were soft, and liable to erode from rain over time, so they were covered with plaster too.

I decided to make my bricks a yellow ochre color, instead of the more often seen brick red.
Once my egg carton bricks were glued on, I gave them a coat of yellow ochre acrylic craft paint.
Later I applied some plaster, also known as drywall compound, joint compound, or spackle. In some places it was heavier, in others, lighter, letting the color underneath show through.

I wanted the top of the brick set kettle or boiler to be smooth, so after the plaster dried I wet a paper towel and rubbed the surface to make it smoother. I also rubbed down some other areas that were a bit too lumpy. As long as the plaster hasn't been painted, you can wet it down and smmoth it out however you like. You can easily add another layer of plaster too, if you feel the surface needs it. I still have to fill in some areas with brick and plaster, and smooth down a few spots. I still haven't glued the insert I'm working on to the actual roombox yet either.

I want to leave the top half of the chimney piece fairly smooth. I rather like having the different textures.
Next I'll be making timbers for the wall and ceiling. I'm planning on using some square dowels for that.

Lots of Bespaq and more miniature accessories - Sept. 30th

2011-09-30T10:01:00.000-04:00

Lots of new additions to New England Miniatures Here's a sampling -

-and there's lots more to see - at New England Miniatures
---------on a personal note- I'm hoping to get back to my own miniature project soon. Actually, I had planned on doing it yesterday, but I had COUPONS! - so I went shopping instead. I came home with some real bargains, it was a good shopping day.

Sept. 15th what's new at New England Miniatures

2011-09-15T10:07:00.000-04:00

From Lee's Line we have the new Cara tables in honey oak, and the Cara sofa and chair in off white. BTW, the sage green Cara pieces are retired, not too many of them left.

Shown below is Lee's Line blue and yellow check Ashley sofa and chair, with the Cara tables.

The Blue Denim fabric is also being retired, the sofa is shown sporting Lee's Line Paisley pillows. It gives the sofa a nice decorator look.

Check the New Items page on New England Miniatures to see what else is new.

I've also posted some pictures of some Lee's Line sofas and chairs paired with the new Cara tables. You can see them on the New England Miniatures Gallery page.

You may have noticed that the prices of miniatures just keep going up. At New England Miniatures we just try to offer you the best prices we can every day.

2011-08-30T18:28:00.000-04:00

Finally finished adding the first batch of new miniatures we brought home from the Aztec wholesale show. There are a lot of new things on the new items page, and there's more coming.
Here's a sampling from the more than 50 miniatures on the new items page----

To see them all, go to New England Miniatures, and just click on the new items link, or just browse around.
Being a comparison shopper, I always check for the best prices. And don't forget, at New England Miniatures we keep everything in stock, so you don't have to wait. Most orders get shipped within 24 hours of purchase - really & truly.

2011-08-18T17:26:00.000-04:00

We're leaving for the wholesale show in the morning. No one will be available to take calls, but you can still order online. We'll be back in the office on August 24th.

I just added some new miniature lamps this morning. We have the hanging lamp in green, red and milk white.

The table lamp comes in green and red. We also have an electrified version in red.

Check them out on New England Miniatures.

New additions to NEM's tutorials page

2011-08-14T12:28:00.001-04:00

Added 22 new links to the New England Miniatures tutorials pages this morning - enjoy.

2011-08-04T19:07:00.000-04:00

Sorry I haven't been continuing on the wash house lately. There's been some health issues with my son, but he's much better now. On the other hand, he'll be heading to college in a few weeks and doesn't seem to understand the importance of things like having enough socks!

The big Aztec miniature trade show is coming up in a few weeks too. I always come home with bags and bags of miniature furniture and accessories and a big fistful of order slips for even more.

Some large boxes were delivered by the UPS man yesterday, included were a dozen new miniatures.
Here's a sampling -----

Yes, we managed to snag some Reac miniature Eames chairs, with ottomans.

A chair from Aztec/Town Square, in Art Moderne design.

The matching chair - we also have the coffee and end table in our living room section, in walnut.

This is Aztec/ Town Square's new 1950's kitchen, it's actually 4 pieces and we have it at a special introductory price.

Reutter Porcelain has retired this Morning Cereal set and I ordered quite a few. Did you know that New England Miniatures has some of the lowest prices on Reutter Porcelain?

I've always been a comparison shopper.

See these, and the other new items at New England Miniatures!

This and that

2011-07-11T11:25:00.003-04:00

I haven't had time to work on the wash house this week. Amend that - I scraped off the egg carton bricks I'd glued onto it. I didn't like the way it was shaping up. Although the bricks were in scale with real size bricks, in place, they looked all wrong. I decided that I needed to cut them a bit bigger, and maybe use something smoother, like card stock. Another option is to score them into the plaster. Since I'm going for a look that's plaster over brick, I'm leaning towards trying the larger, card stock bricks.

I wanted to share this link to Rigid Wrap Plaster Cloth Techniques . It may give you some more ideas how you might want to use the stuff.

I've been doing some work on the New England Miniatures store site.
I added picture links to sections on the Room by Room page. Are pictures better, or should I leave it as text the way it was? Any input would be appreciated, so I made a poll. It's right there on the right. I try to make New England Miniatures as customer friendly as I can....PS - poll now closed, results show preference for picture links, ok then.

I've also been tagging items as Victorian or Colonial to make it easier for people who are looking for items specifically to those time periods. Use the search box feature on New England Miniatures. It's coming along slowly. As I make adjustment to each miniature, I also have to write things on pages for little Google robots who scurry around the world wide web seeking information. Working on the website can be very time consuming.

I bet you didn't know that the fly swatter was invented in 1905.

part 3 the cottage wash house

2011-07-05T10:05:00.000-04:00

The insert is outside of the box.

I decided to add a bit of curve to the hood. Did you know you can sand styrofoam very nicely with a power sander? I shaped mine on my disc sander. It gave it a nice smooth finish.
An additional word about gluing styrofoam. Some glues work better than others. I used Weldbond, which is an all around glue that will work with many items. I originally found it mentioned on the website This To That. To glue wood pieces together, though, I pretty much stick to wood glue.
The next picture is a closeup of the oven area and the top of the copper.

To make the copper I chose to use a wooden unpainted napkin ring.
I covered the styrofoam and filled in gaps with drywall compound. I've smoothed the compound somewhat, may need to add more here and there.

By the way, New England Miniatures is on Facebook now, I hope you'll give us a "Like".
Thanks.

Part 2 - the cottage wash house

2011-06-29T13:17:00.002-04:00

Today's first picture shows the hood over the oven under construction.
I built a box inside the chimney, creating a recess. I'm now working on the chimney hood. I cut a piece of styrofoam and glued it to the the wood section.I need to reshape it a bit because it sticks out slightly. At this point I'm not sure if I want to leave the styrofoam straight up and down pretty much as is, or shape it to curve a bit. I'll have to think about it.

If you've never worked with styrofoam, here's a couple of tips.
The best way to cut styrofoam is with an electric hot knife or hot wire cutter. When I first learned about hot knives I looked online for them, but they were expensive. Later I found out you could find hot wire cutters in the floral section of many crafts stores. I can't recall what mine cost, but it wasn't very expensive.
This is what mine looks like.

I plug it in, switch it on and within seconds it's hot and goes through styrofoam like a hot knife through butter.

The other thing I started working on was the stone sink.
I cut the pieces out of bass wood and glued them together. I always worry about things coming unglued, so I decided to wrap the outside of sink with Rigid Wrap, which is a gauze, coated in plaster.
You just wet the Rigid Wrap, then place it how you want it and let dry. I first used it when building the Nuthouse. Later I used it to make a curved section on the Gnome's Cottage hearth, and on the second Gnome's Cottage too. The picture below shows it after I covered it with drywall compound. I wanted a slight curve in the corner of the wall.

here's a picture of the Rigid Wrap by itself.

And here's the sink as it looks right now. I just coated it with a little drywall compound a.k.a. plaster, spackle, etc. Later I'll coat the inside and do whatever touchups are needed before painting.

New Project - 19th century cottage wash house

2011-06-26T14:22:00.001-04:00

I decided to work on room boxes for a while, mainly because they take up less room, and don't take as long to finish as a dollhouse.
Recently I ordered an unfinished roombox, and when it arrived last week I saw it was the perfect size for the Victorian cottage wash house I had been thinking about. I had found a picture of it in a book, and it really appealed to me.
It took a few days to figure out the proportions of everything, and I started working on it a few days ago.
Here's what it looks like right now.

Starting on the left is a chimney, with a bake oven inside. This particular wash house was also used as a bake house. The funny looking thing on the chimney wall that looks like an upside down steps is part of a "brick" bracketing for an oven hood. While gluing the pieces of the second section together, the clamp on the first section suddenly went sproing..... and shot into the air, taking the little wooden bits with it. I found one tiny block of wood, couldn't find the rest. I shall have to start over.

The next bit of structure is going to be a copper for boiling clothes. Although coppers are associated with Britain, Americans also had them, only they were called set kettles. Large metal pots, often of copper, sometimes zinc, were set into brick. A fire would burn below, heating the bricks. Coppers and set kettles were used to boil water for cooking or washing. They could also be used for simmering large amounts of soup or stew.
You can see an opening at the bottom, which was for sweeping out ashes. Fuel for the fire went in through a little door above the ash opening.

The next bit is going to be a large stone sink. Right now it's represented by a block of wood sitting on two other blocks of wood. I think I may put a draining board in the corner.

I wanted a window on the back wall, but didn't want my window framing to stick out, so I cut out a new back wall with an opening for the window. I think I'll paint a bit of sky or branches or something in the space before I install the window. I did this before in the Kitschy Kitchen.
Meanwhile, I've been gluing pieces to the back wall only. This way I can pull everything out which makes it easier to work on the structure. I think it will be very handy when I get started on the finishes I'm putting on.

More new things at NEM

2011-06-24T16:01:00.001-04:00

I've been busy adding more products to New England Miniatures.
Here's a sample of the new items added today.

The pitcher, HN243 was supposed to be iced tea, but when it arrived it looked more like orange Kool Aid to me, so I decided to add "orangeade" to my stock.
I fell in love with the Cherries series of decorated accessories by Carradus, so I added quite a few more. They're in Kitchenware and Cookware.
We also got in a shipment of retired Bespaq furniture.

There's still more newly added retired Bespaq, Cherries accessories and more on New England Miniatures' New Items page.

What's new at New England Miniatures

2011-06-21T20:54:00.000-04:00

I was hoping to have some pictures of a new project, but I haven't gotten far enough to have anything to take pictures of. I'm not going to say what it is, because who knows, I might change my mind.
Meanwhile, I do have pictures of the new miniatures I've added to my store, New England Miniatures.
We now have Bespaq's Edwardian bedroom set, pretty isn't it?

Next are three items from Aztec's Platinum line. The pictures are a little fuzzy. I was trying a quicker way to load the pictures. You can see nice big bright clear pictures on New England Miniatures, though.

Maine is famous for clam chowder, or "chowdah", and we've added a mini bread bowl full of clam chowder. The crust looks nice and crispy, just the way I like it.
Another addition is Bright deLights' Crown Throne.

It's in a walnut finish with gilt decoration.
You can see them all, plus several more newly added items on the New England Miniatures New Items page.
We do ship internationally, see our shipping page for more information. Customers outside the US & Canada need to email their orders, information is on the shipping page.

Not a dollhouse story

2011-05-22T10:41:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I write little stories. As a matter of fact, there are 3 dollhouse stories on this blog.
I wrote this very short story 5 years ago and just found it again. I still like it, maybe some of you will too.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knew he was up to no good from the very beginning. Those eyes, shifting this way and that, the way he ran his tongue over his lower lip, yeah, I knew there would be trouble and trouble was his middle name.
I watched him as he slunk along the wall, peering around the corner towards the lighted room beyond. He’d make quick darting looks backward, as if he suspected that someone was watching. I thought that letting him make his move would be the wisest choice. I wasn’t about to let myself get into some disastrous situation without just cause. I had gotten into trouble about the Rowntree incident and wasn’t going to let myself get dragged down again.
I let him get further ahead of me. I could hear the scrape of a chair as he brushed past it. I knew just where he was now. I knew that room like the back of my hand, every inch of it.
He was getting closer to the cabinet now. Did he think I was that dumb? Stuff like this you don’t hide in some two bit wall cabinet. I heard the door shut softly as he heaved a disgruntled breath. I could see his shadow pass the wall in front of me, he was heading for the closet now. The hinges squeaked and I heard a soft gasp. I almost chuckled at that. I knew that leaving those hinges unoiled was a good idea. He started rummaging through the closet, I could hear boxes being moved and the rustle of papers. It was time to make my move.
Holding my breath I crept forward, not making a sound, though I felt for sure my pounding heart should surely give me away. I got to the doorway and peered around it. He was still leaning into the closet, totally absorbed in his search. I could see the tail end of his shirt out past the closet door. Suddenly I heard a whispered, “Yes!”. He had it, and I had him. That whisper and the crisp rattle of that distinctive paper was all I needed.
“I’ve got you, you little weasel! What did I tell you about candy before dinner?”
“Aw gee, Mom!!! I never get away with anything around here!”
“As it should be, son.”

The Kitschy Kitchen web page

2011-05-19T10:41:00.001-04:00

Just finished editing the Kitschy Kitchen posts and have put them on a new page.
Visit The Kitschy Kitchen web page to see all the pictures and step by step development.

The Beach House web page

2011-05-14T09:56:00.003-04:00

You can see the construction of the 1" scale Beach House from start to finish on the new 1:12 Scale Beach House Page.

latest new items at New England Miniatures 5/6

2011-05-06T10:36:00.001-04:00

I've added some more fine miniatures from JBM.

For 2011 Reutter Porcelain of Germany has added miniatures with a rooster motif. This week New England Miniatures presents the rooster themed side table.

To see these items, and what else has been added during the last few weeks, check the New Items Page.

New England Miniatures has some of the lowest prices you'll find on JBM and Reutter miniature furniture and accessories, and they're in stock - no waiting. We ship by US Priority mail 2-3 day delivery. We do ship to Canada and most of the world, see our shipping page for details.

A note about the beach house kitchenette -
I did manage to finish the faucet, and I cut out and painted pieces for the additional wall shelf, but I still have to glue it together. Pictures will be forthcoming.

The Complete 2010 Bespaq 1" scale Catalog

2011-02-20T08:05:00.001-05:00

If you're familiar with Bespaq miniature furniture, you know it's some of the best dollhouse furniture you can buy. You also already know it's expensive but worth the price.
If you're not familiar with Bespaq, it's the premier name in miniature furniture.
New England Miniatures stocks a large collection of Bespaq and other fine dollhouse furniture like JBM and Aztec's Platinum collection, which is made exclusively for Aztec by Bespaq.
For those unfamiliar with JBM and Aztec Platinum, and wonder if they are comparable to Bespaq, yes, I would say they are. Remember, Bespaq makes Aztec Platinum. When I showed the different versions of the townhouse parlor, I was using Bespaq chairs with 2 of JBM's cabinets and their tea table. I'll give you a little tip, though. Pit Ginsburg bases many of his miniature furniture designs on smaller sized real life furniture. This gives much of his miniature furniture a smaller, more delicate look. Check the pictures of the Oak Alley and Manchester parlors and you'll see what I mean. The tea table was a bit too high for the Oak Alley set, but perfect with the Manchester set.
This is why I measure and state the sizes of every piece on New England Miniatures. I know how it feels to shop online for dollhouse furniture and agonize "is it going to fit in ?"

If you've found what you're looking for on these pages, contact me through New England Miniatures. Use the contact button at the top of the New England Miniatures pages. I'll respond with the price, and if it meets with your approval, I'll check and make sure the item is available at this time.

This is Bespaq's catalog for 1" scale. New England Miniatures also stocks some of their 1/2" scale pieces, as well as 1/2" scale items from JBM, Reutter, Lee's Line and others. See our Half Scale section.

*Click on each picture to enlarge, click again to make it bigger. You can use your browser's zoom feature to enlarge images even further.

Blogger has made some changes in the way you can view pictures. If they don't get bigger when you click on them, try clicking on the space to the right of each picture. if it opens on a white background, you can click the picture to zoom in.

PLEASE NOTE. Although the Jeanne bedroom set is still shown on these pages, it has been retired.

Coraline kitchen photos

2011-01-24T11:14:00.001-05:00

My sister was in LA during her vacation a few months ago, and she recently sent me pictures she took of a display at a movie studio. It's a miniature kitchen set from the movie Coraline.
Click on these pictures to open larger, click again to see in a larger size.

A Victorian House

2010-11-14T17:41:00.001-05:00

The 1877 inventory of Sambourne House, the comfortable middle class English house of Punch cartoonist Edward Linley Sambourne and his wife Marion, reveals that they had 66 upright chairs.
There were 10 in the dining room, 12 in the drawing room, 10 in the best bedroom, 10 in the day nursery, and the rest were distributed among the other rooms.
Can you imagine having 10 guests sitting around in your bedroom having a nice chat? People certainly did behave differently over 100 years ago.

Does your Victorian dollhouse have enough upright chairs?
I'd like to mention that New England Miniatures does have a lovely assortment of upright chairs scattered throughout the living room, dining room, library and bedroom sections of the store.

Another unusual amount of an everyday thing in Mrs. Sambourne's house, unusual to us 21st century folk, but not to Mrs. Sambourne's contemporaries, is the number of framed photographs displayed on the walls. Just for starters, she had 35 in the rear hall, and 94 on the staircase.

The Sambournes lived at 18 Stafford Terrace in London. There are two rooms on each floor, and the staircase rises from the back of the hall. Bathrooms and lavatories are off the half landings.
The Stafford house has 5 stories, including the basement, where the kitchens and servants' quarters are located. The dining room and study are on the ground floor. The main entertaining rooms are on the first floor (2nd floor to Americans) the main bedrooms on the next floor, children and the nursery quarters above that. Servants rooms were on the top floor. Generally, female staff would sleep there, and manservants would sleep in the basement.

Today Sambourne House is a museum. The house is decorated the way it was in Marion Sambourne's time. Her son inherited it in 1914 and left it practically unchanged till his death in 1946. The house continued to be owned by the family for some time thereafter who continued the preservation.
You can see a video which features a partial tour of the house and people who lived in it here. You'll see that huge array of photographs on the walls.

I've found some more pictures online. They include the front of the house, the front hall, the drawing room, and a bedroom.

If you'd like to find out more, you can read A Victorian Household by Shirley Nicholson, based on the diaries of Marion Sambourne.

Since I started this post with the 1877 Sambourne inventory, here's another item from the same year.
Edward, Prince of Wales, son of Queen Victoria and future king, was living in Marlborough House in 1877.
At that time he had 88 servants, 29 were women, 59 were men. Of the men, 17 had no where to sleep because the house was overcrowded. The poor fellows without beds to sleep in were a page, a piper, a cook, a cook's apprentice, a valet, the prince's brusher, a cellar man, 2 under butlers, 2 pantry assistants, an usher of the hall, 2 lamp men and 3 coal porters.
I assume the brusher was the man who brushed the prince's clothes and kept them clean. Where did they sleep? Well, normally they'd roll out a mattress or some blankets and sleep on the floor in the basement.
When servants of overnight visitors came to stay they had to be boarded out in neighboring houses.
Eventually, the indoor and outdoor staff increased to 120.

This also from the book Victorians at Home by Susan Lansdun......
The Marlboro House basement was always blocked with boxes and cases of glass, china and empty boxes, and when balls were held, all the furniture in the drawing rooms and dining rooms had to be taken to the upholsterers for storage. The only storage room in the house had been turned into a drying closet. All the linen in the house was dried in front of a small fire .
In the 18880’s the 3 princesses still occupied the same small room they had slept in when they were little girls. when the eldest princess went to a party she had to dress in her maid's room, which was also shared by another maid. The passage to the princesses bedroom was also blocked by boxes and wardrobes.
Not exactly the picture you have in mind of a royal residence, is it?

Speaking of royal, how do you like this lovely Victorian wash stand made by JBM?

To find out a whole lot more about Victorian homes, visit my Victorian blog, Victorian Interiors and More.

A miniature roll up bamboo shade

2010-09-27T21:48:00.002-04:00

9-27
Today I can show you a working roll up bamboo shade for the beach house. I still have to make another one for the back window.

I made it out of a reed placemat, which was the inspiration for this project in the first place. The little grass mat is actually a coaster.
Here's a closeup of the front of the shade.

I cut a piece out of the placemat the width of the window and a little longer than the height of the window.
You want it to be a little longer, because the bottom few reeds will work loose and come off immediately. I then glued the loose strings together and to the back of the bottom of the blind, snipping off any loose thread after the glue had dried.
Here's a picture of the back.

First I ran the end of the pull string under the top reed. I used a piece of embroidery floss. I stiffened the end of the thread with glue so I could guide it through the tiny space between the reeds. I then tied it securely to the top reed.

I then ran the thread down the back of the blind, then back up the front, and over the top reed.

If you glance back at the first picture showing the front of the blind, you'll see the string hanging down from the back.
Next I had to hang it.
I cut a strip of basswood the width of the blind, and also several smaller pieces. I glued the small pieces to the strip as shown. I did this so that the pull string could move easily, and also because the original knotted threads of the placemat would have wound up glued to the wood strip instead of the top 2 reeds. This way the shade is more likely to stay put.

You can see what I mean in the picture below. I was just holding it all in place, I hadn't glued it together yet.

Today I also worked on making the roof. I discovered that the house turned out to be slightly off square. It's 1/8" wider at one end than the other. How this happened I have no idea. Anyway, it's causing me problems with my roof panels. I had to keep making little shifts and adjustments to get it to all come out evenly. I glued on one side of the roof, and am hoping to finish the other side tomorrow.
Instead of shingles, I think I might prefer a board roof. On the other hand, if I don't have enough wood to make the roof boards, I may fall back on wooden shingles. I do have a bag of those.

3 rooms

2010-07-16T15:51:00.006-04:00

I've finished building the townhouse. I just wanted to get it done. It struck me that I could add more rooms to it if I ever wanted to, which gave me a good excuse for not finishing the roof.
I've got an idea for another project, and want to start something fresh. I'll furnish the townhouse and take pictures, though.

For the 3rd floor I used a bamboo placemat for the floorboards. I had also found some lovely placemats in mahogany, but they're locked in my studio. A piece of molding is hanging down from the ceiling and blocking my door. I can't get into the room. After exploring all the possibilities, it turns out we're going to have to take down a wall to get into the studio. It's been hot and muggy and my husband keeps putting the job off.

Also, I decided to just stain the floor in the 2nd floor pink bedroom instead of gluing on floorboards. I didn't even feeling like grooving to simulate floorboards.
This project just hung around unfinished for far too long and I sort of lost interest in it.

Lithuanian folk tunes

2010-06-07T07:05:00.004-04:00

Today's post isn't about miniatures or dollhouses, though it does fit in with mama's Lithuanian Cottage Kitchen.
I found some neat Lithuanian songs and since I know that at least one or two of you out there are of Lithuanian heritage, I thought I'd share.
The Mahanoy City Lithuanian Miners Orchestra, of Mahanoy Pennsylvania, was an ensemble of Lithuanian immigrant coal miners. They recorded this medley of traditional Lithuanian village wedding tunes in April of 1929.

Press the first little arrow to play.

Finished pictures of Lithuanian Cottage & the Bespaq Catalog

2010-05-21T19:22:00.008-04:00

Today I finished scanning the rest of the pages of the 2010 Bespaq catalog for 1" scale. To see them click here, or the link in the right sidebar. You can enlarge the pages, just click the thumbnail, then click the full page image to enlarge it further. Use your browser's zoom control to see the images even larger. I know I always hated to buy miniatures just by looking at a tiny picture.

I also retook pictures of the Lithuanian cottage kitchen that I had made for my mother years ago. The last batch vanished when my computer crashed. It was a total loss, by the way.
Here's the room box, all spruced up, table glued back firmly into place.

Last time I forgot to take a picture with the cupboard door open to show what was inside. There's a wooden box on the top shelf. A screw eye stands in as a clasp, and a wooden bell painted with silver paint is below it.

On the table are preparations for a farmer's dinner, some bread, cheese, eggs ready to go into a pan, and dough rising for tomorrow's bread. The bread, dough, cheese and eggs in the blue bowl are all made from Sculpey.

Finally, here's the roof. These old cottages traditionally had thatched roofs, so I simulated one with drywall compound, aka: spackle or plaster. It's pretty rough looking, but it was just meant to give the suggestion of thatch. I think I used a whisk broom to mark up the plaster, then I painted it.

To see part one of the kitchen article, click here.

Now it's time for a commercial.
New items arrived at New England Miniatures this week. Here's a sample.

The miniature Eames chair with ottoman in white. The brown set is also back in stock.

Reutter's porcelain baby bath on a wooden stand. The bath is NOT glued on, by the way.

Here we have, also from Reutter, the ladies' accessories set. That long golden thing is a shoe horn.

This mahogany armchair is a little different. The back features little wings.

We got in a new kitchen table with a white top. In a modern dollhouse kitchen it would look a little more up to date than some others, but on the other hand, in an old fashioned kitchen, it would be perfect for rolling out pie crusts and pastries. The white looks a bit like a marble top, doesn't it?
The chair shown comes in a set of 4 that can be paired with this or any of our other tables.
Visit the New England Miniatures New Items page to see what else is new.

Repairing mama's Lithuanian kitchen

2010-04-30T16:01:00.005-04:00

I've run into a problem with the townhouse. I have no crown molding and I really, really need it. Since there are no stores anywhere near me that sell it, I had to order some and am waiting for it.
Meanwhile, I decided to get around to repairing an old project.
Just over a year ago I posted how I had made a little roombox to replace my mother's little kitchen. The post. And here's the picture I had taken of it before I sent it to my mother.

I must have made it around 17 years ago. I hadn't had much experience with miniatures then.

Over time the little kitchen got pretty dusty, and after mama died I brought it home in my suitcase, wherein it met with a little rough treatment. The kitchen table collapsed, and the hood over the stove broke.
Today I did a bit of a cleanup, and glued the stove hood back together.

The table was giving me a hard time, and I still have to repair it. I had simply glued the legs to the table, and then the table to the floor. Now I have marks on the floor where the table legs were glued. The floor is grooved MDF, so a little of the paper came off, which means I should try and glue the legs exactly where they were, or I'll have to figure out how to hide the damage on the floor.
By the way, I have no idea how I came to have some grooved MDF for a dollhouse floor.
The kitchen was meant to be reminiscent of old Lithuanian cottage kitchens, in traditional log homes. Whether or not it's a good representation, I'm not truly sure. I did as much research as I could, and my mother said it reminded her of home, so it must be close enough.
Here's a closeup of my logs.

I have a feeling I got the logs when I got the grooved floor. I don't know if I bought them to make the kitchen or for something else I've forgotten about. Here's a front on view of the wall.

I glued the log molding onto both sides of a thin piece of plywood.
Here's the stove. The hood had some plates glued to it, I'll have to put them back, and maybe give it a new coat of paint. The front panel of the hood cracked. I thought about making a replacement piece, but decided against it, and just make repairs.

People used masonry stoves similar to this in many parts of Europe. There was one in a British movie set in medieval England, I've seen them in photos of old Lithuanian and Scandinavian houses, I even saw a couple in some photos taken within the last 10-15 years or so of women cooking in their cottages in what used to be Yugoslavia.
The hutch is one from Michael's. I guess we had a Michael's where I used to live 17 years ago. That or some other store was selling them too.

My mother loved to garden, so there are some flower pots on the top of the hutch. There's a couple of items behind the cabinet door, but I forgot to take a picture with the door open. I'll try to remember to take another picture of the hutch when I'm done the renovation.
The basket holds a bunch on tiny silk roses, since mama liked flowers. I filled the other half with a couple kinds of potatoes and carrots, made from Sculpey. I touched them up with paint to color them.

Here are the shelves, with painted on cloths. I also made some red apples for the bowl, and painted some woodenware. The finished miniatures I bought all came from Just Miniature Scale, a dollhouse shop in Greensburg, PA where we lived at the time. If you're ever in Greensburg, stop by and say, Grazhina says hi.

I doubt my townhouse crown molding will arrive today, so I'll fix the table next.

2010-04-25T08:09:00.001-04:00

Thanks to everyone who commented about the parlors. I had planned on trying another another set, but I know it won't look better than the ones I've already tried, so I'm putting it off till later. I'm really getting curious to see how various room settings would look.

In case you didn't know, I own an online miniatures shop, New England Miniatures. A few times people who've known me for a while in various dollhouse miniatures forums have said "I didn't know you owned a shop!" I think I should advertise it more, maybe? Therefore, I'm announcing that I've added pieces from JBM's line of fine half scale miniatures, plus a few more of the same quality from another maker. We'll be adding some more of Bespaq's half scale soon too.
Here's a sampling of the new half scale items.

To see the rest of the new half scale you can check the New Items page or, if you're interested in just half scale, browse the Half Scale page.
I update the site every day, and everything is in stock. Items that happen to be out of stock are so noted on their page. Usually, when we unexpectedly run out of something, more is on it's way within the week.
Have you ever placed a order for a miniature and then waited weeks wondering when it'll come? There's a reason for that, and it won't happen with New England Miniatures. If we have a restocking delay, we'll email you and let you know what's going on.

So, do me a favor, bookmark New England Miniatures, and visit us often. Oh yes, you know those little sponsored links at the top and sides of search engine pages? Every time someone clicks on the one for New England Miniatures, we have to pay for it. It adds up to quite a lot, so please, please, bookmark us so we can save some money and buy more miniatures!

Blog Index

2010-04-24T09:59:00.019-04:00

To make it a little easier to find a specific article, I've made an index with a short description of what's on each page.
You can browse the whole blog, or if you know what you're looking for, just click the link to get to that page. I've changed the order listing of a few posts, to keep those relating to specific projects together.

Franklin St. 1: 333 Franklin St, a dollhouse from Real Good Toys
Franklin St. 2: What grooves? Problems.
Franklin St. 3: Warpage! Starting to put the house together.
Franklin St. 4: A faux marble finish for the fireplace
Franklin St. 5: The parlor, ready to be furnished
Franklin St. 6: Decorating ideas: The Sweet Sue Suite
Franklin St. 6: Decorating ideas: The Manchester set
Franklin St. 7: Decorating ideas: The Oak Alley parlor
Rooms painted, but unfurnished

Link to Images. I've scanned pages from several magazines from 1941 to 1961 and will be adding more pictures in the future. You can also find images of interiors from many periods. in the other albums.

Amos Gooch's Cottage 1: A Maine fisherman's cottage. The story of Amos, distressing a wooden floor.
Amos Gooch's Cottage 2: Using paint to give the cottage a weathered look
Amos Gooch's Cottage 3: Bashing Michael's hutch's.
Amos Gooch's Cottage 4: Selecting furniture and altering furniture
Amos Gooch's Cottage 5: A new faux finish for a table and chair
Amos Gooch's Cottage 6: Beginning to make a garden for the cottage, gluing sand to a base.
Amos's lumber pile 7: Painting a barrel.
Amos Gooch's Cottage 8: Turning a wooden napkin ring into a barrel seat, a faux oyster shell path, some more plants.
Amos Gooch's Cottage 9: Adding details to the cottage exterior
Amos Gooch's Cottage 10: Hair for little Star.
Amos Gooch's Cottage 11: The completed cottage, furnished, with curtains.

How to make a miniature roll up bamboo shade
An Idea For an Easy Rag Rug
Using Plaster to Make a Stone Floor
How to Make a Miniature Planter
How to Make a Dollhouse Stove from Basswood.
How to Make a Miniature Bench
An Easy to Make Miniature Doormat
How to Make a Miniature Non-working Venetian Blind

Miniature Landscaping part 1: Using sponges, reindeer moss, turning wood to stone, elevating a terrain.
Miniature Landscaping part 2: Using paper mache in a miniature landscape, a small tree, paint some grass, paving stones and moss.
Miniature Landscaping part 3: dirt, mulch, pretty flowers and small trees.
Miniature Landscaping part 4: flowering shrubs, texture in the garden and all sorts of plants.

Genevieve: a short story about dollhouse.
Annie: the story of a mischievous dollhouse.
Daisy: a dollhouse story

My Mother's Little Kitchen: a room box I made for my mother years ago.
Restoring My Mother's Little Kitchen part 1
A shadow box from the 1940's in need of restoration. The shadow box that inspired My Mother's Little Kitchen.
Restoring the 1940's shadow box,
The Restored Shadow Box
The finished Lithuanian kitchen room box.
Lithuanian folk tunes

Pictures of the kitchen set from the movie Coraline

A little bit about furnishing a Victorian house.
About Hanging Horseshoes
Dollhouse books: Some of my favorite books about dollhouses.
Through a Doll's Eyes: a tour of the Bungalow as seen through the eyes of Doll Frobisher.

Oak Alley parlor

2010-04-23T09:12:00.000-04:00

This time the parlor is furnished with Bespaq's Oak Alley settee and chair.
The room is a bit more sparse, because I should have added an end table by the chair, but I started getting pressed for time.
There's also 3 pictures, because I kept going back and forth about the rug, and decided it would be simpler to show all three.

The Victorian bookcase is by JBM. You can get a better look at it here.
Have you noticed that the tilt table is now in the corner? It would go perfectly as a side table for the chair, but it looked a little too high, more like a tea table than a lamp table. I think the seat of the Oak Alley chair must be a tiny bit lower than the other chairs. It's just like in real life. I bought a new sofa and chairs last year, and found that my old end table was just now a little too low, and I should look for a taller one.

Manchester parlor

2010-04-22T14:58:00.002-04:00

When you decorate a miniature room, do you find that things sort of take off on their own? The room some how winds up looking nothing like what you had in mind at all, but you like it anyway.

I used the Manchester sofa and chair by Bespaq.
The JBM tilt table that I used in the Sweet Sue room was perfect, and so were the Victorian sideboard, and the little mahogany lamp table.
The mantle clock looked fine where it was, so I left it in place. I changed the flowers, though. The Sweet Sue arrangement wasn't quite right for this room.
It struck me then that the table lamp WRN 127, with the magenta shade would probably look good in there, and then, instead of candles, I should add a pair of chamberstick lamps WRN10, and I really liked it.
The rug is SN38, and comes with a runner. The colors in the rug and the striped upholstery are similar.
Here's the thing. This room is more of a post 1930 room. It might aquire a whole different character with other lamps, but right now, looking at the room as a whole, I like it pretty much the way it is. The Reutter Tiffany style Fruit shade or Rose shade lamp might push the room back a decade or two, but at the time, I just liked things the way they were. I know I'll try them though.

The Manchester parlor has an entirely different look from the Sweet Sue. It could be a room in almost decade from the 30's on.
Speaking of decades, a few people commented to me that they thought the rug in the Sweet Sue parlor made the room a tad busy, and I agree it does. But, it also makes the room look more old fashioned. If I changed the rug to something with a subtler pattern, or maybe solid with a border, etc., the room would start to look a bit more contemporary, which would be nice, but not quite what I had in mind.

Sweet Sue suite

2010-04-21T15:05:00.000-04:00

I've been playing around with furniture for the parlor, and today I'll show you a version using the Sweet Sue casual set from Bespaq. It still needs a little more work.

I think I mentioned before that I wanted the house to be set around 1900 or maybe a little later, but I thought the monkey lamp looked cute, so I added it, even though it makes the room look a little later than 1910. It makes me think of the 1920's and 30's, and Miss Marple.If I put a hob grate in the fireplace, with a kettle for tea, it would look even more like a setting for an Agatha Christie book.

Other items in room are the Victorian sideboard by JBM, and also by JBM, the tilt table.
The clock on the mantle is by Lee's Line, and I still have to see how the Reutter mantle clock looks there. Frankly, I was going to try the Reutter clock, but I forgot it's item number, so I had a hard time finding it in the stock room.
The little lamp table fit in nicely between the love seat and chair.
The rug is our SN34. There's a smaller one in the same pattern, the SN19.
The flower arrangement is Dulcie. I've got to make more miniature flower arrangements, I'm running low. Now that spring is here, my studio is a bit warmer, so I can get back to working in there.
The porcelain tea set is VN118. I just picked one at random. The candlesticks on the mantel are VN107, and they're gold plated.

Be sure to come back to see the Manchester and Oak Alley versions of this room.
I'm going to try and get a picture of one of them up tommorrow.

Franklin St. parlor

2010-04-18T11:22:00.000-04:00

The parlor is finished and ready to be furnished.

Yesterday I tried a few chairs and sofas out of the New England Miniatures stock to see how they looked. Right now my favored choices are:
The Manchester sofa and chair by Bespaq
The Victorian Oak Alley settee and chair, also by Bespaq.
Bespaq's Sweet Sue suite.
The Aztec Platinum tan stripped sofa and chair, also made by Bespaq.
JBM's 6 legged sofa and matching chair are covered in more or less the same fabric as the Aztec Platinum sofa and chair, but I wanted to use the smaller Aztec sofa, as I'm visualizing a cabinet in the corner next to where I think I'd like to put the sofa.

Next I'll either take the house back down to the basement to work on the panel that will form the floor/ceiling between the second and third floor, or I'll compare how different tables and cabinets look in the room with the various chairs and sofas.

In case you were wondering about the panel for the floor....the kit comes with holes cut in 2 panels, so the stairs can go up. I'm not using the stairs that came with the house, so I don't need staircase openings. I'm now faced with a floor that comes with a hole in it. I have several choices of how to deal with it. It all depends on what I have handy.

Franklin St. fireplace

2010-04-12T17:24:00.000-04:00

Do you find it difficult to restart a project that you've set aside for a while? I always do.
Last week I finally got around to staining the floorboards for the parlor, and I just finished the faux marble fireplace yesterday.

The door is just leaning against the wall for right now.
Here's the fireplace I used. It's the unpainted fireplace HN210, from New England Miniatures.

I decided I wanted the surround to be marble, with a black polished slate hearth.

I started by sanding the wood, then I applied a coat of gesso, sanded and regessoed, then sanded again. If I hadn't had any gesso, I would have used several coats of flat acrylic paint.
Since the woodwork in the room was to be an ivory white, I decided to make a marble to go with it. After the gesso had been sanded, I painted over it with white acrylic paint. I used Titanium White, AC Moore's Warm White and Americana Marigold, which is a golden ochre color.

After the white base was dry, I brushed on some more white paint, and while it was still wet, I dabbed some of the Warm White here and there, sometimes blending on a little more Titanium white if I felt the splotch of warm white was too big or too rounded. Once in a while I added a little more color here or there by adding a tiny bit of the Marigold which I had previously blended with a bit of Titanium white.
In this picture you can see what I mean on one half of the fireplace.

Once the fireplace was covered in a somewhat blotchy mix I let it dry before applying the veins.
I used the Marigold for that, using a very fine brush. I like to use a beat up old fine brush I have that's lost most of its bristles. It makes a nice wiggly, haphazard line that's good for drawing fine twigs. That's more or less what the veins look like, fine twigs.

I applied the lines very lightly, then, using an old brush, I dabbed at them a bit. This made parts of the lines blend into the background somewhat. It also gave some areas a bit more color. Also, when painting veins, keep them going in pretty much the same direction.

There are all sorts of marbles. They come in many colors and patterns. Some have subtle patterns, others are more distinct. Here's a sample of faux brown marble I painted once. Here the lines are more distinct. The actual piece is just over 4" long.

Although I chose to make my color variations more blended, and thus softer, some like to stipple their marbles. Here's a link to a tutorial that uses stippling.

Once my fireplace was marbleized, I painted the rest of it black. I wanted a polished sheen to it, but the inside needed to remain flat black, so I covered the inside wall with a piece of card stock before spraying the fireplace with a glossy polyurethane finish. I could also have used a satin finish, and I did dither back and forth about which one to use. Either one would have been ok.

I had a hard time deciding on the floor finish. I dithered back and forth over that too. I could have given the floor a historically correct plain painted finish, or given it a sort of geometric stenciled pattern, but wasn't sure if that was what I wanted. I was only sure that I didn't want a stained varnished floor. It happened that I was looking at some photos of historic rooms that had plain stained and unvarnished floors, and then later in the week I saw a couple of movies which featured 18th & 19th century rooms with similar floors. That helped me make up my mind. The easiest and maybe best solution was to stain my floor.
After the stain was dry I sprayed the floorboards with a matte finish, then I "sanded" them smooth with a folded up piece of waxed paper. I had once done a floor that kept needing sanding, then restaining, then sanding, until I got the idea to do a finish sanding with waxed paper. It worked just fine in that case, giving me a smooth floor with the barest hint of a soft sheen.
In the Franklin St. parlor, though, the wood wasn't as cooperative. It still looked a bit too dull, so I used a little spray furniture wax on it. The floor doesn't shine, but it doesn't looked completely dead and flat.

Next I'll glue the fireplace in, and build up a door surround. I'm going to just glue the door to the wall. Then I'll be adding a baseboard, painting the wall beneath the mural Warm White to match the door and woodwork, and adding a chair rail and a bit more molding above the mural.

By the way, just a reminder, we're constantly adding darling new things to our stock at New England Miniatures.
Our newest items are easy to find, just check the New Items Page. They'll remain there for 3-4 weeks (usually).
If you're looking for half scale, check our Half Scale Page. All half scale items are grouped together, and they all start with "1:24".
We started selling metal miniature kits from Phoenix Developments, a while ago, very nice, all quality made in the U.K.

OK. that's enough commercial message for now.

Franklin St- continued -warpage

2010-01-25T13:29:00.000-05:00

This morning I did a bit more gluing. I had discovered, while gluing the lower floor panels, that one of the side walls was warped, an inconvenience, but not really a problem.

I had mentioned that I had a problem with the instructions. Mine said glue and nail the floor panels, but I don't like to nail dollhouses together. For one thing, if I make a tiny mistake, I might wind up with a nail going in off kilter and coming out where it wasn't supposed to. Another is, if the house ever did come apart, from age or accident, I'd hate to have someone faced with old nails sticking out all over. This is why I only use a nail if absolutely necessary. I like to glue this to that to that, and make a strong structure, or sometimes I'll use a screw here and there.

I generally use blocks wherever I can. Here's the underside of the house. The floor panel is glued to the walls, and the blocks (or square dowels) are glued to the walls and floor panel.

The house is upside down and the glue is drying.

Since I'm not putting in the stairs, I'm left with 2 floor panels with cutouts. I used one of them at the very top, again braced with glued square dowels. I've got one wall braced against a wooden box, and the other warped panel is kept in place with a piece of plywood and a heavy paint can. I also needed to use a couple of clamps to keep the dowel and wall butted up tight.

Those of you who've built this kit before may wonder what I'm up to, because what I'm doing doesn't look like either version of the instructions.
It's all because my front panel got warped. My husband had taken everything out of the box when it arrived, because he wanted to see what a dollhouse kit looked like. I was quite annoyed, because I knew it would probably be months before I got started on building it. I was afraid the panels might warp once out of the box.
The bottom of the front panel looks like this.
It's warped at least 1/4" off kilter. I think the only way I could use this panel would be if I glued in a stationary door, with a strong wooden block that ran part of the length of the panel to keep everything in place, an idea I'm not too happy with. On the other hand, I'm not happy that I probably need to make a new front. Of course, I wasn't all that crazy about the big windows on the third floor either.

So, since I need to make changes anyway, I think I might change the roof too, and either make it flat, or gabled with maybe a small attic if one fit. The cutout hole in the floor on the roof or attic doesn't matter, I can cover it with something and there will be no sign of it.
I'm planning on sliding in a new panel to make the ceiling for the third floor room, and I'll also have to make a panel to go between the 2nd and third floor.

Next I'll give the interior doors and moldings their first coat of paint.

Franklin St- continued ------what grooves???

2010-01-23T15:53:00.000-05:00

No pictures today, sorry.
This afternoon I gathered up a big fistful of assorted miniature moldings and stripwood and headed for the basement where I'm building the townhouse. My plan was to get an idea of how I was going to build up the moldings for the interior doors.

After a while I started to wonder if it would be better to paint the doors and their moldings and glue them to the back wall before I started to put the house together. Then I thought maybe I should put it together so I'd be sure of where the floors and ceilings were. There's nothing like the anguish you feel when you find you've glued a door 1/16" too low, and the floors won't fit.

So, I got out my trusty instruction sheets, looked at page one and said "Huh?"

Now, I've got to say, the instructions that came with my kit were not what I would call the best. I didn't have a clue as to what I was supposed to do. I mean, it seemed all forthright and simple when I looked at the pieces of wood, but when I looked at the instructions I became totally confused. I decided to hunt online for a better picture of 333 Franklin St so I could figure out what they were talking about.

Tada! I found dandy instructions on the Real Good Toys site. They made my instruction sheet look like a diagram for connecting a high definition home entertainment system. If you've ever had to put connect all the wires and cables of a home entertainment system, you'll know what I mean. I hate that job.

So, I printed 10 sheets of instructions, then sat down to look them over.

Suddenly I spied something about turning the side wall so the groove is facing up. Groove? What groove? I don't recall any groove.
Could I be guilty of the upmost stupid move in the history of dollhouse kits, of painting a mural on the wrong side of a dollhouse wall? I admit, it's possible. I did find that I glued a wall in upside down or backwards when I built Amos Gooch's cottage. At the time, it looked just like the drawing. I didn't realize till later that when I needed to insert a tab into a certain slot, there was no tab, and that on the other side, there was a gap and something was leaning downhill.

Anyhow, I went down to the basement to take a look. Whew! No grooves.
Well, I guess RGT made a design change in 333 Franklin since they made my kit.

I shall have to think about things some more. I can make adjustments in ceiling heights if I want to, anyway. I'm thinking maybe I should attach the side walls to the back wall, and put in the first and second floor panels. Then I'll add the flooring and glue in the doors and moldings for the parlor and the bedroom.
The third floor walls needed another coat of paint anyway.

For floorboards I'm going to check the wooden placemats I found. I'd heard that lots of people use them all the time, and that they even come in colors. I, of course, had never found ANY in my local stores till last year. I haven't seen them since, either.

Franklin St- continued

2010-01-21T10:35:00.001-05:00

As I mentioned previously, I had made a mess of the second floor wall when I first started this project, and I planned on sanding and perhaps applying drywall compound (aka plaster/stucco) to smooth out the surfaces.
After I sanded, the panel felt pretty smooth, so I decided to try gesso instead of drywall compound. I applied several coats of it, sanding down in between coats, and it did the job pretty well.

I think I must have not noticed that my flash was turned off, so the pictures came out a bit dark.
I used a peach on the second floor, and a blue tinged with lavender on the third floor. I noticed this morning that the blue was a little streaky. I think I probably didn't stir the paint enough. The can of latex paint has been sitting in my basement for 10 or 11 years. It was one of the blue shades I used to rag the walls of my bedroom. I'll have to give the townhouse panels another coat of blue.
If you're interested, the peach paint was supposed to go on my dining room walls when we first painted them 12 years ago, but once we got one wall painted we decided it was the wrong color for that room. I really liked the shade though, it was a delicate rosy peach blush.
Back to the dollhouse....
Each room will have a door that supposedly leads to a hallway.

I'm taking the doors out of their frames, and will make new flat door frames for them.
The doors a little thicker than I'd like, but rather than trying to sand them down thinner, I'm going to build up the frames so they blend the thickness of the door into the walls visually. The crown moldings and baseboards should be larger than we see in today's houses, so I'll be building them up as well.
Before someone mentions that I could have made doors from scratch, I happen to have about 10 doors that I won years ago, and it's about time I used some of them.

333 Franklin St.

2010-01-09T16:37:00.000-05:00

About two years ago I bought a kit, 333 Franklin St. by Real Good Toys. I saw it on sale and it called to me.
I got as far as painting a mural on the first floor walls, then I did a huge botch painting the second floor walls. I tried to wash off the paint before it set, but the back wall was some sort of particle board or something, and it began to bubble up. It looked terrible.
I considered several options for saving the project, but couldn't quite make up my mind as to what I wanted to try. Since I didn't have any real notion of how to decorate the second floor walls (seeing as how I didn't like my first idea), nor what to do with the third floor, I decided to put it all way for a while.

Here's a picture of the living room mural.

The white spaces are where the door and fireplace are to go. If you look carefully, you can see that you're looking at 2 side walls and the back wall.

This morning I decided that the living room will be a parlor, the second floor will be the lady of the house's bedroom, and her maid will be on the third floor. There's just so much one can do with a 3 room house. We'll have to pretend the kitchen is on the back, and we just can't see that part of the house.

I think I'll try sanding the damaged wall a bit, then apply drywall compound (stucco) and see if that will work to smooth things out. I prefer to paint rather than paper, though I do have a few nice wallpapers stashed away. If the stucco doesn't do the trick, I guess I'll have to either paste wallpaper on a cardboard template and insert it, or cut a new back wall. I hope the sanding and stucco works.

Links to tutorials

2009-12-20T15:56:00.000-05:00

HAPPY HOLIDAYS ! ~from New England Miniatures

I've been scouring the globe to try and find instructions for making dollhouses and miniatures that many of you may not have seen before.
The tutorials come in all sorts of languages, but you can use the Google toolbar to translate them into English or for that matter, any other language, even Lithuanian!

Check out the dollhouse tutorials page in New England Miniatures, then go play!

Completed Maine Fisherman's cottage

2009-12-11T09:07:00.000-05:00

Amos and Star are happy with their cottage.
The fellows are having a convivial drink to celebrate. If you peer through the doorway, you might see Amos's cousin Angus. Amos has his cup all ready for him. Angus is also a Maine fisherman, just like Amos and Cap'.

Here's a better view of Angus, who was came with the help of a friend who happened to find him wandering lost on foreign shores.

The last things I did were to add a few recent aquisitions and some curtains for the living room.

I wanted the cottage to have the same kind of curtains it would have had in real life, simple panels strung on a piece of string, the simplest type of curtains there are, only not in mini. Not for me, anyway. It would have been easy to just glue them to some string and have them in the closed position, but I wanted them open.

I remembered I had some Stiffy fabric stiffener, so I decided to see how stiffened panels would come out. I cut small squares from the sleeve of a lightweight summer shirt (it never looked good on me anyway), and wet them with the Stiffy. I then folded them into tiny pleats and let them dry. I used small clamps on the tops so they could dry flat so I could string them. I think I should have tried pinning the lower ends of the folds, so the bottoms wouldn't flatten out, but we live and learn. The next time I stiffen curtains, I'll try running a pin through the bottom sections of the pleats. You might also be able to do this with liquid starch intead of the Stiffy. I didn't have any starch, so I didn't try it.

Making them wasn't very hard, but hanging them was. There may be a simpler method, but it didn't occur to me, so this is what I did.
With a needle, I ran a piece of thread through the backs of the curtain tops. Next I drilled small holes in the window frames where the threads were going to be attached. I used the smallest Dremel drill bit for this. I then snipped some regular sewing pins down to @ 1/4" long, saving the end with the head. If the knotted end of my thread was on the correct side, I could push the pin through the knot, then dip the pin in glue and push it into the drilled hole.
NOTE: If you want to push the kin through the knot, it's easier to push in the pin, THEN shorten it. Some of my knotted ends were on the right side, some weren't.

I checked my fabric panels to see which side looked better. That was the side I was going to let show on the windows.

I let one pin dry in place for each window so they would be secure before I started the next set of pins. I cut the pins, dipped them in glue, and pushed them about halfway into the holes. Next I pulled the curtain strings tight and wound them around the pins a few times, securing them with a dab of hot glue, then pushed the pins firmly in place. If the curtain strings sag a little, it's ok, they would in real life too.
Here's a view of one side of the room. Note I dirtied the windows in an authentic seacoast Maine manner. OK, so they got dirty without my help, but my real life windows get to looking like that very quickly, and I'm sure Amos has more important things to do than wash windows.

I had found a couple of cute duck decoys while I was out shopping, and figured Amos would like them. I placed the other one atop his kitchen cupboard.

Here's the stove side of the room.

You can see the wear and tear on Amos's cupboard. When you distress a pice of furniture, make sure you think about where normal wear and tear naturally occurs, around knobs, at the bottom, where feet, brooms and mops may continually bump against the cabinet, on the side corners where chairs may scrape or the front lip, where things may be bumped as furniture is moved, or in this case, as dishes are continually laid down while they're put away.

Star is happily playing with her puppy in her room. Furnishings are a little sparse, but that would be normal for a child around 1900 and earlier. I'm pretending her doll is sleeping in a drawer somewhere. Every old fashioned girl should have a dolly. Frankly, I didn't feel like making one, nor did I see one anywhere that I thought would suit. If I ever do, Star will get it.

Here's another picture, showing the bed better. In case you missed it, here's the post about the bed, called Star has hair. Until recently, she didn't.

Oh yes, here's a view of the front corner where the benches are so you can see the plants behind them. I think the fellows were sitting there the last time I took pictures.

By the way, I heard that Amos's old faithless sweetheart Persis was back in town. You remember, the one who left him and ran off with the man on the flying trapeze? Well, it turned out that Willoughby Snavely, the trapeze artiste, was just a snake in the grass. He eventually left Persis in the lurch when a pretty young magician's assistant joined the circus. Persis hasn't improved with age, though, and Amos is steering clear of her.

Star Gooch has hair!

2009-12-06T15:58:00.002-05:00

Amos's little daughter is no longer bald.

She seems to be enjoying her fluffy curls. Wave to the nice people, Star. She's downstairs in my living room sitting on her freshly made bed. Don't bounce on the bed, dear, you could break it.

I also made her a pillow. I used some stiffish cotton fabric, and cut a small rectangle from an old bath towel for pillow batting.

Curtains were on today's agenda too, but they're not quite done. I still have to figure out the logistics of hanging them the way I want to.

PS:
In case you haven't checked, I have lots of tutorial links on the New England Miniatures tutorials page. I just added a few more a few days ago.

Continued here

Amos's Cottage - exterior

2009-11-23T09:02:00.002-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I finished playing about with Amos's garden, and I wanted to get some pictures before the sun went down.
A few people thought there should be a seagull somewhere. Well, I bought some seagulls several years ago when I first got the idea for Amos's cottage. They've been hanging around waiting for a place to settle themselves ever since. One has settled atop Amos's roof.

Star has been playing at cooking in the side yard. She's been preparing a tasty leaf stew. I hope she remembers to pick up her toys before it gets dark.
I suddenly felt I just had to have some antique style lobster buoys, which were final items I added to the front yard. The other seagull is nearby. You might recognize the bird bath as New England Miniatures' HN142. The Victorian front yard just cried out for a birdbath.

The side of the cottage.

Here's a closer look at the lumber pile and the bouys.

To make the dirt, I first glued on some sand using a spray adhesive, just as I did for the sandy area in the front of the house. After brushing off the loose sand, I painted the remaining sand with brown paint. Some of the sand stuck to the paint as I went along, but it didn't matter, plenty of sand was left in place.
After the paint was fairly dry, I sprinkled a little more sand here and there. I thought I was going to need to spray on a little more adhesive to keep it down, but it turned out that I didn't need to.

Here's a closer look at the dirt.

Continued here

Amos Gooch's garden, continued

2009-11-17T14:53:00.003-05:00

It's been a while since I've been able to get back to working on Amos Gooch's cottage. Today I'll show you what I've just finished. There's still a bit more to do to the garden, and I'm hoping I can finish that this week.
Here's the front of the house as it looks now. I still need to finish applying sand to the right hand side, and I feel the yard still needs a little something in the foreground on the left.

I used the wooden, unfinished napkin ring to make a keg for Amos to sit on. I cut a top out of basswood, and sanded the edges a bit so it wouldn't stick out, then I stained it with some brown paint thinned with water. I applied two different shades of brown. If my cans of stain had been at hand, I could have used them, but the paint was handier. I applied it just like a stain, paint on, wipe off. I used first one color, then another. Just a reminder, if you want to use paint like a stain, water it down. Also, there are acrylic stain mediums you can buy, if you prefer. Just mix the medium with an acrylic paint, and it becomes a stain.

Some barrels and kegs are held together with iron bands, while others used wooden or leather straps. Since my napkin holder had wider, rounded lips at top and bottom, I decided to go with the wooden strap look.

I blended a little water into a brown paint, and applied it to the rounded lip of the napkin ring, doing a section at a time. I immediately wiped off the excess paint.

I also gave the walk a coat of paint. It's supposed to represent crushed shell. below you can see it partially painted.

Here's what my pallette looked like. There's white and Payne's Gray on either side, and in between is a mixture. The very white parts of the picture are just reflected light. I'll mix a bit of paint and apply it to the walk, then dip my brush in lighter or darker paint as I need to. The walk should be white, but not pure white. The variations in gray need to be subtle.
Here's a view of the new section of garden.

More sand has to be glued onto the board, and I may still add a few more little plants. The side still has to be done. I'm thinking of painting the sand to simulate soil, to make it all look a little more interesting, and I still want to add a bit more greenery along this side of the house.

Continued here

Amos's Lumber Pile

2009-10-18T18:48:00.002-04:00

This afternoon I got back to work on Amos's yard.
First I glued some "mulch mix" in the planting areas out in front of the house. I'll often just paint in my dirt, or maybe mix a little sand with the paint, but this time I reached for the coffee grounds-tea leaf mixture that I used for the Bungalow's garden. I felt I needed more texture to contrast with the sand.

Next I glued in the plants just how I showed them in the last Gooch post. As you can see, I did decide to use the tall grass, using some shorter ones to blend everything together. That old standby filler, reindeer moss, helps as a ground cover, hiding lumps of glue or plastic.

I felt I needed something else along the side of the house besides plants. A barrel seemed to be a good choice, and I happen to have a nice unpainted wooden barrel on NEM,Item #AN141 and here it is.
And now it looks like this.

I started by painting the inside of it a dark brown. Next I used some dark brown and a lighter, warmer brown color. Color names don't really matter, since brands use different names for the same or similar colors. The dark brown looked like milk chocolate, the lighter brown looked more like nutmeg.
I dipped my brush in water, then in the darker brown paint and started squiggling the brown paint on part of the outside of the barrel. Then I dipped the wet brush in some of the nutmeg color and started squiggling it on, overlapping the wet paint and dry, fresh wood. I more or less sqiggled them together, then while the paint was still wet, I wiped the barrel with a paper towel to get the extra paint off. This way you wind up with a stained look rather than a painted one. Of course, I could have used stain, but it was down in the basement and I was up in my studio over the garage and I didn't feel like going all the way down then all the way back upstairs.

Anyway, you get a more aged effect using the paint. As always, when you want to try something like this, try it first on pieces of scrap wood. It's an easy technique, but you have to get a feel for it.

When the paint was dry, I used a black Sharpie marker to draw in the lines for the boards. They don't have to be perfect. Afterwards, I painted on the iron bands with black paint.
For the scrap lumber I just used the bits and pieces of wood I saved from other projects. I stained them with watery paint, rubbing off the extra paint before they were dry. I used a few different shades to make them look more interesting. I poured some wood glue into the bottom of the barrel, and stuck in the scrap wood.

I used more scrap pieces for the stack on the ground, also staining them with paint. I used hot glue for the top plank that's sort of diagonal, wood glue for the rest.
I spread a little glue on the base, sprinkled on some sand, and then artfully arranged some more greenery to make everything blend together naturally.

Continued here

Amos Gooch's front yard

2009-10-05T09:38:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend I worked a bit on Amos's house. I felt like starting something fresh, so I began work on his front yard.
Here we see Amos and Cap having a smoke out front. Amos is sitting on a napkin ring, yes a napkin ring. I found this unpainted wooden napkin ring and it reminded me of those old time kegs that came in assorted shapes and sizes, so I set it aside til I needed it. Cap is sitting on a piece of broken coaster set holder.
OK, I bought a set of coasters, and they came in a wooden tray, but once I opened the package I saw the tray was broken, which didn't matter, I never use those holders anyway. The two halves of the holder do look like benches, though. I'm still not sure if Cap prefers the bench or another seat, he hasn't expressed an opinion.

First, I needed to decide on the front walk. Originally, I thought maybe sand, but then decided that wouldn't be right, a crushed shell walk would be better. I was NOT however, about to start pulverizing sea shells to make them small enough for 1:12 scale. I decided to try and easier route, that old standby, drywall compound.

You're seeing it unpainted, and still damp. I spread some glue on the base, then spread on the stucco. Next I used a stipple brush, the kind you use for stenciling, and started pouncing the brush up and down all over the stucco. This made quite a few pointy bits that stuck up, so I waited a while til the compound had begun to set and dry a little, then used my finger to pat the pointy bits down.
Hopefully, after I've painted it, it will look like crushed shells.

You could do the same thing to give a wall that rough stucco look. It also reminds me of some of English houses I've seen in some old photos. They had rough stucco with pebbles in them, sometimes they were larger, more like small stones. I seem to remember a dollhouse made around 1900 with the same look. You could stick tiny pebbles in the stucco.

Next I started on the soil.
I wanted a mix of soil and sand,with a bit of grass. Since I've used painted sand to simulate grass in the past, I thought I may as well sand one side of the yard and see how it went.
I started by spreading some glue on the base, and then spreading some sand on it and pressing it down. Then I remembered my can of spray adhesive and thought I may as well try using it to glue on the rest of the send. It would certainly be better than having a glue coated finger.
I sprayed some adhesive in the rest of the section, shielding the wall with a piece of cardboard. Then I spread some sand and patted it down. After several minutes I brushed off the loose sand, first with my hand, then a soft brush.
It looked pretty good, but I felt I needed more sand, so I resprayed and added more sand, repeating the process as before.
I found that as I brushed off the extra sand, It just kept coming off tiny bit by tiny bit, so I decided to try spraying adhesive over all of it to keep it in place.
It stayed tacky for a while, and I started to worry a little, but as it dried it got firmer.

Next I painted some brown dirt for planting areas, and decided to try out some plants.
I found a great looking silk spider plant on sale a while ago. The baby plants hanging on the trailing stems were perfect for mini gardens. Two of them are in the corner.

I had also found two little clay pots with plastic grass "growing" in them. I thought the grasses would be great in some mini gardens, and I could use the pots for planters. I'll have to take a picture of the one I haven't taken apart. You can see a section of tall grass behind the other plants.
I'm not sure if I'm going to use the tall grass in Amos's yard yet or not. I merely drilled the holes to I could stick some plants in temporarily, to see how they'd look.
I wish I could do that in a real-life garden. Invariably, I'll plant something, and then, when it's growing, wished I'd planted it somewhere else or maybe a foot or two over.

Continued here

A Faux stone floor

2009-09-28T20:40:00.000-04:00

This evening I've been rearranging links for New England Miniatures, trying to make the Links page a little easier to navigate. I decided to move my description of how I used drywall compound to make a stone floor here, instead of on its own page.
By the way, sometimes it's called drywall compound, other times stucco, or some refer to it as wall plaster.

Here's a picture that gives a better view of the floor of Tall Chimneys kitchen. I spread the drywall compound and let it dry a few minutes so it wasn't gloppy. I used a pencil to lightly trace out the shapes of the stones. If you press down on the pencil too much you make ridges, not enough and your stones tend to become indistinct. It takes a few practice trys. I made a couple of errors and just resmeared it up and started over. When your stones are drawn let the floor dry thoroughly overnight or at least a few hours. I next sanded the floor where I had any unwanted bumps and ridges. After that I started smoothing it with a damp rag. A damp rag is the same as sandpaper to unpainted drywall compound. I didn't want the stones perfectly smooth, but I didn't want them lumpy, either. I just kept working with the rag til I got the look I wanted. The nice thing is, if you feel you have totally botched the whole thing, or even just one section of it, you can reapply compound and start over or fix a section. I know, I goofed a couple of times and had to do a fix.

When you're happy with your stones you can paint them. I like to use color washes when I paint stones. I'll cover the stones in a base color, then start applying washes. You can wait for the base to dry or you can apply the washes right over it while its damp. The look can differ a bit one way or the other, you have to try and see what you prefer. To make the washes I select the other colors I want to show up in my stones. I don't recall the exact blend. Most likely it was a mix of ochre, off white, a beigey color, a brown...Color washes are easy to use. They're wet and just flow right onto the surface when you touch your brush to it. If you don't care for the color you can go over it with another wash and change it, or you can intensify it. I did a bit of color washing over my base color in a general way for the first step, giving the whole floor a sort of subtlely mottled appearance. I then began to pay attention to the individual stones. I'd do a stone here and there in a browner wash, then others with an off white wash til I was satisfied. The whole secret to successful painting techniques is to relax, let your wrists loosen up and just fool around with it til it begins to get comfortable and it seems to just naturally flow. I've made many stupid painting mistakes when I was tense and worried how it was going to turn out. It's funny, after years of painting I'm still pleased and surprised when things turn out just right.

A rag-rug idea

2009-09-16T09:57:00.000-04:00

I had this idea for a while, for an easy to make rag rug.
I made one for Miss Frobisher's Cottage, back when I was new to making miniatures. I placed strips of embroidery floss side by side and stitched them together with my sewing machine. While I was doing it I kept thinking there had to be an easier way, maybe with spray adhesive?
Well, it took me enough years to finally buy some spray adhesive and try it.
It doesn't look bad at all. I should have spent more time on it, some of the threads got crossed, leaving a few little gaps, but I realized that it was almost 3:30 and I had to get dinner started before family started asking me "is there anything to eat around here?"

I used some embroidery floss my daughter left behind when she moved out years ago, and some cheesecloth. Old gauze bandage would do fine too. I've got some that's been sitting in my dresser drawer for 15 years from when I burned my hand. I should move it to my studio where I could get some use out of it.

I started by cutting out a piece of gauze and laying it on my table, then I cut lengths of embroidery floss a bit longer than the size of the rug I wanted.
I sprayed the cheesecloth with adhesive, and started laying down strips of the floss. It does get to be a bit of a sticky job. I found the best way to do it was to lay down the thread, then hold it down on the gauze at one end while I slid my finger along the thread to lay it flat on the gauze. Then I'd reverse and smooth the other way. I could lay down several threads, then I found that I needed to give the gauze another spritz of glue to continue.
I also learned that it doesn't matter if the glue sprays onto the threads.
Here's a picture of the rug and how it looks from underneath.
I made the rug bigger than I needed it to be, so I could cut off the raggeddy ends.
The spray adhesive stiffens up the rug a bit, and it lays flat.

If you're a bit more careful than I was, taking a little more time, you should have a very nice little rug without too much effort.

About horseshoe hanging

2009-09-12T09:19:00.000-04:00

I keep hearing from people that the horseshoe above the cabin door should be hung with the ends up, or good luck will run out.
I just rehung it the way it was in the first place, because there was a shadow of glue left on the wall.

I knew there had to be conflicting folklore about horseshoe hanging, because so many horseshoes are pointed downwards, not upwards.

On the subject of hanging horseshoes:

In depends on where you're from how they're supposed to be hung.
It seems that the horseshoe was associated with good fortune, period.

In some places, they say hang it upwards, so luck won't run out. In others, If it's upwards, the devil will find himself a seat above your door. In an old English tradition, bad luck could be aquired, but good luck could be taken away, so never hang your horseshoes upwards or bad luck will fill it up and enter your home.

Folklore says if you find a horseshoe, take it home with you for luck. On the other hand, if you find a horseshoe, throw it over your shoulder for luck.

There's lots more horseshoe folklore out on the internet, I won't repeat it all. It's pretty much like that old nursery rhyme:

See a penny, pick it up,
All the day you'll have good luck.

See a penny, let it lay,
Or bad luck will follow you all the day.

PS: I was just checking to see if I remembered the rhyme correctly, and it seems there are variations on the rhyme too. Picking up pennies could be good or bad, depending on cisrcumstances.

Some days you just can't win. My teenaged son doesn't believe in luck, period.

The restored shadowbox

2009-09-11T08:49:00.001-04:00

In the midst of measuring and taking pictures of the miniatures that arrived for NEM this week, I managed to take a little time off and finish the shadow box.
By the way, would you care to take a peek at what's new on the New Items page of New England Miniatures? I'll just wait here til you get back.

The final additions to the cabin are the bedding on the bunkbeds and the restoration of the door.
To make the bedding, I cut some small squares from the sleeve of one of my old shirts, and some foam to make mattresses. A while ago I bought some spray adhesive, and I finally got to try it out. I sprayed it on the fabric, then folded it over the mattress. I also happened to have some no stitch fabric glue I'd never used before. I put dabs of the glue on the top and bottom ends of the folded fabric and stuck them to the underside of the mattress to make a little foam package.
For the pillows, I used a little cotton canvas cloth which I folded over a few times. Then I hem stitched the edges. If I had glued them, they'd have probably laid pretty flat, and I wanted them to puff just the tiniest bit.

I decided to repaint my own version of the original scene that was in the doorway.
Originally I couldn't decided if the white and purple thing in the original scene was a mountain hanging in mid air or a poorly painted cloud, but as I was relaxing and watching TV the other night, I saw a snow covered mountain, with a foggy valley below it. That's when I knew it was supposed to be a mountain.
I painted in a forest below the mountain.

I'll be getting back to working on Amos's cottage again. I ran into a little problem with his daughter, Star. The poor little thing is now totally bald. When I bought her, she had a straw hat glued to her head. I had snipped off the hat when she played little Red Riding Hood, but there was still some straw left on her crown. I thought if I took her hair off altogether, I might be able to peel off the rest, but it didn't work. I guess I'll have to find some hair for Star.
Here's how she looked as Red Riding Hood.

The Shadowbox restoration

2009-09-07T10:50:00.001-04:00

Half of the room is finished.
I had started by cleaning whatever parts of the wood I could with vinegar.
I discovered that it was covered with a stain, that started coming off together with the decades worth of dirt, so I had to decide what I could clean and what should be left pretty much alone.
The stain and painted lines that made up the boards on the back wall tended to wash off easily with a little scrubbing, as I learned while trying to remove the glue that was behind the picture in the doorway. While trying to clean off the glue that held the horseshoe, I inadvertantly removed much of the stain. I tinted the area a little before gluing the horseshow back on, and before I'm done I'll retint to even out the color better.
I've received 2 messages from readers that the horseshoe should be facing upwards, so the luck wouldn't run out.
Well, I knew about that, but decided to replace the horseshoe in its original position.
This side is finished. The original glue turned out to be water soluble, but since scrubbing also removed the stain, I recided to just wet the glue, then scrape it off with a knife blade. Two or three wettings and scrapings were usually enough to remove most of the glue. Some of the glue I left alone, rather than run the risk of damaging the surface.
I could tell from glue residue, that some of the original pieces were missing. Of the items that had been added in my childhood, I chose to keep the 2 plastic barrels, the comb, and the black barrel, which I repainted olive green.
Also, rather than set the accessories in place with a liquid glue, I decided to use glue dots. By the way, although the plastic barrels on the top shelf look almost white in the picture, in real life they're a darker gray and blend in better. They were another reason for using glue dots. If at some point, I decided I wanted to swap them for wooden accessories, the glue dots should be easier to remove.
I had mentioned I had a leftover lid, and no pot to put it on. I found that it fit the top of the bowl nicely. I put some white poster putty in the bowl, the lid on top and squeezed tight til the lid was firmly in place.
I still had some space to fill, so I turned to some unpainted wooden pieces I had purchased at a craft shop.

They're on the second shelf. The original pieces were painted with oil paints. For a while I wondered if I should get out my oil paints and freshen them up a bit, but I decided against it. Instead I selected some acrylic colors that would blend with the other pieces. To age the fresh paint I used my oil pastel crayons. I rubbed my finger on the brown crayon, then rubbed some of the color onto the freshly painted bowl, and then did the same thing with the black crayon. Most people don't happen to have oil pastels in the house, but a piece of charcoal, or some ashes should work the same way. Try rubbing your finger on the charcoal briquet, or charcoal drawing stick, then on the thing you want to age.
After being aged, the item needs to be sprayed with a protective covering, or the dirt and age could come off. I sprayed mine with Krylon matte finish. I've found over the years, that though the product dulls down a shiny photograph, which is what it was originally meant for, it leaves a very soft sheen when sprayed on wooden painted items. This sheen matched the old plates, etc, perfectly,
I nested a small red bowl within the ochre bowl with a glue dot. Next to the bowls stands a bottle I painted olive green.
Finally, I thought I needed a little something else. I remembered that the ad for the other room had a broom, so I made one and stuck it in the corner.

The restored shadow box

1940's Shadowbox

2009-08-30T09:58:00.002-04:00

We went to the miniatures trade show last weekend, and returned with a back seat full of bags of miniatures, which are finally all sorted, tagged, photographed, measured, and in the store. The US mail, UPS, and Fedex will be arriving with more things to sort, tag, photograph, measure, and add to the store during the next few weeks. Some, I am sure, are on their way right now.

Meanwhile, last night I started fooling about with my mother's 1940's kitchen room box. I wrote a little about it in my post about the kitchen roombox I made for my mom several years ago.
I found this ad in the back of the April, 1947 issue of Good Housekeeping magazine. Back then, the box cost #4.95, postpaid. My version is a little different, but it was obviously made by the same company.
I noticed last night, that the door in my little room could be opened. There was no knob, and I couldn't see any sign of glue from one, but since the frame was coming unglued, I pried it off. I found a painted scene inside.
Although the scene looks pretty fresh in this photo, in real life it was terribly grungy. I took a chance and tried to wipe off some of the grime, but discovered it was painted in watercolor. I dried the sections I had wiped right away. I'll be painting a new scene.
You'll notice in the picture, that the door has a Z on it, to simulate the cross boards. The front of the door is plain, so I imagine it was meant to stay open. Maybe that's why the frame work structure next to the door confused me originally. I had guessed that it was meant to be bunkbeds, and once I took a close look, I could see that nothing had been glued to it. With the door open like that, it's obvious that they're bunkbeds. I'll have to make some bedding for them.

Here's a closeup of the fireplace, with a fire painted on the wooden boards.
The paint used on the chimney is an oil paint, and I found I could wash it with no trouble. The hanging put is securely attached on a wire, and I won't try to remove it for cleaning. The red pot next to the fireplace is also firmly attached. One of the benches was partially loose, and when I cleaned the table, I found that the glue on the back leg washed off easily. I thought I'd try to pry off the bench, but discovered that it was nailed to a support, and wouldn't come out without a fight. I decided not to fight. Apparently several kinds of paint and glue were used on this scene. Some wash off, some don't.
You can see what the wood originally looked like, underneath the painted door panel.
The splotchiness is where it's still damp. I had to remove the old glue and bits of cardboard that were under the original scene. I decided to use vinegar, and although it loosened up the debris, I found that the lines that simulated the boards and nails were done in a paint that could wash off with a little scrubbing.
I think the only further cleaning I'll do will be the gentle kind.
Many of the original pieces are left. I can pretty much tell where they might have originally stood, because of the glue marks and residue on the table and shelves.
I have one extra lid. It doesn't fit the red pot by the stove properly, so I think I may be missing a pot.
I also found some extras that I and maybe my younger sister added to the scene. I think my mother had stashed away the shadowbox before my brother and youngest sister showed up.
The two gray barrels are plastic and say "powder". I remember having a western style playset, maybe they came from that. The other, black barrel, was originally red. the black paint washed off and made a huge mess when I started cleaning it last night. The green lid and bowl are plastic. The bowl is stamped made in Hong Kong. The comb is plastic, painted tan, and the wooden yellow ball fits the extra red lid, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't an original piece.
The metal "cauldron" looks like it was an ashtray.
. There's some paint on it, which I'd like to remove, but there are also some tiny spots of rust on the metal. I don't want to damage it. Even if I don't replace it in this scene, I may want to use it in another project. It's cute.

If you'd like to read about the restoration, click here.

Amos Gooch's Cottage - part 5 a new table

2009-08-12T14:02:00.003-04:00

Last time I was left with a table that was the right size and shape, but the wrong color. It was white, and the chairs were light oak. Now they're not.

Yes, that's the transformed white table and oak chairs. Originally I was thinking of maybe painting the table blue, like the cabinet. I went to get my can of spray primer, but I had none. I knew we had a can of regular brush on indoor latex primer, but once I got the lid off I discovered that it was full of rust, and no good to me at all. I was ready to paint, but had no primer.
I tried just brushing the paint on the table, but it didn't cover very well, and I knew I'd wind up painting several coats, and sanding, and probably wind up with a mess, but then I noticed something and it gave me an idea.
As I swirled the brush back and forth over the table, it left a pattern, a pattern that reminded me of a very common 19th century faux finish. I cleaned my brush and got out some pleasing looking brown paint.
I simply started brushing brown paint on the underside of the table, then, when the white was covered, I swirled and zigzagged the brush til I was left with a pattern I liked. I did the same thing to the pedestal. After the paint was dry, I found a tiny speck of white here and there, or maybe a section that I thought should have had a bit more color and brushed on a tiny bit more paint where I felt it was needed.
When the paint was dry, I sprayed on some Krylon Crystal Clear acrylic finish. I bought it recently, mainly because it would dry quickly, and I've only used it a couple of times, but so far I like it.
I waited a day or so and gave the underside of the table a gentle scratch test, and it passed, so I started painting the table top, and this is how it came out, once it was had a spray finish.
All I did was brush the paint on, zigzagging the brush back and forth all the way across the table, then I turned the table so I could zigzag the brush going across in the other direction. I let the paint dry, then sprayed on the finish.
I'll give the table yet another coat of finish later on.

I'd seen similar patterns in faux wood graining on 19th c. furniture, and if Amos could paint that pretty leaf pattern on the bedroom floor, he could certainly have painted this table during a cold Maine winter.
I painted the chairs the same way, only I decided to paint the spindles black for contrast.
You may have noted a couple of other additions to the room. There's a large pelican. I believe Cap' carved it as a gift. There's also a new oil lamp hanging over the table. Unfortunately, the manufacturer stopped making those lamps a year or two ago.

Continued here

Amos Gooch's Cottage - part 4, interior

2009-08-07T20:00:00.002-04:00

I was still working on a couple of furniture pieces as I ended the last post. Here’s a picture of one of them, the low, country red cabinet, also distressed.

I was also working on a small dresser. I had an unpainted dresser that had a gouge on one side, too much roughness on another side, and a couple of drawers that didn’t fit very well, so I decided to see if I could salvage any of it.
Below is a picture of a complete unpainted dresser, the upper part of the flawed one and some dollhouse molding. At the bottom of the picture you can see a section of molding that I cut from the longer piece. I trimmed off the scallops, and I’m going to use it to fill in the open bottom of the little dresser.
And thanks to the magic of digital photography, here it is, all finished. I painted it, and added painted wooden knobs.
I needed a bed to go with the dresser for the little girl’s room upstairs. I had a stash of several wooden beds I bought for 50 cents a piece a couple of years ago. The bed was too high, so I cut it down, closer to the floor, and painted it to match the dresser.
I’ve been adding furniture to the main room. I had wanted to include the firehouse chair. It would have been so right for a room like this, but 4 chairs were too many, and 3 different chairs didn’t look right either.
Although I really like this table, it just doesn’t look right to me in this room.

It doesn’t seem to matter what way I turn it, it just doesn’t look quite right. I think there may be too many legs in the picture.
I do have a round table, which does seem to give the room a better symmetry. It’s white, though. I could use the darker brown version, but I don’t think I want a dark table. I could wait for an oak round table, but I don’t want to. I’m on a creative roll here, and I don’t want to stop and wait for a new table that might be a little bigger. This table is part of Lee’s Line miniature furniture, and it’s just a little smaller than some of the other round tables that are available.

The round drop leaf table would be a good size, but it doesn't fit my mental picture of the finished room. The stands true for the square drop leaf table
I think I’ll spray the white table with primer, then paint it, either a golden blond color sort of like the chairs or maybe blue like the cabinet.

So, here sit our friends, Amos and Cap’, having a bit out of the jug. Cap seems to be intent on making his point clear. Amos seems to be more of a laid back kind of guy.
Oh yes, I’d like to introduce Star, Amos’s adopted daughter. Her room seems to be just right for her. She already has her own puppy and a wagon to pull. I think she wants to go berry picking.

Continued here

Amos Gooch's Cottage - part 3, cabinets

2009-08-04T20:53:00.002-04:00

Feeling on a roll, with some furniture ideas in my head, and the laundry all done, I spent some time in my studio.

Here’s the Michael’s hutch. I added a couple of nonworking drawers in the middle, where it originally had an open space. Also, I changed the knobs, and gave it a little “wear and tear”.
I sanded off some of the paint in strategic places, like around the knobs, and just below the upper cabinet doors where people might have put things down over and over as they arranged the plates and put things away. A few scuffs on the front corners and along the bottom front would be appropriate too.
I also decided to use part of another hutch to make a low cabinet to go under a window. It was handy, I had already used the top half on another project, and it was just the right size.
I flipped it upside down, using the base as the top, although I trimmed the overhang a bit. Here it is next to what became the blue cabinet as I was working on both of them.
Yes, I added a drawer façade to the low cabinet too. I use scraps of whatever I have handy to make false drawers. For the low cabinet I used a piece of L molding from the lumber yard.
I cut and sanded it to fit the space, then I made a cut to simulate a gap between “drawers”.
Next I applied some glue to the inside of the cabinet and inserted the L molding.
I also filled in the holes where the original knobs were.
I felt the cabinet needed some little feet. Sometimes I’ll use small wooden balls, but this time I chose bun feet. I can’t remember what these little bowl shaped things were called. I don’t think they were miniature bowls, though.
They do make dandy feet for furniture.

I still have to finish painting it and add the knobs.

Continued here

Amos Gooch's Cottage - part 2

2009-08-02T16:25:00.001-04:00

My original concept for Amos’s cottage was of a house unfinished because of a faithless sweetheart. I had stained the shingles, using Minwax cherry stain, because it was supposed to be a pretty new house.
Now that Amos is older, the house needed to look older too. The shingles should look weathered, so I weathered them with paint.

I used acrylic craft paints, white, Payne’s gray and a small touch of Hauser medium green.
Payne’s gray is a purplish black color, when mixed with white it makes a bluish gray. I can’t exactly explain why I added the Hauser green, it just seemed the right thing to do. It’s how the color Green Earth, or Terre Verte, changes some colors. I was out of Green Earth, and Hauser Green seemed a good substitute.

I started by mixing the colors, then, with some of the paint still on the brush, I dipped the brush in water and began brushing water on the brown shingles.
If you apply the paint directly, the shingles will absorb more paint, and you’ll get a painted look. Wetting them first makes them absorb the paint more like a stain.
On the roof you can see I’m applying the wash quite quickly, the camera couldn’t keep up. I’m slopping it on and spreading it around.
Here I’m applying the gray paint. It’s not very thick, but not runny, either. I just keep brushing it on rather quickly. When you water down a paint, it acts like a stain. The depth of color depends on how much water you add.

After the first coat of weathering gray paint had dried, I applied another coat. You can see the lighter area has the second coat, the browner areas of wall are where I had applied the paint the day before.

It’s going to look a little streaky when it’s done, which is good. A point to keep in mind though, you want your streaks going the right way, up and down, or straight across on horizontal boards like the caps on top of the roof. They should never, ever, ever go diagonally.

Here’s the cottage, nicely stained a weathered gray.

Here’s a picture of my neighbor’s garage.

The color is pretty close. Actually, that garage was originally stained a light green, but to the previous owner’s chagrin, after a dozen years or so the green faded away altogether. Up under the eaves, you can still see a little of the original brown cedar shingles. Amos’s cottage shows a bit of the original brown here and there too. Wherever I had a little brown left in what I thought were the wrong places, I just dabbed on a little watered down gray paint. When it dried, it blended in with everything else.

On the roof edges, where you can see the ends of the shingles, and the plywood roof below, I used straight gray paint, without the preliminary wash. The rough wood absorbs the paint very quickly, and painting them, in the end, gives a stained look anyway.

I also brushed the watered down gray paint on the blue roof and the front door. I gave the roof several brush coats, it gave a nice aged look. I gave the front door one coat, then rubbed some of it off. The gray settled in the grooves of the wood, and mottled a little on the door, and I liked the look. It wound up looking like a door that could use a new coat of paint.

A word about roofing shingles. You may have noticed some of my shingles go a little higlety piggelty, a bit wavy. I just like that look. Sometimes roofing shingles should go on straight, but other times, like on cottages, they add a cuteness factor. I’m a sucker for a cute roof. :)

On the inside, I filled in a few gaps in the “plaster”. I used drywall compound and my usual supple artist’s palette knife. Some knives are fairly rigid. I like the ones that give a bit when pressed. I also decided to try a 1” disposable foam brush to spread the putty around and into the corners where the gaps were. It worked pretty well, working the putty into the gaps and smoothing it out.

When it was time to sand the repairs I used a combination of a foam sanding pad and an emery board. It also struck me that the foam brush might make a good wet sander for a few places, so I dipped it in water, squeezed out the excess and rubbed away. It did a pretty decent job.
By the way, I’ve found that if you cut the end of an emery board straight across, you can get into corners and tight spaces with it. Sometimes I’ll even bend the emery board into an L shape.

Continued here

Amos Gooch's Cottage part 1

2009-07-24T16:44:00.001-04:00

It's been over four years since I built this Buttercup cottage by Greenleaf into Amos Gooch's cottage, and I never finished it.
Originally the story was that Amos was building a home for his future bride, the lovely Persis Huff.
Amos was a lobsterman, back in the 1880's. He lived in Cape Porpoise, Maine. Yes, there really is a Cape Porpoise, so named by John Smith, the Pocahontas John Smith, that is.
One day the circus came to town, and Amos took Persis to see it. That's where Persis met the man on the flying trapeze. When the circus left, Persis packed her bags and went with it, and with the man on the flying trapeze. Persis was later sighted in Bangor wearing pink tights and a spangled bodice in the bigtop.
Amos was crushed.
One day he sailed away into the morning sun, never to be seen in Cape Porpoise again. Some said that he eventually married a widow up in Skowhegan, but no one knew for sure.
THE END
I had meant to landscape the front, later on, after I did something more to the inside, but I reached a standstill. I knew what I wanted on the outside, but not what to do with the tiny 2 rooms.

I had glued horizontal "boards" to the interior walls. It was a common practice in the 1700 and 1800's to nail boards like this to help keep the house warmer. As a bachelor fisherman, Amos would have found his home to be snug and warm during nor'easters, but his future bride would have preferred a nice wallpaper.

I decided to use some thin birch plywood to cut the floorboards, mainly because a had a leftover piece that would make just the right amount of boards. Waste not - want not. I always save my leftover bits and pieces. You never know when they may be useful.
I should have cut the ends off a little more evenly though. Sometimes I get carried away. It's ok, I'll fix that up later.
I am very proud of my nicely scuffed and worn floor, though.

I started by painting it brown. I thinned the paint with water, so it wound up halfway between a stain and paint. In the old days, people painted their floors, they didn't necessarily stain them. Their color of choice was often brown.
After the paint was dry I used a fine sanding sponge to smooth the boards. Of course, you'd get the most wear and tear on a floor at the door. Amos would probably not have thought to use a doormat anyway. I sanded that area with a little more pressure, just enough to remove most of the paint right where anyone coming in would have put their foot down. Next I needed to decide on a "trail" where there would be added scuffing. For instance, maybe Amos headed for the stove or his favorite chair whenever he came in. The floor would show more wear heading in that direction. I also gave a mild scuffing to the floor in general, but keeping in mind that floors in corners or along walls almost never get scuffed.
Finally, I rubbed the floor a little with steel wool.

Once I finished off a stained floor with waxed paper. I had sprayed the floor with a matte finish to seal it, but when I was done found that the floor was still the teensiest bit rough here and there. I knew from past experience that if I sanded it again, or even just buffed it with steel wool, I'd take some of the stain off. I suddenly thought of waxed paper, and I tried buffing the floor with a piece of it and it turned out great. It had a nice satiny smooth finish, with no obvious shine, just a bit of a luster.

Back to Amos's house......

I had recently read an account about an inexpensive way Victorians decorated their floors, and I wanted to do that in the cottage. They would paint the floor a solid color, then stencil a border around the edges of the room, imitating a carpet. Carpets were expensive, many people couldn't afford them. A fellow like Amos might have decided to paint a pretty leafy border on the bedroom floor to please his darling bride. I decided to just use a light stain on that floor, not paint. I felt the light wood color with the leafy vines would look better.

So there I was, that's as far as I got.
A couple of years ago I bought a Chrysnbon stove kit. Recently I started visualizing it in Amos's house, so I put it together.
I'm beginning to think that after many years, Amos came home to his cottage in Cape Porpoise.
I looked through my personal dollhouse furniture stash, then through the New England Miniatures stock to see what I could find suitable.
I found I had a problem. The room was really small. The windows were in the way. Most of the furniture was a little too big to fit to suit me.

I tried out some of the chairs that fit my vision of Amos's house, and as you can see, those 3 chairs alone take quite a bit of room. I do want a couple of chairs that Amos and his pal can relax in, so I'm leaning towards using the ladderback rocker and the firehouse chair.
I wanted to use my walnut kitchen table, but to fit everything I wanted into the room, I was going to need something smaller.
I'm also going to use a Michael's hutch. Those hutches are slightly smaller in scale than true 1:12, and they're often just the thing for compact spaces. It tucks into that corner by the window well enough.

I had no idea of what I was going to do with the upstairs. I realized it was too small to suit me as a bedroom. A while ago I had a thought. Maybe somewhere in his journey Amos adopted an orphan child, sort of like Star in the Shirley Temple movie Captain January. That room would fit a little girl just fine. Maybe the widow in Skowhegan died leaving her young daughter in Amos's care?

Continued here

A non-working miniature Venetian blind

2009-07-17T09:19:00.000-04:00

A doormat

2009-06-30T19:21:00.000-04:00

Do you have a problem with tiny feet tracking dirt and mud onto your clean dollhouse floors? I'm not talking about the cat.....that's a small attempt at humor. OK, a very small attempt.

The last time I bought non slip matting to put under my real size runners and area rugs, I was immediately reminded of a rubber welcome mat.

I set some scraps aside, thinking, too bad this stuff doesn't come in black. I could cut it up and sell it as dollhouse doormats for 99 cents each.
It doesn't seem to come in black, though. So to turn it into a doormat, I had to cut a piece and paint it.
I used black acrylic craft paint to do it, painting one side and letting it dry, then flipping it over to paint the other side. When that was dry I painted any little white bits that were left. One word, though, if you bend the mat, the black paint might crack or flake off.
This does make a great looking rubber doormat at a cost of 0 money, as long as you happen to have some of the matting around the house. I've also recently seen small squares of the same non slip product being sold in bundles, to put under the corners of rugs, for as little as 99 cents, and also as a roll of shelf matting for kitchen cabinets. The shelf matting came in white or brown. It was also very inexpensive.

Too bad it didn't come in black. You'll just have to paint your own doormat.
PS
Since publishing this, I've heard from several people that they've seen the matting sold in black. Too bad I haven't seen black ones in my area.

A Simple Bench

2009-06-10T14:56:00.000-04:00

When I realized I needed to make some of my own miniature furniture for my dollhouses, because I couldn’t find what I was looking for in mini shops, one of the first things I made was a bench.
This is the bench, something rustic and old world for the cottage I had just built.

Let’s start however, with a basic style.
This is as simple as it gets, a seat, 2 supports and underneath a structural piece.
This particular bench was made of balsa. I use a band saw to cut my wood. I had a scroll saw, back before I got into miniatures, but it broke, and I’ve never gotten around to buying another one.
Generally, you can sand balsa pretty well, except for the grain, which shows up no matter how much you sand. If you have a Dremel, or similar tool, it makes sanding curved cuts so much easier. These benches are pre Dremel, but it’s ok, they’re rustic and a somewhat rough look is quite appropriate. On the other hand, don’t leave your rustic furnishings too rough. You need to decide just how much you want to sand to give things the look you want.

When designing a bench like this, just decide on how wide, long and high you want it to be. This particular bench is 1 & ¾” high. The seats of chairs and benches should be around 1 & ½” to 1 & ¾” high, with 1 & ½” being the most common used height.

Once you’ve decided how long and wide you want it to be, cut out a simple rectangle for the seat. With the supports, you can stay simple or get a little creative. I tend to lean towards curves, some people like straight sides. Look around at benches for sale in stores, or pictures in magazines and catalogs for looks you like and adapt them.

My favorite tool to draw curves for furniture is a anything I have in my kitchen. I have a compass up in my studio, but I find I do most of my planning while I’m in my kitchen. When I kept the compass in my kitchen drawer, I always found I wound up needing it up in my studio. I suppose the smart thing would be to buy another compass for the kitchen drawer, but I keep forgetting to. Anyway, as long as my kitchen is full of glasses, lids and coins, I can make a curve whatever size I want.

I’ll start designing the supports by drawing a rectangle that’s as high and about as wide as I want the support to be. As an example, here I drew a rectangle 1” wide and 1 & 3/8” high. Assuming that I’m using 1/8” thick wood for the seat, that would make the finished bench 1 & ½” high.
In the upper illustration I drew a curve with a red pencil using an item I had on my desk. In black pencil, I drew another pair of curves using a larger cup. The smaller stamp holder is 1 & ¾” in diameter, the cup is 2 & ¾”. You can see how the curves differ.
Note also, in the lower illustration, that I marked off the bottom and top of the curves. I’d cut those little tips off when I cut the bench support. Those tips tend to break off eventually.

The final piece you need to cut is a brace that helps hold the bench pieces together, and here it is.
Below is another bench, made just like the blue one, only it’s longer. Notice that there are 2 braces, one at the top, one lower down. You need extra bracing to make a longer bench a sturdy piece of mini furniture that won’t break into pieces the first time you drop it.
By the way, use wood glue to put it all together. Wood glue is formulated to hold wood, and is a basic woodworking tool.
Also, sand your pieces before you glue them together, it makes things easier.
Finally, lets talk about the paint.
I painted the bench, then sanded it smooth. Paint will raise the fibers of the wood and make the piece seem very rough. The sanding takes off quite a bit of paint. Use an emery board to sand your curves and edges. If you have a small rotary sander like a Dremel, that’s great, however, use the Dremel to sand before you paint, not after, it will take every bit of paint off.
After sanding, I painted the bench again. This time I sanded gently, to give it a worn look. I used very fine sandpaper and the finer side of the emery board. Another great sanding tool is a foam sander. They come in various grits, in blocks or in sheets. I’ll cut smaller squares off sheets of foam backed sandpaper to sand my miniature pieces.
I’ve seen lots of pieces of miniature and real sized furniture that were sanded to give a worn effect. The problem is that many over sand and/or do it in the wrong places. Places that get handled or kicked will show wear and tear. Places that are constantly rubbed will eventually loose some paint color. Edges get worn before anything else.
Don’t wear your paint down willy-nilly, give it a bit of thought and you’ll be glad you did.

How to Make a Miniature Stove

2009-05-22T21:52:00.000-04:00

At this point, my husband, who is also my partner in New England Miniatures, would say to me, "Why are you teaching people how to make a dollhouse stove? Aren't we in the business of selling miniatures?"

That's true, but if you've noticed, as of today, I'm still selling old fashioned looking stoves and Agas from Reutter porcelain. When I needed a contemporary style stove for the Bungalow kitchen, I wasn't satisfied with the stove I had originally bought. It looked a bit too toylike to suit me, so I decided to see if I could make myself one out of basswood.

MATERIALS:
1/8" thick basswood
1-2 square dowels, @ 1/4" thick, though any size will do
3/16" thick basswood, 3" x 3/8" high
4 lock washers
small guage aluminum wire
thin aluminum tubing
1/8" thick dowel
1/4" thick round wooden dowel
white paint
white enamel spray paint
black paint

I used 4 pieces of 1/8" thick basswood to make the sides of a box.
The back and front were cut 2 & 3/4" wide x 2 & 15/16" high.
The sides were 1 & 7/8" wide x 2 & 15/16" high.
I based my measurements on the sink and counter pieces I was using. I could have cut my sides 3" high instead of 2 & 15/16", but it wouldn't have worked for me. You can make your stove as high or wide as you want.
The stove top, which forms the top of the box is 2" x 3".
Here you see the underside of the stove, and how the sides, back and front fit together. I used some square dowels to reinforce the box and help keep things squared up.

I glued the 4 sides together with wood glue, then I glued in the dowels. You want the tops of the dowels to be level with the 4 sides of the box, so you can glue the stove top to the 4 sides and the tops of the dowels. This way you get a pretty sturdy box that isn't likely to break if you drop it.
But don't glue the top on yet!

Next you need to cut out the 3 pieces that go on the front of the stove. They make up the control panel where the knobs will go, the oven door and the broiler door (or drawer).
The narrow top panel for the knobs is 3" x 1/4" high. The oven door is 3" x 1 & 11/16" high, and the broiler door on the bottom is 3" x 3/4" high. These 3 panels will be glued to the front of the stove.
Now, I could have just scribed in some lines to mark the separations, but I really wanted a toe kick under the stove. It just makes it look more real I suppose. By gluing the panels on I get the open space underneath that I painted black.

Once you glue the front panels on, you can glue on the top. Be sure that the top isn't too short. It's better if it's a hair too long than a hair too short. if there's too much you can always sand off the excess. Apply wood glue to the tops of the 4 sides of the box and to the tops of the dowels, then press down the stove top and let dry.

If you find any slight gaps where 2 pieces of wood meet, just fill in the space with wood putty or drywall compound or spackle. Once everything is dry and to your satisfaction, sand your box smooth, and apply a coat of flat white paint. It can be a primer, or acrylic or latex paint. When that's dry, you'll want to sand the box smooth again.
I have to confess, I was in a hurry, and could have sanded my stove a bit better.

The next piece you need is the splash back. I used a somewhat thicker, 3/16" piece of basswood for that. The splashback is 3" long x 3/8" high. I painted and sanded it smooth before gluing it into place.

Next I used white enamel spray paint to paint the stove. I wanted a glossy finish, and spray paint seemed the best idea. It took several coats, you might need to sand again after the firsat coat of paint is dry.

Next I made the oven door handle. For this I used some aluminum wire and tubing from the hardware store. Just pick a piece of tubing that will slide over your wire. The wire I used was similar in guage to a cheap coathanger. I cut the tubing with a pair of tin snips. The snips flattened the end of the tubing where I cut it a little, so I used a narrow dowel or wire to shape it back out.
I cut the tubing 2" long, and the wire @ 2 1/2" or so. I drilled 2 small holes into the top area of the oven door where I wanted to place the handle. I drilled the holes 2 & 1/8" apart. I bent one end of the wire with a pair of needlenose pliers so it would fit into the hole, and stick out enough for the tubing to slide over it.
Next I had to bend the other end of the wire and fit it into the hole. This was a bit trickier, I just had to experiment a bit til I got it right.

I could have made a similar handle for the broiler, but I admit, I was feeling lazy and I wanted to get done, so I decided to see how a different handle would look. I cut a 1/8" thick dowel 2" long, then I sanded one side of it to flatten it out. This way it would glue to the "door" more securely. After gluing it on I gave the front of the stove another shot of enamel spray paint.

The next step was to glue in the aluminum door handle. I applied a little glue to the ends of the wire and pushed them into place.

A piece of dollhouse cove molding or L shaped molding might also make good handles, but I didn't have any at the time.

The knobs are cut from a 1/4" dowel. I painted a section of dowel black first, then I cut the knobs. I glued them into place, after which I painted the cut ends black to match.

The gas burners are made from lock washers, also from the hardware store. I painted black circles where they were to go, then glued them on.

While I was making the stove, I noticed that at one point it looked a lot like a washing machine, or a dryer, and with a few minor details, you could turn the basic box into one too.

DAISY, her story

2009-05-21T16:00:00.000-04:00

I've had a pretty busy week, so I thought might as well republish the story of Daisy. It was originally on my old website, so some of you may have already read it.

Once she was known as Hagerstown model 339-7 dollhouse, but she preferred to think of herself as Daisy.

Most of the time she sat on her shelf in the toy store dreaming of the day she’d be taken down and wrapped up for a trip to her new home. After all, there wasn’t much to see or do on a shelf.

“I wonder what color they’ll paint me”, she thought. “I hope I get to be yellow, I do so love yellow. Maybe they’ll give me shutters. Dingly Dell # 72 has them. I’d like green ones. Green goes so nicely with yellow paint. Oh, and a green door, maybe with a flowery wreath. Oh, a heart shaped flowery wreath like on the house in the calendar picture.”

She sighed contentedly dreaming her pretty dollhouse dreams.

One day a customer pointed straight at her as she spoke to the clerk. “Oh joy!” Daisy thought. “It’s my day! This is it!”

Yes indeed, the clerk walked straight over to her and lifted her down off the shelf. “Goodbye, girls!” she trilled to the other dollhouses. “Goodbye, Sam!” she called to the log cabin, and “Adieu, Sebastien!” to the tall, stately stone manor house.

In no time at all she was in her new home, ready to be transformed into the house of her dreams. Sure enough, bright and early next morning her lady started gathering her tools. There were scissors, and cutting knives, glues, rulers, and a stack of colored papers.

“Jiminy Crickets! Wallpaper!” Daisy practically screamed with delight.

She relaxed as expert hands began their work. “Gee,” Daisy thought. “That wallpaper is awful red. I was hoping for a pretty rose colored floral in that room. Oh well. Maybe she plans on mahogany bedroom furniture. Some of that mahogany stuff looks really grand with dark red wallpaper. Of course, that paper sure is red-red.”

Later that afternoon the lady took out a shiny brass bed and put it into the red room, then she stepped back for a look. Daisy was dubious about the brass bed and the fancy red velvet wallpaper. “Yes, please, lady, think it over. Mahogany would be a nicer choice. I’m sure you’ll agree.” But the lady left the brass bed in the room.

The next day the lady selected a pink wall paper. “That’s better”, Daisy thought. “Pink is such a nice ladylike color, though I’m not so sure about it being next to that red room. Still, furniture does make the room, after all. It’s not just about the wallpaper.”

The lady laid the pink wallpaper on the table. It was shot through with gold stripes and red and blue flowers. Daisy just about faded away in embarrassment. She had dreamed of being a tastefully dressed yellow cottage with a green door and green shutters and white trim, with maybe a pretty picket fence in front. “I think the lady‘s taste in colors leaves something to be desired,” she thought. “Maybe she’s color blind,” she added charitably.

The next day the lady returned from shopping with some fancy gilded mirrors for Daisy’s bedrooms. She placed more furniture into the bedrooms, including a tufted red velvet couch for the red room, “Well, that it a pretty couch,” Daisy thought, and a pink dresser with flowers that matched the wallpaper for the pink room. “I hope she didn’t pay extra for that” sighed Daisy.

The lady also added some pretty little embroidered cushions. One said ‘Love’ another said ‘San Francisco’, and Daisy couldn’t make out the rest. Next the lady glued some pretty pictures of flowers and ladies on the wall and added a stitched sampler to the red room that said ‘He who loves longest loves best’. “I wonder what that’s supposed to mean?” pondered Daisy.

Part II

The next day the lady started on the parlor. She glued in some pale gold wallpaper that was decorated with sprays of delicate flowers and a bit of gilding. “Oh, that looks quite nice”, thought Daisy, hopefully.

A beautiful walnut parlor set followed, upholstered in light blue satin, accompanied by a matching piano. The lady hung blue satin draperies on the windows that matched the parlor set. Daisy was very happy. The upstairs rooms may be in not quite the best of taste, but the parlor was more than making up for it. Even the rug was absolutely perfect. It was the most gorgeous room Daisy could ever imagine and she began to feel much better.

A few days later the lady came into the workroom with some bags. She pulled a can of paint out of one. “Oh, goody, goody”, Daisy thought, “Maybe I get painted today!”

The lady had already painted Daisy’s window trim white, and Daisy was eager to see what sort of a face she’d be presenting to the world. “Yellow, yellow, please let me be yellow. She’s opening the can…..oh boy, oh boy, I’m going to be…..red? I’m too little and cute to be red”, she pouted.” Big barns are red, little houses aren’t red”.

There was nothing Daisy could do but sit there and be painted red. “What’s the matter with this woman? What is she thinking?” Daisy was getting downright peeved.

There was just one room left to decorate. “Well,” Daisy sighed, “She can’t mess up a kitchen. No matter what she does I’m sure the kitchen will do. It certainly can’t look as bad as the bedrooms or my (sniff) front.”

The lady laid some pieces of stained wood on the table. “Why,” Daisy thought, “that looks like paneled wainscot, and very nice wainscot indeed, in mahogany yet. Who puts mahogany wainscot in a kitchen?” She settled back and waited to see what came next.

“Oh, maybe it won’t be a kitchen after all. Maybe I’ll have a library.”

The idea of having a library within her little walls made her feel very grand indeed. She felt quite puffed up with that thought.

The lady brought out a white box. “Maybe it’s a fireplace! No, the box is too big for a fireplace. Maybe there’s bookcases in there, no, it’s still too big for that. Or maybe it’s a library set all in one box, like kitchen sets or living room sets, like the ones they used to sell in the store!”

She waited.

“What’s that? Why……it’s a bar…..a mahogany bar.”

Indeed it was, a magnificent mahogany bar and the wainscot matched it exactly. It even had a delicate brass rail that ran along the bottom. The lady had also bought tiny green and brown bottles with pretty labels and the smallest glasses you could ever imagine, all made of real, tinkling glass. She added a matching table with two little chairs with red velvet seats. Next she hung a picture of a lady in a big gilded frame.

“Oh my,” blushed Daisy. “ Why, she has no clothes on. Wait a minute………”. A thought had begun to cross Daisy’s mind. “Not that, no it can’t be.”

The lady opened another box. In it lay a small doll. The doll had long black hair and a lacy peignoir. Daisy could see right through the lace that she had a corset tied in pink ribbons and pink garters, with a pink rose on one of them.

“Oh, noooooo!!” wailed Daisy in despair, “I’m a House of Assignation!!!! I’ll never be able to hold my head up again! Oh the shame…..” She whimpered silently, and later that night, when she was all alone, she cried herself to sleep.

The weeks passed. Daisy was on display in the lady’s living room, and none too happy to be so. “She should be ashamed of herself,” she pouted . “I’m certainly ashamed of myself and I didn’t even do anything.” Every time a visitor came in to see her Daisy just wished she could shrink into 144 scale.

One day Daisy was tenderly packed into a large box and taken on a long trip. “What now?“ she moaned. Her nerves caused her clapboards to feel too tight, and she was sure her shingles must be curling. “I wish I could have stayed on my own shelf in the toy store.” She began to wail, and once again, cried herself to sleep.

When she woke she found herself in a very large room and there were hundreds of people milling about. Many of them were stopping to look at her. She could see big banners overhead that said Northeast Miniatures Fair. “Oh fine,” she thought angrily. “The woman turns me into a bordello and now she wants to get rid of me. Yes, people, take a good look at gaudy, tawdry, tacky me. My life is ruined anyway.”

Just then something was placed on the table just in front of her. “What’s that? What’s it say? I can’t read upside down writing very well. Wait a minute, it looks like a blue ribbon. It says…..”

“First Prize goes to….” announced the loudspeaker. Daisy didn’t hear the rest. She didn’t need to. By then she had deciphered the upside down writing on the blue ribbon. It said, First Prize.

So, Daisy didn’t get to be a sweet little yellow cottage with green shutters and a white picket fence, but then again, it’s not every Hagerstown model 339-7 dollhouse that gets to be a prizewinning bordello.

How to make a miniature planter

2009-05-15T18:00:00.001-04:00

I had originally published this tutorial on my old blog back in 2007.

Materials...
4 balusters: I used the traditional balusters, made by Houseworks

1/16th " thick basswood: a small piece

A very thin dowel: I happened to have some wooden old skewers laying around. My skewers are @ 1/8" in diameter.

A square dowel @ ¼” thick

A piece of wood 1/8 to ¼” thick. I used a piece from a bag of assorted craft wood I got at a craft store or Walmart

A piece of decorative wooden trim

Wood glue

Wood putty, in case you drill your holes all the way through the baluster

A drill, I used my Dremel tool.

I began by drilling 2 holes in each of my balusters, you’ll notice one is slightly lower than the center of the block, the other hole is closer to the top of the block. This is important, or your holes will just run into each other.

Be sure your holes are centered and spaced correctly. If your holes are wrong, your dowels will look all crooked.

Try not to go all the way through the baluster when you drill your holes. If you find you’ve gone all the way through, don’t despair, just make sure you have some wood putty to fill the holes up before you paint the finished planter.

Next cut the dowels. You’ll need 2 long and 2 short. I cut the longer ones 3” long, and the shorter ones 1 1/8 “ long.

You need to give the ends of your dowels sharpened points, so that they can fit into the holes you drilled in the balusters.

At this point, some might say, well why can’t I just make the holes in the bottom of the baluster bigger, so I cen just put the whole dowel straight in? The answer to that is, if you make the tiniest mistake in the placement of your drill bit, 2 bigger holes in the bottom of those balusters will eat up the whole piece of wood. Why not use a thinner dowel? If the dowel is too thin, it’ll break more easily, and the proportions of the plant stand won’t be as pleasing.

I used an electric pencil sharpener to sharpen the ends of the 3” long dowels. I had to lift them in and out and turn them a bit, but they came out fine. You can’t stick a 1” long dowel in a pencil sharpener, so I sharpened one end of the dowel before I cut it. I found that a drum sanding attachment on my dremel worked very well to shape the other end of my 1 1/8” long piece.

Dry fit the rods in place in the holes

This shows how the rods go into the baluster block.

Now you are ready to glue the longer rods in place. Be sure you match your holes up correctly. Dab the rod points with a glue and push them into their holes. Press them in firmly, but not too hard. Lay the 2 balusters which are now attached to each other by the rod. Make sure that everything is laying down flat, with no twisting. Readjust the rod before the glue has a chance to set. Make sure everything looks straight.

Repeat this with the other 2 balusters and long rod.

Let the glue dry and set a bit.

Meanwhile, get the piece of 1/16th inch basswood.

I cut 2 pieces, each ¾” x 3 ¼”. When the glue on my balusters was set enough so I could handle them, I glued the basswood pieces to the upper parts of the balusters.

I used some small clamps to keep the basswood in place and let dry. My basswood strips turned out to be almost 1/16th” too long, which was fine. The extra bit can be sanded or cut off so that the ends of the basswood pieces are even with the baluster. Having them a bit too long is better than a bit too short. If they are too short, you have to recut new baswood strips.

Again, when gluing, be sure you keep everything straight. A jig is helpful. I still haven’t gotten around to making or buying one, so I used a carpenter’s square and a square dowel to align my pieces.

Be sure the glue on these pieces is quite dry and firm before you proceed to the next step. Look at the picture below to get a closer look at how the pieces fit together to form the box.

I cut the square dowel into 2 pieces that would fit between the balusters. They were 2 and 13/16th inches long. I glued them to the bottom of the inner side of the basswood. Clamp and let dry. Below you can see the underside of the plant stand
I then cut 2 small pieces of basswood, each ¾” x 1 and 5/16th inches. These will make up the sides of the “box”. I also cut a piece from the thicker wood, the one listed as 1/8 to ¼ inches thick. I could have used some thin basswood, but I felt the thicker wood might make the planter a bit sturdier. This thicker piece was 1 and 3/16th inches by 3 and 1/8”, and was notched in the 4 corners . This piece forms the bottom of the “box”.

Now comes the tricky part, adding the side pieces and gluing it all together.

Take one of the short dowel pieces and glue it into place at the bottom of the baluster, then carefully glue the small basswood piece into place. I held it in place for a few seconds, then gently layed it down on its side .

I slipped a piece of the thin basswood under the lower end of the legs to keep everything aligned,while the piece was laying on its side, and let it dry. I then flipped the planter over and glued the other short dowel and the other basswood piece into place and let dry.

When everything is dry and set, you can pop the thicker bottom piece into place. If it’s a bit big, just trim where needed. If it’s a bit too small it doesn’t matter, it will still hold everything together once it’s glued in place. Just apply a bit of glue everyplace where this piece touches another piece.. Let dry.

If you’ve drilled through the baluster bases, apply some wood putty.

Next you can apply some decorative trim. I had a couple of pieces to choose from, I selected the one I thought looked best.

It’s important to lay out the trim pieces carefully so they are in perfect visual balance. No cutting through a flat part on one end and a curved part on the other end.
Then cut to fit, glue and let dry. Small clamps are helpful.

Sand any rough edges with an emery board.

You are now ready to paint. I chose to use spray paint for this project. I have found, however, that if you apply a bit of acrylic artists paint to the cut edges of the wood, it’ll seal them and the spray paint will come out looking better, faster.

I dabbed a bit of white paint in a few spots and when it was dry I spray painted. I used the fast drying paint, and was able to apply a new coat every 15 minutes or so.

I did sand the flat trim surfaces slightly after the second coat had tried. I continued applying coats of paint til I was satisfied that everything was covered with an even coat of paint.

ADDING THE FLOWERS

You can place potted plants inside the stand. I have those wooden “pots” that I paint to look clay-like, however, they are a bit big. Mine are 1” tall which translated into human sized is a pretty big pot, or 1 foot high.

I decided to just “plant” the flowers into the stand.

I used a piece of the ¼” thick scrap wood I used to form the bottom of the “box”. I cut it the same size, with the notches, and painted it dark brown.

I rummaged through my flower and leaf pieces and made my selections. I had purchased a clump of tiny leaved ivy in the floral department of a craft store to use when I did the exterior of the Nuthouse. I plucked off some of the smallest leaves, then trimmed them somewhat and used them

to form the leaves of the yellow plant. Houseplants are actually tropical native plants, and quite a few, if you’ve noticed have rather large leaves, so the size of these works well for that.

I also found that if you drill holes into the wood for your flower and leaf stems, they will be more likely to stand up just the way you want them to.

When your selection is made, and the proper sized holes are drilled, dab a tiny bit of hot glue in 2 or 3 holes. The glue will melt the plastic stems if you apply it to the flower, but I’ve found that in the moments it takes to put down the glue gun and pick up the flower and place it into the hole, the glue has cooled enough so it is not a problem.
The circled areas show where the stem of the plant is less likely to melt. I had to cut the stem of the longer flower on the left. When gluing it into place, I let the glue cool a couple of seconds longer. You can also tape several fragile flower stems together with floral tape, then drill a hole big enough to hold the taped stems.

Once your plants are glued in the way you want them, you can add tiny pieces of reindeer moss underneath them, to partially obscure the painted wood and the occasional bare stems. I had originally considered using coffee grounds, but saw that the slight fluffiness and texture of the moss would suit better.

Finally I glued the piece of wood holding my completed flower arrangement in place inside the planter using wood glue.

Annie: a dollhouse story

2009-04-05T09:32:00.000-04:00

It's story time again, boys and girls.
Bear with me, I can't seem to help myself lately.

Annie was a dollhouse, and she lived with Faye and Bob. She had everything a dollhouse could want, nice furniture in her rooms, charming wallpaper, pleated curtains on real curtain rods, and in her fireplace was a fire that really lit up.
But Annie was not happy in her shell. She always felt she should have been a log cabin.
Instead of a winding staircase, she wanted a sturdy ladder to reach her upper floor. Instead of a fireplace with a mahogany surround and mantle, she wanted rugged stones. She wanted to feel logs on her sides, not painted MDF clapboards, and she longed for moss covered cedar shingles on her roof. Someone had long ago varnished her shingles, and now her roof shone in the afternoon sun, and Annie didn’t like it one bit.
In her heart, Annie was a Western Gal.

Almost every night after supper Bob would settle down in his recliner and watch cowboy movies, and Annie would watch them too, peering over his shoulder at the TV screen. She wished she could ride out in the open range, and smell the sagebrush. She wanted to be out among the tumbleweeds and sit by a campfire, well, not toooo close to the campfire. She was made of wood, after all.
Annie knew her limits, she couldn’t ride, she couldn’t chase outlaws, or rope cattle, but it would have been so nice to at least look like she belonged there.

One day Faye removed all of Annie’s furniture, pictures and even the little pleated curtains. She carried Annie into the workroom, and began to gently peel back her wallpaper.
Every year or so, Faye would redecorate Annie. One year her rooms were completely redone in satin and velvet in various shades of rose and pink, and how she hated it. The year Faye decorated her as a New England farmhouse wasn’t bad though. Annie rather liked the rustic farmhouse table and the cast iron stove, and she felt the Victorian parlor set upholstered in shiny black cloth gave her an air of quiet dignity.

“Oh no”, thought Annie, as she spied some decorating books, “Here we go again. She’s going all frou-frou Victorian on me, I just know it. I don’t feel good in ruffles and doilies.” Annie felt like holding her breath till she turned blue, that would show fancy Faye a thing or two, and just for a moment, as Faye measured Annie’s living room for fresh wallpaper, she did just that. She held her breath, just for a moment.
“ Oh, what’s the use?”, thought Annie. “I have no control over my destiny at all. I am whatever she wants me to be and that’s that.” Annie felt quite sad and sorry for herself.
Meanwhile, Faye had cut out the wallpaper and was now ready to glue it to Annie’s living room wall.
“What the heck?” mumbled Faye. “I was sure I measured it right”, and she got her scissors and trimmed off some of the extra wallpaper.
At this point Annie got a good look at her new living room wallpaper. It was a pretty paper, covered in pink cabbage roses, but it just wasn’t Annie’s style. “Phooey”, thought Annie, and out of sheer cussedness she held her breath again.
Meanwhile, Faye was once again ready to glue on the wallpaper.
“Drat! Drat! Drat!” muttered Faye. “How can I be so stupid? I can’t believe I did that!” This time the wallpaper was cut too short. Faye set the sheet aside and got out her ruler again.
She measured Annie’s wall twice, then she carefully measured the paper and marked it. To be on the safe side, she remeasured Annie’s wall, and the paper, before she started cutting.
Annie sat still, patiently waiting for Faye to finish pressing the paper into place.
Suddenly a thought popped into Annie’s mind. Faye was always so careful in her work. It was highly unusual for her to cut a piece of wallpaper or molding too short. “Measure twice, cut once” was Faye’s motto.
Annie started to wonder if her little tantrum had something to do with Faye’s mistake. She decided to try an experiment.
She sat very still while Faye measured another wall, then, when Faye came towards her with the next sheet of wallpaper, Annie took a big breath and held it.
“Noooooo!” wailed Faye. “It’s too short! It can’t be too short! I measured and measured!” Faye stood there a moment staring at Annie and then at the wallpaper in her hand. “I need a break. I wonder if Bob left me some of that coffee cake,” and she left the workroom and headed for the kitchen.
This was certainly a very interesting development as far as Annie was concerned. She wondered if she could really be having a hand in Faye’s dilemma. Annie did some thinking as she waited for Faye to return.

She sat patiently while Faye finished applying the living room wallpaper. “There, that’s better”, said Faye. Annie remained her usual motionless self as Faye added a wallpaper border about 1 inch below the front hall ceiling, and when Faye measured the kitchen walls, she didn’t move one iota.
Next Faye cut the sheet of plastic wall tile for the kitchen, and applied the glue. As her hands moved forward to glue in the tile, Annie took a deep breath and held it.
“Ding-dong-flibber-dadwub-skeezix-jam” yelled Faye. Annie was so surprised. She thought only Bob knew those words. “I’m such an idiot!” continued Faye, and after a moment she began to cry tears of frustration.
Annie started to feel sorry for her then. She wanted to reach out and pat Faye’s hand and say she was sorry and that it wasn’t Faye’s fault, it was hers.
“That’s it for today”, said Faye resignedly. “I might as well get started on dinner. Maybe I’ll bake a cake for dessert. On the other hand,” she continued as she went out the door, “the way things are going it’ll probably fall flat. I wonder if Baumeister’s has any of that cherry cheesecake today.”

Annie felt so guilty as she stared at the vacant doorway. After all, it wasn’t Faye’s fault that she liked ribbons and bows and that sort of stuff while Annie preferred a more rustic style. “I was pretty mean, wasn’t I?”, Annie thought to herself.
After a while though, she started feeling sorry for herself again. “After all, why does everything have to be Faye’s way? She remembered how angry Bob was when Faye got rid of his old chair. “I had it broken in just right” complained Bob, “It fit my butt like a glove”. “It was old, it was nasty and really grungy. You’ll like this new chair much better” Faye replied, and Bob did like his new chair, though Annie didn’t think of that.
“I never, ever get what I want. I’m never in charge of my own destiny. It’s always about what someone wants to do to me. I’m just a thing!!!!”
She was angry, frustrated and very upset, and she cried herself to sleep.

The next day Annie was in a bad mood. Faye started to feel as if she was loosing her mind. Every other measurement seemed to be wrong. She wondered if maybe she needed new glasses. Of course, she didn’t know that Annie was up to her tricks, holding her breath at various times while Faye was measuring or gluing. Annie was certainly misbehaving, and not being a nice little house at all.
This was all quite sad, for Faye was truly fond of Annie. She loved looking for tiny treasures to fill Annie’s rooms, and one of her great pleasures was giving her little dollhouse a whole new look when her furnishings started getting a little dusty or faded. Faye started to wonder if she was getting old, and maybe her memory and eyesight were going. After all, she did notice a few more gray hairs every now and then. Maybe she should take up a new hobby. “ I could learn knitting, or crochet….scrap booking? No, not scrap booking, too much cutting. Flower arranging? I know! Pottery! There’s that place up on route 1 that gives classes!” Bob had walked in and asked, “Who are you talking to?” “Nobody, I’m talking to myself”, answered Faye. “Watch out, old girl”, chuckled Bob, “ Next thing you know I’ll have to take you out to the old folks’ home and then I’ll have to find myself some cute young thing to replace you”. “Why you----I don’t need to hear that from you!” yelled Faye, as she threw a sofa pillow at him. “What did I do?” Bob called plaintively after her.

Uh-oh, where does this leave Annie?
A few hours later Faye returned, beaming, arms laden with packages. She packed up the sheets of miniature wallpaper and interior trim and put them away in the storage closet. She cleared her worktable of all her scissors, trimmers, glues and assorted whatnot and put them away in drawers. Finally she carried Annie over to a corner table and covered her with a cloth.
Faye was ready to turn pots.
For months Annie sat in her corner, covered up. She couldn’t see a thing. Except for the times that Faye sat in her workroom turning pots, all she could hear were the faint sounds coming from the rest of the house. No more sitting with Bob watching cowboy movies. No longer the feel of Faye’s soft hands as she dusted or rearranged Annie’s furniture. Annie had no furniture anyway. It was all in boxes in the closet. Annie knew it was all her own fault.
One day she felt herself being picked up. It didn’t feel like Faye’s hands holding her up. She was being carried. She could feel a cold rush of air and heard the cawing of a crow. “I’m outside! What am I doing outside?” She was frantic. She knew that some things wound up “outside and in the trash”.
Suddenly she was indoors again, she heard a loud mechanical noise followed by a thump. Someone pulled her cover off. It was Bob.

Faye had been pursuing her new hobby as a potter, but it seemed to Bob that it wasn’t going too well. He could often hear her making sounds of frustration in her workroom, and although everything she made was off kilter, Bob felt obliged to tell her it was just great. She’d get so upset if he joked about her tilted flower pots and squat jugs.
She used to sound a lot happier when she was decorating Annie, and he remembered that he hadn’t seen the little dollhouse around for quite a while.
He checked the workroom and when he found Annie sitting covered up in the corner, he decided he’d make a nice surprise birthday gift for Faye. He’d buy her some of that fancy dollhouse furniture she was always going on about.
Bob became a man with a mission. He had miniature furniture catalogs stuffed in his tackle box and golf bag. Ned Heavermeyer kidded him about it when he looked in Bob’s bag for some tees, but Bob shot back with a reference to the purple silk shorts incident and the matter was dropped.
He started spending weekends and some of his evenings out in the garage, making improvements on Annie. He polished up her floors, gave her a fresh coat of paint, and cleaned her window panes till they sparkled. He even removed her original trim and added top of the line gingerbread to her little front porch. Annie had never looked so beautiful.
On Faye’s birthday, while she was out having lunch with her sister, Bob brought Annie back into the house. He set her up on a turntable he had made himself, and then unpacked all the miniatures he had bought, and placed them in the rooms.
When Faye came home she was thrilled. She hugged Bob, who sheepishly mumbled, “Ok, Ok, that’s enough of that. Save some of it for later.”
Faye turned Annie this way and that, and Annie caught a glimpse of herself in the living room mirror. “Oh my! I do look pretty!”
Well, life went back to normal after that. Faye decided she’d have enough of pottery and gave her wheel and clay to the retirement home. A few weeks later she bought a new Victorian dollhouse kit, which she and Bob built together. When it was finished, she furnished it with the gorgeous miniatures Bob got her for her birthday, and Annie was redecorated as a sweet summer cottage, which suited her just fine.

One night, as they watched “Deep in the Rockies” for what seemed to Faye the 15th time, she said, “You know, Bob, I’ve been wondering what Annie would look like as a log ranch house. What do you think?”

Miniature Landscaping part IV

2009-03-28T13:16:00.000-04:00

I had originally planned on just adding a strip of garden in front of the porch, but a desire to see springtime cheer up the dreary late winter views I saw through my windows, made me want to make more and more blooming garden.

The blooming shrubs at either end of the picture are almost intact sections of artificial sprays. The one on the right gives an impression of a lilac bush, and below you can see it close up. I just realized something. In the last segment I showed some of my favorite leaves. I had a darker and slightly lighter version of them from two separate artificial sprays. Well, I just remembered, the darker colored leaves came from the parent spray of this “lilac bush”. It came with the little beads glued on to the leaves, and some sections had very few beads on them and so I scraped them off in order to use the leaves with other flowers.

The small blooming tree, which gives the impression of a crabapple, also “blooms” with beads. Sometimes, if I like the blooming shrub potential of a spray, but I feel it just isn’t quite full enough, I’ll slide more sections onto the stems to fill it in.

Below is another blooming shrub. This time I used the leaves and flowers from the same spray together. I liked how it looked like two plants growing closely together.

I also like using the leaves from this particular spray on their own.

Their light, gray-green color, shape and texture give a good contrast in the miniature garden. You’ll note that I’ve used some that are full length and others I’ve cut to varying lengths, this gives more of a feel that the plants are actually growing.
I’ve also planted a couple different grasses. The taller grass is actually plastic grass I found at a craft shop. It comes in a square, and whenever I need some tall slender leaves I’ll pull a clump off the plastic base. The other, shorter grasses are actually from an evergreen spray or a fern, I can‘t remember which.
You can also see how I used the plastic grass, this time with the red clustered flowers.

I used the same flowers with different leaves to give this look.

If I recall correctly, the original spray had the beaded clusters in a close mass, I just pulled them apart.
Speaking of pulling apart, here’s another bunch of mini blooms I use in small segments. Do you recall seeing them as tiny flowers growing between the reindeer moss bushes?
I liked the spray, but it was too stiff to use in a mini garden, so I pulled the clusters off the stems.

The pink shrub planted in front of the Bungalow porch was the pink version of this yellow flower. I gathered several of the pink stems together to make a fuller bush.
You know, you can get an awful lot of plant material from one artificial spray. The leaves of this stem are kind of big for mini gardening, and they fray at the edges, so I kept some of the better ones, just in case I’ll want them for a fantasy setting, and threw the rest away. Sometimes the leaves that come on a spray just aren’t usable.

Here’s an interesting looking plant. It’s the tall, spindly, weedy looking thing. When I saw it’s parent stem I said to myself, “what a great weed”, and here it sits, outside the garden fence.

A cutting from the same plant is growing here, next to the tall grass by the Gnome’s Cottage shed. This particular piece was a little tamer looking, so I used it inside the garden, to add visual interest.

The next picture is a section of the Gnome’s Cottage garden, and this bit fits next to the section in the previous picture. In other words, this is what’s growing at the end of the garden next to the shed. My real life yard is full of tended trees, shrubs and planting beds, but at the back, it blends into the woods behind my house. I wanted to give the same effect to the gnome’s garden. Her little garden fence ends just as it hits “the woods”.

Here’s another nice looking weed. I haven’t had occasion to use it yet.

And here’s some leaves. I think I’ve got enough of these to last me a lifetime. They’re off a plastic hanging plant that came complete with a little pot. I got it for 50% off so it was quite a deal. I think I’ll mostly be using them by the leaf.

Do you recognize the parts of the plants in the foreground? Back along the wall I’ve paired my “plastic grass” with some other blooms.

Here’s a nice little evergreen. Plastic evergreens can be a little tricky to work with. They’re so stiff, and when you take them apart, they look so sparse, but if you can find the right spot, and gather them in the right way, they can add a lot to the minilandscape. When I find a piece with potential at a 50% sale, I’ll buy it.

Here’s a close up of the Great Stuff foam groundcover I mentioned in a previous post. I think I forgot to mention that I usually cut it with my old electric kitchen knife.

Here’s some more of the two kinds of grasses, and reindeer moss, together with some big leaves, the same ones that “grow” at the back of the garden. Ordinarily, I’d say that the big leaves were too big for 1:12 scale, but for a gnome’s cottage they were fine.

Finally, here we have a clump of evergreen, which is actually from a plastic fern, a weedy plant, three kinds of groundcover (reindeer moss, sponge and Great Stuff foam), and a pine cone. I liked the pine cone. It seemed like just the right thing to have by the gnome’s front door.

Miniature Landscaping part III

2009-03-27T08:57:00.001-04:00

Mulch, soil, flowers and plants
Many people like to use dried, used coffee grounds or dry used tea leaves to simulate soil. Personally I prefer paint and sand.
If just a little dirt is to be showing, I’ll paint the area with a dark, dull brown, like burnt umber, and while it’s still wet I’ll work in just a little black. If more soil is meant to be left showing, I’ll treat the area the same way I like to do my grass, painting the spot with brown umber and letting it dry, then brushing on glue, sprinkling sand, and repainting with a bit of brown and black.
Why don’t I just glue on the sand, then paint it? In short, I think it’s easier and less aggravating than trying to work the paint into every tiny crevice. This way there’s already a base coat of color, so there’s less work later.

I do like to use the tea leaves and coffee grounds as mulch. I discovered that if I blended them, the end result looked a lot like the mulch I have in my real life garden. The coffee grounds alone look like dark, fresh mulch, the tea leaves are lighter in color. I paint my base a dark brown, spread on a bit of glue, sprinkle on my mulch mix and let dry. When it's dry, I'll turn the board over and dump off the extra mulch. In the pictures you'll see coming up, you'll notice I don't worry about covering the whole exposed flower bed with mulch. I don't think it's necessary, but you can if you want to.
Be sure to use only used tea leaves and coffee grounds, and be sure they are completely dry before you use them in your landscaping.

There are two kind of miniature gardeners, the ones who insist a flower or plant look just like the real thing, and those who just want a splash of color and an interesting looking settitng for their dollhouse. I belong to the latter. You won’t find any of my miniature plans or flowers in a garden book, they all come out of my head and the artificial flowers section of a craft store.
Here’s a picture of part of my gardening stash. Although it doesn’t look like it in this picture, the plastic box is one of those big plastic storage boxes that’s about knee high. The plastic bags are gallon sized. Right now I’ve got 2 full, big containers and the rest overflows into the crisper drawer from my old refrigerator.

Every time I go to Michael’s or AC Moore (my local craft stores) I check out the artificial plants and flowers. If I’m lucky, I’ll find quite a few things that look like they have mini potential and the store will be having a 50% off sale.
Of course, I look for small blooms, checking to see if the little blossoms remind me of anything. It might help if you look at the flowers through a small tube, as if you were peering through a telescope. Don’t worry about people thinking you’re some sort of nut, if someone stares at you just tell them that you’re a miniaturist looking for proper materials, and we do this sort of thing all the time. Use the phrase “miniature artisan” if you want to, or “an artist working in miniature”.
Keep in mind that some little flowers work in the mini garden better than others. There are some widely seen little floral bunches that I’ll never use unless I’m doing a fantasy garden. These flowers may be quite pretty, and look small, but in a 1:12 garden they’ll still look enormous. You want to look for flowers that are no more than ¼” wide, remembering that translates into real life blossoms that are 3” across. A 3” wide flower is a big bloom.
One way to acquire tiny flowers is to look for artificial stems that feature flowers that come in clusters. Below is one example. You can use these as is, growing in a tight cluster, or you can cut the stems apart, using the flowers singly or in 2’s or 3’s. The stems on this example are a bit short, others have longer stems.

The leaves shown are the ones that came with this particular floral spray, and I used them together for the Gnome's Cottage garden. In actuality, the leaves are too big, and I would not have used this pairing as a rule, but it suited the gnome fantasy, and therefore was just fine.

The next picture shows another example of these kind of flowers that can be cut apart. If you look carefully, you’ll see how they were cut at the stems. The petals of this flower were dipped in some sort of solution and came in white, pink, or purple. I w3anted some yellow flowers, so I painted the petals of some of the white ones. Some of the petals of silk flowers can also be touched up with paint to change their hue.

Another example of clustered flowers paired with leaves. This time the leaves were from a different spray.

More clustered flowers below, paired with leaves from other artificial sprays.

The last two pictures featured the leaves shown below. I found these twice, once in a darker green, and later in a slighter lighter shade of green. You can see how they’d work to form a small shrub, and also how they can be cut to form a group of 3 leaves. I’ve even cut them down to 2 or even used the leaves singly.

So how did I get the flowers and leaves to stick together into blooming plants and then stay put in the garden?
Usually I used a drill, hot glue and round toothpicks. If you’ve ever taken an artificial spray or two apart, you’ve seen that they slide onto the plastic stems in one way or another. I’ll take advantage of this and slide them, whenever I can, onto a toothpick.
Sorry about the fuzzy picture, somehow I accidentally changed the focus on that shot.

So I’ve selected my flowers and leaves and am ready to plant them.
I can either plant them directly into the garden, meaning attach them to the garden base, or to another piece of plywood if I want to be able to move this garden bed around.
I’ll drill a hole, the size of the toothpick, into the plywood. Next I’ll snip the sharp ends off the toothpick, cutting the pick to whatever length I want it to be. At this point I can use hot glue, or, since the toothpick is wooden, a bit of wood glue, to insert and attach the pick. Sometimes I’ll use a short length of thick floral wire instead of the toothpick, in which case I use hot glue. Next I’ll slide on the leaves. Sometimes I’ll want to attach a single leaf into the arrangement, so I’ll hot glue it into place. When the leaves are arranged, and sometimes I’ll glue a leaf or spray of leaves to the mulch or dirt, I’ll add the flowers. They will either slide onto the toothpick, or have to be attached to the pick and leaves with hot glue.
When I plant trees or shrubs, I’ll drill a larger hole. Sometimes I’ll stick the stem of the shrub right into the hole, gluing it into place, other times I’ll need the help of a dowel. It all depends on the plastic stem of the spray I’ll working with.
With larger plants I find I usually need a thicker base. If I try to glue into a ¼” sheet of plywood, the stem won’t go in deep enough and the bush starts to tilt. When I planted the trees and bushes for the bungalow garden, I used a ½” thick plywood panel, si it wasn’t a problem, but otherwise, I would have cut a small piece of plywood which would be glued to the base, drilling through the double thickness so the “trunk” of my tree would have more surface to glue on to. I’d later cover the extra piece of plywood with some sort of groundcover.
I first got the idea for this method when I was setting up my Dickens Christmas village. I wanted some trees, and something to suggest a small wood. I drilled holes into a thin piece of plywood, then arranged my little trees, covering the plywood base with polyester batting “snow banks”.

Here’s a picture of reindeer moss as it comes out of the bag. The last bag I bought had a lot of neat clumps in it, the last one had only a few, the rest were much looser in form.
You can see how the clump on the bottom left would make a perfect little bush just as it is.

Here are some bushes, my tea leaf-coffee grounds mulch and some little flowers using my favorite leaves.

Next comes a tall treelike shrub that I used for the Bungalow.

I really liked this next spray, though I wasn’t sure when I would be able to use it. The flowers are pretty big when you think of it in 1:12 scale, but as I was working on the Bungalow garden it struck me that this would pass as a wonderful exotic specimen plant.

Next time I’ll continue with more on the subject of flowers and plants in the minilandscape.

Continue to landscaping part 4

Genevieve: a dollhouse story

2009-03-25T12:33:00.000-04:00

I didn't have the next installment of miniature landscaping ready yet, but I did have a story you can read if you care to.

Genevieve

The broken doll house sat for over 100 hundred years, alone, neglected, covered in dust, festooned with cobwebs, mold growing on her once elegant wallpaper. Only the mice and other vermin visited her rooms.

Once, she had stood in the light, in glory, in a sparkling shop window admired by all who passed by. Then, a day came when she was placed in a box and carefully brought by carriage to a tall house, where she was displayed in a grand room lit by a hundred candles, their lights flickering in her shining glass window panes. The soft music of violin and pianoforte wafted over her. She basked in the admiration of the many splendidly dressed people who stopped to look at her, and the beautifully wrapped gifts that surrounded her.
She knew she had come home, and rejoiced in her happiness.

Then the girl arrived. Screeching and screaming she tore open gifts one by one, tossing each one aside with a snort. The doll house wished she could run and hide, but luckily, the girl left her alone.

Later a man dressed in black carried the elegant doll house upstairs and placed her in the corner of the nursery.

From then onwards life was miserable for the unhappy doll house named Genevieve. The mean tempered girl would build towers with Genevieve’s lovely gilded furniture and never put them back into her rooms. A cabriole leg would break off a tea table, the back of a rococo dining chair would snap, the posts from a dainty bed would crunch underneath small feet. One day the girl even tore off Genevieve's pretty little curtains to make a cap for the family cat, something that even the cat did not appreciate. One by one Genevieve’s lovely furnishings were destroyed.
To add to Genevieve’s misfortune, on yet another occasion, the girl and her friend played horse and driver and knocked the poor little dollhouse off her stand, breaking off her cupola and two shutters.
Then one day two boys came to play and used her as an enemy fort for cannonball practice. They broke out all her window glass, and that was the end for poor Genevieve. The man dressed in black came and carried her up to the attics and left here there, alone, unwanted, and unloved.

After many years the tall house was shut up, abandoned, and alone, in the attic, Genevieve brooded. She could not weep, as she had no window glass. Slowly, spending year after year in her dark and dirty prison, she went silently mad.

Decades passed by. The house was sold. The mantels, moldings, cupboards and doors were ripped out and carried away. Someone found the doll house up in the attic and carried her outside. Genevieve’s wallpaper was tattered, her cupola, trim and shutters gone, her glass was broken, she was ashamed to be seen in the light of day. But the warmth of the sun felt good upon her damp roof, and she fell into a restful, dreamless sleep, for the first time in many years.

She awoke to find herself on a battered table attended by a woman who poked, prodded and turned her this way and that. During the weeks to come the woman repaired her sagging roof and strengthened her walls. She made her a new cupola and shutters. She glued in dainty new wallpaper and gleaming wooden floors. One day she gave Genevieve sparkling new window glass, and that night the pretty doll house cried herself to sleep with tears of happiness, not of woe.

The next she knew she had a dainty parlor set, and a kitchen stove and lace and dimity curtains. One by one her rooms were filled with the beautiful things a little house like she deserved.
The madness of the attic years faded away.

Then SHE came, in her satin lined wicker basket, her sleek fur gleaming, and her name was Absinthe. Her mistress, Mrs.Hogworthy, was going on another spa vacation, and she was leaving her precious darling with Genevieve’s lady.
Absinthe always won the blue ribbon at all the cat shows. Her picture had been on the cover of Cat Fancier’s Magazine, and her form graced the month of July on the Meoux Cat Food company calendar.
Absinthe ruled all she surveyed. Whether it was in her house or anyone else's house, Absinthe knew her place, and her place was to be the center of the universe.
When she stayed at Mrs.Treadway's, she drank poor Snowball's milk, ate her tuna, scattered her ball of string and destroyed her toy mouse. No one but Absinthe and Snowball knew how poor Snowball came to be covered in ink.
After her stay with the Goodbody's their little kitten Gracie hid in a crate in the basement and wouldn’t come out for three days.
After just two days of a long weekend Absinthe spent at the Dunwoodies’ their cat, Lord Arthur Dunwoodie, ran away from home and was never seen in town again.

Absinthe strolled slowly about the house, both pert nose and tail in the air, looking for amusement. Suddenly she spied Genevieve.
Absinthe knew the little house was for her pleasure, and hers alone. With smug self assuredness she strolled towards the little house and pushed herself into the tiny dining room, breaking the table and chairs and pushing out the tiny glass doored breakfront with her fat tail.
Suddenly there was a shriek, a squeal and a deep throated gurgle. Fur was scattered on the floor beneath the little doll house and Absinthe lay limp, her head hanging out of the dining room, her dead, glassy eyes had a look of horror never seen before or since on any cat.

No one could guess what had happened, no one knew. No one but the pretty little doll house named Genevieve.