It's been a while...

... since I blogged! I have some issues on my mind lately, and also my health has taken a wrong turn again (I'm sure the two are related), so it just doesn't cross my mind to make time to do fun, creative things. But I guess it also works the opposite direction: I need to do fun things to be happy. I tend to forget that.

Anyway, I started small, very small, projects of just a few millimeters: a key with a keyring, and a metal flower.

I haven't visited your blogs as well, need to update myself on what you all have been doing too. I hope you'll bring me my needed inspiration! And I need to welcome my new followers soon too!

Bye for now,

Marit

Bird cage

A while ago Norma of Make Mine Mini showed a birdcage in one of her posts (click here to see the post). In real life I always feel a bit sorry for birds in a cage. A symbol of freedom caged... No, a bird should be able to spread their wings and fly! I wish I could!
But birds as well as birdcages can be so beautiful! And when I saw the one Norma showed, I thought of soldering one. A miniature bird wouldn't mind to be caged, would he?

The bird is made of Fimo with feathers of a peacock glued on it (hooray to my childhood collections!). A peacock feather excists of many small, perfect miniature feathers. Each little feather is glued separately onto the body. The eyes are little bolls of tin from the soldering.

Beneath the bird is a tray with a piece of paper to collect the birdshit and loose feathers:

And this is how it started:

The cage has gotten an eyelet to hang from. I had some ideas for a soldered post to hang it on, but my creativity has less limits than my soldering-qualities. But when I showed my husband my plans, he liked the idea and already started on it :). So to be continued...

Marit

Wood lathe

My husband was so kind to explain the wood lathe of the Unimat to me, and having so much fun in the proces, that he made me all kinds of small cups and things...

The lid fits perfectly!

The bowl is made of a kind of large nut. It's a bit transparant, so it could be used to put a light in as well.

Did I make any of this? Yes, the smallest ones of course! Always trying to get it as small as possible ;). Thinking of making a game of chess... The difficult thing about that is to make each equal piece look the same. Need some more practice to be able to do that, I think.

Have a nice weekend,

Marit

Slow progress

I made this little heart the way I descibed in the post before this one. I used a rubber mat to make the heart extra hollow. I made the edges flat again by using the embossing pen on the other side of the heart. I made two hearts and glued them together with the knot of the thread on the inside. It now hangs on the shelf.

The shelf hangs by the use of magnetic tape and a metal sheet. The magnetic tape is not very strong. It's designed for the use on paper, so one can put up photo's or children's drawings on the fridge or on a wall which has been painted with iron-paint. My husband is getting me stronger, industrial magnetic tape, but this will do for now.

I also put up the embroidery the same way. I'm not totally happy with the way it's framed. I wanted to use a passe-partout, but I didn't get it straight.

Yes, the door hangs too, including cat-flip. Blacky still figures out if he will like this or not... My real cat only uses it when he's not able to convince one of us to open the door for him, he has such a hard life! ;)

I had much trouble getting the hinges of the door right. This is the third type of hinge I tried, and it finally worked.
I used coloured plastic in the window of the door. I want to put a light behind the door, like if the lights are on in the non-existing house. The colours are not very visible on the picture, but are two types of blue.

This is all for now. It goes much slower than I would wish to, but my life is not a Harry Potter movie, so I can only use my time once, and not much on dollshouses lately.

Happy Easter!

Marit

Experimenting

What's the English word for a small candle in an aluminium cup? In Dutch we call it waxine-light or tea-light (as it can be used to keep the tea warm). I had used a bit of the aluminium to cover my ugly and uneven glue-job on the cat-flip on the door of the conservatory, and was waiting for the glue to dry. While waiting, I played a bit with the tools and materials on the table. And this came out:

All I used were a aluminium cup, an embossing pen and a few punches:

The aluminium gets a bit of a silvery look by the embossing pen. Not sure what to do next with it, but I think it looks decorative.

This is the finished cupboard, by the way. I thought I would glue it on the wall, but now I know how difficult to put something in it (and I want to be able to change that according to my liking or the season), I think it would be better if I could still get it off the wall if I want to. Anyway, this week I have great difficulty to get things straight (for example see the hooks...), so I leave that for now. I did finish the embroidery, now it needs to get framed.

Next time more progress on the door.

Bye for now,

Marit

Update conservatory

As promised: an update on my conservatory. This is how it looks now:

I cannot work on one thing alone: my mind is already busy with the next thing, and I can't help starting on that too. So I did a few other things, while busy on the door and not having finished my embroidery yet. 

The bricks outside were high gloss red, very ugly, so I painted them in a blended mat grey. I redid the joints, and afterwards painted them with watercolour, as they were too white. Then I added some moss. Still need to add some moss to the rest of the conservatory as well, looks great. This is the result:

I had bought some ornaments for the windows at Bindels Ornaments. They sell all kinds of metal ornamental pieces for the use in dollshouses. Of course the ornaments were 'golden', so they needed to be painted white and then made old, rusty and dirty.

I think the result is more beautiful then shows on the pictures!

Then of course, I still busy with the door to the none-existing house. It takes lots and lots of layers of white paint to cover the dark grey beneath! I also made a small cupboard, which I gave the same dark grey treatment, before painting it white, again and again and again...

Now it needs to dry thoroughly before I can work on making the old look.

It looks here like spring is finally coming, but they say it's going to snow again this weekend... I'll see if it will be dollshouse or garden this weekend!

Bye for now,

Marit

Mini sampler

You haven't heard from me in a while, because I was busy, have some things on my mind and last week we had a small holiday. I will post some holidayphoto's later, and will catch up with you as well. For now I just want to show you that I'm still busy with my conservatory. I want to make a sampler for on the wall. I have cross-stitched a lot in my life, but never in mini. I think it's very frustrating, too much threads on a too small area, so I had to give up. Not my thing. For those who can, I admire you even more.
But no sampler? No. So I'm cross-stitching, not as small as I would prefer, but as small as I think I can handle.

I think the colours will match the conservatory perfectly.

As for the door: I started the first dark layers of paint today. I did think about the idea of a dark stain, I see how it would suit it nicely, but still prefered the painted look. So the painted look it will be. Thank you all for your ideas! So funny how other people can think in directions, which I didn't even think about!

Bye for now,

Marit

Colour advice wanted

Today has been a bad day for my little black cat. I guess he tried to walk on thin ice, because he came back from his daily 5 min walk outside wet from tail to ears. He didn't let me help him dry, but I'm just so happy that he's alright! After he washed himself dry, I spoiled the poor thing by letting him sleep in our bed beneath the blanket. He hasn't left the spot all day!

I've been working on the conservatory again, the floor, the back wall and the door in the wall. The tiles are from Jennifer's Free Printables. I still need to do the joints, but I love the result.

The door will get a leaded window and a shutter for a cat (for me a house without a cat is no home). I want to make a used look by painting it with colour 1 and then with colour 2, and then sand the used parts, so colour 1 will show. But which colours? First I thought colour1 to be white, and colour 2 to be bluegreen like the wall, or a lighter shade. Then I thought colour 1 to be dark grey (which the red part of the outside will become as well) and colour 2 to be white. The light blue-ish grey of the tiles is also a good colour 1 or 2. Or... what do you think, what would you do?

Marit

Merry Christmas everyone!

I want to make a Christmas-lantern, but this year I had no time for it. But I made a little scene to wish you all a very merry Christmas (well, I hope it was, as Christmas is almost over now) and a very happy and healthy 2010!

Almost invisible on the photo is the black cat in Christmas spirit (my real cat has other plans with Christmas decorations...).

The little bear was a present of Jody. It's really beautiful. I think I'll make a 'Merry Christmas'-sign with it for my lantern (next year?).

To my surprise I saw that there are six more of you out there following me! I think I need to thank Debbie for mentioning me on her blog! Welcome Lize, Vicky, Dales-Dreams, Susan (Minicrochetmad), Muriel (Le coffre d'Emilie) and Angeles. I don't seem to be able to find a blog of you, Dales_Dreams. If you have one, please let me know. I like to see who you are and what you do!

Bye for now,

Marit

After being absent for a while...

Let me show you what I have been doing besides my main activities of sleeping and working lately:

I've made this little gardenbasket with tools, which can hang on the hooks inside the basket. It was the first time that I made something by wickering, and it shows: the thread is too thick and it's far from straight. I should have tried something more easy, I know. I do not like the basket at all. I thought the thread I used would give it a rough, country look, but it's just out of proportion. And what about that stupid handle? I forced myself to finish it, just for the learning process and now I don't know what to do with it. I do love the little scoop, that does meet my need for perfection.

To make myself happy again, I gave myself an easier task: making little perfumebottles out of beads and tiny metal hearts, always fun, always beautiful. To be honest, I do not need any more bottles, I've already made so many of them, more than any vain dollshouse girl could possibly need. But it's just so much fun!

I also have been busy with my Unimat again, being inspired by the things which are made by Birchcraft (http://www.birchcraft.co.uk/). I'm making two keyrings:

This one is 7 cm in lenght. It has been painted blue, and now I want to paint small flowers, bees, butterflies and dragonflies on it. And this is the other one:

More on them coming soon (I hope).

Bye for now,

Marit

Unimat

On the fair in Arnhem in October I've bought an Unimat 1. I had seen it last year, thought it was a lot of money for just hobby, but missed it all year. Haven't played much with it yet, I've only used its saw, but haven't tried its other possibilities (yet :) ). SO far what I did with it:

It takes a little bit practice, but how wonderful precise one can be with this thing! It doesn't hurt fingers. A bit filing and sanding, and then painting:

These are the first 3 items I made:

The box has different colour of paint on each side:

The chopping board is better visible on photo than in real life. It was so difficult to add the white to the letters! I've started over 3 times!

The anchor will get a place on the door for now. I might put it on a stick or so, not sure yet. The grey paint is in fact silver. Behind it, is an Humbrol paint tin.

Till the next time,

Marit

Introduction to my dollshouse

For as long as I can remember I have wanted to build a dollshouse, one in which I could bring all my ideas and plans to life, for which is no room, time or money in the real world. But my lack of skills and hunger for perfection always kept me from building. Then I saw The Retreat of The Dolls House Emporium and thought it would be the perfect little house to turn into a beach house and learning that needed skills on the way!
It still is quite empty on the inside, but I made the deck ready for Halloween this weekend.

Some more detail:




And two miniatures I made for it:


The hedgehog is about 1 cm high. The pumpkins have glow-in-the-dark teeth and eyes. The candles and ghosts on the wreaths are made of glow-in-the-dark Fimo as well. Funny sight when I turn of the lights of my hobbyroom!

Enjoy the last bit of of the weekend!
Marit