Michelle's give-away present has arrived!

As you may remember Michelle of Little Rabbit Miniatures had a give-away to celibrate the opening of her Etsy-shop and having 105 followers, and I was the winner of a beautiful Cinenaria. It arrived this weekend, and in real it's even more beautiful than on the picture!

A close-up:

As said: the give-away was to celibrate the opening of her Etsy shop, where Michelle sells plants and flowers, all very different, but all very detailed and beautiful. If you want to see her wonderful works, visit her shop here.

Thanks again Michelle!

Bye for now!

Marit

Welcome!

My hobbyroom has a door to a roofterrace, where I can do dirty work as sanding, take pictures of my work in good light, feed the birds out of reach of my cat, or just sit and enjoy the view (preferably with a glass of rosé wine and the evening sun). It's raining now, but look who visited me on the terrace last week:

I have more welcoming to do, many new followers!

So a warm welcome to:

Tebbina

Sarah J

Maria

Mini_babies

Tabitha Corsica

Pilar

Carolyn

Glenda

Otterine

Kat the Hat Lady

Kim@Fairytale Cottage

Art of Mini

Momy

Clara

Keli

Marie

Anything Miniature

I hope you all will like it here and leave many nice comments :-).

Marit

Little creatures

I want to finish the base of the conservatory, so I can glue it on the wall and shelf, but this sure isn't my best week.

I've put scrappaper beneath the windows, and the windowsills are ready to be put in, but first I had to glue the acryllic glass back in again. But the glue I used reacted with the acryllic glass, didn't glue, became runny and left white stains on it... In other words: the glass is ruined. In the proces I pushed a window ornament out (easy to fix) and broke one of the hinges of the door (beyond repairing). So I need new glass and hinges, before I can go further here.

I thought I could make some small creatures of Fimo, to live in the garden. Here they are:

A hanging mouse:

A mouse on a pin (to put on a stem of a plant or flower):

A dragonfly (only 5 mm in lenght, with 6 legs and musquito-wings!):

A mole:

And 5 snails:

Yes, I did say 5, I did make 5, but one never made it to the oven (was found in my hair (?) later), and the other two with real snail-houses didn't survive my clumsyness... (see first picture) As I said, this week was not a good week for me to work in miniature.

They all need a bit of paint and some need some flock, but even the mega-scrap-shop nearby didn't have that, did not even know it exists. Thank God for webshops! Now I just have to wait till the postman brings me my glass, hinges and flock (and the other nice stuff I saw in those webshops ;) ). 

Have a nice week!

Marit

Backwall

A conservatory usually doesn't stand on its own, so I needed to make a wall, behind which the rest of the house would be. So last week I have been busy with self-drying clay and paint. Here is the result:

The lion-plate with tap is bought. It just needed painting.

And here is how I did it:

First I've put the clay in place. It doesn't need to be flat. Then I sketched the stones, following the lines of the unflatness, making stones in various sizes. On the right you see the next step: defining and shaping each stone. On some stones I made cracks and bumps. Then the whole wall gets texture by beating and stroking with a firm brush. I applied several layers of paint, but also gave a few stones one layer of a different colour, so not all stones will have the same colour. It needs a bit of variation to look realistic.

To show my husband what I did, I placed the lion-plate on the wall, and it stayed there while drying. That was by accident quite a good choice, as the clay shrinks on drying. With the plate in place, it kept his place. It was quite stuck after a few days of drying!

I still need to add moss, climbing plants, a little bird-nest in a hole between the stones, etc, but so far I am pleased with the result.

Update on my cat: he still sleeps a lot and surely has muscle pain, but he's doing very well. You already said it to me: cats are really tough creatures!

Marit

Finished bench

It got late last night, but I finished the bench!

Did you notice the M before?

Inside I've put a pink lining in contrast with the turquoise colour beneath the white paint.

 It will get a place in my conservatory.

 Left, right, I'm not sure yet.

It took 4 layers of white to cover the turquoise, and when it was fully covered, I sanded it again, showing the turquoise and bare wood, to give it a used look. It still feels silly to 'damage' a neatly painted piece, but I do like the effect, giving a dolls house the feel like it's being lived in, a home, instead of a show piece.

Hope you had a nice weekend full miniatures to enjoy as well.

Marit