A Miniature Circus in a Matchbox

A Circus in a Matchbox

I've been in Germany this last month visiting family and, as ever, was on the lookout for miniatures. I found this intriguing little matchbox in a souvenir shop. You can see how small it is with the paperclip beside it.

The makings of the circus

 Now with only a basic sketch for instructions and no picture of the completed circus, I think it will take a bit of working out what to put where. Like doing a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box to give you clues!
  I'll make this my weekend project and post a photo next week.

How to Decorate Tudor Dolls House Ceilings in 1:12 Scale

A beamed and plastered ceiling in a Tudor dolls house

 In Tudor times, ceilings had hand-adzed oak beams exposed. These were sometimes stencilled or painted with the area between the beams plastered. Grander houses may have had decorative plastered ceilings in the main hall.
  I used several different types of ceiling decoration in my Tudor dolls house.

How to Make Plaster and Oak Beams in this bedroom and the kitchen.

• Make the beams from balsa wood or squared wood. Roughen the edges or attack them with a craft knife to make knicks and cuts to give the effect of hand adzing. Stain with oak coloured stain.
• Mark with a pencil on the ceiling where the beams will go.
• Undercoat the ceiling with white paint then plaster it with a fine mix of tacky glue, artists sand and white paint, leaving the spaces clear where the beams will go.
• When dry, glue on the beams with wood glue and dabs of super glue. Hold the beams up till the glue dries with strips of masking tape.
• If you are building the dolls house, you can do all this in the early stages by turning it upside down to make it a lot easier to work with.

'Painted' beams in a Tudor dolls house

How to Make Decorative Beams: in the parlour.

• I had used scrap booking paper in a faded pattern to cover one wall of the Tudor parlour and had enough of the paper over to do the beams as well. 
• I made and stained the beams then carefully cut strips of the paper and glued them on the sides of the beams. Once completely dry I trimmed them up.
• This gave the effect of hand painted decoration. If you are a better painter than me, you could paint them or even stencil them to your own patterns.

Using embossed wallpaper

How to Make Plastered Ceilings: in the Great Hall.

• Source some embossed wallpaper from home decorating stores. They often have free samples or left over rolls from ends of runs or out of date pattern books you could use. I've found that once I explain about making a dolls house, the shop people are very interested and happy to give me wallpaper pieces.
• Carefully measure the ceiling of the dolls house in the room that will be a little 'grander' than the rest of the house.
• Now you can go two ways here: 
• a) choose a suitable section of the paper so that the pattern is centred on the ceiling and glue the paper to the ceiling, covering it completely.           b) cut out shapes from the embossed paper, plaster the ceiling and then stick the shapes on. This is what I did.
• Once the paper has dried, spread a very fine layer of plaster over the paper. This makes it merge in so it doesn't look like 'bits and pieces just stuck on'!

Creating a ceiling

How to Make a Rush Ceiling: for the top storey of my Tudor dolls House.

• The top floor of a Tudor house was where the servants slept or supplies were stored. It wasn't a place that would be seen by visitors so there was no need to have a grand ceiling to impress others.
• Slats of wood or rush matting would be laid under the tiles or shingles. In theory this would keep out the worst of the weather and the worst of the vermin. I'm thinking rats here!
• To simulate this in 1:12 scale I used place mats like this one, made of very thin strips of bamboo. Be careful when cutting them to size so they don't unravel before you have a chance to glue them on.

I hope these ideas will be useful when you are making your own Tudor dolls house or room box.

Another Miniature Knitting Masterpiece from Helen Palenski

Helen Palenski's red hat lady

You never know what IGMA artisan Helen Palenski will surprise us with next! She has added 'Red Hat Ladies' to her range of tiny knitted figures. This one has been made into a brooch - you can see the clasp to the left of the lady.
  With so much detail shown, it's hard to believe that this little figure is only 1 1/2 inches tall.
  Do you know the poem that was the inspiration for this miniature? It's called 'Warning' by Jenny Joseph. The narrator promises to be a difficult old lady! Here is the start of the poem:

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me,
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals and say we've no money for butter.

Helen's wee old woman is perfectly suited to the poem - she looks like a formidable lady with 'attitude'!

If you would like to see more of Helen's exquisite miniature knitting, look in the 'Guest Interview' section of this blog where I did a 2-part interview with Helen.

Doll's House Dolls Book

'Make and Clothe Your Own Doll's House Dolls' by Ellen Bedington

This is a companion volume to one book I have already reviewed - 'Design and Build Your Own Dolls House' (look under the blog label Book Reviews').
  In this book about making and dressing dolls in 1:12 scale, the author, an experienced doll maker, takes you step-by-step through the processes of making four different kinds of doll: a shoulder-plate doll, a flange-neck doll, using a mould and modelling a doll.

Making and Dressing Different Dolls

What I really like about this book are the detailed instructions and the very clear photographs that illustrate each step and technique. I have never made a doll but after spending a lot of time reading this book, I feel quite confident about starting one, with the book by my side every step of the way, of course!
  'Dressing the dolls' section of the book uses the same set-up of instructions and photos. The dressed dolls are then displayed in little scenes to show you what they would look like in your dolls house or room box.

Dolls to make and dress

The only downside of this book, I thought, was that the clothes to make for the dolls was limited to Victorian and Edwardian era styles of dress, perhaps because Victorian dolls houses seem to be the most popular with miniaturists.
All in all, this is a very handy book to add to your library, especially for beginners in the making of dolls house dolls scene!

How to Plaster Walls in 1:12 Scale

An easy way of plastering in 1:12 scale

Keeping to my Greek theme for the mini shadow box, I decided rather than wallpapering the walls, I'd plaster them. 
  When I plastered the Tudor house (see under 'Tudor House' in the blog labels list) I used a mixture of white paint, PVA glue and talcum powder and applied it quite thickly to the walls.
  This time, because the shadow box is small, I imagined a finer 'plaster' would be better.
  In one of those serendipitous 'aha!' moments, I thought of using gesso. This is a primer used by artists to prepare surfaces such as canvas, wood and paper to provide a flexible, non-cracking surface to paint on. 
  So I squirted some gesso onto the already undercoated box walls and scraped it around with the edge of an old credit card so the walls looked as if they were whitewashed and slightly textured.
  It's an easy way of plastering and the effect was just as I'd hoped for. And because the gesso is white, I didn't have to paint again.

Mini Scene in a Box Frame: Getting Started

Continuing with the shadow box project

I took my shadow box project to minis club this month. In between the talking and seeing what others were making, I got the frame and the box undercoated in white paint, and I made the little pot plant.

Making a start on the small project

I've decided to run with the idea of decorating this as a Greek scene. So I sorted through my 'stash' of bits and pieces and found all of these that will be perfect on the table and shelves.

1:12 Scale Greek Miniatures

Next step will be to plaster the box interior and start making the furniture. So watch this space!

Free On-line Miniatures Magazines to Enjoy

I've discovered two wonderful on-line resources this month, and how I wish I had found them years ago! In fact, I am so excited about the magazines that I just had to share them with you.

Both are magazines that promote excellence in miniatures and connect professional, international artisan mini-makers with others interested in hand-making dolls houses and minis.

AIM stands for Artisans in Miniature and has a monthly, free magazine that you can download or read on-line. Projects, articles, features on artisans, and handy hints along with beautiful photographs make you want to sit, read, enjoy and then make miniatures. There are back issues from 2009 onward on-line too, so there's lots of reading to be done!

CDHM stands for Custom Dolls, Houses and Miniatures and also features wonderful work by artisans in our hobby. Their magazine is called CDHM Miniature Way. As well as the magazine there are tutorials on making lots of miniatures, many of the lessons taken by IGMA miniaturists.

I hope you enjoy these publications as much as I do, and are inspired to try some new things in our mini world.