Customized closet

I love me some vacation time!  It gives me the opportunity of having some crafting time  :)

Today I made something that I had forgotten I wanted to do; but I was doing some back up on my computer and found the file I needed to use by chance.

I had seen this beautiful Tuscan cabinet in Lilliput's Treasure shop.  I have a closet in my dollhouse that is almost the same model, and I wanted to do something similar.  I searched online for wood panels, and found something that was similar in style.  So this is the before:

And this is the after:

I love how it turned out!!  The image is a Parisienne fresco found on Google (distressed green with red).  It is something very subtle, but it gives character to the closet.  Here is a detail:

And the closet in its place in the room:

Wonderful!!

Tom Bishop's Show 2018

Once more, I am back from another Tom Bishop's Show!

Even though my mom and I had a great time, I was kind of sad that each year less and less artisans are showing up to showcase their work.  We have a lot of national miniaturists, but I miss some great names that we had in the past, and that they say they are too busy, or it is not worthy anymore for them to come.

I am glad I have their websites, and some of their pieces, and that I can write an email and I can have another piece of art from them.  But I miss to chat with them, and see in real life all the beauty of their work.  

Anyway, here are this year's founds:

A candle and a dome glass by 64tnt Miniatures

A Christmas wreath by Miniaturas PQF

A toiletry bottle kit by ViliaMiniatures

A trunk kit and a dominoes kit by Cinderella

Hardware for the trunk by Bindels Ornaments

A glass funnel by Beatricce Miniatures

A resting cat and silver handles by Chic Dollhouse

Hopefully there will be more next year.  Oh, the plans I have for the trunk...!  I cannot wait to start!!

Crafting journals

Long time no writing!

My absence is only due to a lot of crafting.  As many of you know, I am a follower of Vectoria Designs, and of course I have been doing many of the tutorials Tinne posts on YouTube.  The last one is one I am particularly proud of.

I have zero knowledge of scrapbooking, and most of the time I reproduce what Tinne does as faithfully as possible.  Not only to learn, but to see if my imaginations sparks a bit and I can create some pretty designs of my own.

The last tutorial she made was something that I just HAD to do.  Here is the video:

Since the student year has finished, I wanted to make this planner for my husband for next year.  It is something so simple and nice looking!  So, I took the freebie, printed about 27 sheets of paper (double sided) so it would last a whole year, and started crafting, following the instructions closely.  I so enjoyed it!  And here is the final result:

Front

Back

Weekly planner

My husband loved it!  And then I wanted to make one for myself.

Since I do not have a need for a planner, I decided to make a blank journal.  I chose a marine theme, with some of Tinne's gorgeous nautical papers, and this is what I finally made:

Front

I was bold enough to add liner pages in this one :)

Back

The little inside pocket holds a mermaid tag, that I will use as bookmark, when needed. 

I will probably make more of these as Christmas presents.  They are addictive, and there so many themes one can choose!

So, stop reading this and go make one for yourself! 

A new miniature challenge from my mom - and I made it!

My mother is starting yet another scene - she says it is the last one because she does not have any more room.  I am not so sure about that...

This time the place to recreate is a doctor's office and the petitions for stuff have already started.  I made for her some medical posters, which was easy enough.  But she asked too for x-rays.

It would have been very easy to just print some x-rays on regular paper, but I wondered if it would be possible to make them so they would be plastic-like, like the real deal.  At first I thought of taking a normal image of an x-ray, make a mirror copy, print them and glue them together, and somehow attach a plastic cover on them.  But then, it occurred to me that the result would probably be too thick, and not very real-looking.

Then, the bulb in my head went on, and I thought about using transparency film.  Even though they may be outdated with the tablet technology, we used them to make Power Point-like presentations.  You can print them at home with a regular printer.  I had a couple of pages that I bought when I made Kassandra's lantern, and I decided to give it a try.

I googled some random x-rays, and simply reduced the size and increased the DPI ratio with Photoshop.  And I made it!  Here is the result:

They look awesome!!

I hope my mom likes them!

An update on the soap shop

It's funny how I do the work in this shop in batches!

Today I took up the soap shop again.  I am having visitors this weekend, and I wanted them to have a look at the scene and see how it is coming up.

I have been painting the furnitre in white these past days.  Nothing to report on that, just painting and letting dry.

But today I wanted to finish the cabinet of the Black and White collection.  So, I gave an extra layer of paint, and let it dry.  Then I took the drawers and replaced the plastic golden knobs by brass handles in the shape of a clam shell:

Love the clam shell pullers!

And then everything could go back to their place:

Yay! Finished!

 Plenty of things here!  I made some and bought some.  The cabinet comes from Beautifully Handmade.  The round metallic boxes, the white candle in glass votive, the brown-striped boxes and the fabric sample catalogues come from Syreeta's Miniatures.  The square boxes at the top (they have real candles inside!), and the white beauty products come from Sophia Miniatures.  The square boxes with a bow and little heart soaps inside, the room diffuser and the three striped and Toile boxes at the bottom of the shelf I made myself.  I don't remember where I got the clam shell pullers.  The basket was a gift from my mom.

And then, since I will be having visitors, I cleaned up the greenhouse.  The walls are not glass, but acrylic, but they are not damaged, so the scene can be seen quite clearly.  Here are some pics of the work so far:

Love my commode!

The glass apothecary jars are both from Sophia and Beacctrice's Miniaturas.  The one with the green soaps I bought ready made from Sophia.  The rest, I filled up and put the labels and ribbons myself. The round hat boxes and the black towels are also Sophia's, and the pitcher and the pillow with the crown are from Pilar Alén.

The box with the decorative papers I made myself.  The aquarium with the jellyfish (they glow in the dark!) is from Ángeles León.  The pillows with the marine decorations are from Vilia Miniature.  You will see that this shop will have a very dominant marine/ocean theme... The nesting tables are a gift from my mom.

This counter still needs a lot of work done...

The counter I bought on a miniature show called Kas y Tas.  The towels and the black basket are from Sophia.  The brown basket and the folding table are gifts from my mom.  As you can see, my mom keeps giving me stuff she does no longer need.  Not that I am complaining...

I will be crafting more little details as soon as I finish painting the last shelf.  And that one needs a lot of painting... Oh my!

Belly dance magazines and free printable

As Kassandra was so busy with her ballet magazines the other day, I forgot to tell her I had at home some belly dancing magazines - I am a belly dancer as well - and I thought maybe she would like to have them, as I had already read them.  So, I put them in a bag and took them to her.

"I brought you something".

"Did you?  What is it?"

"It's a collection of belly dance magazines I had around.  Maybe your daugther can have some use for them.  They are a gift for her."

"Oh, are you not delightful? Thank you very much!  I am sure Jean will appreciate them.  I will give them to her on your behalf."

"You are welcome.  I hope she enjoys them."

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Fantasy apart, it was so much fun doing the ballet magazines that I wanted to have some of belly dance.  I did not know if I would be able to find any, but apparently there are (or used to be) some.  These were more difficult to find, so there are not so many.  Also, I had to be content with putting some DVD covers in the backs, as there were even less adverts of belly dance events or vendors, although I found a couple of them.  The bag is new as well.

If you belly dance I am sure you will recognize some of the people in the covers...

Except for the Dahlal ad on the left, the rest are quite famous dancers

As with the ballet magazines, I am happy to pass on the file to you, in case you want to make some for yourself.  Here are the belly dance magazines.  Feel free to use them and pass them around, but please do not sell them.  Have fun!  

Ballet magazines and free printable

Today Kassandra asked for a new magazine holder.  I wanted to know what it was going to be used for, to see if I could find a pattern that suited the theme.  Her magazine collection is quite eclectic.

"Ballet", she answered.

"Oh, I did not know you were interested in the arts".

"Oh yes, at home we have a passion for three things, mainly.  Music, specially opera, ballet and belly dance".

I didn't know which one surprised me the most.  Ballet? Belly dance? Opera sounded like the most plausible thing, since it had been around for centuries.  The other two were... unexpected.

"Those are interesting hobbies, specially the dancing", I could finally articulate.

"Oh well, the belly dance is something relatively new.  My adoptive daughter introduced me to it.  I quite enjoy it, it is so fun.  And one of her adoptive daugthers is a ballerina.  I trained her myself.  Now she is the principal dancer of my company."

"I see".  I did not know she had a ballet company.  I wanted to ask more questions, but I was afraid of appearing impertinent, so I didn't.  Hopefully, she will share more in the future on her own accord.  She usually does.

So I went and designed a magazine holder for her ballet magazines.  When I brought it back to her, she seemed pleased.

"I hope it fits your expectations", I said.  "I wanted to convey a vintage, Parisian feeling."

"It is perfect!  The magazines will look great in it."

And then she proceeded to tidy up her collection:

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Fantasy apart, I had so much fun making the ballet magazines!  I wanted to have different titles, but I only could find good resolution images mainly from Pointe.  Still, I managed to make each of them different.  And I even put a different advert on each back from famous dance supplies companies! A labor of love!

So, I wanted to share with you all the file for the ballet magazines, hoping you like it, and maybe you can make your own issues to scatter around your mini home.  As always, please feel free to share it with a link back, but do not sell the file.  Enjoy!

An Egyptian necklace

Today I found Kassandra very busy, getting ready what seemed to be a gift box.

"A late Solstice present?", I asked.

"Exactly that", she said.  "It has come all the way from Netherlands, and it got stuck in the Postal Service office.  I am getting it all prettied up to give to a very special woman.  She is Egyptian, so I am sure she is going to appreciate the design.  It is the Egyptian goddess Isis.  The artist that made it is extraordinarily talented".

"I am sure your friend will love it. "

Coming back to a long forgotten project

The work at Kassandra's house is never finished.  But sometimes I get an itch to do something different, and yesterday I began the work again in the already-mentioned soap shop in the IKEA greenhouse.

As it is usual with me, I begin these projects by starting with the most minute details.  Yes, I purchased the room, and even some furniture to fill it with.  And then I started crafting polymer clays soaps, pretty boxes, tiny toiletry bottles... I was so excited with all the media I was going to be using that I did not want to deal with furniture painting.  Or even worse, setting up an stable floor that would not end up with all the furniture and the decorations falling down - that happened, by the way.  Many times.

So, in my last trip to Madrid I purchased a board of balsa wood to set up a good foundation for the shop.  I thought it would be tricky to cut it to measure, but with the help of a new, barely used cutter, a metal ruler and a cutting board was piece of cake:

See the tiny pieces that I had to cut

As you can see, the floor may be good for plants, but not for tiny forniture filled with stuff

Once cut to size, I had to trim the corners so the acrylic walls would sit in place.  Then I glued the boards:

And then my favorite part: wallpapering!  I knew I did not want to simply paint the floor.  I wanted some contrast, since the forniture will be white.  So I head over Small Stuff's PrintMini and I chose a lovely tiled floor (that for some reason only exists in the 1:6 scale).  I printed 4 pages directly from the website, and off to mount them on the floor!

See all the stuff packed in boxes?  It's been there since we moved last Summer...

This time I used regular copy paper instead of the nice matte photographic paper.  Mainly because it is not walls, but floor, and really, it is going to be so full of things that I did not think it worthy to invest 4 pages of nice paper.  I took the double sided tape and covered the back almost completely:

Then I glued it to the boards and trimmed the corners:

And yay! It's finished!!  And the walls sit perfectly well in place:

It only took me about an hour of work, and I was very happy when I finished. It almost looks like it really was the floor of a greenhouse, and now the greenhouse is getting turned into a shop!

This morning I started painting the furniture (I hate painting furmiture!).  I gave a couple of hands, then let it sit until I came back from the lab, and applied a couple more coats where they were needed.  Then I took a commode I purchased a couple of years back (it came from El Rastrillo de Viti) and started working on it.

I had seen this beautiful commode on Minicler's shop, and wanted something similar.  But I wanted to use Toile paper in blue.  I find it très chic!  I also replaced the drawers wood handles by brass handles, and here is it the finished version:

I love it!

The shop is getting started... And you can see my minions, LOL!

I am very happy with these two days of work.  I hope I can keep up with the painting in tiny steps and it will be over soon.  I am anxious to start crafting decorations again!