New piece for the museum

I had been wating for ever to finish this project, but today was the day.  

I bought a file cabinet from Beautifully Handmade to transform into something very different:

I wanted something to display in the museum that gave the illusion of organized artifacts.  I have a thing for antique documents, and since it is so difficult to display books on a small roombox already filled up, I opted for a file cabinet with folders.  They can be extracted, opened, and the maps removed from them for study:

All the maps are previous to the 19th century (some are from the 17th century!).  The folders are made with cardboard and texturized paper (brown snake skin).  The inside covers and the maps are prints on regular paper.  To top everything up, there is a little bookend with a rotating globe on top of the cabinet - I am currently waiting on one with better looks.

It took me several months to start this project, but once on it, it took me about a week to finish it.  I am very happy with the final result, and it looks fantastic on the museum:

Kassandra's portrait cabinet

Today I visited Kassandra, since it was so much time since last I saw her.  I found her very busy, cleaning up a nightstand in her bedroom.  It was full of tiny portraits of people.

"Friends of yours?", I asked.

"Oh, some of them were more than friends", answered her, with a wink.  "But yes, they are people close to my heart.  Let's see if you recognize any of them!"

"Well, let's start with the drawer on the left.  I recognize them all.  They are Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Thomas Jefferson and Edgar Allan Poe."

"Exactly right! All of them were very special to me at some point in my life.  What about the drawer on the right?"

"There you have me.  I recognize Elisabeth of Austria, and Lord Byron, of course.  But the other lady, I do not know who she is."

"Why, she is Mary Shelley, my dear!  Surely you have read Frankenstein?"

"Absolutely!  I did not know you knew any of them..."

"Oh, I was at the mansion by the lake in Geneva with them, Shelley and Dr. Polidori when the idea of the competition to write a horror story came up.  Who do you think proposed it?  Those were fun times.  You even recognized Elisabeth..."

"Of course.  Even though that portrait is not the most famous of her, I know Winterhalter's work."

"I was an asiduous visitor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.  Elisabeth was a delicious child, so unhappy all her life, poor thing!   I always said to her she spent too many hours doing her toilette, and she said, "Well, what would you have me do, my dear, go around with my hair to the wind?", and I said, "Sure, why not?"  And then I asked Winterhalter to do the painting of her with her hair down.  Then he later painted this small copy for my collection.  What about the third drawer?"

"Oh, the Romanov family is very famous, of course."

"Yes, I visited them often.  Alexandra and I were friends since before she married; her husband was very formal and gentlemanly with me.  I appreciated him.  What the mobs did to their kids in the revolution was unforgivable; even though I may understand the frustration of the Russian people, you do not execute children, ever."

"Vlad Tepes is infamous, as well.  Were you two related?"

"Oh yes.  He was a cousin, from the not-so down-to-Earth part of the family; but he knew how to get the work done.  Erzsébeth Báthory was not.  She was a friend of the family, but she so wanted to be one of our own!  She did some really stupid things, no wonder she was imprisoned when they found out!  All she had to do was ask, and I would not have said no, you know?  But her maid filled her head with fantasies, and it did not end up well for them, I am afraid."

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Fantasy apart, I saw this fantastic cabinet from Unique Miniatures, and I thought it was genius!  The creator mentions that she saw something similar in the Pride and Prejudice TV series with Colin Firth, so I went to investigate that.  And sure enough, in chapter 4 we have a showcase table full of little portraits:

The lady calls over Elizabeth Bennet to check out the table

The portraits showcased in the table

I have been trying to find out if this way to keep portraits was something common in the 19 century, but could not find anything on it.  From what I can see, I would say they are small portraits that used to hang in the house (they all have hangers, or bails) and are now gathered all together for some reason - maybe for renovations, or to preserve them better?  Some are small enough to be considered jewelry.  In any case, the idea for a miniature was lovely!

But I wanted to make my own; not only because it would be fun, but because every portrait that exists in my dollhouse has a meaning: a real person behind them, like my mom's or grandma's pictures, or someone Kassandra may have known - there is no strange people hanging about. 

The first thing I did was trying to figure out what would I use as frames for the portraits.  If I could not find any that were suitable, the whole project was moot.  I had perused many Etsy shops for mini findings before, but never found any that were so small.  But then who could came to mind other than Bindels Ornaments?  I have bought from them a couple of times at the Tom Bishop Show, and they have amazing components to work with.  So, I went to their website and spent some time going about their catalogue to find the perfect settings for the portraits.  I even made patterns of some of them to try them out in the drawers:

They will be perfect!

 So, I ordered them, and while they came, I took an ordinary and plain nightstand that I had in the dollhouse bedroom and the work began.  First, I lined the drawers with the same fabric paper I used on the Natural History cabinet:

Trying on the pattern

Three drawers covered with paper

Looking good!

Still waiting for the settings, I gathered the portraits of the people that were going to be in them - I used Google, of course.  That was fun, thinking about how Kassandra may have known them - some were going to be in undoubtedly, as they already appear in some of my novels.  And she being a vampire, some simply HAD to be in it.  When the settings arrived, I measured them, and using Photoshop, I made the portraits as small as required.  Printed them out 3 times for trial and error and voilà!  It took little effort to glue the paper to the settings.

Then I simply attached the settings to the drawers with a tiny bit of double-sided tape.  I have so enjoyed the process! Specially because I do not need any extra room to put the nightsatand, since it was already there.  I simply dressed it up a bit!

I am already planning a new cabinet, this time from an episode of Downton Abbey.  Stay tuned!

Natural history cabinet project

Do you know the curiosities table Kassandra has in the drawing room?  I wanted to do a natural history cabinet after seeing this magnificient piece of furniture from The Miniature Maker:

I fell in love!  But I wanted to make my own, so I searched for an empty, unfinished cabinet to use.  I finally got one from Beautifully Handmade on eBay:

As you can see, it is a very modern style, but the antique looking ones were out of my desired price range.  So, I started by staining it with a Scalecolor ink (I used the Inktense Chestnut shade), and let it dry.  I love how intense and soft the color of this shade is; and then I replaced the wood knobs by brass handles, to give it a more antique look:

Finished this, my favorite part started: assigning a theme to each drawer and designing them.  Originally I wanted to divide the drawers with wood slots as the original one has, but I finally decided that that would rest space for the collection, as the drawers are not that big, so I decided against it; and instead, I was content to line the drawers with textile-textured scrapbook paper:

Trying out the pattern

Lined drawers

Pattern for the big drawers

Final look

So awesome!  Now the real fun begins: the collections for the drawers!  I started with some minerals and gems.  Some I had around; some others were kindly donated by a co-worker.  I wanted to do just one drawer, but I ended up doing two because I liked so many of them I could not fit them all in just one.  I organized them, and then I started making little labels to identify each of them.  The labels come from Vectoria Designs, simply reduced to the minimum expression.  Even though once printed the lettering was not readable, I assure you each of them has the name of the specimen, a date, and whether or not they are donated and by whom.

Trying out the labels

Aren't they amazingly pretty?

Two done, four to go!  The next one had to be, of course, marine specimens!  I used real tiny shells, and I glued a faux pearl to one of them to simulate an oyster.

Spell under the sea!

The next one came as a surprise.  I was talking to another co-worker about this project, saying I wanted to try and find real fossils for one of the drawers, and she was so generous to offer to donate a real fossil she found in a trip when she was cursing her biology degree.  Naturally, I accepted immediately!  It was a little big for a 1:12 scale standard, but there are big size fossils too in real life:

It fitted just well enough!

See the label attached to the back of the drawer?

On to the next one.  This time, butterflies!  I found a very pretty butterfly classification chart, and searched for suitable pictures of each one that I liked.  Then I made the labels with the common name, the scientific name, and the distribution of each species.  It was a challenge to cut and glue each one!  I even added little antennae using the bristles of a toothbrush, which I painted black:

And, there is one drawer left!  This one is going to have a collection of bird eggs.  But, since I have to sculpt and paint each egg by hand, I still haven't started with them, since it is going to be time consuming.  But I wanted to share what I have thus far.  

More pictures when I finish the last drawer!

Micro mini dollhouse for my mother

My mom has an ordinary cabinet that she used to showcase jewelry in our of her scenes.  The scene, a fancy ladies shop, has changed recently with new furniture and decorations, and she did not like the cabinet there anymore.  Since the cabinet has a couple of glass doors, she had the idea of transforming it into a 1/144 scale dollhouse.

She wanted to buy the furniture and start decorating right away, but I told her maybe it would be nice to put some wallpapers and some walls on it, and I offered to do it for her, as she has zero hability for this kind of thing.  She happily accepted.

It did not take me long to design some pretty wallpapers with the help of Vectoria Designs papers.  I submitted everything for approval, and today I finally put it together:

Upstairs there will be a bedroom and a sitting room - kind of like a suit, that is why there is no extra wall added there.  Downstairs a kitchen and a living room.  I made the extra wall with balsa wood, whose edge I painted with a red marker to imitate the mahogany of the cabinet.

I am very happy how it turned out.  I know she will have fun adding furniture!

New cabinets on the shop

So, here is something new and totally out of my usual designs:

My mother purchased a pink bottle kit to decorate her dollhouse bathroom, and she let me had the ones she did not need.  I purchased a blue bottle kit and together with some extra stuff brings you this lovely cabinet for a fancy shop, drugstore or bathroom.  I particularly like the set of towels tied up with ribbon and the monogram.  The tiny soap boxes are just so cute!

Also, here is a new apothecary cabinet:

It has the usual bottles with their vintage labels and also a brass scale with scale weights of different sizes.  One of a kind!

Come and take a look!

New minis up for sale

Hello miniature enthusiasts!

My lab course had me unable to do anything creative-wise, but the lack of time and the lack of inspiration has passed, and I have been crafting like crazy these past weeks.  So I am very happy to say that I have new minis up for sale, with more to follow:

Apothercary cabinet

For those of you interested in medicine, here is a new apothecary cabinet, fully equipped for your pharmacy, doctor's office or mad scientist lab.

Witch or wizard table

 For those of you interested in magic, here is an enchanting table, with plenty of artifacts that will make the day of your magic-oriented mini people.  This table is one of a kind, and there will be no more like it.

Ironing board

For those of you with less extravagant tastes, here is a lovely ironing board for that forgotten corner of your dollhouse.

Also, I have available a vintage chandelier, an hourglass that actually works and the absinthe soap box is back again.  I am waiting for supplies to produce more absinthe fountains, but they will be up soon enough.

Come take a look!

New apothecary cabinet up for sale in my shop!
Filled to suit your medicinal needs, with real glass bottles and authentic reproductions of vintage apothecary labels.
Grab it today before somebody else does!