You may expect a lot of things here; from crafting experiences to corsets and rumblings about my everyday life, all of it showered with my interest for absinthe.
I looooove designing my own printies! The search for images, the composition process on the computer, and then printing them, and seeing how everything works together... Priceless!
I glued the playing board onto a piece of 3 mm foamboard, to give it a 3D look. You can use too regular cardboard (one piece or several pieces attached to each other).
As always, feel free to use it, make gifts for your friends, and share (links back are nice too!), but please do not sell the file or your creations. Enjoy!
The absinthe fountain is again available at my shop! Better and improved, the reservoir is now smaller, and the water includes 3 tiny faux ice cubes. A different addition to any dollhouse collection, pub, bar or antiques shop.
An original design and exclusively at Kaleidoskopic Romance.
Already up for sale, a new Apothecary cabinet for your miniature setting. As usual, it includes everything you see in the pic, including a metal microscope and a hand sculpted mortar and pestle imitating granite. It is available in my shop.
It's been quite sometime since I had time to create something entirely new... Actually, the idea for these came after the "holy trinity" set, and it's specially made for fans of gardening and witches or wizards settings. It is a compilation of drawings of real plants:
This set includes wolfsbane, vervain, belladona, hellebore and digitalis.
And this one has fly agaric, sage, bergamot, wild Angelica and dragon's blood.
They will be up for sale in my shop in a couple of days. Also, be prepared for some new miniatures made by my mom. She will have her own special corner in my shop, so stay tuned for her designs. The first mini up for sale will be a set of suitcase and two bags, made from real leather!
Since yesterday I was crafting labels for the new Absinthe bottles, I got creative and spent some time playing around with a new design for my wine bottles. Until now, they were just "Transilvania Merlot", printed in tea-stained paper with the silhouette of a bat underneath:
Cute, but kind of simple. Anyway, since the Vampire Wine has already been invented, I wanted my own private brand of Romania-inspired wine; hence, the Tepes Wine was borne:
I have always loved this portrait of Vlad Tepes, the original Dracula, and I think the color combination grabs the eye against the red color of the bottle. It will be up in my shop in a couple of days.
By the way, I would like to share with you a link to Free Label Maker; they have dozens of PDF labels for you to play with for your projects; no programs to download to make the labels and super easy to use! And free, of course!
I just can't get enough of them! This is a new model of bottle; it is made after the real Absinthe brand Red Tunel, and comes with its own elegant black gift bag. Will be up in my shop tomorrow!
And also 3 parchment posters with the Absinthe "holy trinity": wormwood, anise and fennel. For your library, botanical collection, or Absinthe collection. Already for sale!
Hubby and I are now working long hours in the lab after every body has gone. I help when I can; lately I have been going there 3 hours a day, and I can not sit for a moment because of all the work that there is to do. It is practically impossible to spend all that time between experiments without thinking "How could I do this in miniature?".
To relax tension, I have made this simple but funny vignette:
Yes, in labs there are objects chained to the wall - he said that chained containers are generally made of aluminum, not glass, but I think that seeing green stuff in a glass jar is more fun! It's available in my shop, so go grab it if you like it :)
Spending all this time in the lab has given me new energy to try and make a lab bench in miniature. I'm considering the possibility that most of the stuff that will sit there is too geek-related for the non-scientist to understand (I have made the equivalent of a Kleenex box with wipes for microscope lens - they are called Kim Wipes), so I don't know if it would sell well. We'll see...
It's done! I have put the last new bottle inside it today. This is how the cabinet was before changing:
Halloween sweets and chocolates boxes for the most part.
And this is how it is now:
I think it's pretty filled up... I wanted to add a couple of test tubes in the lower shelf, but I don't want it to appear excessively cluttered. I don't know... The round glass jar has leaves inside that still need to be processed. Here is a pic of the cabinet in its place inside the shop:
I just love all the different jars that I have found!
I stored the Halloween candy and the chocolate bars for future projects, but I could not bear to take out of the house the chocolate boxes, so I simply made some gift bags, and put the boxes inside them; they are currently waiting in the hall of the house to be stored away...
Yay! Another year wiser! No, I am not going to say "older". It's being a birthday somehow wet; it's been raining since yesterday. But no matter, nothing is going to stop me from dressing up this evening when we go to dine...
Mr. Postman just came and delivered some cute minis from Manor House Miniatures. More glass jars for the apothecary cabinet, showing here:
They are the ones in the third and fourth shelves. Just filled up!
Also, I have been spending some minutes in placing Edgar, the pet raven, in his new stand, a Christmas gift from minibuilder. He is so happy to have a place from where he can watch everything!
Can you see him just over the book stand?
I will announce tomorrow the winner of the Birthday Give Away. You still have time (until local 12 am this evening) to participate. Just answer the question here and you can win a hand-made miniature for your dollhouse - Valentine's Day theme.
It's official. Michael's has stopped stocking up on wood miniature cabinets. I have no idea if Don Mechanics has discontinued the line or if Michael's simply doesn't carry them anymore.
I visited yesterday all the Michael's shops that I have in a 100 miles radium to stock up on cabinets for my crafts. I have only 16, and when they are gone, there will be no more.
If you would like to order a custom cabinet, please contact me through my shop.
The bottles arrived today; 60 tiny glass bottles to fill up and label! Who can resist that? I had to sit down and finish the first apothecary cabinet. I am so happy how well it turned out! It will be up for sale in my shop tomorrow.
Three different kind of jars, and all of them feature reproductions of real vintage unmodified apothecary labels. And of course, a brass scale and a glass stirrer or pipette.
I made a couple of them for my own cabinet, but I have not taken a pic yet; too little changes to show it. I will wait for it to be complete before showing it again.
I am waiting for more packages with more glass goodies inside...
I will be celebrating my birthday on Friday the 22nd, and following up the tradition Debbie of Tiny Treasures has begun, I will be giving away a gift on that day.
One lucky winner will get a surprise gift - well, it's a surprise, but I will let you know some things: - It's a 1/12 scale miniature - It's hand-made by me - It will fit in any dollhouse, no matter the style - It will be perfect for your Valentine's Day
So, now some rules...
1- You have to be a follower of this blog 2- You have to answer correctly one question. Leave me a message in the Comments section; I will keep them hidden until Friday so you may not copy one another.
This is the question: What is the name of the evil main character in the story "The vampyre" by John Polidori?
You have until Friday to answer the question. I will place the name of all the people that answer correctly in a hat and my husband will pull up a winner.
To make it more interesting, if you answer correctly two questions, you will get your name in the hat two times. The second question you may try to answer is: What is the name of the girl that Carmilla the vampire kills before visiting the narrator of the story?
I was doing some shopping at Michael's today and found some lovely jewelry findings that may work well in a dollhouse setting.
They belong to the Madame Delphine's collection. I saw some charms small enough that would look lovely on a dresser, as well as mirrors framed with delicate Victorian flowers that could belong on a bedroom or parlor. Here is a link to the collection.
If you have a chance go take a look before they are gone!
Some time ago, I blogged about the idea of making a hobbit hole as dollhouse. Well, somebody else had the same idea, and just recently came across a blog in LiveJournal. ObeliaMedusa had posted some fabulous pictures of her astonishing hobbit dollhouse. Take a look, because this is a delightful work!
Every dollhouse needs a box of chocolates! Yes, even one owned by a vampire. Vampires have visitors, you know?
When I found the blog of miniaturist Debbie, I knew I wanted to try her design of chocolate boxes. It didn't take me long, and here are the results:
The one with the black rose is for me; my vampire has a glass counter with sweets in her shop. Who said witches don't like to pamper themselves? So, the box with the black rose will go there.
The other one is for my mother. She simply loves miniature food! As soon as I show her Debbie's design she wanted one for herself. Wish granted!
LOL, I couldn't help it! I needed to stuff the counter of my dollhouse shop with money! I know they won't be visible on display, but that doesn't matter.
Since the dollhouse is supposed to be in Knocturn Alley, the central drawer holds the common European currency, the Euro. In the left drawer there are US bills, and the right one holds checks. What a kerfuffle for the accountant that balances the books!
My dollhouse has been a little abandoned in the last days, for lack of new projects to begin with. Today I was just browsing through my bookmarked miniature pages and found a picture of somebody else's witch dollhouse. Out of curiosity I checked it out, and the crafter recommended Jim's Dollhouse Pages, so I clicked and was in awe.
What a wonderful collection of notes and printables to use in your own projects! I downloaded some - my personal favorite were the Money currencies and the Office supplies. I can have some of those in my dollhouse shop! And seeing some of his designs helped me to come up with new ideas to sell in my shop. Isn't it wonderful when somebody inspires you so?
He even has a mailing list, so you can be notified when new designs are added. Fantastic page, so happy that I found it!
Although I try to buy from artisans whenever possible, I am quite fond of e-bay for finding miniatures, specially those of commercial nature. I never expect to find something of true quality of simply pretty there.
But today was an exception. I was looking for single stem roses for a project, and found this:
I fell in love! Although the new nature of my dollhouse doesn't go with this design, I find it truly beautiful. The artist is called Erika, and you can find these designs here. Her shop is well worth a visit; she is truly talented with floral arrangements.
