I'm so lucky! ... TWICE

Way back before Christmas Anita @ Fabulously Flawed Miniatures ran a giveaway for a superb miniature vintage mannequin and four wonderful old movie posters and I was the lucky winner! Because I was away for so long over the summer I asked Anita to hold off sending them to me but I have them now and they're just wonderful. They'll be perfect additions to my mini Parisian Brocante. Thank you Anita!!

Click here for Fabulously Flawed Miniatures blog 

Click here for Fabulously Flawed Miniatures on Facebook

but wait! that's not all

My friend Mely Giunta recently sent me some of her incredibly realistic mini mandarins - they look so lusciously sweet! Thank you Mely, your gift is greatly appreciated and much loved. 

Click here for Mely's blog 

I really am incredibly fortunate to be part of such a generous international community of miniature artisans and friends. 

Commission just completed

Sharing a furniture commission just completed for a lovely client. The sofa is upholstered with a fine cream silk, the chaise with a cotton I printed. The striped cushions are silk taffeta, the others are printed on fine cotton fabric. I've loved working on these pieces and will be a little sad to hand them over. 

I'm itching to get back to work on the Parisian apartment now that this commission is completed but I have a table at the Doll Fair at Newcastle on 21 March so I need to prioritise making things for that at the moment, but watch this space because we will get to visit Emily again eventually!

Exciting brand new blog!

I'm SO excited to tell you about my friend Linda Park's brand new blog Linda's Mini World because you can now all fall in love with her Parisian florist shop, Flora, just like I have. 

Linda's also started work on the tea shop that you can just see a tiny bit of to the left of the florists. I saw it yesterday and it's looking wonderful too so I can assure you that Linda's blog will be worth keeping an eye on if you love beautiful and imaginative miniatures as much as I do. 

Click here to visit Linda's Mini World, and prepare to be enchanted.

Sharing the Facebook Art Challenge - Day 5

On this, the final day of the Art Challenge, I'm challenging my friend Monica Roberts @ Hither, Thither & Yon,  a wonderful photographer and miniaturist, and send my thanks to Frederica @ Frederica's Little World  and Lorraine Robinson @ Fairy Meadow Miniatures for challenging me to show my work. Many thanks too to everyone who has responded with comments - every one of them is truly appreciated.

Today I'm sharing three of my favourites. Hopefully something will spark a creative thought that you can use in your own projects. For me that's the whole point of sharing creative endeavours. Of course it's nice to show the fruits of your labours and greatly encouraging to have it well received but the best thing of all is that by sharing we inspire and encourage each other to keep on creating and developing our own interests and styles.

The bathroom and hallway are on the 1st floor of the 1:12 scale Parisian apartment. The image on the left shows how the bathroom looks through the window, and if you look through the doorway you can see part of the upper floor hallway. On the far wall you can just see the cupboard. It will be almost entirely hidden from view when the wall that divides the hallway from the bedroom in front of it is put in place. The only possible glimpse will be through the bathroom exactly as you see here. I suppose it could be considered, then, that it was a waste of time doing anything with this cupboard at all but I really wanted to do it properly for my own satisfaction. It's very shallow (about 1 cm only) but I wanted to try out creating the illusion of proper depth. I think it's worked fairly well.

This is the Parisian kitchen from outside looking in. I think there's something extra charming about mini rooms viewed from the outside, perhaps it's just that it's a different perspective because we're so used to seeing everything 'front on'. I bought the lavender at a minis fair, the tiny plant is by Mercedes @ Liberty Biberty and the apron on the far wall by Frederica. The windows are handmade - something I'd never do again! Way too much trouble although I do like the look of them, not perfect as factory made so they contribute to the overall softer/aged look I suppose.

I made this little French artist's attic in a fake book (which is really a storage box) as a Christmas gift for my artistic daughter-in-law Lamina @ doabit. The life-drawing and landscape sketches are Lamina's own work, copied and resized. It's one of my favourite projects.

So, that's it for mini strolls down memory lane, time to get on and do some new work!! Goodness knows there's plenty of it to do including finishing the Parisian apartment and Brocante and lots to do for upcoming fairs. Thanks again for following along and for your encouraging comments! 

Sharing the Facebook Art Challenge - Day 4 - Makeover and Marbling

I've been nominated by Frederica @ Frederica's Little World and Lorraine @ Fairy Meadow Miniatures to participate in the Facebook Art Challenge showing 3 pictures each day for 5 days and in turn nominate another artist to do the same - today I'm branching off outside the mini world to nominate my daughter-in-law Lamina Godman @ doabit to show some of her art and textile work.

Just like the human world the miniature world is full of mass produced pieces that in some cases are perfectly fine as they are but now and then we need something a little different. Making it from scratch isn't always within our capabilities, or it just seems to be too much trouble, but most of us can make a big difference with just a bit of paint, and have fun in the process. I certainly got a lot of satisfaction from my French fireplace makeover - I hope it will inspire some of you to get those paint brushes out and turn a ho-hum piece into something a little special. 

This fireplace is a Reutters piece, perfect in size and shape but the original colour and gilded features were a bit over the top for my French sitting room so out came the paint brushes.

The mirror is an old 'handbag' mirror framed simply and decorated with a scrapbooking embellishment painted in shades of dull golds similar to those used on the fire basket. Both the mirror and the angel embellishment were found in my extensive stash, serendipitously they are exactly the same width - well, we all deserve to get a little lucky now and then! 

If you are going to try your hand at a faux marble finish - and why not?! - it helps to have a picture of a piece of real marble to guide you to get you started, although in no time at all you'll find your little piece will take on a life of its own. 

I started this one with a layer of black then sponged on 3 different shades of dark grey in patches. These different shades were made by mixing increasing amounts of grey and white into the black I started out with. For the veining I used a slightly diluted light grey and an old soft brush with very few bristles left, twisting it a bit as I went to create the variation in the with of the veins. Then I added some very fine lines of off white over the grey veins here and there. (Be sure to continue the veins over the edge). 

Give it a try - if you're not satisfied it looks right the first time just paint over it and start again. Have fun! 

Sharing the 5 day Facebook Art Challenge - Day 3

I've been nominated by Frederica @ Frederica's Little World and Lorraine @ Fairy Meadow Miniatures to participate in the Facebook Art Challenge showing 3 pictures each day for 5 days and in turn nominate another artist to do the same - today I nominate Fabiano Fausto

The exteriors of old city buildings are never pristine so this was a great chance to go a little crazy with the dry-brushing of various shades of black/grey/brown mixes on the Parisian facade.

the window box also has the addition of a little moss

Thanks for all your lovely comments on the challenge pics, it's been fun thinking about what to show you. Two more days to go and to be honest I have no idea right now what I'm going to put up for days 4 and 5!