A Randomly Selected Newspaper Headline:

The following is a randomly selected newspaper headline from many years ago:

Welcome to my blog. Please feel free to leave a comment. I assure you I always read and appreciate everything you have to say. Unfortunately, thanks to Blogger being, well . . . Blogger, I can not respond to comments nor leave any on your blogs. They simply disappear into the ether. Occasionally I will remember to respond in the next blog post I put up, but usually these good intentions slip my mind. So if you want to ask a question or get a response to any comments you may have please leave an email address or other contact method in your comment and I will get back to you.

I have also added a separate page to the blog for the Tower of Magic with a brief summary of all the rooms of the ToM in the one spot. The link is just below this and above the main body of the blog, or you can just click here.

Saturday, December 31, 2011

It Does All Fit

Happy New Year to all my followers.

I have been busy over my Christmas break and even though that break isn't quite over yet I thought I'd share with you some photos of what I've been doing:






















Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Overboard

Durring the week I gathered all of the items I have collected to go in the Folly and set them out on the floor of the downstairs.  I began to worry when half the floor area was covered and there was still a pile of little boxes to open.  In the end, the collection filled the entire floor.

"Poke" me to make me bigger for a better view
 There are vases, budhas, teapots, ginger jars, dragons, statuettes and other assorted oriental themed items.  That's the problem with internet shopping, you tend to lose track of just how much you've bought until the parcel post guy keeps coming back to see you day after day after day . . . . . . My next challenge is to make shelves, tables and display units that are themselves suitably oriental to house and dislay all this "loot".


The one piece of furniture I have completed is not a good start. . . . It looks best with just a single item sat atop it.  One out of an entire floor full!  The unit started out as a cheap modern TV stand for children.  I added a row of fake drawers at the bottom and filled in the top shelf (which was too shallow to hold anything) with a red and gold panel featuring a pair of dragons.  The panel is just an image printed from my computer on thick paper.


I'll be back next year, hopefully with lots of shelves to show you.  In the meantime I hope everyone has an enjoyable Christmas  and New Year period and that Santa leaves you lots of dollshouse items in your stockings!

Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Christmas Slow Down

Many miniaturists seem to have the problem of the closer it gets to Christmas, the less time they have to work on dollshouses.  I am no exception to this and thus have little progress to share with you this week. 

I dug into my collection of furniture and played with various arrangements to decide what will go where.  Once happy with what I had I made a start adapting and painting some of the pieces I want to use, but so far have finished none of them.  I have drawn a few designs for the pieces I need to make, but have settled on none of them.

I found some brocade fabric in the shop and instantly knew what to do with it.  I cut out one of the medallion designs from the fabric and hung it on the wall as a wall hanging.  It hangs above one of the unfinished pieces of furniture.


I went into the local newsagents durring the week and spotted the current issue of "Victorian Dollshouse Collector" magazine.  It came with a floor rug and three vases.  This is one of the vases:


How could I resist.  It is perfect for the folly.  Another of the three vases and the rug will also work in the folly if I can find room for them.  I have to admit I've collected so many bits and pieces for the folly I doubt they will all be able to squeeze in! 

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Exterior Almost Finished!

With the roof close to completion, the last major item that needed doing to finish the exterior of the folly was the front doors and windows.  I had already made a start on adapting the doors that came with the kit by knocking out the cross bars that gave the doors a standard french door look.  I finished the doors by adding pieces of card painted red across the bottoms.  The top sections were adorned with pieces of 3mm square balsa wood that had been cut and glued together in a oblong design.  The "glass" that came with the kit was then fitted to the back of the doors.

I still need to find some sort of oriental motif to decorate the bottoms of the doors and I also need to come up with some suitable door handles.  The front steps are now back at the front rather than at the side where I was going to put them.  I had cut them down to be narrower to fit at the side and being too lazy to bother widening them again, I've left them as is in the hopes that the pair of foo dogs I have bought will fit either side to fill the gap.  In the meantime I've positioned a pair of Japanese style figurines there.


The roof has been finished off too.  I found some white braid to trim the edges and dyed it by wetting it then dipping it in some of the paint used on the roof, slightly watered down.  Once this dried, it was glued around the edges to finish off the roof.  The whole roof was then given a few coats of gloss sealer to finish it off.


 Inside the folly on the top floor I decided I disliked the yellow walls and painted them a plum colour instead.  It does make the room look a little top heavy, but hopefully once there's furniture and other decoration in there it will balance out.  In any event, I am Not repainting the walls again.  You can see sitting in the middle of the floor the acetate pieces I've cut to glaze the windows at either end of the room.  I've started to make and install the frames for the windows.  At long last I'm nearly ready to start working on the furniture for this project.