Raising The Roof

Bowing to popular opinion, I've made a start working on the Retreat.  Already, the original theme of "Japanese tea house" has been dropped.  The thing is that the Japanese are essentially minimalists.  Take a look at any room or scene I've ever created and you'll immediately see that my usual style is as far from minimal as you can get.  Perhaps even a little further.  I just don't think I can leave a room that . . . . empty.  So I've decided to change the theme to "Oriental Folly" and mix Japanese influence with other oriental styles.

Imagine a garden in England sometime in the 17 or 1800s.  It's owned by a wealthy man who has travelled extensively all around the world, but particularly in the orient, and has brought back many rare and unusual treasures.  To display his collection and impress his guests, he had a folly built in his garden.  It was designed by mashing together different oriental influences; Chinese, Japanese, Indian and perhaps even a touch of Egyptian for good measure.  Although the structure was inspired by his time in the East, the local English builders who actually had the job of constructing it had never seen it's like, nor had any idea how to build it, thus in places they used English techniques they were more familiar with.  Around the building, the wealthy traveller had a small oriental style garden built / planted to enhance the look of the folly.  Within the structure are housed the man's collected treasures such as furniture, teapots, screens and wallhangings all in oriental style, all displayed to impress.

Having looked at various pictures of oriental style buildings on the internet I noticed that the ridge of the roof almost always runs paralell to the front of the building.  The ridge of the Retreat kit runs perpendicular to it.  Could I rotate the direction of the roof?  Well, the basic kit looks like this:

If I turn the roof around without cutting into the original structure at all, it looks like this:

It looks bigger this way doesn't it?  The question is does it now look too big to be a garden folly and more like a proper building?

I can't decide whether I like it or not.  As you can see, I had to raise the walls at the sides of the building which has the strong advantage of making the upper floor far more useable.  The slope on the original roofline meant that only the middle few inches of floor were really practical for positioning furniture and still having room for the mini people to mave around it.  Now I can use the entire top floor, essentially doubling the space of the top floor.  That is if it stays this way.  At the moment, the entire structure is held together with masking tape so can easily be taken apart and put back the way it started out.  I'd love to hear any opinions you have about whether you like it better with the basic original roof or with my alterations.

You'll notice in the photos that Dapper Dan has been pressed back into service as my test model dummy.  With Artie finding a permanent home in Castle Starcaster there was little choice but to get Dan back.  Unfortunately, I haven't broken the news to him that the Retreat is not going to be the Edwardian era building that it was once intended for and thus Dan's permanent home.  Well, maybe he won't notice, his brains are made of plastic after all.

Meet the Witches

This week I dressed and wigged the dolls for the shop.  To keep with the "no fixed era" feel of the shop, all the dolls have different styles, some that point to a particular era in history and some that are simply "kinda witchy".

Vivienne is definately a witch inspired by Georgian era fashions.  Vivienne herself is made from polymer clay using the female mould that finally arrived a couple of weeks ago.  Her underdress is red silk dupion overlaid with a soft black netting.  Her over gown is brocade in red and black with black lace trim around the neck and cuffs.  Her hat is red straw braid and her hair is pale blonde viscose. 

Gilda is more of a typical witch in a dark velvet coat and tall pointed hat.  She is the owner of the shop on lives in the grand house behind the green door in the garden.  She's a Heidi Ott soft bodied doll. 

Isis is another polymer clay and mould made doll.  She's the most exotic of the witches wearing a chiffon underdress and brocade overgown with ribbon and leather sandals and long black hair parted in the middle.

 Theya and Althea are a pair of junior witches sent out on an errand to collect some supplies from the shop.  Althea's dress was taken off a cheap porcelain doll who was redressed some time ago.  It was shortened and a yellow ribbon belt added.  A black shawl and junior sized witch hat finish off her outfit.  Theya is too young for the dark colours usually associated with witches, so her dark navy dress is covered with a colourful floral pattern and trimmed with pink ribbon.

 Tisha looks much like any of the other witches until you see her in the company of a 1/12th scale doll:

Tisha was made using the 24th scale doll mould.  When her wings are ready, she'll become a Faerie witch.  The doll used to show her scale is Ursa.  Ursa was actually dressed for another scene some time ago, but will likely settle in the witch shop for a while.

And finally, here's Hetty in her shop assistant outfit.  Firstly, let me say that the big blue bow is going to be replaced, perhaps with a nice broach or some such.  Hetty wears a blue and black lace trimmed apron to tie in the the decoration scheme of the shop.

Finally, here are a few pictures of how the new witches are settling in to the shop:

The Grey Castle

I'm pleased to have three new followers to welcome to the blog.  They are MiniJoJo of http://minijojosmountfield.blogspot.com/ and Heather and miniaturas_eduardoefilipe, neither of whom appear to have blogs.  Thanks for following and my appologies for taking so long to welcome you to the fold.  You see, I use Blogger-in-Draft rather than the regular Blogger dashboard so when Blogger changes the layout of the dashboard, or changes the way we upload photos (etc), I get put onto the new system before regular Blogger users.  A month or more ago they came out with a new draft dashboard that's totally different to the old one.  The new one is OK I guess, but it has some aspects that I really don't like; one of them that I can't see my number of followers at a glance anymore.  In fact, I have yet to figure out how to see my followers at all in this new dashboard and if I can't see you, well I'm not going to know you're there so I can't welcome you.  Does anybody else use the in-Draft version of Blogger?  They've replaced buttons that used to say things like "Create New Post" with a button containing a picture of a pencil, no text.  Maybe I can't see my followers because they're now hidden behind a button with an indecipherable hieroglyphic?  I do like the new way they have given more space to the previews of posts on blogs I follow, but frankly, I prefer the old dashboard.

Anyway, I'd better stop sidetracking and get onto some miniatures.  Last week I reached a point where I was happy to start populating Castle Starcaster, but as yet the "people" moulds I want to use to do this haven't arrived so instead I decided to work on the long neglected exterior of the castle.  I have spent the last six months trying to find a suitable pattern or design to use to faux leadlight the windows and found nothing.  So I decided just to go with the basic leaded windows that came with the kit.  This allowed me to finally glue the windows in place.  The catch is that without electric lights inside the castle, the windows just look like black holes.  I'm going to try coating a piece of mirror paper with some amber gallery glass paint and putting this behind the windows in the hope this will give them a "lit from within" glow.  (Remember that I modified the castle so that the fronts lift off rather than hinge open, so the insides of the windows won't ever be seen and can be blocked off like this).

For the front doors, I used faux leadlighting outline to make some hinges-come-all-over-decorations.  This too is still in need of extra corrective work.  I need to remove the circle around the hinges (it's just wrong, isn't it) and add some more decorative bits in the empty spaces.  Hanging the fronts in position for the first time in what must be at least three months and standing back to take a look, I discovered that the front of the castle looks very . . . . Grey.  Bland.  Dull.  Even ugly.  It needs some flowering vines to grow up the front as well as some ornamentation like perching gargoyles or plaques with "green men" faces, anything to add interest (and preferrably colour).  With a sigh, I realised I was not as close to having the castle finished as I'd hoped.

 Unable to summon the motivation to tackle all that grey, I turned my back on it and spent the rest of the week working on the Witch Shop instead.  Hetty's bedsit was the least advanced of the rooms in the shop, so I figured it was time to give it a little attention.  First up I changed my mind about the layout and moved the bed from along the front wall to along the side wall.  For this to work, I hand to cut off the edge of the hearth to fit the bed in place and add a fake wall beside the fire to block off the alcove in the corner of the room.  This new section of wall only goes up to the height of the bed, creating a space for some storage shelves above the bed.

The drop leaf table and wall mounted shelves that I used to have in the now blocked off corner have been moved to the left side wall.  They were both painted burgundy and crackled to reveal a layer of "oakmoss" green below.  With the addition of a few accessories the room is now looking much more finished.

Outside in the garden I decided to cheat and bought a small selection of premade flowers, some of which are now growing in the grassy patch between the fence and the pavement along with a number of mushrooms.

All together, it's not a particularly great amount of progress for a week is it?  I'll admit, I did spend a lot of "miniature" time with my nose in a book instead.  The "Atlas of Legendary Lands" is just as interesting a read as I had always thought it would be.  For example, we all know that Christopher Columbus is erroneously famous for being the "first" to propose that the earth was round, but did you know that he didn't actually believe the earth was spherical?  Instead, he believed it was pear shaped and that paradise could be found at the "pointy" end which he thought was somewere in the south Altantic.  I promise I'll be more dedicated to actually doing something productive this week, especially if my moulds arrive in the mail . . . it could be any day now!

Do I Really Need To Think Up Another Title Already?

Firstly this week, I'd like to welcome the newest followers to the blog.  They are: Sharon Rose,   Sandra - Ninha Croche, Ayamontinomaria and pilar garcia.  Thank you all for choosing to follow.

I've had a lot of fun this week spending my tax refund.  I pre-ordered a pile of upcoming books from the Book Depository, I bought some chic clothes from Ezibuy and most importantly for the sake of this blog, some miniatures related items.  Prime among them were some moulds to make 1/12th scale polymer clay dolls from Patricia Rose Studio on ebay.

I have been watching and wishing for the Chelsea and David moulds for months, but patiently waited until now to buy them, not because the moulds themselves are horribly expensive, but the added cost of postage is enough to make your eyeballs spin.  Buying them with my refund from the government is like getting them for free because all I did to get the money was spend fifteen minutes filling out my return.  Most moulds for polymer clay I have seen have faces and figures that are less than beautiful but the thing I love about the Patricia Rose ones is how stunning the faces are.  These people are gorgeous which suits me perfectly: I figure it's easier to take a pretty face and mess it about to be ugly than to make an ugly face pretty.  Not only did I buy the Chelsea and David moulds which make dolls that stand just under 6" tall, I also bought the Lacey mould.  At 3" tall she'll be perfect for when I start experimenting in 1/24th scale.  And because I wasn't really spending my money anyway, I also got the Katie mould.  She stands 5 1/2" tall, has a different face and figure to the Chelsea mould and has pointy elf/fairy ears.  It will be another few weeks before they arrive in the mail, but I can't wait to start playing with them.

With this in mind, I decided that I am going to try and get the castle finished to the point of being ready to populate by the time the moulds arrive.  That way I can start (attempting) to create my own dolls with the moulds to live in the castle straight away.  My push to get the castle finished didn't start out too well however.  One thing that needs doing is to add fires to all the fireplaces.  I had enough "ingredients" to do the kitchen fires last week, but needed more to do the others.  A trip to the craft store proved fruitless, the ##@@*&*^ place didn't have anything that was on my shopping list, so I either wait for them to get their act together (which will probably take a long, long time) or I scour the internet for what I need, either way it'll be a while before I can do the fires.

So, unable to do what I wanted and somewhat peeved about it (I mean basic black seed beads, isn't that something you'd keep on hand if you ran a craft shop?) I fiddled about with what I did have.  I started in the bedroom.  I decided to replace the table on the far side of the bed.  The one that was there was an Angela Downton made one and thus absolutely gorgeous, but behind the bed it was hard to see and it's beauty was hidden.  So I'll save that table for somewhere more prominent and instead made a quick table the same size from balsa wood with a bit of fancy trim around the edge.  A quick rummage through my collection of accessories provided a mirror, some purfume bottles, a wooden box and a candlestick to sit on the table.  More accessories filled up the small shelves on the near side of the bed.

The next thing the room needed was some rugs for the floor.  After a little debate on what would work best, I pulled out the knitting yarn left over from the rugs I made for Highcroft last year and made some faux rag rugs.  The rugs for Highcroft were all circular with the yarn spiralling from the centre.  This time I made rectangular rugs by simply cutting lengths of yarn and glueing them onto a piece of fabric in straight rows.  I think I like this effect better than the spiral rugs so I made another rug the same way for the Centre Room.

Finally in the bedroom and also throughout the castle, I hung some tapistries.  The tapistires were printed on fabric and most had some decorative ribbon glued around the edges with loops of ribbon at the top to create hangers.  The loops were fed through skewers painted gold and decorative metal beads were glued onto the ends of the skewer.   

At this point I think the bedroom is pretty much finished - it just needs a fire in the fireplace.  I don't think there'll even be room for a person to pose in this room, unless they climb into bed.  In other words, if you can see anything you think is missing or wrong with the bedroom, now would be a good time to tell me about it.

Next door in the Centre Room I rearranged the furniture by moving the table back.  I think the arrangement looks better now but I think perhaps I need to find a smaller chest/coffer/other piece of furniture to sit along the right wall.  Once I finish off the candleabra sitting on the chest, this is another room that is pretty close to complete.  Another rug at the back of the room and a cushion for the X frame chair perhaps?

Moving along to the Library, I have finally fixed up the slightly dodgy paintwork on the top of the back wall.  The books and papers on the desk have been arranged messily but I still need some sort of table lamp to finish it off.  I tried various feature ornaments to display on the three empty sections of shelf.  I don't really like what I've got there now, but its the best that I have.  I may have to try making something to fit here, but at the moment have no idea as to what.

Downstairs the biggest task left to go is the lighting.  I want a big, ornate chandiler to hang from the ceiling in the entry hall but haven't figured out how to make it yet.  Yet again, if there were a craft shop in town that actually had stock on it's shelves, I would probably have found some findings that I could adapt and incorporate into a chandelier.  I also need seven wall mounted candle scones for the Entry and Dining halls and I did make some, but they're not right for the castle, so I have to go back to the drawing board.

So, will I finish the castle in the next two to three weeks?  Possibly, if I am lucky enough to find what I need and if I totally ignore the Witch Shop which is pretty much what happened this week.  I did make one piece of furniture for the shop though; a small shelving unit that stands by the front door and outside in the garden I added a flowering vine growing up the back wall between the door and the window.

The Blue Witch . . . .

Well, you'd be blue too if this happened to you!

Actually, she's called the Blue Witch because her skirt, gloves, boots and hatband are all in shades of blue.  Of course once she peels herself off the wall and the bruises some up she'll be the Black-and-Blue Witch.  The idea for a having a broomstick riding witch crash into the side of the shop came from browsing Margriet's Miniatures blog and you can see her original by clicking here.  It was one of those things that is so simple to do, very funny to look at, but who'd ever be crazy enough to think of doing it?  Aparently it was Marsha of Sassy Mini Dolls who provided Margriet with a kit for her witch.  I hope neither Margriet nor Marsha mind me "borrowing" their idea.

I made the boots and gloved hands from polymer clay along with a half-sphere shape for the head.  Her stockings are some old socks cut up, sewn into small tubes, glued into her boots and stuffed to resemble legs.  A white dress I'd stripped off a cheap doll became the Blue Witch's undergarment.  Her gloves were glued directly into the sleeves while the tops of her stockings were glued into the skirt.  Over this she wears a hand made blue patterned skirt and black overcoat stripped off a male doll at some point in the past.  Her "body" was then glued onto the wall.  Her head was glued onto the wall above her body after it had had hair glued onto it.  This was then topped off with a quick black fabric hat and a broomstick.

While I was working with polymer clay for the witch, I made a number of other micsellanious items for the shop and castle and here are a few of them:

  These potion bottles were supposed to be a little crooked and wacky, but they largely look just plain badly made.  They each have a crystal bead sandwiched between layers of clay.  The clay was later coated with various mica powders.  This was my first experimentation with these powders.  The effects they produce are really fabulous, but I think I need a lot more practise before I get really fabulous results.  The unicorn horns turned out quite well though.

Some of the unicorn horns and dragon eggs made their way into the two display tables for the shop as you can see here:

Putting the clay aside, I spent some time rearranging furniture.  The layout of the shop has changed again.  Yes, again.  The units that were to be on the back wall are now along the side wall and visa versa.  Hopefully this will be the last, final change of layout in the shop.  Maybe.  In the Centre Room of the castle I played around with possiblities.  Rumaging in my furniture box I found a kit gothic bench seat I bought about two years ago.  If I were to use this seat to make this room a Sitting room it would look something like this:

Or this (imagine the screen is a fireplace):

Or this:

None of them are exactly thrilling are they?  The studying of dragons is meant to be done in the room above this, but while making the dragons' eggs I wondered if maybe I should line the walls of this room with display cases for the eggs of every different species of dragon.  The disadvantage of the idea is that it would cover up all my panelling, that would be a shame as in this room I actually managed to make it (more or less) straight.


So really, it was just a whole week of fiddling about, but not actually achieving anything of note.  It's just been one of those weeks when the opporunity to sit down and actually get something done hasn't been there.  I haven't even gotten the giveaway prize organised yet!  On that note, thanks to everyone who has entered the giveaway so far.  Those of you who haven't entered still have a week left to go.  Some entries have failed to include a number between one and ten.  Rather than disquallify these entries, I've decided I'll get random.org to assign them a random number so they can be included in the draw.  I also have a number of new followers to welcome to the fold.  They are Craftland, Maria Ireland, Rosella, Inesmaud.hertrampf (no blog) and Glenys (no blog).  Thank you all for following.

Before I go, I did promise to add a book making tutorial last week.  I haven't forgotten about it, I just haven't gotten around to it.  It'll be done soon, I promise.

All Booked Up . . .

Being a report on Castle Starcaster Week 20 and Witch Shop Week 9

Wow!  99 Followers!  How amazing!  Welcome to Oberon's Wood who is a pagan artist and miniaturist.  Her miniatures shop can be found at Sorceress Hollow.

I started out the week making books, lots and lots of books.  Some are from a kit and consist of a book sized block of wood around which a piece of leather is wrapped like a book cover.  Some are made from old phone books and covered with printed paper covers.  (I plan to do a tutorial on this method of book making soon, so be sure and check back later in the week!)  Everytime I finished a book I tossed it onto the floor of the Castle's library.  Eventually, the entire floor of the library was knee deep in books.  I knew I still didn't have enough books, but was so tired of making them that I decided to stop and put what I had on the shelves to get an idea of how many more I needed.  To my surprise I had enough books to fill all the shelves in the Library.  It's remarkable how much better the room looks with books on the shelves (especially compared to when they were on the floor!)  The bad news is that I have no books left over for the witch shop and thus still have about as many books yet to make as I have already made.

Before I could fill the shelves, I had to remove the dragons who had decided they were a safe place to perch while work was underway in the castle.  Remember last week I worked on the Dragon Study room?  Well, silly me, those dragons in the library were supposed to be in that room, but I had forgotten all about them!  So when they came out of the library, they went into the Dragon room and set about causing mischief in there.  One of the additions the room still needs is a nest for the little dragons to rest in when their mischief is done.  There are now seven of Nicky Cooper's little dragons in the room, can you spot them all?

Speaking of Nicky, I have another of her lovely creatures to add to the Witch Shop too.  He's the Monster-Under-the-Bed and came in a little cage looking very droopy and miserable.  I bought him thinking to make him an item for sale in the shop, but have since very carefully pried him out of his cage and am now thinking he will be in one of two possible places.  First is hiding under Hetty's bed which will surely make him feel more at home.  The second possiblity is to add a collar and leash and have him in the reading room under one of the chairs as the pet of one of the gathered witches waiting forlornly for all the cackling to subside so he can get a bit of rest.

As you can see in the photo, I have finished some more furniture for the shop.  The glossy white cabinet that's been seen in earlier photos of the shop has been repainted in black paint crackled to reveal the metallic blue beneath.  I "borrowed" a counter from a much earlier shop and found this a better fit than the counter I had been planning to use in the shop, so I swapped counters and repainted the smaller one to match the rest of the shop furniture.  Going back to the dragons of Nicky Cooper, some of them came in clear plastic cases with padded bases.  These cases were turned into display tables by adding a strip of balsa wood around the base and glueing some Georgian style pre bought legs underneath.  A little bit of faux leadlighting outline tape around the edges of the clear tops finished them off and now all they need is something to be displayed in them.

Flipping back over to the Castle, I did a little work in the long neglected dining room.  There needed to be a thick fuzzy rug under the table to conceal the fact that the floor is sagging in the middle.  The fabric I used for the rug is really weird stuff called feather fabric.  It's not as dense as a fur fabric and has a long but sparse pile.  The vivid white of the fabric didn't look right against the black floor, so I soaked it in some watered down metallic platinum coloured paint which gave it more of a shipskin or fleece look.  The two chairs in the room were recovered with red velveteen and a bench seat was made for the front side of the table.  A table runner was made from green velveteen and more of the metallic ribbon used around the tops of the walls.  I bought this table specifically to go in this room, but right from the first time I put the table into the room I worried that the table was too big.  I still think maybe the table should get the boot and this room should become some sort of sitting room, or at least a dining room with a smaller table.  But then what do I do with the very gorgeous table?

While I'm sharing problems, I still don't know what to do with the centre room!  It's the room in the exact centre of the castle being on the second of three floors and the middle of the three rooms accross.  It has to be a public space (not a bathroom etc) as it opens into the library, has a fake door accessing the supposed back of the castle and has stairs up to the next level.  The dining table is not a good fit for this room either, besides a dining room upstairs between a library and a bedroom doesn't seem right.  So what can it be?  I'm seriously lacking in ideas for this one and any suggestions would be welcome.  And no, I don't believe in subtlety when dropping hints.

Of Witches and Dragons

Being a report on Castle Starcaster Week 19 and Witch Shop Week Eight.

Firstly this week I have two more new followers to welcome.  I'm up to 97 followers now and isn't that amazing.  The two newcomers are Caraloo of Lilac Hill News and Rosamargarita of Chiquicosas.  Thanks for following.  In other news, Linda of Linda's Miniature Musings is currently offering a giveaway on her blog.  For a chance to win a 1/144 scale house kit, please visit her blog here.

Those of you who have been following for a while will know that because I added extra doors in the Castle, I was short of door handles.  So a couple of weeks ago I ordered some more handles to match the others.  While browsing the store to see if there was anything else I needed that I could put on the same order I found a 1/12 scale bicycle.  By no means was this something I needed, but the moment I saw it I could see it being ridden by a slightly eccentric witch who was having difficulties with her broomstick and was forced to resort to an alternate means of transportation.  From that moment, I had to have the bike and when it arrived in the mail early in the week I couldn't wait to get started on making the witch to ride it.  And here she is:

Her name is Minerva (Minnie for short).  I can't tell you how proud I am of Minnie as every part of her was made from scratch.  A week ago she was only a lump of polymer clay, some wire and foam.   Before you start thinking I'm really something and managed to sculpt her by hand I'd better admit that I used push moulds to create her face and hands.  I've had the push mould of 1/12 scale faces, hands and feet for years, but only used it once before.  I was disapointed that all the faces were the faces of ugly old hags and because old hags are only a small portion of the population that discovery really sapped my enthusiasm for the push mould and because I can't make faces without help (at least not ones even uglier than those in the moulds) there died my ambitions of making my own dolls.  Minerva, however, would have to be a hand made doll if she was going to fill the vision in my head and fortunately she was supposed to look like an old hag so the moulds for once proved perfect.

I mixed even amounts of Super Sculpy and translucent Sculpy to create her skin colour and pushed a ball of this into the mould.  A tip to remember is to lightly spray the mould with water to prevent the clay from sticking.   I then carefully curled the excess clay back to create a head shape behind the face.  I adapted the face by enlarging the nose by inserting a ball tipped stylus up the nostrils and carefully swirling it about and pushing forward.  The mouth was opened by carefully cutting between the lips with a thin blade and the stylus was again used to work it open and create a cavity for the mouth.  Another minus with the moulds is that none of the faces have ears so I attached some cresent shaped bits of clay to the sides of her head.  They look nothing like ears, but they are covered by her hair and gave me something to attach her earings too later on.  Minnie's hands also came out of the mould.  Her fingers were carefully cut apart and curled about the bike's handlebars so she would be able to grip them.  Minnie's feet and lower legs were made without the aid of a mould which is why one boot is larger than the other.

Once baked and cooled, Minnie's face was painted with chalk pastels for her cheeks, lips and ears and normal acrylics for her eyes and eyebrows.  Her shoes and legs were also painted with acrylics, black for the boots and black and white stripes for the stockings.  Her "bits" were all joined using a heavy gauge wire which was then wrapped in thin foam to create a slightly chubby body.  Her hair is merino wool which varigates from white to orange and is parted in the middle.

Minnie's clothes were all hand made too.  She wears red bloomers, a red petticoat (not visible in the photos), a black dress with a green sash at the waist and a matching green hat.  Her outfit is completed with sun and star earings that match the cresent moon in her hat.  I dabbed super glue onto the bike's axles and pedals to stop them moving and then glued Minnie onto the bike.  Her broken broom is tied onto the back so she can take it into the shop to get it repaired and she has a couple of books in the front basket as she's late for the book meeting in the Reading room of the shop!

Alongisde Minerva, I made two more dolls in the same way.  They are Hector and Agatha.  Agatha is a kindly old witch whose come to attend the book club meeting.  Hector is the renowned author of many books on magic and witchcraft and has been invited to attend the book meeting as a guest speaker.

The past few weeks, the Witch Shop has been getting much more attention than the Castle, so once I had finished with Minerva, Hector and Agatha I decided to concentrate all my attention on the castle for a few days.  I decided to accessorise the room on the top floor of the castle which is a room for the studying of dragons. 

To get a better view of the dragons flying over the distant mountains there is a telescope on a stand positioned by the windows.  The telescope came from ebay while the stand is four fan blades painted brassie gold and glued around a block of balsa wood painted black.  In the back left corner of the room an articulated dragon skeleton is displayed.  This is one idea that didn't work so well.  The basic skeleton is that of a duck billed dinosaur with polymer clay wing bones glued on it.  Sadly, it just looks like a dinosaur with weirdly positioned antlers on it's back.  I think this is going to have to be replaced by something else.

On the right side wall is a tall cupboard made from a kit.  It holds a range of items from books and scrolls to dragon scales and potion bottles. 

A lovely open book and dragon embryo in jar bought from ebay seller whydgc is the focal point on the central table made by Angela Downton.  The table was further accessorised with some books made from cut up old phone directories and a jar of "dragon scales" (i.e. cut up Easter egg wrappers).  On the left wall by the door to the roof garden is a rack from which two cloaks hang so folks can go out into the garden even in bad weather.  This room still needs a few touches and accessories, but is getting fairly close to being the first castle room to be finished.

Despite the fact I said no more Witch Shop this week, I did make far too many potion bottles for the Dragon Room, so I positioned some of the leftovers on the shop shelves.  I filled up half the shelves and still have potion bottles left over!