In this week's post, it would be far easier to meantion what I haven't done rather than list all the things that I have done! I started by making furniture for all three room, some air-clay wheels and a barrel (I'll explain this later), then polymer clay accessories (mainly pots and plates) and started embriodering a beadspread.
The furniture was made from balsa wood, with a few wooden beads and staircase railing spindles for extra detail. The bedroom, which was going to has a large tester style bed, chest, cradle and other items, gets only a single bed and a nightstand, and it's not easy to fit just them in! Oh well, I guess the rest of the family will have to sleep in hammocks suspended from the ceiling or out on the balcony perhaps! The first floor furniture consists of a dresser, a table and benches and a settle/bench seat. Again, this is all that can be realistically squeezed into the space (alas, no spinning wheel!). The panelling on the settle was all done by hand by very carefully cutting grooves out of the wood. By some miracle, these grooves are mostly straight and even and the finished effect is quite passable. Downstairs in the shop, shelves are supported on wooden brackets and the bookkeeper now has a desk and a stool to work at.
Once the shelves were in place, I added some of the loaves of bread I made earlier (while I was working on stage One)and instantly the shop started to look like, well, a shop. An inkwell which is actually a black pawn from a small plastic chess set with a feather for a quill pen as well as a book made from polymer clay left over from some long forgotten project were added to the bookkeeper's desk to almost finish the "shop" room. It now just needs people and a few finishing touches!
The first floor is also starting to look 'finished'. The dresser shelves needed to be filled, so I made a range of plates (a couple of plain, a couple of decorative), half a dozen 'tankards' (although only a couple of these are for this space) and a couple of jugs out of polymer clay. The plates were made using moulds made from plates I had used in an earlier project with scupley mould maker. Both plates and tankards were painted with a 'wood' effect. The jugs/pitchers were given a stone effect paint to look like 'earthernware'. Both came up really well, but unfortunately my camera can't focus on small details up close and thus, I can't take a good photo of these to show you. Two vases/pots from barehaven miniature pottery help to fill the second shelf. Like the shop, this room needs an occupant and some other finishing touches such as a cushion or two on the settle.
In the attic, I made a bowl and pitcher and a chamber pot for the nightstand from polymer clay and finished it in the same way as the 'earthernware' jugs on the dresser downstairs. The bowl is decidedly 'wobbly' but that aside, the nightstand is looking good. It needs a mirror of some kind and a hanging towel/cloth to be finished. The question is what sort of mirror. In a tudor house there wouldn't have been modern glass mirrors, but more likely mirrors would have been made of polished metal of some kind. I need to figure out what to use that will look right. The bed still needs a bedspread. This, I am attempting to embroider by hand. I found some medieval patterns online
HERE and am using one to create the bedspread.
While I had the polymer clay out, I also made fake hinges and handles for the doors. I know I promised at the start of this post to explain the wheels and barrel, but I'm out of time for the moment, hopefully I'll add another post explaining this soon!
The furniture was made from balsa wood, with a few wooden beads and staircase railing spindles for extra detail. The bedroom, which was going to has a large tester style bed, chest, cradle and other items, gets only a single bed and a nightstand, and it's not easy to fit just them in! Oh well, I guess the rest of the family will have to sleep in hammocks suspended from the ceiling or out on the balcony perhaps! The first floor furniture consists of a dresser, a table and benches and a settle/bench seat. Again, this is all that can be realistically squeezed into the space (alas, no spinning wheel!). The panelling on the settle was all done by hand by very carefully cutting grooves out of the wood. By some miracle, these grooves are mostly straight and even and the finished effect is quite passable. Downstairs in the shop, shelves are supported on wooden brackets and the bookkeeper now has a desk and a stool to work at.
Once the shelves were in place, I added some of the loaves of bread I made earlier (while I was working on stage One)and instantly the shop started to look like, well, a shop. An inkwell which is actually a black pawn from a small plastic chess set with a feather for a quill pen as well as a book made from polymer clay left over from some long forgotten project were added to the bookkeeper's desk to almost finish the "shop" room. It now just needs people and a few finishing touches!
The first floor is also starting to look 'finished'. The dresser shelves needed to be filled, so I made a range of plates (a couple of plain, a couple of decorative), half a dozen 'tankards' (although only a couple of these are for this space) and a couple of jugs out of polymer clay. The plates were made using moulds made from plates I had used in an earlier project with scupley mould maker. Both plates and tankards were painted with a 'wood' effect. The jugs/pitchers were given a stone effect paint to look like 'earthernware'. Both came up really well, but unfortunately my camera can't focus on small details up close and thus, I can't take a good photo of these to show you. Two vases/pots from barehaven miniature pottery help to fill the second shelf. Like the shop, this room needs an occupant and some other finishing touches such as a cushion or two on the settle.
In the attic, I made a bowl and pitcher and a chamber pot for the nightstand from polymer clay and finished it in the same way as the 'earthernware' jugs on the dresser downstairs. The bowl is decidedly 'wobbly' but that aside, the nightstand is looking good. It needs a mirror of some kind and a hanging towel/cloth to be finished. The question is what sort of mirror. In a tudor house there wouldn't have been modern glass mirrors, but more likely mirrors would have been made of polished metal of some kind. I need to figure out what to use that will look right. The bed still needs a bedspread. This, I am attempting to embroider by hand. I found some medieval patterns online HERE and am using one to create the bedspread.
While I had the polymer clay out, I also made fake hinges and handles for the doors. I know I promised at the start of this post to explain the wheels and barrel, but I'm out of time for the moment, hopefully I'll add another post explaining this soon!
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