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Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Sunset Garden - Weeks Seven and Eight
To make the dragon, I call him Clarence, I started by crumpling alfoil into roughly dragon shaped lumps connected by bits of wire and shaped the foil to fit the space above the gate. I then gave him a "skin" of polymer clay in a shade of lilacy-purple. The clay was then smoothed all over and built up where neccesary until Clarence's body looked about right in shape and size. He was again fitted on the gate to make sure he was still the right size. Next he was given some personality by adding a face, horns, toes, claws and a ridge down the centre of his back. His horns and claws were made from translucent Sculpey while the rest of him was the one shade of clay as his main skin. When all of this looked about right (which was after much fiddling) I made a pair of wings from a slightly lighter mix of clay and pressed some berry coloured wire along them for extra interest. Once these were attached, Clarence was ready to be baked (dragons do like heat remember).
Once out of the oven, Clarence was stippled with some gold pearlecent paint (that looks more silver) to give an impressions of scales and so he would look like he was reflecting the light of the setting sun. Lastly, his "eyelashes" were painted on and he was glued in place above the garden gate. Working with polymer clay was never a particular skill of mine, so I'm really quite proud of Clarence.
Clarence's addition to the garden finished it off, largely because there literally isn't room to squeeze anything else in. Standing back to look at the finished product, I think I should have put a tree or something with a bit of height in the middle of the garden so I may one day uproot a bush or two and add one if I find a tree suitable to the task. As usual, you can see all the photos of the garden in my flickr photostream here : http://www.flickr.com/photos/dollshouses/sets/72157624474785104/
Welcome New Followers
Nuria's blog can be found here: http://mininuris.blogspot.com/
while De's is here: http://delightfulminis.blogspot.com/
Monday, August 30, 2010
Blue Room - Weeks Four and Five
Too bad what I've done is terrible.
I can't buy any more of the blue fabric I'm using as the store doesn't have any more left. I want enough left to make curtains, but I don't think there will be, so do I try and make do with what I've got left or do I redo the bed curtains/drapes so they look . . . . well, good.
I need to see what fabrics I can get my hands on to try and find something that will work. If I can't find anything . . . . I guess I'll have to put this room on hold until I find an answer.
Meanwhile, the Sunset Garden is finished. I'll add a separate post for it soon and next I'll finally be able to start on my Inn and/or my Regency room.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Sunset Garden - Week Six
Blue Room - Week Three
I've added a skirting board around the room instead of the panelling I originally planned. Once the room is filled with furniture, the windows are added with floor length curtains, any panelling added would be almost invisible anyway, so why go to the trouble? I've decided to save the picture frames bought for the panelling in this room for the panelling in the Regency Room I have planned.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
This Weeks' Progress - Sunset Garden and Blue Room
This week I snatched some time to make a few flowers for the garden. I made some roses in shades of pink, some small "mystery" flowers in a lilac colour and some big yellow starshaped flowers, al from polymer clay. The mystery flowers are so called because they weren't made to be a particular type of flower, they are just a generic flower and could be almost anything. For the yellow star shaped flowers I started out trying to make dahlias but didn't come close enough to succeeding to be able to call them dahlias. After they were baked they were added to some pieces of plastic pondweed (intended for use in fishtanks) and 'planted' in the garden. This is where the layer of oasis foam over the bottom comes in handy. To plant the flowers, I had pushed a hole in the foam with a toothpick, dipped the bottom of the plant in glue and pressed it into the hole.
Welcome More New Followers
It's always a pleasant surprise to discover the number of followers has increased. Today, it's gone up by three. First is Anything Miniature, whose blog is to be found here: http://anythingminiature.blogspot.com
Next is Sylvia whose blog is to be found here: http://lotjesdollshouse.blogspot.com/ You'll also find a link to her Etsy store on her blog.
Finally comes Ron Nelson of RND Modelshop.com otherwise known as Artisan of Ocala. You'll find his blog here: http://artisanofocala.blogspot.com/ and his Flickr photos here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rndmodelshop/