Sidetracked . . . .

You're probably expecting to see the Gallery railing finished off, the plement up in the Solar, the wardrobe cupboard painted and much more done this week.  Well, none of that has been done.  Instead I got a little bit sidetracked this week.

Firstly, I threw together this vignette/scene:

It is a get well present for my Grandma who recently fell and broke her leg.  The front panel is a 8" x 11" picture frame, the box behind it was made of mountboard and is 8.5cm deep.  I plundered the Georgian house (which is next in line for renovations) for the dress, wig and some of the items on the dressing table.  Everything else in the scene was made from stuff that I had on hand.  Unfortunately, the curtains seem to be exploding in slow motion; I guess I didn't use enought starch or just simply the wrong fabric, but it was all I had that really worked OK with the wallpaper.

When not working on the Vignette I did make a little something for the castle.  Not what I should have been making at this point in the renovation but I had this flash of inspiriation and decided to go with it while the pot was boiling.

This lady as yet has no name so I'm just calling her the "Sorceress of Dawncrest" at the moment.  She started out as a nude, bald Heidi Ott doll.

I dressed her in silk dupion; an undergown in a sort of mushroom/mauve tone and an overdress in purple.

She wears gloves of black net that hook over the middle finger of each hand.  Her headress is a brass ring covered in matching fabric and silver braid from which four drops of crystal beads hang.

Her hair is viscose wigging.  She holds a 'crystal' ball aloft in her left hand.

To aid in her spell casting, I made her a book rest.  The base of the bookrest is a cheap dragon ornament.  A piece of balsa wood rests on his wingtips, spine and two small plastic chess pawns positioned on his 'hands'.  He was painted in shades of grey to match the stone in the Magiacian's Cave.  The jewel under his foot came with the dragon.

Have you noticed the rocket like object in the Grotto?  It's a cheap key chain that I found in a local store.  If you twist the base, it turns on a light that cycles through a rainbow of colours and casts the most wonderfully magical effect around the cave.

I love the effect it creates (and it will be great if the castle residents ever decide to hold a disco).   I just need to figure out how to make it not look like a rocket while still leaving the base free to twist to turn on and off.

Meanwhile higher up in the castle, Dan seems to have the impression that just because I'm not working on it, I'm not paying attention to what goes on up there.   He snuck over to the Georgian house when I was raiding it for the Vignette and brought one of it's residents back to the castle.  I'm sure I don't know why Dan bypassed all the fine ladies in their fancy gowns to go straight for the lady still in her underwear.

 Thank goodness Gil is there to chaperone.  Oh wait, is that a love ballard he's playing on his lute?  Maybe leaving a minstrel as a chaperone wasn't a good idea after all . . . .