100 Followers! Time for another Giveaway!

Who would ever have suspected my humble little blog would attract 100 followers?  Who ever it was, it sure wasn't me!  My 100th follower is Maija from Finland.  Welcome Maija and thanks for following.

100 Followers means it's time for a 100 follower giveaway.

To enter the giveaway: leave a comment on this post and include a number between one and ten in your comment.  I'll decide the winner by going over to random.org and use their random string generator to generate a random number between one and ten.  All entries that nominated this number will then go into the final draw to decide the winner.

Entries will close on 6th July.

I'm sure at this point you're all wondering what you will win.  Frankly, so am I!  I wasn't expecting to reach 100 so quickly and thus have nothing prepared to offer as the prize.  So for now, please consider it a "mystery prize" and I'll add a photo and details of the prize once I get organised.  It will be something in 1/12 scale and most likely have a magical theme.

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!

Witch Shop - Week Seven

Yikes!  Another new follower to welcome!  Hello and welcome to Agata of http://idolcidiagata.blogspot.com/  When I first took a look at the photos on her blog (its written in Italian, so reading it was out without waiting to get it translated) I thought "Wow, that is some impressive miniature food!" but when I looked at the photos more closely I realised Agata makes 1:1 scale food.  Real food that really looks incredibly good.


At the start of the week I decided that yes, there was room for fireplaces in the two upstairs rooms of the shop.  One of the things that had made me heasitant to add a fireplace in the reading room was the opening roof above the fireplace.  How could I make a chimney that looked good both when the roof was closed and open?  I solved the problem by creating the impression of a chimney without bothering with an actual chimney.  This was done with a sheet of paperclay the width of the fireplace unit and the height of the wall, angled at the top to match the angle of the roof.  I used my herringbone brick impress mould to create the impression of bricks in the clay and when dry, painted them to look like bricks and glued the sheet to the wall.  The fireplace itself was made from corrugated cardboard.  It has a high hearth and two openings in the front, one for a store of firewood and one for the fire itself.  The design was based on my hazy recollection of a Tudor fireplace I think I saw in a dollshouse magazine once.  It is finished off with more clay, another impress mould and brick coloured paints.  Because the fireplace juts out from the wall but the "chimney" doesn't, there is a nice wide ledge ontop of the fireplace to display some heatproof witchy items.   The afternoon tea spread for the withes reading group will have to go on the little table to the side of the fireplace or on the coffee table in the middle of the group of chairs.  I do have an old tea trolley in my box of miscellaneous furniture, but there is no where for it to go.  What ever gave me the idea the rooms in this kit were big and spacious?  I could do with them being at least half as big again!



In the Bedsit I made a simple rectangular fireplace that covers about two thirds of the back wall of the room.  It was made out of thick corrugated cardboard which was then coated with some polyfilla and painted white to resemble rough plasterwork.  The hearth was covered in a thin layer of paperclay on which I used my herringbone brick impress mould.  The back of the fireplace is prebought MDF brickboard. Both this and hearth were painted first in mortar grey, then dry brushed successive layers of brick tones of reds and browns before the lot was covered in "soot" (black paint).  A thin strip of balsa wood accross the top of the opening creates the look of a lintel while some bits of black wire bent into hooks and stuck up the chimney make pot hangers (or do I mean cauldron hangers?).  Now Hetty has somewhere to cook her meals and can keep warm in winter.  There's just one problem in this room though, I can't fit a table in it.  So Hetty can cook over a fire, but doesn't have anywhere to prepare the meal before it goes in the pot, nor anywhere to sit down and eat.  The only solution I hve for this is to make a folding table attached to the wall that takes up no space when not in use, the only problem no one will be able to get in or out of the room when it is in use.  It may not matter anyway as I have just bought a shiny brass bed for the room that I hope will fit.  There is a good chance that when it arrives I will have to completely rethink the room to fit it in.  So I won't be making any changes in this room for a couple of weeks until the bed arrives and I have the chance to see how it looks.

Castle Starcaster - Week 18

Firstly this week i'd like to welcome a few new followers.  They are cwethington, Sarah K and Diane.  Blogger is not showing blogs for any of you.  I know for a fact Diane has a blog because I'm following it.  I would love to add a link to it here, but I can't remember the name of her blog, nor can I find it in the list of followed blogs on my Dashboard.  I think this must be a sign I'm following too many blogs!  I will add a link to Diane's blog when I can find it and cwethington and Sarah K, if you have blogs and would like me to include links to them just let me know the address and I'll be glad to do so.  These new additions bring my follower count up to 92!  Wow, what a big number!  I guess that means I need to think of something to offer as a 100 follower giveaway soon.  Any suggestions?

Back in the castle, I decided it was time to add some more detail to the kitchen.  This was the first room I decorated and I haven't touched it in all the months since.  I made some simple balsa wood furniture for the room in the form of a central table and some shelves.  One shelf is positioned over the door on the left hand wall for the storage of little used items.  I'll need to make a ladder so that it can be reached.  On the opposite wall  is a wide bench height shelf that can be either for storage or an extra work area.  Above this is a smaller shelf for storage.  I will probably add another higher shelf  or two above this, but need to re-stock on balsa wood first.  The central worktable is in danger of being broken up and replaced.  I'm not entirely sure I like it, but at this point I'm not entirely sure I don't.

Castle Starcaster - Week Twelve

Welcome to the newest follower, Vanessa, who doesn't appear to have a blog of her own.


 As you may have already guessed, most of my attention this week was on the new Witch Shop, but I still managed to do a few small things to the castle, mainly in the bedroom where I finally finished the walls.  This was done with balsa wood sheets about 1.5mm thick.  I used a round tipped stylus to score lines into the wood to create the effect of vertical planks or "shaker" style panelling.  This was then given a wash of white paint, allowing the wood grain to show through in the hope it would look like limewashed wood.  Sadly, in photos this looks pretty ordinary.  You can barely see the panelling and the paint job just looks shoddy.  It does look a great deal better with the naked eye, although I may add a heavier coat of paint.  The furniture in the room is not necessarily the furniture that will be in there permanently, but it does give an idea of what the layout of the finished room will be.

Even though this is meant to be a post about the castle, here a a few shots of the W. Shop as it looks now: 

Believe me, figuring out which bit of wooden trim goes where is an absolute bugger.

Suggest-a-Name Giveaway!

 If you've been paying attention, you'll know I'm planning to turn my Stratford Bakery kit into a witches shop.  I've been thinking: now that the castle is coming along and is mainly in one piece instead of scattered around the room, perhaps I have room to start work on another project alongside it.  Easter is coming . . . Wouldn't that four day break be an excellent chance to make a start on a new project?

Alas, I have one problem.  The shop doesn't have a name.  The naming of things is not a strength of mine.  People yes, but things, such as shops, no.  So I am appealling to you to help me come up with a name for the shop and am offering a giveaway prize to reward one lucky suggester.

At the start of the year I offered a giveaway that was drawn at the start of February (two and a half months ago).  Sadly, the winner still hasn't claimed their prize despite my attempts to let them know about it.  So I am re-offering the prize which consisted of a faux window, a straw mat, a pair of wooden candle sconces and a few extra mystery items.  I hope to have even more additions to the prize ready by the time I re-draw it.

To enter the giveaway :

1)  You must be a follower of this blog (newcomers welcome)
2)  Leave a comment on this post.  Please include in your comment a suggestion for the name of the Witch Shop, or if like me naming things aren't your strong suite, a suggestion of something you'd like to see included in the shop.
3)  You may offer as many suggestions as you like, but you will only be entered in the draw once.  If you entered the giveaway the first time around you're already included in this re-draw.  If you would like to enter again you'll be given two entries and thus two chances to win.
4)  Entries will be open until 31st May. 
5)  The winner will be drawn at random, regardless of whether I choose to use your suggestion or not.
6)  Good Luck!

Finally, to help you think up suggestions here are some ideas I have for the shop:

This is the basic kit which will become the shop.  The shop will be in the ground floor room.  It will have sections like "hats", "herbs", "brooms" and other witchy things.  An internal staircase will be added leading to the room above.  In this second floor room will be the shops book section along with some comfy sofas and a fireplace where the local coven can converge to discuss the latest tome of spells over tea and cake.  The room on the right will be a bed-sit and home to Hetty, the shop's sales assistant.  Beneath this room I plan to add a wall along the back of the open section.  In the wall will be a door, probably meant to lead to the home of the owner of the shop.  Most of the space under the overhanging room will be made into a small garden.




Next photo is some of the items I've collected for the shop.  The doll is Hetty who will become the sales assistant.  The birdcage is either for the shop's familiar section or perhaps Hetty keeps a pet in her bedsit.  The table and cupboard are to display items in the shop.  If you look closely, you'll see the door knocker sitting on the door knobs of the cupboard.  This is for the door in the wall I'll be adding under the overhang room.  It was made by the wonderfully talented Nickycc whose shop can be found here:
http://nickycc.com/OnlineStore/index.php  Nicky also made Artie's new friends pictured below.

I have gone completely overboard at Nicky's store lately.  The two little dragons and the door knocker were my first order.  Before that one arrived, I went back and bought one of her mounted dragons heads and yesterday I saw on her blog that she had yet more new items that I had to have.  A cute little dragon on a perch among others.  These dragons will find a home in either the castle or the witch shop.

The inspiration to do a witches shop came from watching the progress of a member of the DHE forums, Dolly Donut.  You can see the images of her finished witches shop here : http://www.dollshouseforum.com/forum/home-sweet-home-gallery/6954-salestras-27.html




I would love to have a hat and shoe department like Janice's, (Of Being a Mini Mum blog)  http://onbeingaminimum.blogspot.com/2010/11/emporiums-hat-shoe-department-opens-for.html

I will add more details about the shop once i get started on it!

Welcome New Follower and Plans

The Waggon a photo by Alennka on Flickr.

Wow! I'm now up to 84 Followers thanks to Ascensión. Her blog can be found here: http://ascension-misminiaturas.blogspot.com/ The most current post on her blog shows some fabulous witches vanity items (purfume bottles etc) and if you scroll further down you'll find some truely amazing cakes and teapots. Welcome to my blog Ascensión and thanks for following.

And speaking of Witchy items . . . .

I've decided that my Stratford Bakery kit will become a witch shop. Those of you who haunt the DHE forums will be familiar with Dolly Donut's (Sal's) "Salestras" shop. Those of you who aren't DHE forum regulars, you can see the shop here: http://www.dollshouseforum.com/forum/home-sweet-home-gallery/6954-salestras.html (photos of the finished item are on page 27) Now who could help but be inspired by that? Despite the fact I would love to make exact copies of everything Dolly Donut has done, I'm going to try very hard not to copy anything except the "feel" of the finished item. For one thing any copy I tried would just look second rate in comparision. That said, I may still need to ask permission to borrow some of her ideas depending on how the rest of the planning process goes.

I'm going to add an internal stair case to create a store over two levels. Downstairs wil be shelves and displays of potions, broomsticks and other various witchy necessities. In the room directly above a book section with a large fireplace and seating for customers to get comfortable while aquainting themselves with the stock. I expect there is also a regular meeting of a book group or some such up there after hours as well. The final room upstairs will either be a bed-sit for the owner to live in or maybe an office. By adding a solid back wall under the overhanging room and a fence down the side I hope to create a small garden area where some of the herbs used in potions sold in the store can be grown.

Next weekend is the annual Doll, Bear and Miniature fair at the local casino. I'm hoping to find some bits and pieces there to start the shop and don't want to make my plans too firm until I know what I might find. I would like to know what I'm going to do with the Retreat by then as well so I know what I need to keep an eye out for for it, but at the moment I'm still stuck on that one.

Proper Week Four and other business

Yesterday's post was a bit of a waste of time, but the way the week was going I thought I'd better throw something up before it got to be next week. Um . . . but I just looked at the blog and discovered the post I did yesterday doesn't exist. Also all the breaks between paragraphs on this post seem to have vanished. It's just been one of those weeks where there's been lots to do and if anything could go wrong with it . . . well, I'm sure you're all familiar with the saying. I hope to have a little time now to do a proper post about the weeks' (lack) of progress. Firstly, a warm welcome to the newest follower of the blog, Caseymini of http://caseymini.blogspot.com/ Many of you are already followers of Casey's blog and are familiar with the antics of Tessie. Casey, with Tessie's help, is a dedicated daily blogger whose posts are always enjoyable to read. Work on the Castle in week four has been slow. It has consisted of more painting. Since week three, a wash of a mid-brown-grey has been appiled over all the walls and then largely sponged off again. This added to the variations in the stone colour but mostly covered the pale grout colour to give it a more timeworn, dirtied up up. This was followed by drybrushing a couple of different light greys over the stones which helped to highlight the uneven surface and surprisingly added to the timeworn look of the walls. As they are now, the walls are darker overall than I initially had in mind, but I think they are going to do as they are. Next up I need to paint the windows, crenellations and side towers. Question is how? What colour and effect. I did paint the side towers in the same colours as the main walls as I did the walls, but sponged instead of drybrushed the colours on the smooth surface. I doesn't really look right, especially when in position against the 'real' stone. And should the windows and crenellations be a lighter or a darker tone, smooth, sponged or something else. Part of the reason why not much has happened to the castle lately is that I'm at a point where I can't decide how to procceed for the best.

Which room will it all end up in?

Continuing the indesicion theme, I've changed my mind yet again on the internal layout. I've come to the conclusion that the various doorways in the librabry make the layout too awkward, so the library is moving accross one room to the room above the kitchen in the East Wing Extension (the right side of the castle). The room that was going to be above the kitchen (a second bedroom) can't go in the middle where the library was as that room has a doorway leading to another bedroom, a fake door at the back and stairs up to the next level. Not exactly the spot for a nice quiet bedroom is it? So what is the room in the heart of the castle going to be? At the moment I'm open to all sugestions. I also can't decide how to decorate the rooms I do know what to put in. Yes, this castle is going to drive me absolutely batty before I finish it.

To try and avoid a complete mental meltdown, I've been ignoring the castle and thinking about my other two kits, the Retreat and Stratford Bakery, instead. Somehow this hasn't helped. The Stratford Bakery has an obvious layout of ground floor shop, top floor living/kitchen room and bedroom. But what sort of shop? An apothecary? A cafe with outdoor dining under the overhaning room? Something fantasy like a wizard supply store, a dragon pet shop or a dress shop for fashionable sorceresses? A jewellery store? A post office? Perhaps if I buy another half dozen or so kits, I can do one of everything? The same can be said of the Retreat, too many ideas, but nothing quite right for the kit. I think it's time to find a brick wall and bang my head against it until all the ideas start falling out, stopping when there is only one idea for each kit left in there. One decision I have made. Cyndy won my giveaway at the start of February, but has yet to get in contact with me. I'll give her until the 20th March to do so. If I still haven't heard from her then, I'll hold the giveaway again with a draw in early April as the winner can receive their prize in time for Easter (hopefully). So hurry up and drop me a line Cyndy, you only have seventeen more days!

Castle Starcaster - Week Two

Castle Starcaster - Week Two
Originally uploaded by Alennka

Another week . . . more clay.  Lots more clay.  It seems I'm slowing down with the clay and impress mould work as this week all I've finished are the two side front panels.  I haven't used or handled the impress moulds for a couple of days now, but I can still see the impression of their handles on one finger.  Once that divet clears up and I can type without the tips of my fingers tingling each time they impact a key I'll move ahead and work on the centre front panel and the two half round towers that hook over each side.  Maybe this time next week I'll have all the clay stonework finished.  Maybe.

I have two new followers to welcome to the blog.  Erica is a fellow Australian and has a few different blogs.  Her main blog is http://dragonfragments.blogspot.com/ while her dedicated miniatures blog is Miniatures:  http://grimoire-miniatura.blogspot.com/.  If you're a fan of Terry Pratchett, or simply of fantasy, be sure and take a look at her Library complete with oragutan Librarian.

The other new follower is Teddy.  Although Teddy doesn't seem to have his own blog, those of you who have found your way here from the DHE forums will be familiar with his fantastic work (and thanks to Bluebird for refering him here).  Work on Teddy's own castle has been forced to grind to a halt lately and he has been living vicariously by following the castles of others.  So for his benefit and for those of you looking for ideas for your own castles, here is a random selection of blogs featuring castles or castle type structures:

http://wwwmichellesmadworld.blogspot.com/


http://myminiaturemenagerie.blogspot.com/

http://castlestocottagesminiatures.blogspot.com/

http://aboutmydollhouses.blogspot.com/
 
http://peppercornminis.blogspot.com/2011/01/enchanters-tower.html
 
Two weeks ago I drew my giveaway and announced the winner was Cyndy.  Cyndy has yet to get in touch with me at let me know her address or even to acknowledge the prize.  She has no blog of her own.  I have tried sending an email from the email link on her profile, but still have no response.  Does anyone out there know Cyndy and how best to get in contact and let her know she's won?   I'll give Cyndy a few more weeks to make contact before I either send the prize to the second place entrant or hold a new draw.  Anybody know the protocol for unclaimed giveaways?

Castle Starcaster - Week One

Well, what can I say? Pressing a mould into clay over and over and over and over and over again for hours on end is rather boring. In fact it is incredibly, mind numbingly boring. The results, however, are worth the effort.

I use a mix of paperclay and ordinary air-dry clay, one pack of paper clay and half a packet of air clay. Once thoroughly mixed the clay is rolled out into a thin sheet (about 1-2mm thick) and large enough to cover the entire wall. PVA glue is then spread over the wall and the clay sheet pressed over it and trimmed to size. I then added the stone effect using Impress Moulds made by Malcom's Miniatures. Each set of stone moulds consist of half a dozen individual moulds, each creating a stone of different dimensions. The stone moulds look like little plastic mallets from side on, but when the end is pressed into the clay the result is a single stone block. By using the moulds in random arrangements a random stone pattern is achieved but it takes time. To give you an idea, the wall in the foreground of the above photo took about three and a half hours to complete.

Despite the many times I paused while working with the moulds and thought "Wouldn't it be better just to buy some stone look paper?" I persevered and worked slavishly on the outside walls of the castle until all the side walls of the castle were finished. Now all I have to do are the three front panels and those funny little round tower bits on either side. And some of the inside rooms. Maybe. The finished stonework is not perfect but never the less looks good. The effect of the moulds and clay is much more realistic than either paper or stencils and probably only bettered by genuine stone slips. Once all the stonework is finished, the stones will have to be painted to complete the effect. At the moment the plan is to make them light grey.

For those of you planning to use air drying clay, I'll share a few tips. When rolling the clay out, use a plastic rolling pin (a piece of PVC pipe works well) or a wooden rolling pin covered in plastic as the clay tends to stick to wooden rolling pins. Approach the clay like a baker. When you roll out dough you dust the table with flour first to prevent the dough sticking. Do the same with clay, but use talcum powder instead of flour. If you find the clay sticking to the moulds, use more talc to dust the moulds the same way you might use flour to dust biscut cutters. Measure and mark out a horizontal line every 10cm to help keep your stonework level. Use cling film to cover the areas of clay you're not working on to keep it moist until you're ready for it. If the clay starts to dry out, use a spray to lightly mist the clay with water, but be sparing. The more water added to the clay, the greater it's tendancy to crack.

Finally for today, welcome to the 77th follower, sophie appleton. She is another follower who doesn't appear to have her own blog, but as ever, if you do have one Sophie all you need to do is let me know and I'll add the link.

P.S. Is Cyndy out there? I'm still waiting to hear from you so I know where to send your giveaway prize.

Giveaway Draw Time.

Thanks to everyone who entered my giveaway draw over the past few weeks.  It was interesting to see where you thought the prizes would look at home.  It seems that the faux window will find a home near the peak of a cottage roof and the candle sconces will either line a stariway or frame a mirror (unless the winner changes their mind).  Who is the winner?  I entered a list of all the entrants names at Random.org and then randomised the order of the list.  The name that came out on top (and therefore won) was . . . .

Cyndy

Congratulations Cyndy.  Please let me know your address and I will post your prizes out to you.  You can email me at celestial@y7mail.com or if you prefer, just leave a comment here.

For those of you who are interested, here's a copy of the randomised list:

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week 21

A few finishing touches were added to the Inn this week. In the "low" bedroom a tapestry was added on the left hand wall, a faux hide mat and a bolster cushion were added to the top of the blanket box, thus elimintating the naked look of this wall.

On the top floor, I added what must be the ultimate cheat in faux windows - closed curtains. I had some extra pleated fabric left from the dividing curtains in the room and glued then to the back wall to look like curtains drawn over a window. This helped correct the naked look of the back wall, but I think it still needs something more back there before it really looks finished. Also, welcome to follower number 75, Fabiola. You can find her blog here: http://fabiolamiominimondo.blogspot.com/

Dancing Dragon Inn - Week 20

I have two things to say before starting this week's post.  Firstly, a warm welcome to the newest followers, Kelly and Stitcher.  I can't find a blog link for either of you, but if you have one and would like it added here, just let me know.  Secondly, don't forget there is only one week to go in my Giveaway.  Click on the picture to the right to find out how to enter.

At first I thought I'd dressed enough dolls for a few weeks. Then I reconsidered and decided to go ahead and dress the seven remaining dolls the Inn needed. Like the previous dolls, this batch was supposed to have a Tudor look to them. Mostly they don't. Again something went wrong and the men look more like they should be of a later period. Oh well, at least they look at home in the Inn.

With everybody dressed, I played around positioning and re-positioning them in the Inn until I was happy where everyone was and then played around with various accessories for the people to use. In the tavern I arranged the foodstuffs I made previously and Tacky Waxed them to the tables when I was happy. The beer mugs were all filled with foaming ale (i.e. scenic water pumped full of bubbles) and some eating utencils were pulled out of storage to finish the tables off. much the same treatment was given to the table in the "low" bedroom on the next floor except this table was much more messy, holding not only good and beer but also maps and papers.

Down on ground level I finally made a market stall out of balsa wood scraps and loaded it with a variety of goods including apples (or perhaps they're tomatoes, it's hard to tell as I made them from polymer clay sometime previously), candles, flowers and bananas. Yep, bananas. Not very tudory I know but I made them ages ago and never found a good place to use them and I had an empty spot at the end of the stall . . . . and after all it is a fantasy inn. Basically anything hanging about in my box of miscellanious accessories ended up on the stall.

One or two other small tasks this week include adding handles to the doors. These were made when I had the polymer clay out last week and this week I finally got around to glueing them onto the doors. Also going back to last week are the signs for the Inn. I'm pretty sure I forgot to mention these last time. They are very simple white cardboard rectangles surrounded by a basic balsa wood frame and decorated with a dragon made from faux leadlight paint. The dragon is the same as the one on the front window but in different sizes. There is no writing on the signs because in a society where most people can't read and write a written sign isn't much use.

The Inn is almost finished now. There are a few little things to tend to yet. The market seller at the very least needs a purse to keep her money in. The others may or may not end up with them. The chest in the low bedroom needs some "junk" spread out on top of it, or I might replace it with a different piece of furniture. That's something that needs thinking about. The back wall of the top floor rooms needs something too, tapestries? some exposed brickwork? more beams? They need something else anyway. 

If you have any suggestions or can see anything about the Inn you think is still in need of attention, please feel free to let me know.

I got an email this morning to let me know that my Cumberland Castle kit has been posted! I should be seeing it early next week. As the Inn has been nearing completion I've spent some time flicking through old dollshouse magazines looking to ideas to use in the castle and the other two kits I already have. I found a review of the Cumberland Castle kit from when it was first released in one of them. At the top of the page I'd made some notes and apparently calculated that the kit would cost me $871.00, plus postage from England which would have been about as much again. Now five years later I've finally bought one and thanks to changes in the exchange rate and to Fairy Meadow Miniatures shipping them into Australia it cost me $635 including postage. I probably would have bought the kit from FMM whatever they charged for it, but knowing I would have paid more in times past makes parting with that much money a little easier. Now all I need is FMM to get a Market Cross kit and I'll have all the Dollshouse Emporium kits on my all time most wanted list. At least all the kits DHE still make, they always seem to discontinue the best ones!