Halloween Scene

If you follow the blog Mini Mod Pod, then you know about the Halloween challenge.

I love Halloween and minis, so of course I'm joining in on this. Here's what I came up with;

Yeah, I know I was supposed to try for spooky, but I had this image in my head and just went with it.

The assorted mini ceramic pieces, furniture, metal jack-o-lantern pail (under table), and some accessories are all purchased items (craft shows, garage sales, found items, ebay)

What I made: The flower arrangements, the polymer clay jack-o-lantern on the ground and the box on the table, the punch bowl set (still have a few up on Etsy), the leaves (They're REAL), the polymer clay gourds scattered amongst the leaves, and the "Day of the Dead" styled skeleton woman(sort of). The backdrop is one of Billy's side exterior walls.

Now back to that skeleton woman. It's not part of my culture, but thanks to several years of high school Spanish classes, I know a few things about, "El Dia de los Muertos", and sort of admire some of the visuals used. I believe these dolls are called Catrinas and I've been wanting to try and make one for a while (wikipedia for more info).  I'm pretty happy with the results.

It's a little late to make more for the Etsy shop this year and I think I need to find some sturdier material and sealers for the next time if I intend to sell these(quality first). So as a small Halloween gift to my readers/followers, here is a brief tutorial on how to make your own. (apologies for the poor lighting/rough layout-I did most of this at night).

                                                                        

 

Finally, add clothing(I just wrapped her in strips of cloth), some props, and-Ta da! You've got a Catrina.

 

If you try to make one, let me know. I would love to see how yours turned out. :)

Despite the east coast weather, I hope everyone has a great week and eats lots of candy!

 

Happy Halloween

Van Buren-Concept idea

I apologize for putting this off for so long, (but it was a lot of thinking and typing).

First, since it's been a while, Ta-da!

I think I've pulled enough wallpaper off the walls that I can sand the rest down. Most of the busted flooring came out, a couple problem spots and some glue to remove. Everything is going good,..
Except this room-The kitchen;

                           

I've been asking around, and now I've got a small list of things I can try to get this floor out. I'll let you know how it goes. The loose bits of wallpaper came out, but I've lost my patience with this room. I'll probably just sand the rest down.

Since, aside from the floors, I completely painted Billy, and this house would need extensive sanding for me to attempt that again(I am tired of painting anyways), this house is going to have a lot of wallpaper, tiles, and wood paneling.

And now for the concept idea part;

Some ground rules for the colors (so it doesn't look like a larger Billy)
before I forget to mention it;
Warm colors. reds, browns, greys on the exterior. The interior is a little more flexible, but I'm still trying for the muted warm feel.

This isn't a new house. It's been, "lived in", by a couple different people and abandoned for who knows how long(there was a tiny calendar from the 80's inside-true story). I've watched people fix up old houses/buildings in real life. Not to take away from all the work they've put into their homes, but I'm doing something surprisingly similar...on a 1/12 scale, of course. So I want it to look like someone happened upon this house, liked it, and moved in.

Also unlike Billy, this house is going to have a permanent family living in it (dolls?, I dunno). I'm thinking a couple with a child or two. Somebody's going to be an artist or craftsman because I'm seeing a studio on the 3rd floor. Before I get ahead of myself, let's look at the plan;

Master bath in the attic/3rd floor? At first I thought someone bashed in that middle room(the other rooms are just too big to be a bathroom), but no, that's just the Van Buren. Check out the hallway/crawlspace between the bathroom/roof. It's a rather large space that I can barely reach(my only complaint about this house design).

It's kind of weird to have to walk up to your attic just to find a bathroom, so my solution is to make the right half of the attic a master bedroom(weird, but old houses make you do weird things sometimes), left half-the studio space. And since I've got two stairway closet spaces, but I'm only excited about the one on the first floor, I might try to cheat in a half bath, you know, so the, "kids", have something on their floor.

                                                                                                  (Maybe)...

This is the living room on the second floor. The mid-wall molding is something I'd want in a dining room(which should be on the first floor with the kitchen), so I'm going to pull this out. I'll move it downstairs, or buy more if it turns out to be rotted like some of the door frames.


Not sure what's happening with the doors yet, but I've been pulling out all the frames so I could remove the busted hinges(they'll be clutter in the closet or something-I've been trying to save/reuse what I can) along with the window trim so I could remove the old aceate(decided not to replace it-I like being able to reach through the windows). Some rooms should have doors, but some would look better without them. I'll think it over.

Now the exterior;


                         
           (aside from the shingles and chimneys being gone, outside hasn't changed much)

 The widow's walk will probably be a rooftop garden,accessible through the studio.
I might just scratch rebuilding the balcony and just make a big window to replace the doors. Two reasons for that: 1. I'm missing a door and the one I do have was attacked by a crayon and needs to be remade anyway. 2. When I move the house to another room, it just clears the doorway. It won't fit through anymore once I rebuild the balcony. The house has a widow's walk, does it really need a balcony? I don't think so.

This house doesn't have siding, which I wouldn't have noticed, except that Billy has milled siding(and I really like how it looks). As a result, I have slightly higher expectations now. I want to try something new, so I'm (in theory) going to make my Van Buren a cobblestone. Talked my family into saving me egg cartons and other packing material, so I won't have to spend a fortune on clay to do this. I need enough to cover 3 walls and a few areas around the open side. That pile looks promising, but I think that I could still use a few more.

...So that's the Van Buren, thus far...If you read this whole post,
I salute you...onward!

Stuff Just Happens Sometimes

Last week, I went out with some of my family to volunteer at a fall event over at a nature center we frequent (I'll name drop when I have a better story about the place). Unfortunately, this time around, volunteering involved sitting out in the rain, for 3 hours, at night with the temp 36°F (that's 2.22°C) and falling. We were under a tent and I had mittens, but it was still cold/wet and my feet were numb by the time we were done(and there was ice on the car). Hunky Dory, if you read my blog posts-I stand by my statement that I'm not looking forward to winter. (<- This is all foreshadowing, btw)

The nature center is kind of far from our house, but it's also closer to Letchworth State park than our house is. So since it was peak weekend for the fall leaves, we stayed the night in a hotel and then spent Columbus Day enjoying a walk along "The Grand Canyon of the East".

  Most people I meet online think, 'city', when I say I'm from New York.

 I think that's funny.

 So then we came back home, where I spent a few days helping around the house/decorating for Halloween, and then...that 3 hour, rainy freezefest caught up with me. Well to be fair, I spent Thursday morning tearing the rest of the old wallpaper out of the Van Buren, but by the afternoon I was side-lined by a cold. And then the universe seemed to get on board, our wi-fi died for a couple days. And the house cleaning meant my work area ended up being packed away for a while. AND every time I tried working on more polymer clay minis for the Etsy shop, the oven was occupied. So basically, all I did for a couple days was sleep. That's probably why this cold is going away so fast, but I've been pretty bored (doesn't happen much). I'll just call it a trade-off and enjoy not having a sore throat anymore.

Last night after everyone was done working in the kitchen, I commandeered the table and oven, to try and catch up on my minis(now that I feel better). I also got a little distracted/inspired by the basket of gourds my mom had out for decoration, so I made some mini gourds which I'll show those off once I photograph them.

It's kind of been a lousy week, but hey,
I got some awesome photos to show for it, right?

(Edit: Before I forget; What I'm  assuming is the conclusion to the, "I'm a Giant", challenge.  Thank you, Mini Dork!)

It's Fall!

Last post was so long, I'm going to take a break from the dollhouse updates and try to make this one much shorter, ok? Right, so...

1. It's October, and we have gourds and pumpkins-Welcome to the delightful season of Fall. :)

Some produce from the family pumpkin patch. Last year was so damp and cold, N.Y. ended up with tons of green pumpkins that sort of just rotted on the vine. It's nice to see so many ripe ones this year!

2. Bridget of Tweety Petie Products, posted about a tutorial that she made for making mini realistic fall leaves. I wanted to try making my own, but at the time, all the leaves here were still green. Now that they've started changing colors, here's what I got to make yesterday;

Made some changes to Bridget's process. Instead of Gallery Glass with a toothpick, I tried Polycrylic with a Q-tip. One problem I had: The yellow leaves I used shriveled up so much that they just looked like crumpled paper after they dried. Solution: I stretched them out and added a second coat of Polycrylic, so now they just look like crinkled leaves.

Since I don't know how these hold up long term and shipping plant related things gets tricky, I think I'll keep using paper leaves for my sale items (online at least), but I really like how these turned out. They're going into my new fall/Halloween scene. ~ Thanks for the tutorial Bridget!

3. DEVIANTART MEMBERS! Did you hear about the Fall Diorama contest? Click here for the link!
I'm against graphic design contests, for professional reasons that make me sound really angry when I type it all out, but sometimes there's an artsy fun one on DA that I'll enter. If you do decide to enter this contest-READ THE RULES FIRST! The winner has to send their entry to DeviantArt HQ, and you won't get it back! So don't use any costly minis you don't intend to send away forever.

I'll get back to posting about the Van Buren and my Etsy shop soon(btw, those shipping costs I was worried about being too high-turns out I charge less than some chain stores!). Unitl then, Happy Fall!

What's new-Billy

About a month or two ago I started furnishing Billy...and that's pretty much it.

So I'm going to share the progress thus far, and hopefully that gets things moving again. (Is it weird that I'm stuck at the fun part?)

First, the concept idea. (btw, this is a loooong post)

The house is a Swiss Chalet design, so it's basically a ski lodge. That said, I live in Western New York, we have ski resorts that turn into golf courses in the summer. So I decided that Billy is a weekend cabin/timeshare/vacation home. And thanks to being near a couple of the great lakes, I can also justify pretending that the tiny inhabitants occasionally spend time at the beach. No specific season, as people stay there year round. No specific characters to design around, other than assorted vacationers.

So in terms of furnishings, I'm trying to make it look like every cabin and family owned hotel I've ever stayed in. Happy colors. Vintage/slightly worn, visibly refinished/repaired furniture that only sort of matches. Out of date appliances. Random items left behind by past visitors. If you've ever been to a place where it looks like the decorator's been reading Better Homes & Gardens Magazine, but just didn't have the budget to go out and buy the stuff in the pictures, you've got the idea. I also decided that I'm ok with it looking just a little tacky in a, family fun vacation sort of way.

The current exterior;

I started decorating for summer, but then things got busier around here and now we're into the fall. I'll probably just pack up this stuff until next year and start making some leaves now.

Tried making bunting to sell on Etsy, but this string took so long, I don't think it's worth the labor to sell them unless I come up with a faster way to make them. (I do need to make 2 more just to reach across the railing though).

What I've got;
The flowers are older minis I made last year. (bunting is from this year)
"Welcome" rock is from a local store.
Lantern, ebay find.
Glass(Pelican?) is from a church rummage sale. My brothers are all grown ups now, so it's safe to use in a dollhouse without having to worry about any "hurricanes" destroying it(hopefully).
Birds nest on the railing,
is a vintage mini I bought at a local co-op. 

I ended up aquiring a table/cabinet that the house can sit on 24/7 (I used to just move it from room to room as needed), so now I'm thinking Billy could use some grass and landscaping. The table top is pretty beat up, so I'm covering it either way.

Here's, the first floor;

It's a mix of found, bought, handmade, and repaired items, I'm not going to talk about everything right now (feel free to ask).

When I was, 10 I think, my mom and I were out for a walk and found an old Strawberry shortcake house that had been set out with the garbage (family history of garbage dollhouses). We took it home where my brothers eventually destroyed it, but I kept the random furniture from inside (none of which was Strawberry Shortcake, btw). This is a plastic sink unit from that story. I never thought I'd find a place for it, but it sort of fits in with my concept idea, so I guess it finally has a home.
The teapot came with the bird's nest and the toaster is from a hobby shop. It's a lot of silver over here, so clearly I need to rethink this(or just break out the paint). There's a new fridge too, but to save some money I bought one with a crooked door/missing hinge pin-half price! Easy fix, but of course I haven't gotten to it yet.

(the store selling the fridge also had tiny rubber chickens-score!)

The fridge is going where the pear picture is (for some reason the printer spit it out, I liked it, now it just needs a frame). I just bought some mini hold wax, so I can hang up the pictures now.

WIP, fixed and soon to be refinished cabinet/secretary. Handmade paper bowl, co-op item (books), Rement jar, and The Lamp.

Don't know the scale of the table, but it's too small. Record player is actually a WIP clay Victrola(will talk about later). Couch/bench is from a Dura-Craft furniture kit, that came with a dollhouse kit, that I was supposed to have built, when I was twelve (it's still in it's box-no room right now. Billy was a smaller/easier build). That ceiling lamp (another co-op item), was also waiting for mini wax.

Another painting to hang (I think it used to be a business card for a realtor or something). Got it when I was younger, and it was packed up with some of my old dollhouse/mini toys. I just painted some balsa to match the house, and block mounted it. Pottery and WIP doll are more of my handmade work.

So that's the first floor so far, and the second floor..

...I don't like it. The black furniture doesn't work for me, and the bed is the wrong scale. And since I think multiple people would want to stay here, I need more than one bed in this room. The rocking chair might stay, but the rest is going as soon as I decide what I want to do with the space.

So, that's Billy.

I'm still pulling wallpaper and busted parts out of the Van Buren. I spent a good portion of last Sunday working on it, so it's starting to look less like it's haunted and more like an empty house I need to sand.

I'm going to talk more about this house, but in another post, on another day because this is getting too long.

New Etsy Listing

New to the Etsy shop- Monochromatic shapes, pillow set!

I know there are tons of standard square pillows on Etsy, so I thought I would try something a little different.

The current listing only has one set available, but I'm half way through making a second set. They take a while to stitch, but I really like the end results.

Couch (is just a prop); Bozart Toys

Happy Thursday!

It's 2 a.m. , but I said I would announce it...

I decided to post new items on Etsy as I finish them. First up, Halloween themed punch bowl sets;

Available now at my Etsy shop.

I've opened up my shop to international shipping too, but I'm not entirely sold on that idea yet. There's a few reasons for that. 1. The idea of shipping something I made outside of the U.S. generally just makes me worry. 2. Regulations vary by country. (It's already in my shop policy that I'll give refunds in the event that I find I can't ship something, so hopefully I don't run into a problem there). 3. Not even sure the shipping costs are worth it. Speaking of which,

*If you find reading about shipping really boring, just skip this;*
I decided to use USPS flat rate priority mail shipping boxes. Sturdy, ready to mail boxes. Convenient, flat rate prices, and priority shipping, 2-3 days domestic. U.S. is $5 (I'm rounding up, btw), which isn't terrible. Canada and Mexico end up being $13. That might be a little high, but I once bought something from Canada, shipping was $10. My order came poorly packed in a flimsy box (really surprised that nothing broke), and it took weeks to get it in the mail. So, I would pay $13 if I knew it was priority mail and wasn't going break. I guess what I'm saying is that I'm ok charging people for the quality shipping my work needs to get to them in one piece, as quickly as possible. However, everywhere else, international shipping is almost $17. That sounds like a lot to me.

I'm interested in what other people think. If you bought miniatures from a foreign country, how much of an issue is the shipping costs? Would you buy something online if the shipping cost more than what you bought?

Regardless, I've posted the new shipping costs on Etsy, so we'll see how this all works out.

Wow, I started this at 2, but now it's 3. Don't blog when you're tired-it takes forever. I'm going to bed, but before I do I'm posting this photo of the Van Buren pretending that it's a spooky backdrop.

                                                           (all this Halloween stuff, and this isn't even my Fall post...)

It was for a, movie themed, contest entry over on DeviantArt that you can see here if you want.

Annnnd Goodnight. (morning)