Live Miniatures!

Today when I went to the front page of Etsy, I saw this blog post of interest:

How-Tuesday: Micro Planters

Photo by Steve Belkowitz for Microcrafts

What a clever idea! I'm thinking of making some containers for miniature live plants to see if this could be a new product line for people who possibly weren't interested in miniature pottery before.

As far as live plants go, I am a murderer of such things and will need a little help in this department. I currently have only one Spider plant given to me about a year ago. All other house plants have been either neglected or over-watered to death... I might see about air plants. What could I do to them?

Other news...

Well, we have our feet fully into the new year now, and though I didn't make any particular resolutions, I have wanted to keep my "year in miniature" on track. Over the past few weeks I have been giving high-fire Porcelain a try and found I really like the looks of it with the most recent set of items. I listed the new things on Etsy yesterday, and should know if other people like the Porcelain items by the end of the week.

My personal dollhouse town is still in the fantasy mode. I have spent many hours browsing around Etsy and eBay getting sparks of ideas, and am pretty sure I will be making the Bar/Tavern/Hang Out first. In my mind I have it all mapped out, even a way to have lit candles on some of the tables... whether any of these plans will really work or not, I will have to wait and see :)

Tiny Taste of Halloween in Miniature

I've been in a Halloween mood all week, had a great party to go to on Thursday, and another is scheduled for tomorrow! While waiting for a ride yesterday morning I decided to browse all of the Halloween items in the Scale Miniatures section of Etsy. There were over 800 listings! So much to choose from, I only made it through the first few pages to set up this treasury. Think I'll go back and browse a little more tonight ;)

Just Hanging Out...

During the month of September and into the first part of October I finished the dolls I currently have, then made clothes for everybody. Some of the dolls have more than one outfit because all scale dollhouse dolls aren't the same size. I made an outfit for a particular doll, then it wouldn't fit, so it became part of the wardrobe for another doll instead.

In October I took a break from my personal dollhouse world to make miniature flowers and get back to some of the miniature pottery I had started way back in May. I'm not sure how often I can play with my own miniature community for the rest of the year, so everybody is just hanging out now...



These girls are Heidi Ott dolls. They are very different in size, can't share clothing. The girl on the right is slender and sort of tall, the one on the left is short and sort of stocky built.




These dolls were from a set of Porcelain dolls that weren't finished, and had clothing glued on. I learned how to finish a doll with these, and their clothing is some of the first I made (got much better at it as time went on). The furniture these dolls are sitting in are by InsideOutMinis on Etsy.




The doll on the left was a young boy in the Porcelain doll set. I thought it looked too feminine to be a boy, so finished it to be a girl instead. The man on the right is a very short man by Heidi Ott. The shirt he's wearing was from a kit. The mens shirts I made after that (from a pattern I'd made) came out much better fitting and looked more realistic too.




These dolls are from Hanna, and the only ones that have names and personalities so far. The lion is dressed because he's more like the character Harvey from the book/movie, and will probably be a sidekick character to someone once the bar/lounge is a place for everyone to hang out in. This picture is showing my favorite clothing from all that I made so far. At first, I didn't intend for Francesca to wear anything so tailored, but the dress is "arty" in the fabric pattern, so it works out to be a part of her wardrobe. I really, really like Vincent's clothes, they fit so well and are classy looking to me too.




The doll in casual clothing is the tall man doll from Heidi Ott. He originally had a blond crew cut hair do, but I didn't like that so changed it. His hair is tied back in a pony tail right now because I haven't decided how to cut and style it yet, I may leave it the way it is.

The older man doll started as the Gary doll from the Dawn doll set. His original hair was just formed from the plastic the doll is made from. I also redid his face so he wasn't so cartoonish. He's a little too tall right now because the only shoes I had that would fit him have heels giving him another 1/4" (four inches) in height. I will eventually get him some flat shoes to make him closer to scale.

Tragic Fairy Tale...

I remembered these two fairies the other day, and thought they could have a place in the "Land of ____" once it gets going. There will be a place for my fantasy sculpts on the top shelf, to the left of the rest of the community. I started day dreaming about how I could display these things, and had decided I could have a few real plants that have long tendrals to drape and flow along the shelving. It would make a nice forest area for the fairies, and since I am too short to play with anything on the top shelf anyway, this should all be good in the end.

These two fairies were the first I finished. They were never for sale, because they weren't good enough, but I still liked them just fine. I had put them in a plastic box (not air tight apparently), and had them put away for the past few years. When I opened the box to see these girls again, it was a horrifying sight! The fairy on the left used to have a nice Peacock feather skirt which is nearly all chewed away, and her hair is partially gone too. The fairy on the right has faired much worse... her hair is almost gone, there were feathers in her headband, and even her clothing has holes here and there.




So I googled moths that eat wool and got pretty creeped out. I spent much of this weekend looking for any other signs of these fairy eaters around my house. I dismantled an area that had collector magazines and a few books because I saw too much dust in the rack that held them, I'm about to take apart the whole wall of books on that side of the room because it looks pretty dusty around the bottom shelf holding record albums.

(getting cleaning obsessed a little, but that can't be bad?)


The good news from the holiday weekend...

The miniature Barbies have clothes! I can put them away for now, because I am still trying to figure out pattern making for the regular dollhouse dolls. The proper dollhouse dolls are not quite as tall as these, but they do have a more stout figure, so trying to make patterns fit has been a little hard. I am about to decide I don't need to have a real pattern for anybody else. I just hope I can figure out how to make the clothes removable so they don't have to wear the same outfit every day.





Now I will be off making some miniature flowers for a few days and maybe glazing some pottery pieces I have in bisque stage. That reminds me... while I will still be making some miniature flowers for my vases and a few to sell on their own, (MostlyArt on Etsy) I have also decided to sell the "Bloomin' Easy" flower making kits by Bonnie Lavish in my PrincessOzma shop. (they aren't in there yet, but stay tuned...)

Why I Need a Pattern...Revisiting Barbie

I got out my Barbies a couple of days ago to put together a play kit for someone, and was just delighted to find I'd kept some of the clothes I'd made. This is why I need patterns for the miniature Barbies, and then on to the dollhouse dolls afterward.

This first picture shows the enormous size difference in a regular Barbie and the miniature Barbie I'll be working with to learn how to make clothes in 1:12 scale. I love the dress I made for this Barbie. It was made from an old handkerchief, bead findings, and beads for the buttons. Once I have figured out the size difference in patterns (somehow), I can start inventing patterns of my own off the basic shapes.




These two dresses were made from patterns and handkerchiefs. The Bolero on the left doesn't fit all that well, should have used a clinging fabric for this.




This fashion doll is larger than the Barbie, I had to make up the pattern for her dress. It was made from a hankie too.




I love this fabric! It's so soft and flowy, I can see it working great for the miniature doll clothes too.




This Summer dress was made from a hankie too. I think I had a pattern for the basic dress then added the print from the sides of the hankie coming around in front for accent.




I totally love the outfit on the right! The blouse and pants were from hankies too. The handkerchiefs just have so many possibilities with the various trims and prints on them. Then the plain white ones were usually used and laundered so many times that the fabric is so very soft, softer than any fabric you can buy.





Still working on ideas of how to get basic patterns in dollhouse scale... I want my dolls to have contemporary clothing that can be removed (need fasteners and proper openings), too bad the miniature Barbies didn't come with wardrobes...