I'm Still Here

Well, it's certainly been a while since I've posted! I spent several weekends working on the dining room windows, then taking them apart, redesigning them, putting them back together and taking them apart yet again. I despise them now. I think I became really uninspired for a while because of those silly things.

Anyway, I think I've finally figured out how I'm going to finish them, but I've lost my energy and patience for them for a while, so I've turned to other projects until I feel like tackling them again.

Here you can see the draperies I've made for the dining room. They were a lot of fun to make, and have kind of reengergized me and renewed my creativity. Please ignore the partially-finished windows behind them.
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I've learned from lots of online reading that the best fabrics to use for miniatures are silk and 100% cotton. My favorite place to shop for small-scale cotton prints is my local quilt shop. They have so many adorable or beautiful scale prints that my difficulty lies in choosing between them all!

Now if only I could find a similar source with a huge variety of tiny trims and laces! I can dream, can't I? (By the way, if you happen to know of such a place, please, pretty please, let me know.)

These were so much fun to make, I've been designing miniature draperies in my sleep the past several nights. I do so wish I could just snap my fingers and have the entire Manor built, so I could spend all my time working on the fun stuff!

Oil Paintings

Okay, I know I'm supposed to be working on the Manor, but these were very fun to make and took very little time (and I do need something to do while waiting for paint to dry, don't I?).
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These are just printed from my large file of saved images of art. I think these particular images came from Christie's site. I like to use lesser-known or unknown works of art, because I don't want it to be immediately apparent that these are fakes.

The frames were very cheap; I can't remember exactly what they cost, but I think it was around US$3 for both. They were sort of a dull gold color all over, so I "antiqued" them with some burnt umber paint.

Once I'd sized and printed off the pictures, I texturized them to make them look more like oil paintings. I'd read about a gel medium you can paint over a print to give it texture, but it was late at night and I was impatient to try these out on my wall. So I experimented with Aleene's tacky glue. Using a small brush, I painted the glue right over the prints using short, choppy strokes to build up texture. I'm quite pleased with the results, and happy I saved myself some money, too. I won't be buying that gel medium after all, because glue works so well.

Christmas Baking

I've spent the last few days baking. No, not Christmas cookies, although I'm wishing I had a few right about now. Rather, I've been mixing, shaping and baking polymer clay into marble mantles, hearths and fireplace surrounds.

This set is for the dining room; I made a nearly identical set for the parlor.

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It's a bit hard to tell from the photo, but this set is pink marble (for the conservatory/music room).

I also made a set of black with veins of gold for the library.

I still need to add a coat of clear lacquer; I photographed them before the lacquer to keep the flash from bouncing off them.

I'm really pleased with how these turned out. One of the things I really love about miniatures as a hobby is that it encourages creative problem solving. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to make marble in miniature. I read about some faux painting techniques, but I've never been very good with paint. Also, the results don't seem to have much depth. You can buy marble tiles from miniature shops, but they're expensive and only come in certain dimensions. But with polymer clay, I can create any dimension I want and achieve, through the incorporation of translucent clay, some of the depth that is so characteristic of marble. I also plan to use this technique to create marble decorations, vases, statuettes and furniture tops.