Queen Anne furniture -- custom settee and japanned secretary

I've been buying and making more pieces for my future dolls' house lately.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I had ordered a custom Queen Anne settee from Kris Compas.  It arrived yesterday, so I set up a little vignette to photograph.

I arranged the pieces in the ground floor room of the Tower.

The perfect little sofa makes me so happy!  Kris makes every part of her pieces -- including shaping the cabriole legs.   I think it's begging for some needlepoint cushions :)  If you'd like Kris to make something for you, please check out her website at CDHM.

I'm so pleased with how this turned out.  It started as a bog-standard unfinished whitewood piece by Streets Ahead.  I primed it, spray painted it red and then used gold and black permanent markers to draw chinoiserie designs on it, looking at a variety of early 18th century japanned antiques for inspiration.  You could also japan a piece in black chinoiserie, but I really love red!

First miniature doll making

The kids and I have been making dolls to represent ourselves in the world of the Tudor castle.  We used a combination of instructions:  some patterns and general helpful information on dimensions and scale from the book Making miniature dolls with polymer clay by Sue Heaser; and the very useful techniques found on a couple of websites, which I'll append at the bottom of this post.

Evangelista and I were the first to finish our dolls, and she took these photos today.  She arranged all the little settings for them, as well!

 Here is my character.  She will be the castle cook.  This is just her undershift -- she'll have a skirt, a bodice, a leather belt and her hair will be covered :)

 Here is Evangelista's doll.  She will be the cook's assistant.  She's wearing an underdress and a red overdress (from patterns in Heaser's book).

Here they are, enjoying some music and reading, accompanied by one of the castle's many, many cats!

And here they are enjoying a delicious pie.  Notice the cat on the table!  I think he's interested in the pie, too.

Useful Links for Polymer Miniature Doll Making

A very useful series of articles on sculpting scale model dolls in polymer clay from about.com

Articles on adding hair to miniature dolls at MSAT Mini Dolls

Miniature leather book cover technique

At KnitWits yesterday, the girls and I worked on various projects, from real life costumes (Fred) to miniature dolls (Evangelista and me) to books (Tiddles).

I'll show some of our doll work in a later post, but here are two books made by Tiddles using a technique she came up with.

I love the patina on these!  She made them by covering blocks of balsa wood with a rather heavy leather.  She coloured the sides and tops of the wood with a gold felt pen (a really useful item for miniature making) and then antiqued the leather using ordinary artist's acrylic paint.  (Any kind of craft paint would work, actually).  Then she added some gold marks on the spines using the pen.

What I love about these is that Tiddles's technique has transformed rather plain black leather-covered books into something rich and marvellous.  These would be appropriate in a wizard's study, don't you think?

Update on the castle

I've been remiss in taking photos of the castle, lately -- it's been a busy time for me in other ways :)   The Castle is still active and being worked on.  Our next room will be a large Tudor kitchen.

But I'm already planning my next project -- a William and Mary era house furnished in the time of Queen Anne (circa 1710).  To that end I've been buying and making some bits and pieces in anticipation of the new abode (and, I suppose, a new blog!)

This is the jewel of my early 1700 collection so far -- a custom Queen Anne settee by the extraordinarily talented artisan Kris Compas.  I don't have it yet, but it's winging its way to me as we speak!

Isn't it divine?  Can I point out that Kris has matched the tiny pattern across the front of the piece, even across the welting?  It's five inches long and I can't wait for it to arrive so I can photograph it in the Castle.  Don't you think the Tudor family living there will love it, even if it is a temporary visitor from the future? :)

It was inspired by this antique 1710 settee, by the way:

I encourage you to check out Kris's work at her CDHM Gallery (where you can buy pieces she's already built) and her blog, 1 Inch Minis by Kris.  She has beautiful items already built, and if you've ever dreamed of working with a great artist on a custom piece, I can assure you that she is friendly, helpful, creative, willing and talented beyond belief!  I can't wait to work with her again, and I can recommend her in the strongest possible terms.

Thanks, Sunny Hours, for the Sunshine Award!

 

Thanks so much to The Old Maid from Sunny Hours 1:12 miniatures blog, for giving the Sunshine Award to this blog. "The Sunshine Award is awarded to bloggers whose positivity and creativity inspire others in the blogging world." The rules are as follows:

1. Post the logo on blog.
2. Pass the award on to 6 fellow bloggers.
3. Link the nominees
4. Let nominees know they have won this award by commenting on their blog.
5. Share the love and link to the person you received this award from.

According to the terms of the award, I will now nominate six other blogs, so the awards goes to:

George the Miniguy http://tallminiguy.blogspot.com/
Ask Sister Mary Martha http://asksistermarymartha.blogspot.com/
New England Miniatures Blog http://newenglandminiatures.blogspot.com/
Terra Scents http://terrascents.blogspot.com/
High Desert Diva http://etsyhighdesertdiva.blogspot.com/

Tower almost done

I still have to put the lead caming on the windows in the bedchamber and paint and frame them, and the Tower needs a roof and a few more light fixtures, but it's almost done!

 

I haven't really finished dressing the bed, but this is a start.  The little cradle I bought used from an eBay seller. I love the X-chair -- again, from an eBay seller.   The tapestry over the fireplace was my first embroidery.  The crucifix is a resin pendant.  The trunk is from Michaels.

Tower Bed Chamber started

Well, I'm now starting on the final room of the first Tower:  the bed chamber.  I've done the floor, the stair railing, painted the walls and done a teeny tiny little fireplace. I built a wooden frame and used poly filla to make it look plastered.  Then I pressed a stained beam into the "plaster" for a mantelpiece.

Castle Library -- light in staircase and fireplace

Oh, I'm really enjoying this!  As I've mentioned before elsewhere on this blog, I love dolls house lighting -- it just makes everything come alive for me.

I added a lantern in the enclosed stairwell behind the bookcase and wired up the logs/flames unit in the fireplace.

This is the best looking fire I've ever found!

Castle Library almost done

After a few days hard work on the Library, it's almost finished.  I just have to decide how I'm going to light it and drill and connect everything, and it'll be done!

Here you can see the bookcases, the fireplace mantle, the book stand and my new table and chair.  The panelling took a while, but I really like it!

This shows the fireplace in greater detai, plus the painting I hung and the lectern.  The logs/fire in the fireplace I bought from eBay seller Kerby Lane Miniatures.

I bought the small packet of papers you see here in closeup on the libary table from the same UK miniature maker (Pear Tree Miniatures)  who made the Tres Riches Heures open book you see in the above photo, on the lectern.  This Tudor package includes a map, two letters and a list of household accounts. The open book on the table is one I made.

Here's a photo of the library table I bought from UK eBay seller amd5758 who offers free shipping anywhere in the world!  I've bought a couple of pieces from her now and they're all superb.

New chairs for the castle

Happy New Year!

I had several parcels arrive today, one of which contained a set of four chairs.  Now,  the chairs are definitely NOT Tudor (they're Stuart, at the earliest, with really ugly white upholstery), but I'm going to use a couple of them temporarily in the castle until I get my Jacobean house going :)

I bought them in spite of the upholstery on them, in the hopes that I could perhaps recover them.

It took a little more prying than I thought to get the padding off, but in the end brute force won :)

Here are three of them:  the one on the left with upholstery intact, the one in the middle with it freshly pulled off, and the one on the end with the old fabric removed from the thin cardboard and foam backing.

After playing with a few different fabrics and leathers, I've chosen to cover two in a soft brown leather and two in a very pretty, tiny red pattern.  Here they are!