Cockerina's Holiday Swap!

Alright, I've got my partners for Cockerina's Holiday Swap :)  (I have to laugh whenever Google  attempts to translate your blog name, Caterina, because it comes out as "the minis of the cute female cocker :))

Paky is going to send me items for her vacation, and I'm going to send items for my vacation to Carolina!

I'm going on an (imaginary) vacation to museums, art galleries and opera houses, and I'm not sure at all what I'm going to make for Carolina!  She likes shabby chic and spooky things, though, so I'll probably keep to that theme :)  What will I do????

Thanks so much to Caterina for organizing this extravaganza!

Edwardian roombox -- with English purchases :)

It's a perfect June day -- bright, hot, not too much wind.  I'm running around all day looking after the opera festival (we're rehearsing Don Giovanni right now, in preparation for a four stop tour of Nova Scotia),  but I had to make a little mini time!  I took the mahogany pieces over to Mum's this afternoon and photographed the room box as it stands now:

All the castle's cats are still hanging out in Mum's roombox -- I think they find the Edwardian era warmer and more comfortable than the Tudor, and that matters a lot to felines.  I think Mum's terrier is a little offended that four cats are using up all the hearth!

It's amazing the difference all the accessories make to the place.  It looks much cosier and more like home now!

I've got to go take care of some musical business, but I'll be back later!

Mahogany finish

Sorry I haven't posted for a few days -- we're gearing up here for our Opera Festival and things have been busy :)

Yesterday I found the time to stain the furniture for Mum's roombox.  I had found a suggestion online that new, pale mahogany can be made to look like old, rich mahogany by using Minwax's Gel Stain in Brazilian Rosewood, so I got a little can and gave it a go.

This is with one coat of varnish, so they need to be sanded and varnished again, but I really like the colour!  Now I have to pick a fabric for the chair ...

And I was playing with some of the new pieces I bought in England, so here's a picture of them on my William and Mary dresser!

McQueenie Miniatures kits

I spent a pleasant two hours last night working on the four McQueenie's kits I bought in England, and here are the results so far.  I found these kits really easy to do, much less fiddly than the little joint stools I had put together before.  Everything went together like a charm!

The desk, chair and bookcase will be finished to bring out the natural character of the wood (mahogany).  I'm going to tone down the red of the aumbry a little, when I come to finish it, so it looks more like oak.

I had a lot of fun with the aumbry, paring down the edges with a craft knife so that it wouldn't look TOO machined and perfect :) (I think I'm addicted to whittling miniature furniture ...)  Now I have to install teeny tiny hinges with microscopic nails -- wish me luck!

Miniature art pottery

Among the packages waiting for us on Friday were three lots of miniature pottery, all by artisans selling their work on Etsy. 

Here's some more work by one of my favourites; Sue Dix of Suramics Pottery.  I love the shapes of her pieces and the range of glazes, and just can't help buying a few more to add to my Sue Dix collection :)  She's a wonderful artist and really great to buy from.

I also bought two little pots in a gorgeous teal glaze by artpottery.  (I just couldn't resist the colour!) Here's one of them:

And, finally, I splurged and bought four pieces by Anita's Pottery because I loved the forms and this seafoam green glaze:

(There are only three in this photo because the fourth, a tiny jug, has been given to my Mum :) Aren't they divine?  Timeless?  Anita makes 1:1 pottery, of course, but she does a lot of 1:12 scale pottery, much of it in the kind of jewel colours common to Fiestaware.  My personal favourites, though, are the variegated colours she makes though layers of glaze.  Really classic pieces.  She's lovely to work with, too -- I fell in love with the little planter in the front of this photo, and asked if she had anything else in this glaze, and she obligingly came up with a whole slew of gorgeous pieces!

Welcome to our brand new followers - part two :)

As of this post, we have 160 followers, about 158 more than I ever thought we'd have! (I was counting my Mum and husband ... :)

Thank you, all of you -- you are most welcome here, and we really appreciate your interest and comments. I've said it before, but being connected via the internet to a community of miniaturists has been the most marvellous part, for me, of this trip into dolls houses.  We don't have a miniatures club in Nova Scotia where I live, so I really do think of all of us, all around the world, as one big club!

Welcome to:

Anneke, a miniaturist from the Netherlands, who blogs at pieplyts. 

Blue Kitty Miniatures, a well-respected miniaturist from the United Kingdom.

Nina (hooray, another Nina!), a German miniaturist who blogs at MiniMumm.

Tiina is a Finnish miniaturist and blogs at Kalmankuja.  (I love the design of this blog!)

Juliana is a Spanish miniaturist who blogs at Las Minis del Bosque.

Maria is an Italian who blogs at Il Cucchiaino Magico (lots of great tutorials here).

Casey is an American miniaturist from Arizona, who blogs at Casey's Minis (although I always think of her site as Tessie's Minis, since a tiny witch named Tessie seems to make an awful lot of things happen in Casey's mini life!)

And there's also maria de los angeles mendez gomez, aurus35, christine, Loli, Mares, mini_babies, Angela, Natalie, Wanda and Michelle who don't seem to have blogs.  Welcome, anyway, and if I've missed your blog or website, please let me know and I'll add it!

Home at last -- and gifts from across the globe!

I'm sitting at my computer trying to compose this post while my darling cat, Edmund, is attempting to wash my face with his incredibly scratchy tongue :) (Apparently he doesn't think I did a very good job of grooming myself while I was away ...)

It's so good to be home!  Yes, my home is a mess, yes it's chaotic, but it's my mess and my chaos and it's marvellous to be wrapped in it again.

And I came home to presents, galore!  When I picked up our post this morning, there were about 12 packages waiting for us, many of them with minis in them.  Very self indulgent of me, but I did a little shopping before I went to England, too! 

This post is about the two best packages -- the ones with gifts from friends I've met online in the mini world.

Darling Flora sent me the most beautiful package from Italy.  (Flora is one of the kindest and most generous bloggers I know :)  Inside were four tiny packages, perfectly wrapped:

Inside was a treasure trove of delights for our Tudor castle -- elegant, sparkling and beautiful:

I photographed them on Flora's elegant letter because the paper and her exquisite hand-writing just set the tone for it all :) Look at them!   The silver jug and goblets (I love the detail on them!); the portrait of Elizabeth I as a young woman (the frame is gorgeous too), the two lamé cushions and the tiny perfect necklace and bracelet all make me so happy!  Like Flora, they are elegant, feminine and refined :)  Thank you, thank you Flora, for your friendship and your generosity to me.  These will all have special homes in the castle!

The second very special parcel was from Glenda of Peppercorn Miniatures in New Zealand.  Glenda is a very special person -- an extraordinarily talented miniaturist and someone who (like Flora) spreads positive energy and sunlight whereever she goes in the blogosphere.  Part of this parcel was my order from her Etsy shop, but most of it was a series of gifts that just bowled me over.

I ordered a mat and the tiny little green journal from her, and received a multitude!  Look!  Two more mats (thank you SO much Glenda, they're so beautifully made and perfect for the castle and the William and Mary house!), a little basket (which I had been longing for), three wonderful pieces of Tudor leather work that just left me speechless, and the most perfect mini book. 

You can see from the photo above that it's bound in green leather and has a red leather maple leaf on the cover! 

I wish you could all touch this book because it's a tiny masterpiece.  It's bound just like a real book, and has endpapers and very thin pages -- the next photo is my lame attempt to show a bit of what I mean:

It's stunning and it gives me so much pleasure, Glenda!  Thank you for the time and skill it took to make it.

Just before I left for England my copy of the dolls house magazine that published Glenda's article on making Tudor leather crafts in 1:12 scale arrived -- I'm going to give them a shot, but having the pieces made by the author is at once an inspiration and a bit overwhelming :)


Thank you, both of you, for your great kindness.

Love,


Nina

Gatwick airport ... :)

Well, we're ensconced in a fake-ish pub in Gatwick, waiting for our flight home.  David's gone to get some much-needed drinks :)

Why does flying have to be so stressful?  Apparently the two pieces of carry-on luggage that were fine with Thomas Cook flying TO England are not fine with Thomas Cook flying FROM England ... oh well, we're just going to have to try to talk our way through at the gate, I guess. Between this and over-weight luggage charges, we're feeling a bit fashed :)

Anyway, enough whinging!  I'm going to post a photograph to make me feel less stressed, although it may make me feel sadder at leaving my second-favourite country in the world:

This is the view from the church hill at Lavenham, and it looks like a painting by Constable, complete with expressive Suffolk trees and tiny cattle :)

That's better!

This is a gorgeous yellow timber house on the Market Place -- very inspiring for anyone tired of the black and white Tudor colour scheme preferred by the Victorians :)

This is the DeVere House on Water Street, and was right across the street from the cottage we were staying in! It was a bit surreal to open the curtains and find oneself staring at this magnificent building ... Look at that herringbone brick infill, and every timber is carved -- it's conspicuous wealth, Tudor style :)

And, finally, goodbye to England.  I'll leave you (and me) with this photo of the gate into a tiny walled garden on the Market Place in Lavenham ...

Colchester Dolls House Shop

Yesterday David and I drove down to Colchester in Essex to visit the Colchester Dolls House shop.

I didn't get any shots inside the shop, but this is what I bought:

The plain porcelain dishes I intend to paint myself.  I loved the Tudor hinges, and hope to use them in the kitchen :)  The copper kitchen tools I'll definitely age and refinish.

The little salt box will end up in one kitchen or another.  I got the two planters because I want to build a couple of topiaries.  The blue and white pottery will end up in the William and Mary house, and the little metal mug and goblets are by Falcon Miniatures.

I splurged a little on this Tudor standing light fixture for the castle.  I liked the mortar and pestle and the giant tankard, and the little gravy boat is by Warwick Miniatures and is destined for the William and Mary house.

And here are some items for Mum's roombox:  plates for the plate rail and a lamp for the desk :)  The shop didn't have either of the dolls house shops I was most interested in seeing in stock (as far as we could see) so I decided not to buy a building, and David and I will try to construct our own dolls house pub.

We can't quite believe it, but today was our last day in England.  It's been an amazing, wonderful trip!  Today the sun was shining (for a change :) and we decided to tour Lavenham itself starting with the National Trust museum in the Guildhall.  (David and I have taken tons of reference photos of this historic village and will post a selection on our Flickr account when we get back home.)    We had lunch at the Three Horseshoes, supper at The Greyhound (seriously, if you ever find yourself in Lavenham, have the Newmarket sausages and mash here :) and in between I visited some antique shops for 1:1 treasures!

We'll be heading out to the airport at 8 am tomorrow morning, so I'll try to catch up while we're waiting at Gatwick for our flight home :)

Welcome to our brand new followers - part one :)

I'm so grateful to all the new people who are following this blog! 

Contar is a Spanish blogger at Mis Miniaturas y Yo. 

Xisca blogs at Miniaturas de Xisca. 

Savannah (The Mini-Maker) is a young blogger from Kansas City in the US.  Her blog is Miniature Mumblings.

The Lone Dollier blogs at Dolls, Etc.  She lives in Louisiana in the US.

Peach Blossom Hill is another US blogger.  She has a number of interesting blogs, but her dolls house one is Dollhouse Minis. 

Cecilia Colo is a Mexican blogger at Cecilia Coló Miniaturista. 

Tiggy is an English IGMA Artisan and historical  doll maker, who sells her work at her Etsy shop.

Vasilinka is a Russian blogger.

Kimsminiatures makes lovely miniature food, she blogs at It's a miniature life and sells her work at her Etsy Shop. 

Lola is a a VERY young miniaturist from the UK who blogs at Princess Lola's Miniature Diary :)

Tabitha Corsica has an Etsy shop where she sells her handmade magical and fantasy miniatures. 

Vane is a Spanish blogger who shares her interests at PEKETIENDA.

And also welcome to Yvanna Ferreira, who don't seem to have a blog.