The Tudor House Revisited, Part 2

To the best of my ability, I will try to remember just where I got the instructions for the contents of this house. This will be a floor-by-floor visit, as I took all the furnishings out before replacing them in the house,  and photographed them using my daughter's home-made photo booth, so no paintings or views out the window in these!

The upper level bedroom and working space is sparsely furnished, as it would be in that time, with the basics. The curtained bed and the trundle bed that go under it were designed by Brian Long and found in Dolls House and Miniature Scene magazine. The linens were made from linen handkerchiefs, while the red covers are fleece; red was believed to be extra warm, which is why long underwear was made in red versions, as well as flannel petticoats. The cradle is also a Brian Long design, again from DHMS, and swings. The strange structure in the centre is a baby walker; the baby stood in a circular opening in a flat table-like panel, which moved within the structure. This kept the child out of the open fires and away from the staircase, while still allowing for movement. My friend Debbie P. from Nova Scotia made this for me some years ago, from a DHMS Quarterly Special or a magazine insert, I'm not quite sure. A black and white kitten sits on top of the walker, while the ginger kitten on the floor toys with a mouse.

The bedspread on the tall bed is actually a woven rug, bought years ago at Upstairs, Downstairs in Victoria, B.C. Too nice to go on the floor, but great for an extra bed cover. The small bench was a Camp MiniHaHa gift, while the flower arrangement was home-made, again from a DHMS article. The larger bench is from DHMS, with a bedroom set of bowl, jug and chamber pot from JoAnn Shaw, who also made the blue candlestick. In front of this bench is a foot warmer, another CMHH gift from years ago. In case you have never encountered these, they were in use until about 100 years ago. Easily portable, they moved with the owner to friends' parlours, church, and so on. A foot warmer consists of a box with a pierced top, inside the box would be a metal brazier with glowing coals. You set your poor cold feet on top of this box, and draped your skirts around; lovely and warm!

The two baskets need a close-up. The ladies in the house weave, of course, so there is a shuttle wound with wool yarn, a drop spindle, and a pair of wool carders. I based these on a pair of very old Viking carders found in York, UK some years ago, and made them of sequin pins stuck through thin wood, with lightly shaped handles. The shuttle and spindle are also my own design. In the large basket is alpaca wool (begged from a vendor at a craft fair), heritage sheep's wool from Kings Landing Historical Settlement, and some fur from our late cat, RumTum. I had hoped to add a weaving loom, but there isn't space; however, I have a spinning wheel partly assembled, just have to find the right size of small wooden wheel for it. And there is also a Tudor commode to go into this room, it just needs its hinges put on. You wouldn't want to have to run outside to the privy in the middle of the cold night, would you?

If you look at the photo of the bare room, (previous post), you will note a small, blue cupboard on the wall near the staircase; this was made from one of my favourite books, Making Dolls' House Interiors, by Carol and Nigel Lodder, published by David & Charles. This little cupboard has leather hinges, and would hold jewelry, a prayer book, and the like, out of reach of the little ones. A small wooden cross,  a CMHH gift, sits on top of  this small cupboard.

That's all for now, the next visit will be to the kitchen and living level.

The Tudor House Revisited, Part 1

Not the best photo in the world, with a painting on one side and a view into the garden on the other; please just look at the house! Can you see the brackets under the main and second level eaves? That was one of the fixes prior to last weekend's show. The brackets are attached to the removable panels, so I have to be careful taking those off. It does add to the house, though.

Another fix was the new fires for the two fireplaces; as the computer is balking at posting long photos, I had to do each level separately.

This is the bedroom cum sitting room level. The chandelier has 4 candles, and there is a fire in the fireplace. As it is near Christmas, a kissing ball is hung from the chandelier. With the back roof now fitted around the newly bricked chimney, no daylight is coming through around the chimney-piece any more, thank heavens!

The kitchen and living level has two candle sconces and a fire, and now there is also a swinging fireplace crane in place. However, one of the fire dogs has fallen over! These dogs have brackets on them to hold a spit in place, but I am fighting the fire's wiring a little (that wire also needs painting to hide it). If I pull too hard, I might break something... One of these days I must add a chicken roasting on the spit in front of the fire, with a drip tray underneath, of course. It is possible to work cardboard to look like old iron cooking equipment, something to experiment with over this winter.

The lower, or shop level, has a single candle sconce. You can see the beams on the ceiling quite nicely here, all three levels are fully beamed, just like the real thing, and if you were 6 inches tall, you could walk up the flights of stairs. The floor here has some tiles "liberated" from religious houses pillaged by Henry VIII's soldiers, set into a beaten earth floor. Once this area was an open market, but it was enclosed when glass became easier to make and install. That large area of glass panes means the merchant who owns this house is quite, quite well off.

These lights are all home-made by me, using grain of rice bulbs and hollow cotton swab sticks for the candles. The ground level wire comes out the back with a plug; the second level has the hidden area for the wiring between the fireplace and the stair-case; and the upper level chandelier has the wires led down through drilled holes in the chandelier frame, and then along a channel in the bottom of the central beam. This channel is hidden behind iron-on wood veneer tape. The three levels come apart to take to shows, which means the upper and lower lights have to be unplugged while travelling.

That's it for now; tomorrow, I will do the furnishings for the rooms, and will note where I found the instructions to make them if you want to try Tudor too.

Show Report

This is the right end of our 3-table display at the local high school, along with the Model Railroaders Club. We had a bit of a problem getting them to understand what we were all about, but one of the members had been to miniature shows in the US and said the stuff on display there was wonderful.

This is a view from the left, while we were setting up. Three of the Camp MiniHaHa lamps (one was finished as a box only) were on display. The project under construction is a joint project of an Irish Cottage, being made by 2 F.A.M.E. members.

And this is the middle view, with our wonderful banner. A new member joined us today, she has been selling Christmas items via Etsy to the US and Europe, and her stuff in incredible. For some reason, she has not had any Canadian buyers yet.

Well, we kind of blew the railroaders away; the model car club has asked us to display at their show the end of May, and the railroaders would like us back next year. They photographed and video'd us and chatted and commented; all in all a very worthwhile event, despite the rotten weather which cut the crowds in half, apparently. But we may have found a new member....

Yes!

CMHH '14 Lamp Vignette Finished for the Show

There is a wee bit of glare in the centre of the photo, but this is how the lamp vignette from CMHH '14 will appear at the show tomorrow. I still need to build a half fire (no depth to the hearth, you see!) and put some foodstuffs around.

Most of the pewter in the vignette is Philip Aitken's work, bought on the secondary market. Some of it came from shows in Canada, the US and Europe. This insert is removable, which gives me the option of making other inserts for this lamp base. I am very pleased with the look so far, although I would like better stools than these commercial ones, the varnish is too shiny.

The table is a House of Miniatures tavern table kit I've had for years, finally made up and used in something. The rug is OK, but I think a braided rug might be more in tone with a pioneer kitchen.

My story for this miniature vignette is that the table and pewter were brought to their cabin by the pioneers, while the other furnishings etc. are local or handmade. A braided rug in autumn shades would be better, and there should be a cat sleeping on it....

The pewter works well in this setting, and allows my modest collection to be showcased. Now I have to find just the right spot for this lamp, likely in the family room, which has always been far too dark for my tastes. Somewhere I put a black "iron" teakettle, that will go on the fireplace crane; this crane broke while being installed, but some contact (impact) cement and a wooden brace soon fixed that little problem. One more thing more or less off my list.

The Provencal Scent Shop Ready for the Show

Well, it is not permanently finished, but this is what it will look like for the show on Saturday. The shelves are now full of merchandise, bottles and packages I've been finishing the last couple of days. There has been another power outage, as well as today's nasty mix of sleet, freezing rain, snow, fog and plain rain, but it has made it a good time to do work, at least during the short days. At this time of year, that means from 7 a.m. to about 4:30 p.m., and the days are only going to get shorter for a while yet. (Funny, the blue check sections of shelf are going off in all directions; in actuality, they are a tiny blue gingham print. Must be pixilated!)

The low, middle shelf unit is currently holding purple floral dishes, which are there only temporarily; they will eventually be replaced by bins of soap, still to be made. I am cheating somewhat, using some flat roundelle beads from a kid's craft department; wrapped in tissue and with a little sticker on them, they should look pretty good. Along with those, I'm going to try to make "artisanal" soap from polymer clay with interesting inclusions to represent spices and herbs.

Each of the shelf displays comes out as a whole; they are stuck to a piece of transparent plastic, fitted to the shelf, with glue dots (Zots). This keeps the contents securely in place, and allows me to re-arrange the shelves as I want, much easier than working within the tiny confines of each shelving section.

The wrought iron furniture is temporary; the shop will get a shabby chic display shelf eventually. Somewhere in my pile of magazines is the exact design I need, but there isn't time right now to go through hundreds of dollhouse magazines - these are what I get many of my ideas and instructions out of, along with my nice collection of books on miniatures.

The hanging bar below the purple centre unit will eventually get bunches of dried lavender hanging from it; for now, we are making do with pots of lavender. And I think the floor needs a shabby chic rug, something light with roses or something....

The Chimney Is Bricked

Well, I was going to post a photo, it came out sideways and was duly rotated, but when I went to add it to the blog, it was once again sideways.

That was my work for today; bricking the Tudor house chimney. The beam supports are mostly on, tomorrow afternoon I hope to get the chimney cap on and the chimney pots placed. I will take a photo then.

And there are still lots of little boxes to be put together....

I'm Going Cross-Eyed!

Today I came across a treasure trove of shop boxes on the internet for perfumes, bath salts, soaps, powders, you name it, including an entire range of boxes, labels and bags on a Wild Rose theme. Just perfect for the Provencal shop. But boy oh boy! Putting those tiny things together is frustrating....

I have 10 tiny clips and each box needs 4 to hold corners together to dry. So that means 2 boxes at a time can be glued up. My glues that I would normally use for this purpose have given up the ghost, so I am using a toothpick to dab glue-stick glue onto teeny tabs. All the folds have to be scored, of course, and for that I am using an old hat pin type of thing. My fingers are sticky and sore. My eyes are burning. But it is going to look so nice when it is finished, provided of course that I can find a way to keep the lids on the boxes down. Tomorrow I will attempt to punch tiny circles out of self-adhesive labels to make box closures. Failing that, I will have to cut and sand balsa blocks to fit into each box....

My hope had been that some of the rose-themed boxes would fit over cuts of standard basswood, but they are off just enough that that won't work. However, I think I will use basswood sticks to help fold the tops down neatly, kind of like a hand-held jig. There are a couple of nice gift bags, those will need a bit of reinforcing top and bottom, and thread handles through them. Bits of coloured tissue in these will suggest the bags are holding products.

In the meantime, the Tudor house roof is being finished; I had to add some strips to the roof crest to glue the cardboard roof tiles on to. The upper side corners of the removable main and second floor walls have been chamfered to take the beam supports, those will be put on tomorrow. Then the chimney comes off the house to make it easier to "brick" it; I will be using sandpaper bricks for this, as I can't use paperclay due to thickness limitations. Then the chimney cap and pots will go on.

The lamp base insert's floor and wall have been antiqued, the dresser has been glued up, the table is made up, so that is also coming along. Once a fireplace crane and faux fire have been added, I can "dress" that vignette.

Yesterday we got more than 30 cm (over a foot) of snow, along with a 13-hour long power failure. The generator is ordered, I just wish it would arrive; sitting around the house wrapped in a quilt with fingerless gloves on my hands means no work gets done on miniatures, and the show is next weekend! And now, with all the snow and the cold, the installation people probably can't work on it.
Oh well, maybe it will get a little warmer.

And my work-table is a right mess!