Oh, Blah!

It must be the almost endless winter, but I find myself making flowers all the time! There are now 2 smaller shamrock plants, as well as a chrysanthemum which will go into the flower shop's autumn display window.

The mums were made from a We Love Miniatures tutorial, although I didn't exactly have the right punches. Instead, I used a sort of asterisk for the two centre petals, and a small snowflake for the remaining rows of petals. The centre is flower soft, and the finished mums were brushed with ochre chalk dust. I quite like them, and will probably make some in pink and purple, and perhaps white, to make a nice mass of chrysanthemums for the window display.

And I have started some tiny mini embroidery projects, as the Moncton Miniature and Doll Show is coming up the first Saturday in May.

Too Much Snow!

The last little flakes from a two to three day snowstorm stopped just before lunch today; we have now had 3 major snowstorms in less than a week. This morning, the Carpenter-in-Chief had to dig out a nearly meter-wide, meter-high pile of snow left at the end of our driveway by the snowplow.

So I made some more flowers. This is a Cape Daisy (Osteospermum), and is based on another design by Mette S. Laurendz, in the August 2013 issue of Dolls House and Miniature Scene. Hers featured a dark red-purple Cape Daisy, but if you google the images of this flowering plant, you will see that they have a wonderful variety of centres, not to mention a wide variety of petal colours.



It involved a bit of experimentation, but mine have a bit of purple near the central ends of the petals, done with colouring pencils; then a ring of orange stamens, made of flowersoft; and a centre of teal blue sand, over a tiny teal blue central disc. There are 8 flowers, and a dozen buds that are in various stages of opening, as well as a couple of different sizes of leaves, cut down from flower punchies, and punched out of hand-painted paper.

My original design used colouring pencils for the central circles, but it just didn't look right. The Real Life version has a narrow ring of beige stamens between the orange and the blue, but I just could not manage that in 1/12 scale.

I am pleased! Now, I think I will do a couple more shamrock plants, a little less bushy, perhaps, just in case....

30 seconds later, it is snowing again....

Saint Patrick's Day

Yes, I know that I am rather early with this post, but I had a mini day on Friday and put together this shamrock plant in time for Saint Patrick's Day. The Carpenter-in-Chief is about to finish a course on Celtic (Irish) Literature, and this was kind of inspired by that. The plant and its pot are under 3 cm (1" and a bit)  high. It is a design you can find in Joann Swanson's DIY blog. There are 25 little shamrock leaves and stems in a pot that is about 1.7 cm or 3/4" in diameter. It was remarkably quick to put together, using a tiny heart punch (do the math; that's 75 little hearts!), punched from painted paper. I am very satisfied with the shamrock, which will go into my flower shop's Spring window display. I still have to find a chocolate with green foil wrapping, to use the foil around the pot (and, of course, to satisfy my occasional chocolate cravings, too!).

While I was at it, I began cutting the pieces for two other plants, also destined for the flower shop's changeable window displays. The first one is below:





It's a white hellebore, or Christmas rose, which will be part of the Winter display. This one took time, as there are 7 open blossoms, two of which are a bit darker as they have just about finished blooming, and, I must admit, ended up having tea upset on them.... Then there are 10 buds in various stages of opening, and 10 leaf stems. Again, the same size pot as the shamrock, amazing that one can cram 26 pieces of flower wire into such a tiny area. This plant was designed by Mette S. Laurendz, from Denmark; the tutorial, which is very clear and well illustrated, is in the March 2015 issue of Dolls House and Miniature Scene magazine.

The third plant will be a either a Cape Daisy or an osteospermum; it has been begun but it will be a few days before it is finished. as I am struggling with beading on a Real Life embroidery; I keep losing count of the threads in the linen. I am again following a design by Ms. Laurendz, but I am going to change things up a bit, with a more colourful flower; both of these plants come in such a wide variety of colours, with an even wider variety of multi-colour, concentric centres. I am going to start with a white one, with faint purple at the base of the petals, and an orange and teal blue centre. For the Summer window display, this will be plant number one.

I use glue dots to adhere the flowers and plants to a clear, plastic base cut to fit the window, which just allows me to slide the displays in and out as desired!