Potting Bench Progress

During our virtual mini meeting this afternoon, I painted and aged the dirty potting bench. Neither of my mini friends had ever seen a potting bench like this one, but I had seen one, some years ago, at a plant nursery here in town. That nursery expanded too quickly and went bankrupt, and the building now is a place for people to get help with groceries and to learn to grow their own fruit and vegetables. However, my friends reminded me that the owners of the nursery were Dutch, so perhaps this is a Dutch potting table.

The table still needs dirt in its main bin; this will be made with some Model Magic air-dry stuff, paint and glue and tea dust.



A bird's-eye view shows the double walls, which form the slots the tray slides in from side to side, depending I suppose on where the dirt is deepest! I rubbed the runners of the tray with bees' wax to make sure they would slide with a minimum of friction; the whole thing, after all, is made mostly of craft sticks with glued butt joints, and can't cope with too much twisting.

This afternoon I also started shaping the supports for the shelves of a shabby chic kitchen cabinet, intended to be hung on a wall, based on an old Dutch design. I now have to ask the Carpenter-in-Chief to cut down some wood for the back and shelves of this cupboard; however, I hope that I have enough decent wood in my scrap pile to build the drawers and dividers for it.

Actual Potting Table, Down and Dirty

I saw this potting table in an old Dutch magazine, and decided Boutique Pulchinella needed one of these. This is not your elegant table, with flowerpots, books, gloves and such pretty things, but a rough wooden bin with double walls. In the bin you put the potting soil; the tray slides back and forth in the grooves, and can be lifted out to dump spilled soil back in the bin.

This is the sort of potting table you would find in a plant nursery setting, or on an estate that could afford to hire a team of gardeners. As wood is in short supply here, the whole thing was made of craft sticks from the $ store, with some scraps from the scrap pile.

I have to do some sanding, and then I will stain the whole thing, prior to painting the outside of it with cheap white paint, rubbed back to suggest use and wear. The inner section and the tray will be dirtied up, and I have to make a pile of soil to go into the bin. I also have to dig out a trowel to stick in the dirt.

We had another virtual mini meeting yesterday, with another one planned for tomorrow. That means I need to come up with another stimulating mini to create; perhaps I'll go back to making the fittings for the klompenfabriek for a change of pace. The carcass of the workshop has been taking up space on my kitchen counter for a couple of weeks, as I finished window and door fittings.

Summer arrived almost overnight here; from one day to the next, plants suddenly showed up in my garden. Last night, the hummingbirds returned to the feeder; we were afraid we might not see them this year, as the weather pattern has been so strange. A couple of apple trees have opened their blossoms, and the remainder can't be far behind. Overnight we had a nice soaking rain, which made the Carpenter in Chief very happy, as he had sowed grass seed under our small orchard (6 trees) in the bare patches we always have at the end of the year. There are robins nesting outside our bathroom window in one of the honeysuckle trellises.

We really had no Spring at all this year!

A New Chrysanthemum

I wanted to make a bronze-coloured mum, and this one uses three different shades of paper; brown in the centre, ochre in the middle and golden yellow on the bottom. I also tried a different leaf; for years, I've been using the leaf on the maroon mums, but I decided to try a very small oak leaf. I really like it, it makes the plant look dainty. Opinions?




So just for the heck of it, I decided to list the number of components in a 7-bloom, 3-blossom pot of miniature chrysanthemums like these. Each bloom consists of: a stem with the end dipped in glue and paint, nine petal punch-outs, a sepal punchie, and two leaf punchies. Two of the colours were hand-painted, while the ochre came from some wide quilling paper I purchased years ago. The leaf paper is also hand-painted. Then there are three blossoms, consisting of a dipped wire, and two punchies each, as well as two leaves and a sepal. To fill the pot out, there are seven stems of three leaves each, made of hand-painted paper. Every single punch-out was hand-shaped. The total for a pot of mums? More than 200 individual pieces!

I used to sell my mums at shows for $9.00 Canadian; that may have to change!

Now I have to find the instructions for a realistic potting table: a dirt-filled bin with a sliding tray, a space for trowels and the like, and a shelf below to hold the bags of soil and fertiliser. That means going through dozens and dozens of old  DHN magazines. Although I looked for an index, I couldn't find one. Hopefully, we can have another mini day tomorrow, perhaps even meet up in person again; we can get together in groups of 10 as long as we keep our social distances....

I'm Potty! (In the British Sense!)

Potted up the flowers today that I made in the course of the week. In the process, I caught the side of my finger in the spring mechanism of one of my plier-type punches; I didn't scream, didn't cry, just recaptured control, squeezed the handles, and freed my finger. Lots of blood, unfortunately! And the injury is very near the joint, so the bandage is interfering with my freedom of movement. The white and yellow marguerites were made with centres of model railroad flower stuff that has to predate Flower Soft. I do like the effect, which is easily visible if you click to enlarge the picture.



The dark red mums are an interesting jolt of colour; now I want to make some orange-bronze ones. But it will have to wait, as I am very consistently clumsy today. I am blaming this on the bandage.

More Flowers

We had another virtual mini meeting this afternoon, and I made some dark red chrysanthemums, which are destined for Floriana's autumn window. The paper was painted with artist's quality markers, in 3 closely related shades to give some depth to the flowers.

Yesterday, I tried a new way of making marguerites, and they turned out quite nice. However, darn it, I opened a new packet of floral wire that I think I got in the UK years ago, but the paper wrapping around the wire is very fragile! You can see it gathering like wrinkly stockings in the photo. In the future, I'll have to glue the paper when I cut the wire; that means the wire will be a bit thicker, which means it may well catch up on the holes in the flowers. Bah! Patience is really not my strong suit.

I'd like to make some deeper colour flowers for the autumn window, and may try bronzey-orange for the next pot of mums. In my Real-Life garden, the pale daffodils have come out in full glory, and the tiny pheasant eye primulas below them are looking glorious too; they have really spread, and the two patches I have currently may become four patches next year. A group of deep purple-red primroses opened in the perennial bed today; all my primulas and primroses come from the local botanical society annual sale. This year they are hoping to have an on-line sale, and I should really order a few more primroses.

Virtual Mini Meeting

Marilyn and I managed a virtual mini meeting today, but unfortunately Louise couldn't get herself connected. I worked on under-planting the morning glory trellis, and am quite pleased with the finished product.

If you enlarge the photo, you will see a few tiny wire tendrils here and there on the vine. The under-planting consists of preserved reindeer moss and paper leaves and flowers. The colours are meant to underscore the morning glory's colours; tiny purple lobelia, delicate green ivy leaves, and pink and white flowers.



I also finished leafing the weeping willow sapling; it still needs to be planted, root-ball and all, in a burlap bag. It took 330 leaves to finish the tree. I like it; the leaves themselves were cut from a punched piece of hand-painted paper, and the the 11 tiny leaves were each separated from their main stem, individually creased, and then applied one by one to the tree skeleton. You can enlarge this one too, for a closer look.

And that is NOT snow outside; spring has finally come, and what you are seeing is sunlight on grey gravel, somewhat over-exposed. Overnight, the birches leafed out and showed their catkins, and the apple trees are showing tiny leaves and may blossom later this week. In the flowerbeds, two different types of primulas have opened; the original, yellow-white ones and tiny vivid pink ones. The larger cultivars - primroses - have grown up and are showing their buds; other years these have bloomed under the snow, but I guess this Spring was just too much for them, as well as for us!

It Doesn't Always Work Out

In between leafing the weeping willow tree, I decided to play in my scrap pile again. The first two pieces came out fairly well - they will be painted - but the food safe didn't! I worked with measurements rather than "full-size" diagrams, as I knew the copies of the working drawings would be too big.

The little door is supposed to sit inside the food safe, against the shelves; unfortunately, I made the shelves as specified, with the result that the door doesn't have enough space to fit into. That means I can't pin-hinge it. The only choices I have, I think, are to toss it in the garbage or to take it apart, cut down the shelves, make a new door, and re-assemble the whole thing. I don't know if it will be worth it, though, except that I hate to waste decent microwood, given the lack of access to decent supplies.

And I still have to put another 110 leaves on the tree.

The small item on the plinth is an egg shelf, supposed to hold a dozen eggs; I think they would have to be bantam eggs! The other item is something I remember from my childhood; over the sink in our kitchen hung an enameled shelf, green and blue in colour, with matching labelled tins to hold soft green soap, sand and soda. These were the go-to items for washing and scrubbing your pots and pans. I know we had soft soap in one of them, so we likely used that for the dishes. However, we definitely did not use sand on things, but  one of those brutal round wire scrubbing pads that you had to use to get cooked-on food out of your pots. Maybe we kept the bristle dish-washing brush in the soda can, because it did not hold soda. We used Vim scouring powder, which came in its own shaker box, rather than soda, although baking soda is still recommended today, for households that are trying to be green.

There are three more pieces to go with the kitchen pieces, but I am now wondering if they will present similar problems as the food safe. Some days turn out somewhat disappointing!

Build-a-Tree

Two tree skeletons wrapped in flower tape; the weeping willow in golden yellow, the other tree in brown.



Some of the branches of the other tree have been painted brown and tea dust "bark" has been sprinkled over them; enlarge by clicking if you want to see deatils.



The whole tree has been "barked". (Usually, in lumberjack language, this means having the bark taken off; in my case, it is having the bark added.)



And in the case of the weeping willow, 165 leaves later.... This will take some time! The branches are bent out for ease of gluing the leaves on, and will be draped back into proper weeping willow shape once the leaves are on. I think there will be a minimum of 300 needed....

Keep Going!

I'm trying to "build" a couple of very young trees; one is obviously a weeping willow, the other has not been decided yet. This is kind of an experiment; I have to make fruit trees for the Apothecary Garden, eventually, and espaliered ones at that. Making a couple of nursery saplings for Boutique Pulchinella is how I'm starting.

The last time I was in the UK, we visited Kew Gardens, and also the garden around the small palace of the Mad King (George II or III?). There were lots of things growing in that garden that I knew would go well in my Apothecary Garden, so I took many photos.

These skeletons were made with 3 long painted wires, doubled over and with the ends then twined together for the start of the trunk. The wires were then cut, separated, wound together, and other wires spliced in; the bumpier joints can be hidden behind leaves. As I have to paint and/or wind floral tape around the skeletons, I decided to give them a coat of sealer first. That has to dry overnight....

The long bench for the Klompenmakerij is finally done; I had real problems putting in the braces. Because the bench is long, it needed long braces; long braces have no 45 degree angles, which is all that I have in my mitre box. That meant carving the proper angles, free-hand. And the legs kept falling off. But I persevered!

The window and door pieces for the Klompenmakerij needed two coats of green paint; I topped that off with a coat  of satin varnish. The paint I remember from my childhood was enamel, but shiny paint does not look good on miniatures. However, the satin varnish gives just enough of a hint of shine that it worked well.

I will have to punch a couple of hundred tiny willow leaves! If this experiment works, I would like to make some fruit trees, and a couple of citrus trees in wooden planters would look very nice for the Boutique.

Two Work Days and Counting

We had another virtual mini meeting, using Skype, Wednesday afternoon. I sanded and sawed and glued and so on, and these are the results. These items are all destined for the Klompenmakerij, and include a couple of display shelves for completed wooden shoes (they will also have tools and work gear hanging from them) , a small table with a working drawer to hold the hot plate for making tea, and the front and top of the privy seat; these are the two pieces in my drying block, and will be glued in place between a pair of walls. In front is a long bench, which still needs another coat of varnish as well as some angled braces, that will stand under the longest shelf.



These are the components for four half-round windows and a working Dutch door, also for the klompenmakerij. I had originally stained them, only to realize they should have been painted the traditional green of so many old Dutch houses; my childhood home had a front door, short garden gate and tall garden gate all painted in this traditional colour, in fact, all the houses on our street did. Paint will go a long way to mask the glue smears these pieces underwent during the manufacturing process! The lower frame of the upper Dutch door and the trim for one of the half-round windows were so poorly glued they fell apart when I stroked the paint on them; the Dutch door frame may need to be drilled and pinned to hold it in place....

The green pieces will likely need at least one more coat of green, if not two, with sanding in between, before I can paint on the satin varnish. The traditional paint is enamel, but that is far too shiny for a miniature structure.

After spending hours yesterday morning trying to find a photo of a bagged sapling tree, I finally found one this morning. I've always wanted to try a sapling from a nursery, and I think one would look very good sitting in the barrow in Boutique Pulchinella. So that's another little project to come.

The furnishings for the wooden shoe workshop are all very basic, and all varnished dark oak; I guess that was sort of traditional! The back wall with the windows and door will be plaster over brick, with large, heavy buttresses under the windows. There is a "stairway to nowhere" as the Carpenter-in-Chief likes to say, on the left side wall, with a privy under the stairs and a small sink on the back wall beside it, separated from the workshop proper by a partial wall. The inner roof gives the effect of being thatched; for that, I think the straws from a corn broom will work in scale. That's a long way away, though!

Continuing On (Galloping Madly Off in All Directions)

Two old wooden buckets have been repurposed for the wooden shoe factory, known from now on as the "Klompenmakerij". They have split willow banding, rather than metal hoops; this was commonly used by people with very little spending cash. The effect is painted, of course. The table and bench are done now, they are stained and antiqued. When it comes to painting some of the wooden shoes - however long these projects are going to take - I'll do it on this little table to get some good paint splashes.

The bench was from a series of kits I made up some years ago, when I taught a senior's mixed media group; it is identical to the little blue bench with cream flowers, without the front aprons. OK, I'll admit it; I sanded the edges to look worn, before testing it with the aprons. It looks more like a quick factory bench now. Somewhere, I have a pre-stained, aged piece of bench top, about twice as long, that I'll give legs and braces to. It will also go into the wooden shoe factory.

On the table is a heavy maul - a wooden hammer, kind of like Thor's Hammer. Next to it is one of the specialized knives used in wooden shoe making. The blade was cut from thin sheet aluminum and then nailed (and super-glued!) to the wooden handle. (Two tiny nails went flying before one stayed put; they are still missing.) On the bench is another specialized tool, also made of aluminum sheet, with the blade set into the handle. And in the buckets are two wooden knife handles, and some more specialized blades for tools; however, I was supposed to make these from wire beaten into shape. Guess I'll try that tomorrow, if it warm and dry outside.

I found the very tiny knob for the bow saw, while on the floor on my knees looking for a 3 mm high and 3 mm diameter brass tube (part of the propane tank I have to make). I wrecked a knife blade cutting that thing, so I think I need to invest in a tiny hacksaw. Maybe I'll find that bit of brass tube when the next teeny thing goes flying off my work surface!



The barrow for Boutique Pulchinella is now done (although I still have to give the "iron" tire a coat of satin varnish), ready to haul stuff around the boutique. Considering I had no instructions, only a photo, I think it came out quite well! These days, we would call this a dolly and it would have a rather different shape....

It Snowed So I Worked

We had almost 30 cm of snow from Saturday morning over into the evening. At 10:20 p.m. last night, the power died; it came on a half hour ago,  around 6 p.m. the next day. I do not remember snow on Mother's Day, ever!

Warning! The photos are auto-messing up, standing on end and not allowing me to flip them.

 

Part of this paragraph just disappeared of its own accord! The computer is really being a nuisance lately. For my birthday last fall, I got the carcass of another room box, intended to become a model of a wooden shoe manufactory. We dug it out of the workshop yesterday, and I've begun to stain the windows and doors for the building. Unfortunately, part of a window broke off, so it is being reglued and is currently in clamps. The building has a working Dutch door, and half-round windows. It has a lot of interesting features in it, and should be an interesting build.



As I got up quite early this morning, I thought I might as well continue woodworking, so here are a painting table and bench for that "klompen makerij" setting, along with the beginnings of a bow saw that will hang on the wall. The blade is an old jeweller's saw blade, cut to fit. I rebated the components of the saw; as it is 4 mm thick wood that was just a bit tricky. Some wood filler helped fit the second version! There are more pieces to it, hopefully I can finish it tomorrow. The furniture needs another coat of stain to look dark enough, though. And then it needs paint spills all over it!

The barrow has its handles, and the base coat paint is drying. It needs a stand, also a job for tomorrow. Though my sore arm is better, I have to pace myself to avoid painful spells. So far, I am still using stuff from my stash or scrap bag. I need to find my better fancy toothpicks, as the saw blade needs knobs. The one I did find flew into another dimension as I cut it free from the pick. Oh well, the cat will probably find it one of these days!

Playing in the Scrap Pile Again

Today, Marilyn, Louise and I managed to have a miniature get-together via Skype; we had tried on Wednesday, but something didn't work. I was very disappointed by that, let me tell you! Electronics and I just don't get along. However, the Carpenter-in-Chief decided to un-install and then re-install the Skype program, and everything went just peachy. We "played minis" together for more than 3 hours, each in our own work area.

The small item is a working pulley, from the scrap pile; a slice of dowel, a couple of small wood rounds, and a framework, along with a jewelry loop pin. The loop became the hanger, the remains of the pin the axle of the pulley. Why a pulley? Well, I saw a photo of a miniature one and thought it would be fun to try....

The pulley is lying in the bed of a garden barrow; I have no pattern for this, just a photo I am attempting to reproduce, by guess work. The bed is done, the wheel is in place, and it actually turns. It is made of two larger wood rounds glued together, with a cereal box "iron" tire, and a toothpick axle. The handles aren't fixed yet, I need everything else to really dry overnight, as I will have to spread the timbers holding the wheel and fit the whole to suit a scale figure. Once it fits, I can cut down the handles and shape them, and provide a stand for the barrow. Then it will all be painted in raw umber, with a top coat of whitewash, and the whole will then be rubbed down to make it look aged and shabby. It is intended to help move garden supplies in Boutique Pulchinella.

Apparently There Are Some Shortages....

Yesterday afternoon I decided to venture out and try to purchase some more inexpensive white craft paint, some wire, and a bottle of tacky glue, as I've been using it up quite rapidly lately. I went to 3 stores, and the only one that had tacky had the old upright bottles, small, at $6.98 each! Old stock for sure, and my experience with that is that it thickens badly, making it less than useful for mini flowers.

The white craft paint I like for shabby chic projects is sold at $ stores, so I suspect it comes from China. And it appears as if supplies are not being replenished. They had lots of the larger bottles in vivid colours, and even some black, but the pastels and the white were no longer available.

The shelves in the craft department at our Walmart were 3/4 empty - and indication of where the majority of their craft products come from! Another customer was shopping for knitting yarn, and she was very disappointed at the bare shelves.

Well, I am not out of either paint or glue yet, but I will have to ration it a little better. I'll experiment with artist's tube acrylic, to see if I can reproduce the whitewash effect that way, when I run out of the cheaper stuff. Michael's is my stop of absolute last resort; they have reduced their coupon values, knowing people were desperate for things to do, and I will do my darndest not to give in to that sort of corporate greed!

Necessity being the mother of invention, it will be interesting to see what crafters will come with next!

This May Look Boring, But....

Today marked the arrival of a very early birthday present. Right now, it is just a bunch of cut wooden pieces, like the other two parts of this post, but I am tickled pink! Marilyn D. found enough pre-cut pieces of the project that eventually became my flower shop, Floriana, and had enough off-cuts left that I have all the components to make another version of this project. Thank you, Marilyn! Swirling around in my brain right now is a tiny French bistro, to complement Floriana while at the same time being its own project.



As a group, we were going to make market stalls this Spring, but the pandemic means we can't get together for the near future. Another project's components Marilyn dropped off are the pieces for the covered market stall. Mine has long been intended to become a Christmas market stall, and I hope we can work on this together via the internet.



From such humble beginnings, etc.! I also have two other things ready to work on, as long as the isolation continues, once my arm is healed. One is another small display I hope to use for shows, made from an off-cut of MDF and a commercially made wooden base.



That's how Boutique Pulchinella started, and it will be interesting to see what this piece ends up as. As well, in the Carpenter-in-Chief's workshop, are the components for my wooden shoe factory room box. What this means is, that even if the stay at home edict continues, I will have things to keep me busy. This is a good thing! Also, I found the container with my electrical components, mostly LED lighting, so hopefully I can finish the build of  the candy shop once we have the false roof made to hide the lighting battery pack.

The snow is gone, as you can see through the patio door.  I am doing strengthening exercises for my arm along with stretches with weights. Now I am off, briefly, to the $ store to pick up paint, glue and wire, allowing me to continue once my arm says go for it. We have been very lucky here in our small province; no new Covid cases for more than 2 weeks, all 118 diagnosed cases are well again and home, and not one death has been attributable to Covid here, despite the aging population in New Brunswick. We are, however, still being very careful to stay well here, keeping our social distances and lining up outside shops until it's our turn. I hope you are well too.