Working Away at the CMHH '13 Project...

...with nothing much to show as it included fitting the window display shelf, and the two window frames. So, I will put in a couple of photos of the campers at this year's Camp MiniHaHa hard at work. Our new work space this year was very bright and spacious, so we kind of spread out. Also, we had a tool room with a tool operator handy right next door; most of us made several visits to Wayne's World for precision cutting as we changed our projects from the prototype - well, truth to tell, we all rarely work an exact copy, we are all too darned independent!

The prototype was rectangular, and many worked in that format; however, as I said, we are all very independent, so a number of people worked theirs in the vertical, creating a two-level streetscape rather than a single-level one. We were working with gator-board, which takes quite a bit of sitting for the glue to dry. Many people also used bricks to clad their walls, these also took time to dry. No one actually finished their project in the four full days of work, but we all developed our idea to the point where it would be simple to finish the box at home.

Here you have a group of campers intently watching a demonstration on aging techniques, and how to add variety to the brickwork. In the background, you can see a version of the prototype with its front wall removed, allowing you to see the inside of the box. The wall is propped below. The demonstrator is Iris S., one of the organizers of the camp.

Camp MiniHaHa is a not-for-profit camp held at the end of each September in south-western Nova Scotia, Canada. Most of our campers are returnees, one of our US campers (hi Audrey!) was back for the third year in a row, and this year we also welcomed two campers from the Spokane, Washington area and two from Wisconsin. The rest came from the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. This was my twelfth year at camp, I think; I've only missed one year, very early on. We began with 10 ladies in a summer cottage on the cliffs above the Bay of Fundy, moved to the old United Church Camp in Berwick, NS with 25 people, and are now in the Digby, NS area with up to 40 people. Our campers have come from as far away as Hawaii, California, Montana, Missouri, Maryland, Manitoba, a northern Alberta bush community and a remote sub-arctic community near Hudson's Bay, as well as the UK.

If there is nothing spectacular to show on my camp project in the next couple of days, I'll share some of the treasures I collected while at camp; we have a goody bag at lunch each day, and a gift exchange each evening after dinner. As well, I got a wonderful dog I had commissioned, which I am very eager to share with you.

Back From Camp MiniHaHa '13 and The Project

The time, as usual, was too short and we didn't get as much done as we had hoped to do, but we ate lots of chocolate and had lots of fun. The camp project this year was a streetscape in a gatorboard box, but the prototype was a bit large for me - I am running out of space for large projects - so I brought my own, wooden box with me. I prepped a little, papering the walls, building the little side window, and panelling the wall below the paper, before heading off for Camp. This was the box on Day 1 (Thursday):

It is upside-down in this photo, while I was fitting the upper façade of the building. I had installed a baseboard, chair rail and framed the window by this point. This project came from Dollshouse Nederland, a small and wonderful Dutch magazine crammed full of excellent projects of all sizes.

Here it is a little later (Friday); now it is right-side up and the floor has been partially installed, ready to build the lower façade of the building. The upper one has been clad with paper clay, except for the slanted wall which is still bare wood. The little section of bricks is a left-over from doing the walls of the Tudor market hall; I find the bits useful for small projects like this one. The angles of the window wall caused me a lot of problems, and took up a lot of time to get right; as well, somehow my measurements didn't quite fit, so I had to add some pieces to the framing of the upper façade. And then, of course, there is the waiting for stain, paint, paper clay and glue to dry...

Sunday morning, the lower façade had been clad, and both the upper and the lower were aged; I used a very light yellowy-grey wash to dirty the white clay, and then used powdered chalk to age the pieces. There is also a beamed ceiling in place, not very visible unless you turn the box upside-down.  I am going to make some  changes to the original project, and put the door on the ground level rather than a couple of steps up; while the difference in levels is interesting, it makes no sense as you would then need a platform just inside the door and a set of steps down to the tiny sales level. This requires measuring and cutting a new door frame, for which I need the assistance of my resident carpenter on the table saw. More later!

The shop was influenced by the work of the Dutch artist Anton Pieck, and is sort of Dickensian in appearance. It is going to be a pawn shop, as I can display some nice items in the shop and the shop window that I don't have a home for right now. The bare section to the left will have a faux door, and the impression of an alleyway beyond that; these are also being redesigned a bit, as I want my alley just a bit wider than the original design had.

Besides a new door, I also have to install the removable shop window, which has a set of built-in display shelves. When the project is finished, the only way in is by way of the slide-out window construction, unless you happen to be a 1/12 scale person....

I splurged and bought a wonderful battery-operated Victorian LED street lamp, which will be mounted on the left wall. The shop inside will be lit by an LED light with the switch on the back of the box, so drilling is required for the wire. For this lamp, I hope to use a vintage Lucite bead as the shade; I have several trumpet-shaped ones which are wonderful for both uplights and pendant ceiling lights. Add a bit of brass tube and a back plate, and it should look pretty good. There will also be a wrought-iron hanging bracket with the old symbol for a pawn shop, three gold balls hanging from chains. I have the bracket, but have to add a hanging loop and make up the hanging gold balls.

That's it for now, I have to go and unpack some more. Back soon with some of the goings-on at camp and photos of the campers busily at work in the work room - a new-to-us very large space with spectacular natural light, and an impressive view of the Annapolis Basin of the Bay of Fundy.

Off to Camp MiniHaHa '13 in the Morning

Everything is just about packed; it has to go in the car tonight, as I have to leave at 7:30 to meet a friend for coffee 2 hrs. up the road, then meet another friend at the Halifax Airport at 1 p.m. As usual, I didn't get everything done that I had hoped, seems to be business as usual...

So I was into large-scale manufacturing, the photo above is of my tidbit gifts; I made 38 of these little succulents. Thanks to Blue Kitty for the instructions, and also to Dollhouse T.V. for teaching me a method to use paper punches on polymer clay - that opens a whole new direction for me to explore in the future. But boy, do you have to roll the clay out thinly! And of course, you have to use a release agent for every punch; there were 5 punchies per plant!

With permission from my fellow campers, I hope to post some photos here when I get back. And I will remember to take photos of my progress on this year's camp project, a streetscape vignette; I am cheating a bit and making mine rather smaller than everyone else, as I am running out of space for big projects. There will be some size differences to contend with, so I don't know just how far I will get with the project.

Back in a week!

Dollhouse Garden Shed Vignette

I've been intending to write about this project for some time, but kept on putting it off. Well, now is a good time, as I can't reveal what I've been working on lately until after Camp MiniHaHa '13 next week. As you can see, I've always liked miniature flower gardens, and this was my first one, as well as being the first "doll house" I ever built, with my husband's assistance for the wood cutting. (I have a bit of a phobia about power tools...)

The shed came from Venus and Martin Dodge's book, Making Miniature: Dolls' House Projects in 1/12 Scale, published in 1989 by David and Charles. This is the book I hold entirely responsible for my interest in scale miniatures. It was a gift from my parents (at my suggestion) for my birthday in 1996, and this little shed was completed in 1999. It is stick-built, i.e. it has framing just like a real building. The flooring and siding for the shed were cut by my husband with a home-made jig on his full size tablesaw, using the rough wooden ends of a box of mandarin oranges.

The shed is not very big, in fact a miniature person  would have to watch the roof beams; I sometimes think it is more suited to 1/16 scale rather than 1/12, but I really went to town on this vignette. This is the back view into the shed, showing all the stuff inside, most of it made by me over the years. To my chagrin, the door opens the wrong way out, just like in the instructions, but it would have made more sense, in retrospect, to have hinged it to open onto the side path. Notice the nice green toad in front of the forsythia and the pansies....

That's part of my real-life garden in the background, but most of my plants have ceased blooming. The mountain ash looks pretty good though, one of these days I must try to duplicate that in miniature. The brick path is painted mat-board, a favourite medium of mine. The flowers in front of the shed are mine too, but the basket at the far end is a resin mini I picked up at a show somewhere. For grass, I used a mix of railroad foam colours with a tiny amount of vivid yellow added, and I do quite like the effect. It isn't as bad at catching dust as I always feared, considering this vignette has been around for fifteen years!

The front has a removable flower garden, planted with spring flowers. Thanks to Joanne Swanson and the old Nutshell News, for starting me on my flower addiction! There are irises, daffodils, tulips, pheasant eye narcissus, grape hyacinths (poppy seeds glued to a stem and then painted purple, with aquarium plastic foliage), and crocuses (flower stamens painted the appropriate colour, again with  plastic foliage), as well as the inevitable dandelion. One of our (now deceased) cats contributed the white fur for the dandelion clock. The up-ended bricks are pieces of cut wood painted to look like bricks. The gnome came off a pick of some kind, and the gazing ball was a Camp MiniHaHa tidbit (thanks Candace!). The idea with the removable garden was that I would make changeable beds for the four seasons, but that hasn't happened as yet, it is permanently spring....

And here is the fourth side; it has a bunny hutch set on a brick surface, and although it isn't visible in the photo, there are bunny droppings under the hutch - more poppy seeds! The bunnies are unpainted pewter, I am not sure whether they will be replaced or not. The door really opens, as does the hatch over the nesting area, using leather hinges cut from a glove that lost its partner. I didn't make the wonderful deck chair, that was purchased from its maker, who came from Prince Edward Island. The garden table is from a planter of some kind. For the wire on the hutch, I used hardware cloth, the flexible plastic version used also in screen door and window replacement. I was given some offcuts of this at the hardware store, useless scraps for them and a gold-mine for me. Hmm, I need to plant a little more grass on the corners, guess it came off when the wooden framing was added recently.

You might have noticed a brass nameplate in the first photo; I've been adding these to my completed vignettes, and they include what the vignette represents, my name, and the year I finished it. This is kind of a neat way to reward myself for actually completing a project. (Although in my opinion at least, no project is ever truly complete, I keep adding and changing things.)

Joanne Swanson is also the designer of most of what is in the garden shed, as I used her designs from the old Nutshell News for much of the furnishings and accessories. She is a teacher from whom I have learned just about everything I needed to know about making minis, and I have the greatest respect for her work and instructions for making things of all kinds.

I hope you enjoyed the little tour of one of my oldest projects; for all its age, it's not half bad, even if I do say so myself.

Working Away at the Inside of the CMHH Vignette

No photo today, I am having some camera problems, which I hope to solve tomorrow. I have begun to build the furnishings for inside the shop, thinking I'd better get going since Camp MiniHaHa '13 is now only about 3 weeks away. The deadline I set myself for this vignette is camp, as I hope to display it there - no, I will display it there!

It will be somewhat incomplete as far as shop stock is concerned, but the outside will be pretty much done and my idea for the inside will be apparent. Many bottles of pretty scented stuff are needed, as well as bars of soap and other wonderful items one might find in a small scent shop in the perfume fields area of France. And of course, there are still more lavender plants to be made, they are quite integral to the scene. That will take time, and I am running out of it a little....

It's been a very damp, rainy, gloomy Labour Day weekend; I do hope the sun comes out soon.

Creating a Miniature Garden Part 3 - Final

Finally, the side garden portion of the Camp MiniHaHa '12 project is done. I added the last bits this morning, now all that is left is to put up the bird shelter and add the as yet to be repainted cat. This is an overview of the completed garden.

The newly added plants in the right side of the garden include bergamot, dusty miller, leucanthemum or crazy daisy, astilbe, and the ageratum and alyssum at the very front. The sunflowers have had some leaves added so their stems didn't look quite so bare. I wish I could still get the heavy gauge covered flower wire I used for the sunflower and hollyhock stems, but I can't, locally. Hopefully once I figure out what gauge I was using, I can order it via the internet.

The right side of the garden has also gotten a dusty miller, and some ageratum and alyssum along the very front edge. The ageratum was made with railroad foliage clusters and custom-mixed flocking for the tiny fuzzy purple flowers. The alyssum is reindeer moss with the tiniest white flower punchies, cut with a custom cutter from Ruth Hanke, of Hanky Panky Crafts. I still need to add some leaves to the hollyhock stems, but have to buy the punch first!

Some of the flowers I developed for this garden will also show up in my Apothecary Garden, which I will be working on in October. Bergamot is what gives Earl Grey tea its distinctive flavour, it belongs in a herbal garden. Dusty Miller is an Artemisia, the family from which wormwood, the dangerous ingredient in absinthe and a flavouring for vermouth, is distilled. And I think I've figured out how to make a fairly convincing camomile plant....

All in all, I am very happy with this garden. It was more work than I had planned, and got fancier than I had planned as well. Now on to decorating the front of the shop, then it will be the inside. I need to make lavender, pansies and possibly a hydrangea, as well as making the prototypes for my gift exchange items and tidbits for this year's Camp MiniHaHa, the end of September.

By the way, most of the plants in the garden were made with scrapbooking-type punches; if anyone wants a particular tutorial, let me know and I will add it on the blog. The flowers are mostly paper, both commercial coloured paper and hand-painted, much of the foliage is also paper, and I also used coloured sand and ground foam, as well as flocking, to make some of the plant parts.

Feedback is always very welcome!

Creating a Dollhouse Garden Part 2

A few days later, and the garden is starting to fill in. The left side has a mauve petunia plant, and in front of the hollyhocks are day lilies. Below them are pinks and pansies, and next to them peonies. Then there are the gaillardias, some blue and some white delphiniums with purple hearts, and a medium-size hosta with a stalk of blooms.

The side of the garden nearest the fence needs shade-loving plants. I have a mauve astilbe ready to plant, but need to come up with something the height of the delphiniums before planting them. I'd also like to add a miniature version of the very large, blue-grey hosta in my Real Life garden. And my mind is trying to create bergamot or ragged robin, as well as some very low-growing edging plants for the very front of the garden, like purple ageratum and white Artemisia. (For some reason, that word capitalized itself!)

The hollyhocks at the edge of the garden need some more leaves, so I have to pick up a geranium-type leaf punch a size bigger than the one I've already used. I'd also like to try some dusty miller plants, as I have two sizes of punches for them; the challenge will be in creating the right shade of dusty gray foliage.

The foliage for the day lilies was made with dollar store plastic grass, cut to a point and the ends curled over. It works very well for this type of foliage. I used to use painted green paper twist ties, but those are now scarcer than hen's teeth! I have a few left, and some red ones, and am saving those for plants where plastic foliage just can't be used. Fortunately, the plastic grass comes in three colours, and I still have two darker, unused ones as well as the remainder of what I used for the day lilies.

To allow Real Life to intrude for a bit, I went river tubing today with my husband and daughter. The rivers here are running quite high, due to all the rain, so it was a lovely drift through a mostly rural countryside. I'd hoped to see some kingfishers (my daughter had seen them on the same trip two years ago), but they weren't out. However, the fly fishermen were - the river is salmon habitat and also supports trout. Lovely day! Next on my bucket list of things to do is zip-lining a short drive away from here - at one point you fly over an inlet of the Saint John River. Just have to hope for more sunny weather....