Frame with angel

A simple tutorial for dollhouses in 1 inch scale. Happy Holydays :)

Frame with angel for Dollhouses

You will need

• Flat wooden sticks 4 mm wide, two 5 cm long and two 4 cm long
• white air-drying clay
• white acrylic paint
• mosquito net
• grey ink
• a little sponge
• item you like (I've used an angel)
• two part silicone mold putty
• paint brush
• white glue
• cyanoacrylate glue
  
  

  

  The steps of the tutorial

  
  

1. Cut the ends of the wooden sticks at 45° and a rectangle of 3,8 x 4,8 cm (= 1.5 x 1.9 in) from the mosquito net.
2. Push the item you would duplicate in the silicone gum. When you have the mould, put a little amount of air-drying clay inside it and wait until th eitem is completely dry.
3. Glue the wooden sticks with the white glue to have a rectangular frame and then paint it whit the white acrylic paint .
4. When the paint is dry, take a little amount of grey ink with the sponge and rub the frame. Let dry.
5. Glue the net on the back of the frame with the cyanoacrylate glue.
6. Glue the replica in the centre of the net with the white glue.

Another kind of decoration for the frame

Have fun! :)

Only for personal use, commercial use is not allowed.

Unexpected tea leaves

The end of Summer is near, it is time to prepare miniatures and tutorials for Falltime and Halloween but my head is still full of light and delicate colors.

Some weeks ago I've found in a shop a beautiful branch of faux tea leaves, very realistic, so I've decided to use them for miniatures. These are the first ones, a plant with a natural cotton vase and a white crate with two plants inside.

Plants with crate, in my Etsy shop

Single plant, in my Etsy shop

I think they will be great in a dollhouse in modern or cottage chic style, combined with furniture in natural colors. In these pictures you can see the plants combined with two bee subject pillows, one of them with a beehive texture and the other one with a lovely vintage bee printed on white cotton.

Faux plants with bee pillows in 1 inch scale

 

Do you have inspirations about a fresh use for these wonderful faux leaves? You may see your ideas come true ;)

Poppies

Poppies wreath in miniature

On woven head wreath or in Thanatos' (Death), Nyx's (Night) and Morpheus (Dream) hands, poppies are symbol of oblivion. The red poppy, with its silk petals, has moderate calming properties, Papaver somniferum, with its large mauve petals, has sleeping and narcotic properties.

Meadow with poppies in miniature

In Commonwealth countries red poppies are symbol to remember soldier who have died during the World Wars. Red poppies are distributed during Remembrance Day on November the 11th, the day when in 1918 World War I ended.

Its soft and red petals are irresistible. I've tried to reproduce them in miniature, with tissue paper, on wreaths, frames and little corner of meadow.

Frame with poppies in miniature

Poppies inspired to me a tutorial, do you want to know about it? Stay tuned :)

Nautical shabby chic

I don't like sea or nautical theme very much, but there is a kind of style, between nautical and shabby chic, that fascinate me in a strange way. Light colors mixed with blue and red, some grey and a lot of white. Lighthouses in the shades of the summer sky, lost shells, faux starfishes, clear sand, soft cotton fabric.




I know that this mixed style is not the real nautical one, but I like it too much for considering something of different about sea :)




My first attempt to create something about the sea is this little roombox, about eight years ago. Pictures are very bad :/




I reach the first lovely result with a tutorial written for Piccole Cose (the ADMI magazine), a little woden boat in two colors: white-read and white-blue.




But I'm very proud of my "nautical attempts" only with these two shelves :)



boat-shaped, sold out here


bathing cabin-shaped, for sale here
One of my endless projects, to trasform a greenhouse from Ikea in a nautical shabby chic roombox, but I accept suggestions for a shorter project :D

Pasqua 2011

I wonder why the first tought for Holydays goes to food. Maybe because food puts togheter families in a easy way, even if sometimes food can divide.

My mother comes from Perugia (Umbria) so I've made some traditional Easter food from Umbria.



A ring shaped cake called "Ciaramicola". This cake has a heart of soft sponge-cake with Alchermes (a sweet deep pink liqueur) and a coat of meringue with tiny sweet confentioneries in five different colors: red, white, yellow, green and azure.

Red and white are the colors of Perugia. Yellow is the color of the cornfields, green is the colors of the meadows and azure is the color of the Trasimeno lake.



A salty cake, a sort of cheese bread. This cake is often served with a salted and smoked pork meat taken form the neck called "Capocollo".

I know some of my followers are Veg*, I hope one day traditional Easter food will be meat-free!




Eggs! Why eggs? Eggs are symbol of birth and Easter is the day of rebirth. It is Springtime and Spring is the season of birth and life. So eggs!


I wish you a Happy Easter and better, a Happy Rebirth-day ;)

Ode to the violet

The shy violet, a little, poetic flower, the queen of modesty, with its deep purple and velvety petals. I think that the XIX century was the perfect time for this flower, the romantic era, now dead to the modern way of life. I dont' like Romanticism so much, but for violet I may love it :)

A violet in my garden

Violet inspired me a workshop for the fourth edition of Miniaturitalia (the only Italian fair of dollhouse miniatures) on February 2008. I realized a romantic, shabby chic ensemble, picture below:



Every year, in springtime, pillows of violets bloom in my garden, hidden to a careless eye. It is a promise of joy, the hope Spring comes again. The mistery of birth-death-rebirth.

Violet is also the color of the spirit. It comes from blue and red mixed togheter, blue is the color of quietness, red is the color of passion, so I can say that violet is the color of armony.

This basket is now with one of the OOAK Celidonia's dolls

Do you know the Acatholic Cemetery of Rome? Well, in this ancient cemetery there is a tombstone in the middle of a meadow, with pillows of violets at its feet. Here lies John Keats, an English poet. On the tombstone an epigraph:
"Here lies One / Whose name Was writ in Water"



But the violet is only a little flower.

Funny bugs

Spring is here and the first insects begin to fly in the garden.

A bee on a wild hyacinth in my garden

Usually there are bees, wasps, bumblebees (both black and black-yellow striped), butterflies, orange ladybugs, beetles and sometimes fireflies, in summertime, and praying mantises.
This give me the inspiration to make three funny insects.


A ladybug on a four-leaf clover. I made the first one on August 2008, when ladybug on a leaf was not a common theme.


A bumblebee on a white flower.


A firelfy on two pebbles and a leaf. The abdomen glows in the night, like the one of a real firefly :)



Ideas for the next ones? ;)

A shabby chic background

Some months ago I found a cute metal bowl in shabby chic style and I fell in love with it! What can I do with this lovely thing?



The bright and pale colors, the shabby look are the perfect as a background for the photos of my shabby chic miniatures! :D
Here you are the photos.

Lavender beauty basket in 1/12 scale

Beauty violet basket in 1/12 scale

Lovely, aren't they? :)