The rest of the kits

Indeed I had more time to make flowers.  I had brought three kits with me and discovered a little plastic bag with a waterlilies workshop, so I have been able to keep myself busy.  After the hollyhocks followed a pink hibiscus, an orchid (Phalaenopsis) and the waterlilies.  I also made a cyclamen, but that was done with some material that my friend still had lying around.  The waterlilies aren't finished yet, so hence no picture.

pink hibiscus

cyclamen

phalaenopsis

That's all for the moment.  You'll see more when I feel like it again... (plenty of kits to go)

More flowers

On holiday in New Zealand and staying with a friend who also has miniatures for a hobby, I couldn't help but make some more flowers for either my florist or to just plant in a garden one day.  I'd packed some kits in my suitcase and the weather appeared to be just right for some indoor fun: it's been raining on and off!

We both have a series of kit sets for plant/flower making and we both happened to have hollyhocks.  So, a picture to show the results:

I do have a few more kits at hand, but don't know how we will be going timewise.  You'll find out when I update my blog again. ;-)

Back again (temporarily)

In September (is it really that long ago?) I temporarily stopped updating this blog for reasons mentioned back then.  In the meantime I have been working on other miniatures, which you will be able to see on Marion's Miniatures shortly (I hope).  However, I couldn't resist going back to making plants hence the beautiful hanging basket which I have filled with pansies and pink daisies today.  The basket came with the kit from Variaatjes.  Many more to come, over time, because I still have a shoe box full of kits.

This basket contains 21 pansies and 17 daisies.  It kept me busy for the best part of the day....... :-)

As you can see, not glued but attached to the wall with real nails

A pleasant entrance to the shop

That's it for today beside my warm welcome to another round of followers.  Wondering now who number 100 will be...  No time today to welcome you all personally, but insofar you have a blog I have paid a visit in the meantime and liked what I saw.  And above all: A Happy New Year to all of my followers.

More about the street and the buckets

Do you reckon it's difficult to think of a suitable title every time you blog?  I do, but.... I'm not really breaking my head over it though. ;-)

Well, this is just a follow up of what I was working on before.  First the street scene.  I have finished the cobble stones and grouted them.  I'm not overly happy, but it will have to do.  The part I'm not happy with is that the clay shrunk more than I had anticipated and the grout was still a bit to white, eventhough I had added some parchment and burnt sienna colours to darken it.  Not enough though after it had dried up.  Wonder if I can still do something with a wash....

To wash in the grout I had to varnish the cobble stones first. This made them darker and a bit too shiny eventhough I used matt varnish. It's not too bad though. We can pretend it had just been raining. :-) Yes, I know, you can see the grout on the pavers' edges. Will have to paint that again. Never a dull day for a miniaturist!


The buckets are finished too now.  Unfortunately they ended up a bit bigger than the one I already had and also I couldn't match the colour, since I didn't paint the smaller one at home.  It's not too bad though.  I might just use the four new ones outside.  I sprayed them silver at first, but that appeared to be too shiny.  Silver Folk Art paint didn't do it for me either, so I went out and bought an expensive spray can for a galvanised zink effect.  I am happier now, but I am still wondering how to get that real 'used' and 'old' effect of zink.  I own a few items myself and when I compare the buckets just don't look right.  Anybody has an idea????

The one in the front is the older one, that I made a few years ago.  The one on the far right has been sprayed with 'zink', the other two are still plain 'silver'.

I have been in search of all the items I could use to decorate and fill my shop and luckily I had quite a few.  First there is this huge bouquet which gets pride of place in the bay window.  An eye catcher for the customers I reckon, and also this beautiful Hibiscus that I am putting out on the pavement:

And that's my update for today.  All I need to do now is to welcome yet another follower.  She's from Finland and her name is Ultsu.  Ultsu likes dreaming, like most of us, and she does it (and more) on: Mini Dreams. I hope you'll enjoy visiting my blog Ultsu and a warm welcome to you.

And steady she goes...

The most boring part has been finished now: the slates on the roof!  I thought I would never see the end of it.  Just been unlucky this time, because I finished the roof on my witch's cottage much quicker (and neater!).  It really doesn't help when you go away on a three months holiday and forget to pack away your paperclay in a sealed plastic bag.  That was one.  Next thing is that this time I didn't have long continueous periods to work and you can tell, every little batch looked different.  Then there were the interruptions: doorbell, phone call...  You come back to your job and notice the dried clay on your work board or dried glue on your roof.  Ah well, it's done now and since paperclay is quite forgiving once it's been painted it still looks half decent.  This is the result of a week's hard work (I have forgotten to take a picture of the roof with just the paperclay done, but at least there is the one of the bay window):

roof on the bay window done

the roof painted and 'gutters' attached and painted

I have decided to paint the window sills green as well

There's even a planter with gereniums



looking through the window



shop doorbell attached

If you, like me, never work to a plan then sometimes you have to make changes, minor or major.  This time a ran into quite a major change which required me to put the whole building on the scroll saw:

shop on the scroll saw

 As I had never planned to use paperclay for this scene I needed to cut off a bit from the base.  The plan is to have a slightly higher footpath next to the building and the street at a slightly lower level.  So I cut off the bit for the street and will glue a new square base underneath the existing one, ending up with two different levels.
It will perhaps become a bit clearer once I can show you the picture of the finished base once the glue is dry.

cutting of the part for the "street"

 Well that's all for now.  I'd wanted to welcome new followers, but it took too long (been neglecting you people for too long, my fault) and it's way past my bed time. 

See you, folks...

Cacti workshop

I only have time for a brief update today. Yesterday was club meeting day and a very resourceful member taught us how to make cacti and the planters for them.

I don't have time to go into detail today, but here's a picture of my finished product. I don't know if I will be 'selling' cacti in my flower shop, but I'll keep them here for the time being. The cacti are probably a bit out of scale (although I know there are huge cacti!), and therefore I might prefer to use them with my Adobe house that is still half finished.

It was a fun workshop though and I have enough material for more cacti, so perhaps I will be showing some more later today or tomorrow.

I just remembered that when I started with miniatures, now some 12 years ago, I had made cacti for my conservatory.  I didn't have tutorials at the time and very little help.  I just looked at pictures and tried to copy mother nature.  The picture is probably too clear, but from a distance those three cacti look quite realistic.  I used very finely rolled cotton wool for the dots on the cactus in the centre, pulled out cotton wool for the one on the left and little snippets of an old toothbrush for the needles on the right one.  They were far from perfect, but I was, and still am as a matter of fact, happy with the result. Bye the way, they were made out of Fimo, and I can't even remember anymore what the containers were made of. ;-)

This is all I have time for right now. See you next time.

Spring is in the air

Yes, in the southern hemisphere spring is in the air, albeit a bit wet which is quite unusual for this time of the year.  However, more time for me to spend indoors and I have finally finished the parrot tulips I had started in June.  Remember I forgot to bring my paint?  Well, they're finished now and I have also managed to squeeze in a planter with white geraniums.  One can never have enough geraniums I reckon.

I still have a stack of flower kits, so these are still from Variaatjes.  I  hope I won't reach the bottom of the stack too soon.  I love the vase that came with the tulip flower kit.  Don't you?  And the planter for the white geraniums is just cardboard, but I happened to have some terracotta paint for a full scale outdoor job and tried in on the card.  Looks pretty enough to me.  The white geraniums have replaced the pink ones outside Scrooge's residence, because the pink ones will probably look prettier on the florist's wall. 

Well that's it for today.  Running out of time.  I have noticed quite a number of new followers.  Hello to you all. I have visited your blogs, insofar you have one, and will come back to welcome you all properly.  For now, I am going to do some much needed housework. :-)

See you all
Marion

My heart wasn't in it...

Look at the picture.  Can you tell my heart wasn't in it?

It also was a kit and an obviously much cheaper one than I have made up before.  I bought it at a show and for the money there's really nothing wrong with it, but I should have realised it was meant for a complete novice.  Without bragging I would say that over time I have graduated to a higher lever. ;-)  Well, they might find a place somewhere in my florist's, at the back......

This really made me decide that I need to get some good punches and experiment myself.  Paper is no problem, as I have already obtained some good quality rice paper, but the lack of punches is the main problem.  Once I have a few I can try and experiment.  Plenty of examples in the garden. :-) 

That reminds me.  I saw some really beautiful life size, that is 'real' peonies on someone's blog this morning.  Unfortunately I have forgotten who's blog, but I am sure I will come across it again some time.  Anyway, I was going to use the pictures to make my own and then realised that I had made them already from a kit, but haven't shown them to you yet:

Now, this one may take pride of place, somewhere at the front?  I love the vase too.  Those kits from VaRIAatjes always come with an appropriate beautiful vase or container.   No, I won't go on about the VaRIAatjes kits, I promise.  (I don't have shares either LOL)  It's just that I have so many of the kits and still lots to go, so you might hear me mention it again now and then....

Off to my next job.  I have started on a doll's pram for a change. When that's finished I will show it in my general blog.  Have a nice day!

Did I mention tulips?

This is how far I got:

I managed to colour the petals and make the cuts for the fine fringe and discovered....... that I had forgotten to bring my paint.  Silly.  But, I thought I show you that my intentions were good. ;-)

Well, there's always another kit.  And no, this time I am not going to say or promise anything.  I'll just see how I go first and show you the finished product.  Don't hold your breath though, it won't be tonight. LOL

Growing some more plants...

I've finally managed to add another plant to my collection: a standard hibiscus. Since I am not at home at the moment, my hobbying is limited to what I can take with me.  VaRIAatjes Workshopboxes are my favorite, because not only do I still need lots of plants for the shop, the kits contain everything I need and list on the back exactly what tools I need, so I can easily work away from home.  So, here's a picture of the finished product:

I am quite happy with the result, and also with the planter that was included in the kit! Now I am going to start on a kit with Parrot Tulips.  I've made lots of tulips before, but these are different and I reckon, more beautiful.  Wish me luck. ;-)

I wanted to welcome a lot more followers to this blog, but since I have problems with the wireless connection where I am (this posting took a lot of repeated log-ins) I'd better wait till I am back home again.  Be assured that I appreciate all you new friends out there and I am already following all of your blogs too, to my knowledge.  It's so great, this wonderful world of bloggers from far away in most cases.  Thank you all for sharing.  As for the tulips: watch this space. :-)

More flowers

A Florist's needs flowers. Right? Well, that's what I thought too. :-) And since I don't have much time to do anything about it right now, I had a look in my files to see if I had any piccies to show. I did. So here's another update for my blog, otherwise you might be thinking I had fallen asleep. LOL No time for minis at the moment, but just a little bit of spare time to update my blog. Most of the plants and flowers I am showing I have made last year. In the end I had so many that I just had to build a shop to show them off, hence the Florist's.


These are a range of plants that I made during a house-sitting stint some time ago



These pots are all made of card. They were a VaRIAatjes©Workshopbox from my Dutch friend Ria from whose workshopboxes are my favorites. You'll see more of them here and there. The cyclamen was a workshop from a friend as was the stephanotis. The cyclamen has found a spot in the garden of my witch's cottage.


These beautiful roses again from VaRIAatjes

A huge VaRIAatjes flower arrangement, which took me almost 24 hours to put together

These are a selection for the time being. I'm not at home at the moment, so I can't do as much as I would like to. Tomorrow I hope to find some time to look into all the followers of my blog. I was so surprised to see that so many people come and have a look. Not only surprised, very honoured indeed. Thank you all. I have had a quick look at some of your blogs and liked what I saw. Hope to get more time tomorrow to get better aquainted. ;-) See you soon!

Planter with pink geraniums

This picture should speak for itself. The planter with geraniums is meant for the dormer window if I am not going to change my mind (which sometimes can be an irritating habit.....).