Country Style Miniature Birdhouse Vase

Today my hubby picked up our daughter from the school and on the way back they stopped at the store and my little angel insisted on buying flowers for me from her! She is so sweet and special! She brought this cute birdhouse with the flowers

I don't need to go further and tell you that a great idea was born in my head: to make a little miniature birdhouse vase. So, while my fretwork pieces for shelves were drying today I made this little duplicate of birdhouse vase with flowers
Front

Side

Back

I am leaning more and more towards the country style and I think this birdhouse with flowers will be a great addition to my new country style roombox, but later about it...

Next time when I do more birdhouse vases I will make a "door" for the birds bigger, for now, I guess, only a mini mosquito will feet this entrance, he-he-he

Have a great Friday!

Natalia

Fretwork Shelves in 1/12 th scale

I didn't throw a quarter and decided пойти по пути наименьшего сопротивления and picked up the easiest patterns of shelves to practice a little bit before to start more complicated projects.

I used 3 different types of wood, 1/16 thickness: Mahogany, Walnut, Cherry. Cherry is my favorite wood to work with, by the way. I am using the finest blade ever and I found out for myself that it is easier to cut that kind of thin wood if you put 3-4 planks together. I glued the patterns on the top and drilled the wholes. It is ready to be cut out

After I am done cutting out pieces I take the tape with the pattern off the cut pieces. You need to be careful while doing it: no pressure or you will break it!

It took me 4 hours of preparing, cutting and cleaning the cut pieces today. The result of today's day is here:

Plan for tomorrow: sand it, file it, clean it, stain it, paint it! Hmm, may be to cut new pieces...
Oh, I forgot: I need to go to buy Baltic Birch for Antique Stage Coach.

Stay busy!

Natalia

Fretwork in 1/12th scale

I have 2 wonderful books with absolutely gorgeous patterns for fretwork.

I've been wondering if I could duplicate some of these beautiful clocks, shelves, baskets in 1/12th scale. For instance:

I reduced the patterns to the scale and tomorrow I will prepare wood.

I didn't have a penny at that time, so used a quarter to give you a sense of what I am going to deal with:

I haven't decided yet though which one I'll start first.

Have a great day!
Natalia

Kike's Dioramas

Today I want to present you a talented artist who builds dioramas for figurines - Kike from Spain and his blog
www.miniaturasydioramas-kike.blogspot.com

If you take a closer look at his dioramas you will feel power, energy and movement. Some of the dioramas give the impression that the action has just happened.

The scene of Hundred Years' War

Look at this lady! I am turning purple with envy looking at her muscles!

This one has the name Healing Light:

Rest of German soldiers:

I personally was impressed to see the scene of the battle of Borodino in 1812 during the Russian campaign of Napoleón. Not many people are wear of these historic event. So, Kike, thank you for bringing the history back!

Go to Kike's blog www.miniaturasydioramas-kike.blogspot.com! You will get fun and pleasure by browsing it! Don't forget to become his follower!

Have a great day!

Natalia

P.S.: The pictures are courtesy of Kike, www.miniaturasydioramas-kike.blogspot.com.

New Minis Mall Website

I would love to draw your attention to a new but fast growing website Minis Mall www.minis-mall.com.

It is a great way to advertise your blog, on-line store, Etsy store. You can list your items for sale there as well as offer your class or tutorial.

I believe the subscription is free for now, but soon (don't remember exactly when, probably in June or July, sorry for that) they will start charge a little fee (little, as it was promised). I opened my own account there, but haven't done any action yet. So, hurry up and support new Minis Mall!

Have a great week!
Natalia

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!

Happy Mother's Day To All of You!

Le Chiffre D'Armour/Fragonard in 1/12th scale

Last year I took a class of History of Art at the local community college. My subject of interest was French Rococo style in painting. François Boucher is my favorite French Rococo painter. The reason behind was my crazy idea to try to reproduce some of his paintings in 1/12th scale.

While reading his biography I learnt that one of his students was Jean Fragonard who painted "Le Chiffre D'Armour". That painting stroke my attention so hard that instead of working on F. Boucher's painting I decided to reproduce Le Chiffre D'Armour first.

I found an image of this painting in the library book, printed out and I started working on the chart about 6 months ago, sometimes adding just 2 stitches in the chart using my computer program.

I've never been satisfied with the final result, always wanted to add something else or just change some colors. Another reason of my procrastination was that I couldn't find a fine silk for this work which colors and quality would satisfy me, until one day I found The Silk Mill, the finest silk that is more expensive than the other silk, they don't distribute it in the USA, so I ordered it on-line from the UK. I made a post about that fine silk before. So, I swapped the colors from DMC to The Silk Mill fine silk because my computer program allows to make a chart only with DMC floss.

Beautiful colors of The Silk Mill and I used 38 of them for this project!

Anyway, more than 2 weeks ago I decided to start stitching it. During the process of stitching I've still made a lot of changes in my pattern whatever it comes to the colors or other things. This is how it looks now, the little painting in silk:

Closer look:

I hope you like it!

Conversation with God: Update

I haven't posted about the progress on my roombox that is devoted to my grandma for a long time. When I started working on this project I wanted to be done with it before the 15th of April, before the day of the Orthodox Great Easter. My grandma was very religious and that's why this project is called "Conversation with God", but later about it.

Unfortunately, I haven't done too much, just collected some little things.

This crate in the middle of the room will be full of little tiny yellow chicks and covered with an old piece of cloth in a half. I remember how those little creatures woke me up each morning at 5-6 a.m. That was the way my grandma tried to save newborn chicks and ducklings from the cold.

I purchased this little cutie that I will turn into a night potty by painting it in metal (because this is what it was) and will place it under the bed. The reason is that at that time grandma didn't have a bathroom in the house and we all kept our own potties under our beds during the nights.

I also purchased some geranium flowers and put them in this tiny pot. I am planning to make more of them. My grandma had a lot of geranium in the house to protect the clothes and rugs and linen from the moth (yes, moth, not a Moth man, :)))) and red was her favorite color for the flowers. Originally the pots were natural brown, but I decided to add more color in the room. Who knows, I might change my decision later.

My grandma adored any kind of needlework and each evening she worked with the wool. She was мастерица на все руки. I found in my stash this wheel, planning to age it and put in the setting with other needlework items.

I finished grandma's bed with a beautifully weaved coverlet in blue tones, but I am planning to make different pillows and arrange them the way my grandma did. So, it is still in the process.

I prepared some laser cut pieces for the corner shelf, painted them but haven't put together yet.

I also purchased (because I would never paint it like this!) a tiny lacquer Russian box, 1" square (lucky me!) with a beautiful painting on the lead for candles. Grandma kept candles in the box on her table.

I found an icon of Jesus Christ that suits the scale and soon it will be maintained on the corner shelf. I need to start working on рушники - a type of Russian/Ukrainian towels that have been hanged around the icons.

Last year I stitched the cover for the trunk based on some designs of Russian needlework heritage, but decided not to use this trunk in the grandma's roombox because her trunk didn't have the stitched cover.

I actually have had a hard time to remember how it really looked like even though I spent a lot of time inside of it going through all her dresses, pictures, love letters (bad me...) and other keepsakes and treasures. What do you want? Being a girl of 10 what would you pay attention on first? Anyway, I decided to finish my trunk with decoupage imitating painting, and aged it.

I also made a matching bench.

In a word, my roombox still has a lot of work to be finished and it looks like this for now:

Thank you and have a great start for a new week!