House Cleaning - The Prize

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all having a great week. There goes another month. August is going to be quite a busy month for me and I'm quite excited about it. I will be keeping you updated later on with the upcoming news and event. The new area where my dolls house collection is set, is almost done and it does feel like home being there. 

Before I start I wanted to welcome the new followers on my blog and at G+. Welcome!

A few weeks ago my dearest friend and fellow miniaturist José Pereira Torrejón surprised me with an unexpected gift for the new dolls house area.

José sent me this lovely original antique magazine cover called 'The Prize' dating March 1906. The illustration is just beautiful and it's called "House Cleaning". The picture features two Victorian girls cleaning their dolls house furniture. You can imagine how thrilled I was with it, not only for it's colorful picture but even for it's age. Thinking about it, this cover has over 112 years of age!

The Prize Magazine was published for children in the late 1800s / early 1900s. Like most magazines, they were bound into book form, like having a hard cover binder and it is unusual to find complete ones, particularly earlier editions from the 1880s / 1890s. So far I haven’t come across any pages of the interior but I have to say that the cover pages are beautifully illustrated. 

The issue of this cover is marked No. III from the new series. 

There was no doubt that I would have ordered a special frame for it and hung it among my dolls houses for everyone to see.

I don't have words to thank you enough José for such a lovely gift. It fits perfect in the room. I can't be thankful enough for your constant support and encouragement. It means so much to me. xxxx

Being such a fan of the Victorian era I couldn't help not turning the magazine into a miniature. Then again I thought of actually sharing a tutorial how to do them.

Making The PRIZE miniature magazine.

I have found some nice 'The Prize' cover magazine and downsized them and turned them into miniature magazines. In the sheet that I prepared, you will find 12 miniature magazine covers and a template for the inner pages.

Things you need:

You need to print the The Prize Magazine Cover Sheet on a printable A4 white cardboard.

Some white craft tissue paper

A metal ruler

A scalpel craft knife

A Glue stick

A pair of scissors

Step 1:

Before starting cutting the magazine cover sheet, it is important that you score the spine of the magazine very gently using the metal ruler as a guide and the craft knife. Be careful not to press the blade to hard on the sheet because it will tear very easily. Use the guidelines that I have made over and below each magazine  to find the center of the magazine cover. Scoring the cover of the magazine, makes it easier to fold and definitely it will look much neater.

Step 2

Using a scissors cut out the magazine covers and also the template for the inner pages.

Step 3:

Fold the magazine covers and put them aside. After scoring the cardboard magazine sheet,  you will find it very easy to fold the cover and they do keep a nice shape.

Step 4:

Using the inner page template for size, cut out 4 pieces from your craft tissue paper sheet. Each miniature magazine contains 4 pieces. The pages of the magazine will be blank but it will look much fuller with a few pages in it (for the 12 magazine covers you will be needing 48 pieces)

Step 5:

Fold each inner page piece in half that you just have cut from the craft tissue paper. Add a little glue on the fold (spine) of the page and stick it to the center of the fold of the other page. 

Doing so you will be having 4 inner pages folded and stuck together. If the pages came slightly uneven, all you have to do is fold the pages and just trim all around excluding the folded part (the spine of the pages)

Step 6:

Before gluing the cover to the pages make sure that the pages fit in nicely to the cover. When you are happy with the setting of the pages in the cover,  add a little glue in the center of the magazine cover and press the folded pages inside it. 

Put something heavy on the closed magazine until the glue settles.

Here are the finished miniature "The Prize" Magazine collection for your dolls houses.

I have already used my miniature magazine which is the same one of the framed picture for one of my projects.

I thought little Heather, who is residing at the moment at J.R. Art Gallery might like a copy of her own. 

I almost forgot! Talking about "The Prize" magazine, it just reminded me that we have a winner to announce for the free give away! So the tiny miniature book will go to Veronique Blommaart. Congratulations Veronique! Please contact me by email with your postal details so I can send it to you. For the rest don't worry there will be more give-aways to come in the near future!

Hope you have liked today's blog post. It's a bit different from usual but I couldn't not share such a wonderful and meaningful piece! Besides, thanks to it, I got to do a tutorial too.

Keep tuned for the next update on the current project The Master Swordsman Pub & Inn, which is almost coming to an end. 

Take Care and See You Soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca xxx