Creating a Quarter Scale Display for the Miniature Victorian Parlour : Tutorial

Hello Everyone,

It’s been a wonderful week, and I’m so pleased to share this easy, cute tutorial just before the weekend!

As part of my ongoing project The Miniature Victorian Parlour, I’ve been working with various small scales such as 1:144 and 1:48. While the micro scales are perfect for tiny dollhouses, I find that for small displays, the 1:48 scale (also known as quarter scale) is just ideal. It works beautifully with 1:12 scale dolls and adds such charm to miniature scenes.

This week, I completed my very first quarter scale display for the shop — and I have to say, I’m thrilled with how it turned out!

🛠️ What You’ll Need:

• Thin plywood (for base and back wall)

• Stanley knife

• Acrylic paints (white and gold)

• Mini wallpaper and flooring printouts

• Wood glue

• Miniature cabinet kit (from Melissa’s Miniworld)

• 3D printed busts, frames, and pedestals

• Patience and a steady hand!

🎨 Step-by-Step Tutorial:

1. Preparing the Base & Back Panel

I began by cutting and designing the base and back of the display using thin plywood.

2. Scoring & Folding

Using a Stanley knife, I carefully scored both sides of the back panel, folding them in to create angled side walls. Then I gave the entire piece an undercoat with acrylic paint.

3. Wallpaper & Flooring

I resized some lovely wallpaper and flooring designs to fit the quarter scale, and applied them to the interior walls and floor using glue.

4. Assembly

I glued the base to the back wall and let it set completely, then painted the outer edges with gold acrylic for a lovely finish.

5. Printing & Painting Minis

While waiting for the glue to dry, I printed out and painted some tiny accessories: busts, pedestals, and frames.

6. The Cabinet

The star of the display — a miniature cabinet kit from Melissa’s Miniworld — was fun to build and turned out so cute after painting.

🪄 Final Touches

Once everything was dry, I began arranging the pieces. 

The busts looked adorable, and although placing such small items can be fiddly, it was absolutely worth it.

And here is the end result.

Here is a short clip step by step how it was made. 

It now sits beautifully as part of the Victorian Parlour project — I couldn’t be more delighted with the result!

That’s all for today! I hope this inspires you to try a quarter scale scene of your own. Stay tuned for more updates and tiny adventures in my miniature world.

Take care and see you soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca xxx

The Snowman Tea Pot tutorial featured on the Dollshouse World Magazine

Hello everyone,

Hope you are having a great week. It's been quite busy here like always. Christmas is definitely in the air and I am looking forward to it like every year. 

The Dollshouse World Magazine, December's issue featured one of my Christmas Project Tutorial - The Snowman Tea Pot, which was also published in last years's Christmas issue in The American Miniaturist Magazine. 

Quite surprised and happy  to see the little teapot featured once again a year after. 

The tutorial Make a cute Snowman teapot for any scene is featured on two full pages with instructions and all but you can also find the tutorial on My Miniature World blog through this link Winter Project - Snowman Teapot Tutorial where you will find a step by step, fully explained walk-through to make this tiny teapot. 

I am sure that the new comers will find it easy to make and if you need more information you are always welcome to pop by and ask me. 

Hope you will find this useful. 

The little snowman today still stands in one of my Christmas scenes. 

This is all for today. Keep tuned for the next postings on my ongoing projects. 

Take Care and See You Soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca xxx

Miniature Pumpkin Pots Tutorial

Hello everyone,

Here we are once again! Halloween! The time of year where our ghostly friends come out to play and where our Jack-O-Lanterns glows just for this one night. I remember myself as a child going trick-or-treating for all sorts of goodies. I remember I had this big plastic pumpkin that used to be full of sweets by the end of my task. My favorite sweets were the ginger flavored ones. It was the only time of year that I was allowed to take candy. Today I thank my parents especially my mum for looking out for my teeth ;-)

Being Halloween I wanted to share with you an easy tutorial. Something that you could use for Halloween and even all year round. Me being such a pumpkin fan I decided to make miniature pumpkin pots. 

Materials that you will be needing are: 

Polymer clay (orange, green and brown)

A few pots ( any size will do)

Crafts wire 1.2 mm up to 1.5 mm thickness will do

Moss green acrylic paint

(optional: pastel colors)

cutting pliers

needle tool

paint brush

PVA glue

(optional : scenic greenery and soil)

Step 1:

Using the cutting pliers, first cut out various pieces of wire approx 5 cm in length. These eventually will be trimmed. I have cut out eight pieces (2 for each pot) but you can do as much as you like. Put the wire pieces aside. 

Step 2:

Taking the orange polymer clay make tiny balls approx 1 cm wide for the largest pumpkin. You can make even smaller if you want. It all depends how big is your flower pot. 

With the orange polymer clay balls make tiny pumpkins. Using the needle tool make a dent on top and at the bottom of the ball. Make 5 large line dents all around the circumference from the top dent to the bottom dent to shape your pumpkin. Then add small line dents around to give it more detail. 

Once you are happy with your pumpkin add the stem using the green polymer clay. Roll out the green clay into a tiny cylinder (approx  2-3 mm thickness) and add it to the top of the pumpkins. 

This is optional: Using pastels brush some autumn colors on your pumpkins.  

Step 3:

Taking the cut out pieces of wire. Twist the wire around as you like and with the end part of the wire, puncture the pumpkins at the stems.

Step 4:

Fill the terracotta pots with the brown polymer clay. Make sure that the pots are not plastic as these have to be baked too. Also don't fill the pots to the brim with the clay.

Step 5:

Shape the wire accordingly and cut the extra wiring if they are too long. Make sure that the end of the wire is firm in the clay's pot. Once you are happy with your design bake the pots with the pumpkins according to your polymer clay's brand (I gave them 40 min on a low temperature) 

Step 6:

Once the pumpkin pots have been baked and have cooled down, paint the wire with the moss green acrylic paint. Don't worry if by mistake you paint the pumpkins. Take a wet one and gently wipe off. 

Step 7:

This is optional. You can paint the base of the pot with brown paint to make it look like soil or using some PVA glue you can scatter some tea leaves from a tea bag or use scenic greenery and soil to make your soil look more realistic. Let the pva set.

Step 8: 

Your pumpkin pots are done!

Here are some pictures of my pumpkin pots.

Hope you have enjoyed this tutorial and that you will find it useful. 

From here I wish you all a Happy Halloween and a Spooky Fright Night! 

Take Care and See You Soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca 🎃

Completing The Stair Case with A Flower Making Tutorial

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all well. Here I am back to my normal routine and I am back to work on my miniatures and dolls house projects. September is not one of my favorite months. Can't believe that Summer is almost over and the worst part is that the kids will start their new scholastic year. I'll be missing the trio.

 Before I start I wanted to welcome the new followers to my blog. Welcome!

Today I will be sharing with you the complete staircase of The Master Swordsman Pub & Inn, finishing it with a simple flower tutorial.

Apart from the carpeting in the staircase. I added two more paintings which were also printed on canvas and their frames were hand painted by me. The antique paintings are obviously related to sword fighting. The first one shows a pair of gentlemen sword dueling and the second one is one of my favorites; it's a fencing lesson. 

The little hand painted knight was placed on a shelf in the corner of the stairs. I think it has fitted quite perfectly there and gives that extra detail to the stairwell. 

Finally I needed to decorate the hall table in front of the guestroom's entrance door. I wasn't very happy how I decorated it at first. The flowers didn't look realistic at all so I went for something simple yet effective.

These flower are quite easy to do and I will be sharing with you a tutorial how to make them.

All you need is:

PVA glue

craft tissue paper

craft wire

dark green and yellow acrylic paint. 

flower soft (any color of your choice)

a leaf paper punch

scissors

a paint brush. 

1)  Cut a few wire pieces around 5 cm each. These are going to be used for the flowers and for the leaf stems. In total I have cut seven pieces; 4 for the flowers and 3 for the leaves. 

2) Paint the wire in the green acrylic paint. You will be needing to give the wire 2 coats of paint to make sure that it's totally covered. Remember that you will be shorting the wire eventually so there is no need to paint the end that you are holding the wire from. This will be much easier 

When you are done, stick them to a piece of jablo or in a piece of blue tack to let them dry. 

3) While letting the painted wire dry, paint the craft tissue paper in the same green that you painted the wire and let it dry.  Paint the tissue paper from both sides.

I know that there are tissue paper in various colors so why paint it? I prefer having the leaves and the stems in the same color and besides that the paint will thicken slightly the tissue paper which will also help to shape the leaves.

4)  Once the wire and paper are dry, dip the painted wire in pva glue. Make sure that the wire is entirely coated with glue.

5)  Sprinkle the flower soft over the glue coated wire. I prefer sprinkling the flower soft onto the wire than actually dipping or rolling the wire in the  flower soft. If you think that the flowers are not thick enough let the glue set. and add a little more glue to the area and sprinkle again with  the flower soft. 

Once you are ready let them dry .

6)  Using the leaf paper punch, punch several leaf patterns from the dry painted  craft tissue paper.

7) Cut of the leaves from the patterned leaf cut out. I like this leaf pattern because the leaves come in different sizes. 

8)  Using another painted wire add a little pva glue to the steam where you want to add the leaves. Pinch the edge of the leaf and glue it to the wire. You might find a tweezers helpful to pinch on the leaves to the wire.  Then shape the leaves according to your taste. 

Let the glue set and make sure that the flowers and leaf steams are thoroughly dry from paints and the glue. 

9) To make the leaves look more realistic, add a little yellow paint diluted with water to a few edges of the leaves. I would suggest to do this on the bigger leaves. 

10)  Once they are dry and ready cut the extra wire according to the size of the vase or pot you are going to put the flowers. 

Put them in the vase and arrange them to look the part.

There you are all done!

I have added a pair of candle sticks and a glass cranberry bowl with sweets that I made with polymer clay. The candles were made with toothpicks, paint and glue. 

Here are a few more pictures of the stair case.

Hope you have liked what I have done in this area and that you will find the tutorial useful. Looking forward to share with you the progress of the pub area. Make sure to keep tuned for the next update. 

Take Care and See You Soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca xxx