Making some miniatures for Kate's Cottage

Hello everyone,

So how are you all? It has been a few weeks since I posted. I hope you are enjoying your weekend. It has been quite tough here. Last week I got the nasty flu that I got from the kids. It is to be expected once they go back to school. Then this week my husband Gilbert had to be operated on. He had a hernia repair. It is not a big operation but the recovery is quite painful.

I wanted to welcome three new followers of my blog; Welcome Lucille Turpin, Ultimate Kick and Lori. WELCOME!

Today I will be sharing with you some polymer clay miniatures that I have been making for Kate's Cottage. There is so much that I still need to do and make for this cottage.

Making miniatures for Kate's cottage

Like you have seen in the previous post I have made 2 fire backs for the fire place. I am really pleased with the out come. As the fire place on the ground floor has a fire spit, I wanted to add some sort of fire crane for the little cauldron. The fire place is too little so I had to improvise. I managed to make one of polymer clay where you will see a cauldron hanging from it.

Crane in the fire place

Tudor food can be some how tricky or let's say I don't know much about it. So through book and a few tutorials I managed to do these.

Here is some the cottage loaf and some bread rolls as starters. 

Cottage bread and rolls

Cottage bread

bread rolls

I have also made some Tudor Jumbles which where like pastries at that time. I have made three types of jumbles which are the plaited, rings and knots.

Tudor Jumbles

The most common is the mutton and vegetable pottage which was commonly stewed in a cauldron and served on trenchers, the trenchers where usually made out of wood with a hollow center and had also a small salt hole by the side. This vegetable stew was likely to be served with bread. For desert they would have pears in wine syrup. In Tudor times forks where not invented so wood spoons and knives where used in the period.

Here is the mutton and vegetable pottage in the cauldron. I have used polymer clay and resin water. I have added soapy bubbles to the cauldron to make it look like it is boiling.

Cauldron with vegetable pottage

 Then with the same mixture I filled a pewter serving bowl and made the trenchers filled with the food, spoons and knives out of polymer clay.

Served pottage on trenchers.

I also made a bowl full of the pears with wine syrup.

Pears in wine syrup

There is still so much I need to add and make. I wanted something a bit different from usual. I have actually made something which was totally not my favorite but definitely a must for the Tudor period. To make it all too clear I do love animals and I just can't imagine myself harming them but then again I am no vegan or vegetarian. 

I have made the wild rabbit food preparation. You can see that it is no longer alive after being hunted and well gutted. Very gruesome indeed. You would probably say that, this is not the method of cleaning or skinning a rabbit. You would say first skin it then gut it. You are right but in the Tudor period it was different.

Like we all know there was no such thing as a fridge to keep the food from going rotten, so once the rabbit was caught and slaughtered, the hunter would clean it (gut it ) so the rabbit won't get spoiled but they wouldn't skin it immediately. They used to believe that the skin would preserve the meat from going bad so the skin was usually removed just before cooking. So here is the wild rabbit. Poor thing I feel sorry for it.

Rabbit - Food preparation

 I also made a bowl of quail eggs which were very common in the Tudor times. Quail eggs are much smaller than the normal chicken eggs and so I had to make these much smaller and tiny.

Quail eggs

So far this is how all my new hand made miniatures look like in the room. I might be changing their place in the future as I will be adding more.

Hope you like what I have done so far.

This is all for today. At the moment I am busy working on the outside of the building so keep tuned for more updates in the next few days.

Take care and see you all real soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca xx

  

More progress on Kate's Cottage

Hello everyone,

Hope you are all enjoying your weekend. Here in Malta we have been having some rain showers but nothing out of this world. I have been very busy with Kate's cottage and I am really excited how it is turning out.

Kate's cottage top floor

Give Away Winners

So today we will be announcing our two winners of our free give away. They will both be getting the miniature mug & plate and key ring. We hag quite a lot of followers signing up. I wish that all could have them. So our winners are Julie Daves and Jessica Boulton. Please send me an email with your details so I could post them. Don't give up everyone we will be having a free give away very soon. Thank you all for taking part this encourages me to make these little treats more frequently. 

This week we have also reached over 11,000 followers on our Face Book page. Thank you so much. 

We come back to Kate's Cottage. I have been really working hard and I am giving my best to make it as realistic as possible. As the ground floor is pretty much done. I have started on the upper floor which will be Catherine's and Luke's bedroom. It is quite a spacious room  I started off with the flooring. I went for wood strips. I have cut them and fixed it on the flooring. I have left uneven gaps to make the floor look roughly made being in the Tudor's and not finished in high standards

Flooring.

When that was done, using a needle point tool I have made several holes in the edging of the floor boards to give the impression that nails are fitted in. 

Making small holes in floor board edges

When that was all done I stained the floor and darkened some areas with brown paint just to give it a more weathered look.

Stained floor

Before I continued with the beam work I realized that this room didn't have a fire place. So right on top of the fire place below I have made a chimney breast. It just didn't make sens that this room didn't get one, as just above it on the roof there are the chimney pots. It seemed like between the chimney pots and the fire breast below was something missing. 

So I got myself a thick piece of balsa wood and made the chimney breast for the bedroom. I have used a stencil to make the edges and added some wood to make the mantel. Using cardboard brick slips I did the back of it, dirtied it. As the flooring was made out of wood I had to make the floor heart out of bricks. 

Chimney breast

Once the chimney was settled I finished of the inside of the windows. Without having these ready there was no way I could make the inside wall beams. 

Adding the windows

When that was ready I started working on the wall beams. I have weathered the wood beams with a craft's knife and with a needle point tool. My finger tips were quite numb,  Slowly I started adding the beams. First the floor skirting and continued till the tip of the walls.

Wall beams

When I was satisfied with the beams I added the wall lights for the room and I also made the fire back for the fire place which you will find the Fireback Tutorial on this link ,

Polymer Clay fireback

And this is how the room looks like at the moment. 

So this is all for today. Please keep tuned for more updates on Kate' Cottage. I hope Catherine and Luke will like it. 

Enjoy your weekend and take care.

Hugs,

Rebecca xxx

Making a Miniature Fireback - Tutorial

Hello everyone,

We are back to another weekend. So much to do like always. 

Today I am just going to do a quick post as tomorrow we have the draw of the two free give aways. Quite a lot of lovely people have signed up and I am looking forward to announce the lucky winners. You are still in time to join in. I also wanted to welcome six new followers of my blog. Welcome  Karen Harris, R Howard, Jules Collins, Ann Hill, Wilma Knipe and Julie Daves. I really appreciate it.

Today I will be sharing you a small, quick tutorial how to make firebacks for your dolls house fireplace. They are very simple to do but effective. You don't have to be a genius to them I think everyone can figure it out but I am so pleased how they turned up that I wanted to share how I came to do them.

Hand Made Fireback for dolls house

As you all know I am working on my Kate's cottage and I need to make two firebacks for the two fire places. Before I purchase any kind of miniatures usually I ask myself "Can I do it myself?" Usually the answer would be "Why not!"

So to do these firebacks all you need, is : dark polymer clay, graph paper, jewelry plates and black paint. 

The jewelry plates can be easily purchased from any crafts shop. To give you an ideas this is what I used.

Jewelry plates

So the first thing you need to do is measure your fire place. See how big you want it. I have made two; one larger than the other. It is very important that you don't make it too big or too small.

After measuring the fire place I sketched the pattern for the firebacks on the graph paper. It is much easy to use graph paper you will definitely be getting all the measurements and right angles perfectly drawn.

Pattern for fire backs

When you have cut out the pattern, roll out your polymer clay. Try to roll it on the baking try that you will be using to bake the lot.  Make sure that it is flat and thin. Make it big enough that the pattern covers the area, Then place the pattern on the clay and cut the extra clay away. Once it is done remove the paper pattern and position one of the jewelry plates on the flat clay and press down.

When that is done. With the extra bits of clay, roll it in a fine roll to add the edges around the fireback. This will give some extra detail and looks fuller.

Pattern of small fireback

If you are making a bigger fire back you can add more details to it. You can use small tiny charms to dent in the clay. I have used a ball tip tool to add some more detail around the fire back.

Adding more detail to fireback

When you are happy with the designs you can bake them leaving the metal jewelry plates on them. (Please make sure that they are metal, if plastic they will melt). Adjust your cooking temperature according to the polymer clay package instructions.

Painting the fireback.

Once they are done and cooled then you can paint it with black paint. Everything has to be covered in the same color,

Finished fireback

As soon as they fire backs are done you can fit them in your dolls house. 

And here are the firebacks placed in their fireplace. They just look perfect.

Large fireback

Small fireback

I hope you will find this simple tutorial useful. If you need more help please don't hesitate to contact me.

See you tomorrow for the draw and enjoy it.

Take Care.

Rebecca xxx

My Miniature World Blog featured on DHMS Magazine

Hello everyone,

How are you all? Hope you have enjoyed your weekend.  I can't believe that Summer has ended and we are in Autumn. The weather has cooled down a little. My older kids have started school and now I am dreading Thursday as my little Leah will start her first year in kinder garden. I just hate the moment when they leave home to go to school. 

I have been extremely busy in these few weeks and I slightly slowed down the pace on my Kate's Cottage. It just freaks me out thinking of covering text books and preparing stationary and school bags for the three. I will be giving you an update later on this week.

I wanted to welcome three new followers of my blog. Welcome Mimi, Karen Clark and Jessica Boulton. Welcome!

Today I am pleased to say that My Miniature World Blog was featured on October's Issue of the Dolls House and Miniature Scenes magazine.

Cover of October 2015

I am really excited to see it on print and to see a few of my favorite projects included.

Feature of My Miniature World Blog
Click here to read it

The projects that were featured are the Fairy Tale Magical Mystery Tower, The Fairy's Nook. Miss Leah's Boutique, The Coffee Corner, Bloom & Blossom Florist and Santa's Work Shop. Marilyn has pretty much summed up perfectly.

My blog features all my dolls house projects in progress and miniature works. 

We have links to:

 My Miniature World Face Book Page which is celebrating over 10,000 likes! I would like to thank the face book fans of My Miniature World to make this possible. 

My Miniature World Group on Face book. A fantastic, friendly group. We have over 445 members that share their projects, miniatures. Thank you folks for being part of the group.

My Miniature World Shop at etsy. I have been doing extremely well. We offer over 200 dolls house miniatures; from hand painted white metal accessories, decorative ceramics, polymer clay minis and downloadable & kit form books. Now we have a new feature on the etsy shop How it all began! and who works behind the scene.

Then we have our Forum Twitter, Printerest, and You Tube

Lately we have added a few more pages that you might enjoy;

My own personal phrase has been viewed, shared and liked by over 6,000 just on facebook in a couple of days. It has made such an impact that now we have made miniature mugs with the phrase and have been on request since then. You can all see it here The Feeling of My Miniature World Hobby

As the blog as expanded and grown so much We have also added a page with a slide show of a few rooms from our projects and links where you can read all about them apart from the blog's labels.  The page is Dolls House Projects

The collection of My Miniature World Books have grow too. Now we have 26 books which are available in kit form from our blog and also at My Miniature World at etsy which are also available in download.

To add to Miss Leah's I have collected all her diary entries and made them into one online flip book which you all can see on Miss Leah's Diary page.

Here are the pictures of the dolls house projects that were featured on the magazine.

Fairy Tale Magical Mystery Tower

The Fairy's Nook

Miss Leah's Boutique

The Coffee Corner

Bloom & Blossom Florist

Santa's Work Shop

To celebrate our success and to thank you all for being so supportive and encouraging,   I will be giving 2 give aways  to 2 followers. Yes we will be giving our requested miniature dolls house ceramic mug with plate and matching key ring with picture & phrase.

free give aways ceramic miniature mug plus key ring.

All you have to do is:

Be a follower of our blog.

Comment on this blog post so I know who wants to take a chance and have them both.

Closing date will be 9th October 2015 and the 2 winners will be announced shortly afterwards.

So Don't miss your chance.

Kate's Cottage

So this is all for today. Next time I will be sharing with you an update on Kate's Cottage. Here is a little glimpse on what I have been up to with it. There is so much to do on it but I am enjoying it.

So keep tuned for more updates on this project.

Once again I want to thank you all. I wouldn't have managed all this if it wasn't for you followers, fans, family and friends.

Take Care & See you real soon.

Hugs,

Rebecca xxx