Ok, kids back in school and time to work finally :)

My little mess makers-ahem, I mean kids have just gone back to school, yay!  I love 'em, and yet somehow though parting is such sweet sorrow I'm sure I can think of something to take up my newly freed time.  Like working on minis again :)  I might go stark ravin' mad from the drastic change of peace and quiet in this house after all the noise and confusion of the kids being home, but then I should be for this project I'm finally getting back to!  It is a mad tea party after all, hehe.  I've barely been able to get to it, or anything else in miniature.  But hopefully now (barring my parents popping in at all times now that they are retired) I can get some work done.  Whew!

Now during what little free time I've had that wasn't taken up by everything else, I've been making pieces for the table top.  Little cakes, rolls, lemons, teacups, teapots and dishes of all kinds have to be completely handmade from clay and then painstakingly painted in the tiniest patterns that are really just killing me :)  Ugh wow, painting such tiny things is really difficult for me.  I wish I were better at it.  But I'm trucking along as well as I can.  I have froze and refroze all different angles of that tea table in the Tim Burton movie version of Alice and I can tell you one thing-the table changes!  What's on it in different scenes I mean.  There is no recreating it perfectly because different shots have different items in the exact same places!  The table placement changes and items completely disappear in some shots.  Not quite sure why that is but it's one of those crazy movie mess-ups I guess.  If you watch a movie carefully there's always something awry in every movie.  My husband can usually spot a mess up but I generally miss them.  But on closer inspection of this one there sure are some different place settings in front of the same characters :)

Anywho, no matter.  I'm trying to make the neatest things off the table and I have quite a few left to make.  Each piece has such intricate paint work and sculpting that they are just taking me awhile.  Like I said, it's a struggle for me but I'm doing the best I can.  Mess ups are scrubbed off and repainted until I'm satisfied.  These pictures are going to be of the same thing over and again but it's all I have done right now.  If you watch the movie (if anyone owns it) you'll see key parts of the table copied in miniature as close as I could get them to the originals.  The pottery and dishes are quite pretty in the movie and I'm making the ones that I love best or that really stand out to me.  And I have yet to make so many of them, who knows when I'll get this thing done!  I must have been "mad" to even try it :)  And of course I can't just buy the dishes because they won't look like the ones in the movie and that will never please me :)  They all have to be made to look like the ones in the movie or I'll never be happy with it.

Here's what I have so far:

Like I said, so much still to fill in on that table top.  That must be done before I start making the characters for the seats.  And I keep staring at that gorgeous broken down windmill in the background on that movie and thinking I might have to make that to go with this in the end.  I simply love the scenery in that movie, it was so haunting, dark, fantastical, and gothic.  Simply magical!  Still even though it's been awhile since it came out I still marvel at the scenery they created for Underland when I see it.  It was so beautifully done.  The decaying elegance of it was pretty incredible.  

This is my last Alice in Wonderland piece unless I make an occasional talking rose.  I'm ready to move on to new subjects but I really needed to make this one and get it out of my system.  I've always loved this scene since I was a little girl before this version of the movie came out.  It's so funny, so preposterous that it's charming.  So I'll finish this up and then I have a few other projects I'll be getting on to as soon as I can.

Stay tuned :)