Dollhouse Miniature Harry Potter Honeydukes Candy Trolley with House Elf finished :)

I'm all done and I managed to turn out a decent enough house elf to push the candy trolley, yay!

I'm not great at body sculpting but I did ok on the  face I think.  This is meant to be a random house elf, not Dobby exactly but loosely based on him.  This is a Honeydukes shop hand at work selling candy to the children.

Without further explanation, here it is:

He's not quite as grungy as most house elves, because hey he's a candy server.  Who wants to buy candy from a dirty little elf???  Exactly :)  Ewwww.  Slightly smudged, but not much.  And he has a tiny Honedukes badge on his chest.

This cart was already spoken for but I can always make more-although I'm never going to make exactly the same thing twice out of respect for the original buyer.  There will be small differences to keep them unique.

New Dollhouse Miniature Harry Potter Honeydukes Candy Cart Trolley 1/12 scale

Hello, happy Friday everyone!  I've been working when I can on another candy trolley and I'm getting closer to being done so I thought I'd show you what I have so far.  My photos are pretty bad because we have a storm rolling in and I had to shoot them quick before the rain came on.  The wind was blowing pretty bad so they didn't turn out very well, I was struggling to keep the miniature from blowing over, yikes.  So these two horrible shots are all I could get to turn out:

Here's a shot of the Cornish pixie from the movie:

The Cornish pixie still needs wings, but I think considering how small he is (not an inch tall) that I managed to work a lot of detail into his face.  His face is about the size of the head of a pencil eraser, so you can imagine how hard that is to make look like the movie original.  It took me forever to make that little guy! And I still need to make wings.  Otherwise I have cupcakes, acid pops, the pixie is sitting on a bottle of butterbeer (labeled with the real butterbeer label), a frothing glass of butterbeer with a nice foamy head on it, a peppermint toad painted chocolate brown, red, white and mint green.  A large display of red licorice candy ropes, a sectioned cauldron of foamy colored potions with candy sticks and ice cream cones rising out of the potions, and in the back you can see two large sugary purple and green cotton candy cones.  The pixie appears to be reaching for a bite of the green one while he sits atop the butterbeer bottle.

Up next, I attempt to make a house elf which should be more easy I should think because he's as tall as the candy trolley.  It should be so much easier to get detail on a face and body that's larger.  I thought the pixie would be easier, ha!  Yeah right.  Too small to be easy :)

Anyway, this looks a lot better in person because I had no time to shoot a good photo because of the weather.  So many of the details are not showing up in the bad photos.  Ah well, maybe next time.  Happy collecting everyone!  And have a great weekend as well. 

Sold-Dollhouse Miniature Harry Potter Candy Cart Trolley Update

Hello, happy Friday everyone :)

My trolley is finished, a second one started.  I believe they both may be sold all ready, this one for sure.

Here's what I ended up with:

So as you can see I did manage to sculpt an acceptable owl, although I'm always hard on myself that I couldn't do it as perfectly as the real animal photo I work off of.  It's very difficult with something so tiny to work in the detail.  My thumb is larger than this owl, so you can imagine how hard it is to get the look right.  

My next plan of action for the next cart is to try to the best of my ability to make a house elf pushing the cart (if I can turn out one decent enough to use that is)  and I'm hoping to add in some mischievous Cornish pixies to stir the pot, so to speak.  If I can sculpt them that small and manage to turn them out ok then they should be causing all sorts of havoc on the candy cart :)  If I can manage the sculpting, then this cart should really be something special.  Stay tuned for more photos of upcoming work and have a happy weekend everyone!   

Dollhouse Miniature Harry Potter Candy Cart Trolley Update

Work has been interrupted here and there by summer activities (the kids are out of school of course) and things take me longer this time of year because of it.  So I've not gotten as far as I was hoping but I'm getting close enough I guess :)  I plan on adding an owl on the top of the cauldron stack, a couple more little things to the top of the cart, and a climbing chocolate frog to the front hanging flap of the cart and then I should be done.  I'm working on an owl right now and I hope it turns out good enough to use but only time will tell.  If it's not up to my standards its not going on.  So we'll see.  So far it looks good though so I have high hopes of being able to use it.  Always, I'll go ahead and show you how it looks so far:

You can't really see them but the Fizzing Whizbees are little chocolate bumblebees, I had nothing to go on but the commercial Honeydukes shop version of this sweet because they were never shown in the movie so that's what I made.  Anywho, I'm hoping the next update will be the finished cart with an owl on it.  I hope :)  Stay tuned!  Hugs-Tara, 19th Day Miniatures 

Dollhouse Miniature Harry Potter Potions Ingredients Cabinet with Sculpted Owl

Hey everyone, I just got done with another potion type cabinet that I wanted to show you, also to update you on a couple new projects I have started in the Honeydukes theme.

Here is my new potion ingredients cabinet:

located here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/195863366/layaway-available-dollhouse-miniature?ref=shop_home_active_1

And here is one of my upcoming candy carts at the beginning stage of decorating:

I plan to pull out all the stops on these carts (I have two of them, only one is painted right now), to make them fuller and better than previously done before.  More magical as well :)  Keep in mind my version of Honeydukes will always be faithful to the aged and timeless movie version of Honeydukes, not the commercial muggle shop in Orlando Florida.  That shop is lovely, but it is just a regular human shop.  I will be staying true to the movie version because to me it's wackier, more fun, and more magical than the pristine human shop.  The movie version seems as though it has stood for ages, and has had little witch and wizard hands all over it for generations :)  

Please stay posted for further updates because I will be blogging them and taking suggestions as I go along and I'd like you to see what I'm doing as I make them.  Alrighty then, happy mini collecting!  And have a lovely summer everyone.

Dollhouse Miniature Harry Potter Honeydukes Sweet Shop Candy Display

Hey everyone, I finally finished my Honeydukes Candy display.  Whew, so much going on around here that it's hard to find mini time.  So I won't beat around the bush, here it is:

This is a candy display similar to the one seen in the Harry Potter movies and in Universal Studios Wizarding World of Harry Potter theme park.  Now my version of Honeydukes miniatures are based more off the version seen in the movie instead of the pristine perfect universal studios version which is a lovely shop, but it's a regular commercial human shop and I feel it lacks the antique charm and weathered finishes of the movie version that looks as though it has been serving magical children for generations. I like the more aged magical version seen in the movie (for a video clip, watch here):

http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/File:Harry_Potter_and_the_Prisoner_of_Azkaban_-_Honeydukes
And so I've aged the finish to look as though children have been around it for generations. Nothing in the movie was perfect or new, in any shop or in Hogwarts either. Anyway, the cabinet is a skeleton candy display, with an additional jelly rainbow candy display for added color. The skelly pops are in their own tiered display box. Inside the cabinet are a variety of random candies and a Honeydukes price list on the door. The miniature stands just under 6 inches tall, and just under 4 inches wide because of parts sticking off the sides. 

Available in my etsy shop:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/194522798/dollhouse-miniature-harry-potter?ref=shop_home_active_1

News and upcoming miniature projects :)

Hey everyone!  How's your summer going so far?  Good I hope?

Well we're in a whirlwind of activity at the ole Hays House, still in the middle of house-wide renovations as well as decluttering and cleaning out the house of all unnecessary junk.  Don't you just hate that?  You look around and figure out that the place is a cluttery mess and you have to do a "house purge" to get everything cleaned out and reorganized.  In my case, I had 15 years of stored crap in my basement that has to go before I lose my marbles.  My workroom has been moved downstairs due to lack of space anywhere else (which is why I wasn't working on minis for so long), and as it is I'm starting to feel like the thing under the stairs in the deep recesses of the house.  Yikes.  Must. Get. Junk. Out. Now.

So that's what we're doing.  And laying kitchen tiles as the same.  And I'm trying to work on minis as well now.

I was contacted by the new editor of American Miniaturist Magazine and invited to submit work for the upcoming Halloween edition.  Right about that time, I got the blue screen of death on my computer and lost all my previous work photos until I get someone to fix it.  Ugh.  Do you ever get the feeling after a rash of bad luck that you're under some sort of curse?  I'm starting to think I've got a curse on my head :)

So anyway, I'll be making some new really good (I hope) minis for that and shooting some new photos since my oldies are currently under blue screen lock down.  I hope something ends up being good enough for publication-that would be so much fun!

I'm currently working on a low side cabinet in the Honeydukes theme which I plan on pulling out all the stops on.  It should be pretty exciting.  I've been getting some requests for more of that theme so I must do a few pieces before I get started on my spooky Halloween stuff.  Speaking of that, I just redid Sherry's (my MIL) Marie Antoinette doll, table and chairs set she made previously.  I really felt it needed to go in a different and more exciting direction and that her hand-sculpted doll would be much more fun as a Halloween type miniature instead.  So she has been re-imagined into the ghost of the Countess Bathory, the infamous blood countess from Hungary.  For the horrific story of what she did, view her wikipedia article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_B%C3%A1thory        

Oh my goodness, what a crazy woman!  So anyway, I thought it would be neat to make a miniature of her and her atrocious interests for Halloween.  Check out the bloody axe on the table top:

 To make a long story short, she was rumored to have bathed in the blood of her beautiful young victims (possibly numbering in the hundreds if the witnesses were credible) in an effort to stay young herself, as well as drinking the blood. In essence, she was a complete psychopath! Sherry did a wonderful job making her beautiful in sculpt, hair and dress while I took the pleasuring in painting her skin/eyes to look white and sparkly (ghostly) with the blackness of her soul running down her face. She is meant to look tattered, ghostly, haunting, and spooky. In her hand, a wine glass of blood from one of her victims. I decorated her table to reflect her terrible hobbies: bloody candelabra with bleeding candles, bottles and tottles of unknown nefarious purposes, a handcrafted bloody axe, Transylvanian Gazette newspaper, fortune telling orb, a bottle of vampiric blood, a book on vampire forensics, a death warrant scroll, a terrible place setting with a severed skeleton hand holding a red rose, silverware-all covered in ghostly white spiderwebs with one little spider perched on top of a red rose flower arrangement. Tatty black tablecloth covers the table top as well. 
Fit for the finest haunted house or room box in your home :)

Available here at this clickable link below:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/191440687/dollhouse-miniature-ghost-blood-countess?ref=shop_home_active_1

Please stay tuned for soon to be new Harry Potter items that I'm currently working on.

Have a good summer and have some adventures everyone!  Hugs-Tara