Dollhouse Miniature Halloween Candy Trolley

Just finished this up, a lot of work but worth it :) I started with a Chrysnbon kit, built it and painted it out in a Halloween theme.  I added a trick or treat flag banner, built a tiny wire tree, painted it black and silver, added leaves that I painted to look dry and dead.  I added lollipops set in ice cream scoop holders, ghost pops. I have a tall glass drink dispenser and punch cups, pumpkin cakes, eyeball cookies, toffee apples, parfait cup display, ghost candy bowl filled with candy, a partially unwrapped chocolate bar.  Underneath are Halloween donuts, a cake, and a bottle of candies.  That's about it, now available in my etsy store:  https://www.etsy.com/listing/479482595/dollhouse-miniature-halloween-witch

Dollhouse Miniature Nightmare Before Christmas Tree is done!

All done, finally yay!!!  Wow wow wow is all I can say about how difficult and time consuming this tree was for me.  It took weeks of work, and man I will NEVER make it again!  By the time I finished, I had to breathe a sigh of relief because I was finally free lol!  This little booger was a hard one for me.  I had a heck of a time making Jack, he felt like punishment to me in the end :)

So here it is, all done:

I took these in different light so the colors are different from the two different places I shot it.  One was inside and one was outside.

This item is available for sale here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/203906156/dollhouse-miniature-nightmare-before?ref=shop_home_active_1

Have a great evening everyone!  :)

A New Dollhouse Miniature Halloween Witch or Wizard Bed, and an update on my Nightmare Before Christmas Tree

I thought I'd share my new witch or wizard bed with you all, as well as let you know what's going on with the tree I was working on.

New bed:

And my tree hit a little bit of a roadblock because of finding fabric for Jack's suit locally.  Apparently our only store in the area that carried a wide assortment of fabrics was shut down due to relocation and the new store was not open yet.  Whaaa.  I had no idea since I hadn't been there for awhile, so that left me searching for another source for tiny pinstripe suit material.  I think I finally have one that works as of yesterday, so I'll get to work suiting that little skelly man :)  Everything else is done.  I'll post a couple photos of what I have done and the tree will be all done once I get Jack dressed.

 That would be the backside of the tree.

One step away from completion.  Jack is sculpted, just not dressed.

Be back later with my final update on this tree.

Thanks so much for your kind comments everyone, sorry I didn't answer back.  It's been mad around here and we just tore down our old upper cabinets the past few days.  BIG mess.

I assure you I read the comments and appreciate them all :)  Hugs-Tara, 19th Day Miniatures  

New Dollhouse Miniature Halloween Project

Hello fellow mini buddies :)  Fall is fast approaching and I thought I'd share my one and only (I think) major mini project I'm working on this season.  I was watching a documentary on Netflix called Maidentrip about a young dutch girl who sailed around the world on her own.  During the show I noticed that she wore a beanie hat with Jack Skellington's face from the movie Nightmare Before Christmas.  It reminded me of my MIL Sherry's tree she made in that theme and I realized I never made one of my own in that theme.  Nightmare Before Christmas was such a well loved movie, and is still brilliant to this day.  It was amazing to me the impact it had all over the world and that even today people still love it and wear the apparel.

It made me want to do a tree myself.  So I've been working on it little by little because of the amount of clay work required for this theme.  I got a little carried away making characters and things I saw when I rewatched the movie.  I still have a ways to go before it's done.  Zero the ghost dog needs another coat of glow in the dark paint (he looks a little streaky right now but glows so ghostly and spooky in the dark!) Here's what I have so far:

The little swirly knoll thing will have Jack Skellington standing up on it handing a candy cane to Zero his dog.  Behind him I plan on having a moon with Oogie Boogie's shadow on it, as shown here:

Pretty much the majority of everything on the tree is hand-sculpted or painted by hand or both :)  I made several characters from the movie worked into candy displays.  Even the little zombie duck with bullet holes is on there which is a toy gifted by Jack to a child on Christmas when he impersonated "Sandy Claus".  Hehehe :)  Even the funky headstone is the one Sally hid behind in the graveyard as Jack sang about feeling lost and bored with his life.  There is also a platter of fancy assorted creepy foods like an eyeball cocktail with a candy cane stir stick, eyeball toast hors d'oeuvres, and moldy cheese on the tree.  Watched over by the cutest little bowed Christmas mouse with a candy cane.  He's so tiny it's hard to see him on the photo but he's adorable.  I picked him up on ebay.

I'll post an update when I have this tree done.

Happy collecting everyone :)    

  

Two New Witch Or Wizard Dollhouse Miniatures Done :)

I just got done with a couple more minis in the witch/wizard theme, now available in my 19th Day Miniatures Etsy store:

Both available here:

https://www.etsy.com/shop/19thDayMiniatures

Happy back to school season 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

Dollhouse Miniature Fairy Fireplace and Witch or Wizard Cauldron

Hey all, how are you this fine day?  I hope you're doing wonderful :)

I'm back a couple new minis (the new shop downstairs is working out well and I feel I'll really be able to work again, time permitting with the reno on the house).  I have a big kitchen floor project coming up (new slate tile) so that might put me out of commission for a little while.  I saw this gorgeous tile floor on the Houzz website and just fell in love:
http://www.houzz.com/photos/7495891/Millsbrae-Kitchen-Remodel-farmhouse-kitchen-cincinnati

For anyone who might want to know where to buy it's located here at home depot (free shipping to a local store):
http://www.homedepot.com/p/MS-International-Montauk-Black-12-in-x-24-in-Gauged-Slate-Floor-and-Wall-Tile-10-sq-ft-case-SHDMONBLK1224G/202919773?N=5yc1vZash2

which shows the tile unsealed (it must be sealed with natural stone sealer to get the look in the Houzz photo).

Ok well anyway, back to the minis again :)

Here's the first, a romantic little fairy fireplace fit for the queen of fairies:

located for sale here:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/190174489/dollhouse-miniature-romance-of-the-fairy?ref=listing-1

and this is my witch or wizard cauldron/potion bottle set:

This is the cauldron of nefarious intentions for any witch or wizard of ill repute :) Clearly, something wicked this way comes! This is a larger floor model of cauldron, with bubbling green potion inside. A boney hand reaches up from the depths of the cauldron for help or harm-who knows? A blood like substances swirls around the extended hand, melted flesh and blood perhaps? Drippy candles on the sides of the cauldron, a filigree backer with ledge for holding the leather potion book with page open to "Wing of bat elixir". A detailed beaded page holder book mark holds open the correct page, it looks very wizardy with a full moon hanging off the end. 

You get with this a cool little evil-looking potion bottle as well, with a skull and cross bones on it warning the user that this potion means business! It's solid and well made. A cute little tag hangs from the side. 

Located here for sale:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/190227797/dollhouse-miniature-witch-or-wizard?ref=listing-0

Have a wonderful week everyone!  Be blessed :)

Dollhouse Miniature Witching Hour Witch Cooking Stove and Side Counter with Witchy Foods

Hello all, long time no see huh?  So sorry, I've been so very busy!  We've been working big time on our old farmhouse, and it hasn't left much time for mini making.  I'll slowly be getting back into minis as I can.  The kids are home from school right now, which also makes it tough to work.  Someone always needs Mom lol.

I started this little witch stove and side counter ages ago, and it's been done for quite some time.  I literally haven't had time to list it until now.  Here's what I did:   I took a stove and grungied it up to make it look more witchy, attached a side counter for more surface preparation area, tiled it and added the background scrolly circle panels to the back of the stove. Then came the fun part, the foods and accessories! A canister of living death draught, witchy "filled" bottles with deadly tags, a grungy clock that says "witching hour", a large kettle with bubbly green icky eyeball potion that has bubbled over the edge, a book of spells and potions with a vintage witch image on the front, a sauteing pan of buttery frog legs, a smaller kettle containing a boiling crow breast with magically pouring blue potion bottle (Hey, she is making some crow pie on the side counter after all :) an icky knife, a small old fashioned lamp, a bottle of flour, A standing recipe for crow pie with a decorative crow on top, a cutting board with a rolled out pie crust top and flour on it with a cute little toadstool rolling pin, and a half-finished crow pie which contains the called for crow breast meat, slices of boiled egg, and meaty gravy. It's so cute in person! Inside the stove on one side is the log fire, the other side has a baking roast with carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, and a bone in roast. Inside the side drawer of the counter are cooking utensils and a pot lid. A little gungy green checked towel completes the look.

The whole thing measures roughly 5 and half inches wide, just under five inches tall, and just over 2 1/2 inches deep.

Here's some rather bad photos, I didn't realize that after sitting so long it would have a bit of dust on it.  I'll of course clean it all up if anyone wants it.

I wish I had time to reshoot the photos but I honestly don't have any time for anything right now.  I can't even stay on here and chat, I have to go to town right now for more building supplies :(

Hugs everyone, I hope you have the BEST summer and may you all have nice vacations!

A few Halloween or Witchy Haunted House Miniatures and some more of Sherry's jewelry

I've put together a couple of goth/haunted house/witchy/ etc. minis in time for the Halloween season, a canopy bed and a goth curiosities cabinet as pictured below:

A little spell board and spell book sit on the bed as though set aside for a moment :)

The glare on the glass is making the magnified tarantula spider in the bottom right hand side of the cabinet not show up in the pictures.  In person it's completely clear :(  These really aren't good pictures (too early in the morning outside for good light so I'll have to reshoot them later today).

And now more reshoots of Sherry's jewelry:

Man I love my new camera!  So much better pictures :)

All jewelry available here in Sherry's store:
http://www.etsy.com/shop/HauntedMansionJewels?ref=usr_faveitems&atr_uid=7202128

Dollhouse Miniature Witch Bath Set :)

I wanted to put together a witchy little bathroom set for anyone who might have a witch cottage or might be thinking of making one.  You never see witch bathroom items (or at least I haven't) so I thought it would be fun to make.  Most dollhouses have enough rooms to be able to do a bathroom as well.  So here's what I did: 

The four piece set includes a laundry hamper with "dirty" clothing, an old fashioned wall tank toilet with pull chain (which is hanging crooked in this picture but isn't in person) and a tiny owl on top, a filled claw-foot tub with old fixtures, drippy candles, swimming frog, towels, and a potion is pouring into it from the pedestal attached to the tub.  This pedestal has three witchy potion bottles.  Also included is a pedestal sink with a very unique double crescent moon mirror (one has a witch laying back on the moon).  All of them have been painted black with a sparkly slime green drippy paint job that looks uniquely witchy and yet still a little posh.  I like to think of this set as "witch chic" in design :)  Not all witches are unstylish old hags, just ask Hermoine :)

The wind was blowing the feathers on the witch hat around on that clothes hamper :(  Oh well, you get the idea.  And the pull chain on the toilet is hanging weird but it can be moved around to look right.  I just missed that it was crooked when I was shooting the pictures.

Available for sale here:   

http://www.etsy.com/listing/93125867/dollhouse-miniature-four-piece-witch

*Updated, now available for sale-The Worst Pies in London in miniature, completed :)

The sale of this item fell through and it is now available for purchase in my Etsy store with extended 3 week layway available:  http://www.etsy.com/listing/84909278/dollhouse-miniature-sweeney-todd-mrs

It was a long hard battle, but I toughed it out and finally finished my Mrs. Lovett's Pie Making Counter based on the movie Sweeney Todd by Tim Burton.  These pictures that I'll post somewhere along the way are horrible and I shot them in my photocube at night so they are the worst they could possibly be.  I'll change out all the pictures tomorrow morning to show a true view of all the details on this piece.  There isn't a piece on or in this that hasn't either been completely hand-made or refinished by me.  Right down to the hand-made knife and the tiny bug in front.  Size comparison on the bug?  I could fit four of them on my pinkie fingernail which is short right now.  It's VERY small and it was a beast to make!  This counter is 1/12 scale, but built slightly taller than an average 1/12 scale counter as per the one in the movie.  It's designed so that the person making the pies wouldn't have to bend over as much to make them, thus causing strain on the back during prolonged work hours :) 

I found a rather bad clip from the movie of Mrs. Lovett making pies, but first you'll want to go turn off my blog's music player.  There is a clickable button on the player that shuts it off.  Here's the video:

   
And this ridiculous nastiness is what I was trying to convey in this piece.  I wanted to stay as true to the movie counter as possible.  That included bugs and filth :)  It's totally gross!  And for some reason this tickled my funny bone, the sheer grime and awfulness of the pies being made with bugs all over everything.  Without it, it's not the London of that particular time period for the people living in the lower class areas.  And without the gross aspect of the counter, bugs, rats, blood-to me it's not "Sweeney Todd" enough.  It had to be dirty.  I worked hard to make this thing look filthy-it's not as easy to do as it sounds!  Because it isn't dirty, I built it by hand from new wood and flawless trim and shiny new white clay :)  To get it looking like that was a chore and a half!  It took me a full week to build it myself.  The clay tile work took another four days.  No one but me would be crazy enough to start this thing from scratch and build it like I did.  I still can't believe I did it!  And I have to say this is one of my favorite pieces I have ever made and I feel a real sense of accomplishment when I look at how well it turned out.  The sign on it wasn't on there but I felt the need to put one on.  It explains the miniature to those who wouldn't know who might look at it and be confused as to why someone would try to make something look filthy and gross and buggy.  I mean there's even the bug splat from her hitting the roach with her rolling pin!  Yucky!  Now the answer is just a Google away to anyone curious enough to look :)
I guess I should just post the pictures and quit running on and on huh?  Ok please check back in tomorrow to see better photos!

Here you can see Mrs. Lovett's gin bottle, bucket of human meat, buggy flour barrel, rat-infested cornmeal and there's lovely bucket of human bones which you can't see in this picture.  Also not seen, another rat, blood splats on the floor of the counter, etc.  Inside the basket are various vegetables that are dirty.  Another fun fact about this is that I used glow in the dark clay extensively and this thing lights up at night like it has been sprayed with luminol (I think that's the name of the blood detecting spray used by the police at crime scenes) which is quite fitting for this miniature!  It looks cool in the dark too :) 

Like I said, there will be 100 percent better photos tomorrow that will really show the quality of the work and all the gory details :)  Please come back when I have better pictures available!  These make me sad :(

Updated with new pictures here: