A new Miniature Fairy House made of Driftwood

I had someone ask me if I could maybe make a fairy house out of driftwood.  I really hadn't made a fairy house from scratch so I wasn't sure if I could handle it.  I live right on the Mississippi River so where there be water, there be driftwood :)  I thought, why not?  I'll give it a go and see what happens.  So I asked my Dad if he could take me for a spin on the river and see what we could find.  A hike up a distant steep bank in the middle of nowhere and a heart attack later, I had a reasonable pile of driftwood that might be usable.  Haha, just kidding.  I didn't have a heart attack really, unless you count climbing over piles of driftwood and loose rocks that gave me the feeling I might run into a snake at any moment or go tumbling down the loose rocks into the river.  I had more than my fair share of panicky flutterings and near misses :)  Anywho, we got some driftwood and so began my experiment with fairy house building.  Of course there was none "house-shaped" or anywhere close to that.  Yay.  Here's what I have so far, and I have so much more to do to it.  A series of rope/twig ladders will be added to go from landing to landing, and more furniture will be built.  The whole point of this one is "natural" not cutesy.  More natural colors, less man-made things around it.  I have plans for a viney candelabra with drippy candles hanging from a high point down above the "room" area below.  And so much more moss and more twig furniture.  Etc.

      This will change a lot, this is a very basic start of what is to come.  All sorts of plans will come into play before the end and it'll really turn into a little habitat.  And it's quite large, 23 inches tall and 15 inches wide and deep, roughly.

I'l still be working on the Alice table in between this because I get burnt out and bounce back and forth between the two projects:)

Thanks for your comments everyone, I do read them even if I don't have a lot of time to comment back.  I've got lots going on around my house with the kids, cooking, cleaning, etc.  Busy Mom stuff, you all know how it goes!

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 :)  

           

Sneak peak at the Miniature House of Bleeding Hearts from the Fairy Realm

Not quite finished yet, I still have some roof shingling to do, and add some tiny mushrooms around the base of the inside lighting bleeding hearts trunk that's pierced to show the light inside, and finish decorating the other side of the fairy cottage wall.  And a few more bleeding hearts to make for more branches.  But here's what's currently done:

All of the brown areas around the roof will be shingled and mossed.  Those are just unfinished areas.  The base of the light unit will have tiny red and white dotted mushrooms around the base.  What you can't see here is that there is a sink inside with water running into an acorn cap sink basin and a small table and stool chairs with an acorn teapot and blossom cup.  The might inside the bleeding heart base has a switch on the bottom and runs on a small watch-type battery.  I'll be back soon with rabbit hole updates because it's changed too.  I just didn't have good light by the time I went to shoot pictures of it. 

Here's a picture of my huge parrot fish Peach and her mini me Ruby looking very disturbed at their new fish tank mate, a vampire crab that we named Dracula :)

I couldn't get a good shot of him but he's right in front of them looking quite frightened of my whole hand-sized parrot fish.  She's quite the whale by now :) 

Better shot of Dracula :)  He's so neat to watch.

And here's my daughter's new fish, who has the word "LOVE" somehow written on her side and a heart drawn on the other side.  How in the world do they do that?

 

 

A Series of Miniature Holiday Fireplaces bring in the "cozy" to dollhouses :)

The weather has turned colder here and we've even seen some snow fly!  I personally love this time of year, all tucked in like bears for the winter :)  The only thing is I worry about my loved ones on the roads and also I have a really hard time getting decent pictures inside.  Often I have to gear up and head outside to shoot my pictures anyway.  You'll see a drop in the quality of my pictures most likely :(  Either because they've been shot inside in my photocube or else I was hurrying through my pictures outside because I was freezing!  Either way, no matter how good I make something it'll look worse now :(  Bad pictures make a good miniature look bad too.  Tis the season to freeze or provide crappy pictures.

Anyways, I caught a cold and haven't been working or blogging like usual.  Did I say I loved this time of year?  Ugh, mental!  Hehe.  I've done three different fireplaces for the holidays though, because this time of year makes me wish I had one in my real house!  What could be cozier than a warm fire in a lovely fireplace during a cold winter?  Nothing that I can think of.  So I made three of them in three different styles:  a stylish modern-more adult fireplace, a harvest home fireplace with a pie baking, and a child's theme fireplace with gifts galore :)  I'll shush up and just show you :

The pictures above are of the modern adult fireplace complete with a candy cane martini and icy arrangement that looks like those in high-end stores during the holidays.  There's even a little mouse all wrapped up in Christmas bows and holding a bowed candy cane :)  He's so cute in person!

(Remember my pictures aren't too good right now and these are better in person by far!)

And now the home hearth fireplace:

and finally my favorite, the child's Christmas wish fireplace:

What you can't really see are the tiny cute little gingerbread men cookies and the two signs aren't easy to read in these pictures but are in person.  The one with the cookies reads:  "Dear Santa, We left some cookies for you to eat, so take a break and rest your feet!", and the one above the fire reads:  ""Dear Santa, define good..."

That really reminded me of my own kids, hehe!  I had to put it on because it makes me smile.

These are all available here in my store: 
http://www.etsy.com/shop/tarayvonne

Up next will be a miniature mermaid chest decorated like a treasure trove and then some more Harry Potter minis in the near future!  If you haven't seen the last movie you have to run out and buy it immediately!  It was epic :) 

  

Updated with clearer pictures-A Christmas Home for Gnomes, all done :)

I finally got my little gnome cottage finished-wow, I had no idea sculpting a 3 inch tall gnome would be such a challenge!  I changed my mind about his look.  The Christmas gingerbread-style of the house I knew would cause a pot-bellied little white headed guy to look too much like Santa Claus and it would confuse people as to why he was dressed this way and in front of such a cottage as this rustic little thing :)  He would be viewed as some sort of weird Santa.  So instead I opted for a younger man with brown hair and beard who wouldn't be confused with a sleigh-driving cookie addict with a bag of presents :)  Oh man now I'll get coal in my stocking for saying that!  Hehe.  Ayways, I made him and dressed him for the holidays and his hair is tibetan lambs wool.

I covered the house and everything with a thick crust of faux snow, made from a little trick I learned recently.  It's very convincing snow and looks good in person.  I made a little pie for the window sill, dressed the pet goose in a charming little capelet and gnomie hat, added on a pine tree to the side of the house and decorated it to match the style of the cottage, etc.  I don't have a picture of it plugged in and lit up but it's very charming with the light coming through the stained glass-style windows.  I can't take a decent photo inside and can't plug it in outside.  But I can tell you it looks very cute while the lights are on.

This is an upcycled, one of a kind cottage that will never be made again.
My pictures are not that great, as usual.  It's so much nicer in person.

I should have smoothed down his wild hair before taking these pictures :)  Oh well, you know :)

           

What am I up to now? No one Gnomes :)

I'm all about reusing and recycling and making old into new.  I like the challenge of looking at something junky with a good basic shape that could be improved upon and trying to see it in a new way.  I would much rather fix something up than let it go into a landfill.  For instance, once in awhile I check out what's in my local thrift stores for materials to work with.  Ugh, I can't even begin to tell you the awful stuff in there sometimes.  But in the midst of the tragic mess of rubbish every once in awhile I see something others pass over because of the sad shape it's in.  I can tell I can redo it and make it wonderful again :)  (If it ever was wonderful :)  Take this little wooden house for example:

This was promising, although formerly covered in dried flowers in various states of decay and ruin and other crap around it that was pretty bad.  Not to mention that the light inside it had a french plug in on it, and thus was unusable here in the states.  What the???  How did it get here to the US and why with a plug that wouldn't plug in here?  No matter, my Hubby is quite handy and got me a new lighting unit that fit inside perfectly and lights the windows up like a proper nightlight should.  And I yanked off everything nasty or just plain cut it off with my exacto knife.  I have plans for this little home, it'll soon have new tenants :)  Who will be moving in?

Gnomes :)

My plan is to have a winter time Christmasy gingerbread style house with a little bit of a rustic vibe to it.  I have a very basic start on it and  it'll be far more elaborate in the end.  And there will be a gnome outside, which I'll have to make.  I'll post more pictures as I get further along but this is all I have so far:

I have a ton of work to do to this so stay tuned :)  Should be a cutie when I'm done but I have a long way to go!