Miniature Titania and Oberon Bed and Side Table done :)

All done!  I'm working on a laptop because my home PC got a virus or something so I can't upload pictures as successfully right now.  So I can't post as many pics as usual but you'll get the idea from what I do have:

Available here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/77919541/dollhouse-miniature-queen-titania-and

Can't wait until my computer gets fixed, ugh :(

Updates on the Titania and Oberon Miniature Bed

A little farther along :)

I think my quilt turned out nice.  It took a little while hand-stitching it but nothing else would have looked as good.

I went with a less specific photogragh for the frame because it would fit more fairy themes than just A Midsummer Night's Dream.  And the picture was gorgeous and matched my colors :)  And I really like the flower pillows I made with their scrunchy center pillow part, they're cute in person!

I'll post updates tomorrow if I can get to it, I've got even more done to this than these pictures show but I didn't have time to retake them.

Proud Titania and Oberon's Bed, in miniature

I recently bought this movie in a rental place's going out of business sale inexpensively, for the simple reason that it's pretty :)  I've always loved Shakespeare anything so I had to watch this movie.  It's rather silly and more than a few times odd in places but the imagery is lovely and the speech is beautiful thanks to the style of the bard :)  Here's the movie trailer:

and as you can see it's a little goofy :)  But what interests me is the style of the dress and setting, it's beautiful.  And inspiring.  And the speech?  Well... a little difficult to understand and keep track of due to the vast difference in modern language.  But that's half the fun for me :)  Trying to keep up with it is part of the charm.  A sample of the beauty of the speech from a scene between Titania and Oberon and then Oberon to his henchman Puck:

"Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania.

What, jealous Oberon!

Fairies, skip hence.

I have forsworn his bed and company.

Tarry!

Rash wanton, am not I thy lord?

Then I must be thy lady.

Why art thou here, come from the farthest steppe of India,

but that, for sooth, the bouncing Amazon,

your buskin'd mistress and your warrior love,

to Theseus must be wedded, and you come to give their bed joy and prosperity.

How canst thou thus for shame, Titania, glance at my credit with Hippolyta,
knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

These are the forgeries of jealousy.
And never, since the middle summer's spring, met we on hill, in dale, forest, or mead,
by paved fountain or by rushy brook, but with thy brawls thou hast disturbed our sport.
Therefore, the winds, piping to us in vain, as in revenge, have sucked up from the sea
contagious fogs, which, falling in the land, hath every pelting river made so proud
that they have overborne their continents.
And this same progeny of evils comes from our debate, from our dissension.
We are their parents and original.

Do you amend it then?

It lies in you.

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy to be my henchman.
Set your heart at rest. The fairyland buys not the child of me.
His mother was a votaress of my order, and in the spiced Indian air,
by night, full often hath she gossiped by my side and sat with me
on Neptune's yellow sands, marking the embarked traders on the flood
when we have laughed to see the sails conceive and grow big-bellied
with the wanton wind. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die,
and for her sake do I rear up her boy.  And for her sake I will not part with him.

How long within this wood intend you stay?

Perchance till after Theseus' wedding day.  If you will patiently dance in our round...
and see our moonlight revels, go with us.

Give me that boy, and I will go with thee.

Not for thy fairy kingdom!

Fairies, away!  We shall chide downright if I longer stay.

Well, go thy way.  Thou shalt not from this grove till I torment thee for this injury.

My gentle Puck, come hither.  Thou rememberest, since once I sat upon a promontory
and heard a mermaid on a dolphin's back uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath
that the rude sea grew civil at her song.  That very time, I saw, but thou couldst not,
flying between the cold moon and the Earth, Cupid all armed.
A certain aim he took and loosed his love shaft smartly from his bow.
Yet, marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell.  It fell upon a little western flower,
before milk-white, now purple with love's wound.  Fetch me that flower.
The juice of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, will make all man, all woman madly dote
upon the next live creature that it sees.  Fetch me this herb and be thou here again
ere the leviathan can swim a league.

I'll put a girdle round about the Earth in minutes.

Having once this juice, I'll watch Titania when she's asleep and drop the liquor of it
in her eyes.  The next thing then she waking looks upon...she shall pursue it
with the soul of love.  And ere I take this charm from off her sight, I'll make her render up herpage to me.  I'll make her render up herpage to me."

And so it goes and this is why it charms me :)  Pure poetry.  Scenes like this truly inspire me to create things of beauty, sparkling with fairy dust, but with bits of natural woodland tossed in with opulent glittering things that remind of the fairy royalty :)  Not just simply regular wild and natural fairy pieces but the furniture of the fairy queen herself.  Half wild and natural, half glimmering with beauty and a posh smattering of fabrics and jewels.

I'm currently making Titania's bed, the one she would be sharing with her Oberon after he's dropped her eyes with the magical juice of a love flower and brought her back to him.

  I've picked a variety of glittering fabrics from sheer violet fabric to hand-dyed silk ribbons and I plan on using them all in some way if possible.  I may have to do a patchwork spread and also do a variety of pillows.

and other items I have that I plan on using if they fit in:

I'll clip the bale off the pendant and give the frame wings (Sherry made those, they're cuties) and put a picture in it, perhaps of Titania herself? 

although I need to search for a better picture than this.  Plus she looks a tad angry, since she has just been fighting with her hubs :)

I've made a basic start of it, and trust me when I say this is far from finished.  Lots to do here, this is simply the start of the frame itself.  I have to make a padded mattress yet, bedding, add moss, etc. so this will be a whole different thing in the end :)

I like to think of this type of fairy furniture as "posh fairy style", not entirely rustic and wild.

 

   

Update-Sold, Miniature Dollhouse Harry Potter Hogwarts Christmas Tree done

All finished!  Here's what I ended up with and it is now unavailable for sale in my Etsy shop because it just sold. 

Description:
My pictures do not do this piece justice, all the detail cannot be captured in the photos and you have to see this intricate piece in person!


I have created this wonderful OOAK Hogwarts Christmas tree with love and great attention to detail that you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else. Theme trees are completely unique and wonderful. No one does these but this shop as far as I know. This one is themed to go with the Hogwarts Gryffindor Common Room at Christmas time, or practically any room in Hogwarts (ok maybe not a Slytherin room :) It's loaded with a huge variety of gifts of a magical nature and addressed to different students mentioned in the Harry Potter movies. I've made Harry's Nimbus flying broomstick, Neville's Remembrall and a magical plant, Luna's Spectra Glasses and her radish jewelry, books like How to Tame a Phoenix for Hermione, a Divination Crystal Ball and tea reading set for Parvati Patil in an elaborate Indian style gift box, and the list goes on. It all so cute! Just look over the pictures and you'll see all the magical things :) There are even a few Honeydukes Sweet Shop candies perched in the tree(like bertie botts every flavor beans), ready to be nibbled :) There are framed photographs of Professors Dumbledore and McGonagall, a lovely hand-sculpted owl with glass eyes and hand-applied feathers perched on a crescent moon tree topper and just above her flies a rather well-done golden snitch which is held up by a clear plastic piece to make it appear to be really flying above the tree. There is a little toad as well, sitting next to the gift boxes which were all hand-built by me of mostly wood and some are clay and fabric-wrapped. There are even a couple real glass potion bottles hanging on the back of the tree complete with well done labels :)

This tree took me several days to complete and I will not make another. It is meant to be OOAK.

The tree stands nearly 8 1/2 inches tall and the bottom diameter is nearly 7 inches across due to protruding gift packages. 1/12 scale

No longer available:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/77698278/harry-potter-dollhouse-miniature

Let me know what you think!  Be honest :)  And remember I can't currently comment back, that feature is not working for me :(  I wish I could though!  I wish they would fix it.

A Miniature Divination Set for Harry Potter's Parvati Patil

In her third year, Parvati Patil began taking Divination, which soon became her favourite subject. She grew close to Professor Trelawney, who believed that Parvati could be a Seer. 
I have been attempting to make several of the characters from the Harry Potter movies presents that correspond to what that character was into.  Parvati Patil obviously is a little more difficult to do because little is said of her.  I wouldn't have bothered to include her but the aspect of her heritage and what she liked made it impossible for me to ignore.  To make an Indian inspired gift box containing divination objects was too great a temptation!  I've played with it for awhile and it's been fun.  I like to do my homework on these things and add in things that are realistic to make the best miniature I can manage.  Looking up the subject I found cool little things that I've incorporated into the box.  Inspired by Parvati's home I designed the box to suit India.  I built the box from the ground up and this is what I did to it:

As you can see, there is a fortune-telling gazing ball, a palmistry chart, a tea cup and reading tea leaves guide, and some tiny and quite beautiful tarot cards.  What you can't clearly see from the pictures is the inside is lined with the same fabric as the outside of the box.  It's very pretty in person, I wish you all could see. 

A gift meant for an Indian darling :)

I think Parvati would be pleased to get this gift :)

I'm trying to find time (busy family life) to work on the tree as I can.  It can be challenging sometimes to do.  I'm still making presents and ornaments for the tree that aren't in place yet, but I did at least get the garland on.  I've also made some lovely little pictures in ornate metal frame ornaments with blingy crystals on them.  One is of Professor Dumbledore and the other is of Professor McGonagall.  They will go on the front of the tree as well.  I tried to get a shot of them but they are a little small and hard to capture, although you can clearly see them in person.  Here's the tree which is still very under-filled:

Well that's all I've got for now :)  I'll be back with more.

Have you all seen Sherry's Honeydukes Christmas Trees? Wow!

These are both sold now, and they are one of a kind.  But these are so great I have to show you all.  If you haven't joined Sherry's blog it's here:
http://19thdayminiaturessherrys.blogspot.com/
This where you can stay abreast of what's being made before it goes to our etsy store.  Often times someone speaks up for the items before they are finished and this is a good way to have first crack at them.

Anyways, I'll keep my mouth shut and just show them off now :)

First one:

All the pictures are just me trying to get a decent picture to turn out :)

Here's the next one, which is made to go outside or inside:

Wow Sherry!  Way to go-best work ever!

More progress on the Harry Potter miniature tree

I've finally had some time to work on the miniature Harry Potter Christmas tree again and I think it's coming out quite well.  I haven't done a lot to the tree decorations from where I last posted, because I've been a tad afraid of mucking it up :) 

I have a process to my artwork, and it goes something like this:

1) The idea forms

2) I get quite excited about it

3) I start the project and get a little ways along on it

4) I start second guessing myself

5) I stall on the whole thing while I try to figure out what I'm doing with it and where it should be going

6) More stalling

7) Abject self-loathing occurs because I know I'm either being lazy or afraid of it

8) I reason with myself that I MUST get on with it & get the thing done so I trudge back upstairs & stare hatefully at it for about 15 minutes & ponder what to do first :)

9) I finally start it back up again and everything falls into place like I thought it wouldn't and then I am usually very happy with how it turns out in the end, haha!

And this is precisely what's been happening as usual :)  So I quit the tree decorations and launched into the presents themselves.  I must say they have been a delightful challenge.  Each item in it's respective Christmas box is being made little by little.  I made the Nimbus broom and did pretty good at it I think.  It's in a long narrow box to the right hand side of the tree.  I had a time sewing the red ribbon bow for the top of the package but it turned out very cute I think.  Sewing is hard for me but I try very hard to keep it well done when I do try it.  If it turns out bad it gets scrapped and not used.  I made a decent remembrall for Neville, and he's got a tissue wrapped potted magical plant as well.  Hermione has a couple of lovely books tied up in a bow and the top book is called How to Train a Phoenix :)  I am currently working on a pretty spectacular box for Parvati Patil that will open in the front instead of the top that will contain a crystal ball for seeing the future since she is interested in Divination.  The box itself will be Indian inspired to reflect the origins of the girl it is going to.  I have some pretty fabric that ought to do to line the inside of the box, and the outside I'm not sure about yet but I will decorate it well to suit the style of the inside.  The front will flip down in front like this although it is a bad example but the only one I could readily find on google:

But the top won't open and there will be only a single compartment inside with no drawers and certainly no booze, etc. and it will be tall and thinner and very Indian in design.  As much as I can with what I have available that is :)  Not a great example but you should get the idea.  I though I might end up making the invisibility cloak but cannot find a good match for the fabric in my area :(  Bummer.  I won't make a bad one so therefore it won't be made.  I will made a wrapped package instead that looks as close to the one in the movie as I can and it will have the note on it that reads:

Your Father left this

in my possession before he died,

it is time it was returned to you. 

Use it well.

Under the circumstances I think that would be best.  I don't like making something very far from the original.  While making the Nimbus broomstick I printed out a miniature sized copy of it and worked right over top of the image for accuracy.  The bends in the stick are all correctly in place.  Even the broom part is like the original.  I trimmed the bristles in the same shape. 

Ok enough chatter, I'll just post pictures although you can't see the broom well unless you have it in front of you because it's in it's package.  All the presents are so they will be very hard to photograph.  You can clearly see them in person though. 

I took these in my photocube at night so they will be a little less defined:

Sheesh those are bad pictures :(  Too dark.  Oh wells, better ones will come from outside.  Here's a couple fabrics that will be used soon, the right hand one will be the inside of the Indian box.  The other might wind up on the outside of a package under the tree:

Very festive.  Well you'll see where I go with it in the end :)

Again, I cannot respond to comments unfortunately.  My comments section is not working currently so I will say thank you now should anyone post a positive response to this post.  Hugs!  Should you dislike it, well, that's ok too :)  Can't win 'em all!