Miniature Rabbit Hole Alice in Wonderland updates 4-7-2012

All I have left to do is make some curtains for the window and dress and hair Alice and add her into the bare spot in front of the lower part of the mirror-plus clean it up really well inside (I sand everything in my craft room and the sanding dust gets all over everything before I realize what I'm doing) and the inside is done.  Then I can start the outside!  Yay!  So close to being done with the inside I could jump up and down!  The outside will be much easier to do, and hopefully faster :)  Of course like everything else this is much nicer in person.  My camera does bad things to my projects. 

Wow you can really see the dust inside from me sanding, but it'll come right off with a nice soft paint brush with a touch of windex on it.  Eeeek, it looks so gross right now :(  That'll teach me not to cover my projects while I'm building parts for them and sanding :(  I'll wipe it all out and get it sparkling before the final big reveal :)  If I had figured it out before I shot these today I would have cleaned it up.  Natural light has a way of showing everything I can't see inside in my craft room.  That white rabbit took me three days to sculpt!  It was a painstaking clay-building and sculpting process.  He really came out accurate to the Disney movie one though.  This is such a horrible, dingy-looking picture I'm ashamed :(  It makes it look so much worse than it does in person!  This project is going to be cleaned super well before the next pictures are taken.  I can't believe I did this!  Yuck.  Embarrassing.  Well I guess I have been working on it for months now, it should be dusty after sitting in my craft room where I'm working all the time.  I'll be back when I get curtains and Alice done :)  And for goodness sake, it'll be cleaned up then :)

 

Spring in Illinois brings babies, flowers, gardens growing, and Miniature Fairy things :)

Spring is in full bloom here in Illinois and I've been out working in my yard, trying to clean it up from the ickiness of fall and winter.  I have a large yard, lots of trees so it's difficult and time consuming.  Less time for mini making right now :(  And good weather brings in more family and friends to my house as well.  It's pleasant here so everyone comes in for food and fun.  Yesterday was no exception.  We attended a flea market in the morning, which for those of you who don't know what that is, it's a sort of huge gathering of people who bring things to sell like pets, livestock, rare birds, household items, handmade goods, plants, etc.  We picked up baby mallard ducks, and a baby goat still on a bottle.

For anyone who hasn't raised a farm animal like these, they get very attached to people if they spend enough time with them.  They will love you and remember you forever.  I had a little goat like this when I was a child and no matter how far out she was if she heard me call her she'd come running as fast as she could.  She clearly loved me and would follow me wherever I went without food as a lure.  As I grew older and spent less time at the farm, time would elapse before I saw her again.  And no matter how old she got or how long it had been seen she saw me, the minute she heard my voice she would come running.  She did this for no one else but me.  And when she got to be an old girl and a little on the fat side, she'd still give it her best and run and fast as she could to reach me no matter how long it had been since the last time I had visited.  If I sat down on the ground she would lay down beside me with her head on my lap.  So my daughter is about the age I was when I got mine so when I saw that goat I knew I had to get her :)  My poor husband groaned and rolled his eyes lol :)  So it was we spent the day trying to rig up a place for her and good shelter, and then I spent the rest of the day digging up all my plants in the area and replanting them away from this little plant killer.  She'll eat everything in sight :)  Although right now she takes a bottle and if she feels the milk isn't coming out of it fast enough she jerks her head in impatience and knocks it clean out of my hands if I'm not holding onto it good :)  Ok enough about the goat, hehe.  Sorry I'm just having fun with her, it's like I'm 10 again.

Flowers:

Argh the wisteria vine is toppling the flag pole it's climbing on again, I'll have to get someone to pull it back upright AGAIN :)  Killer vine, but so pretty when it blooms!

My bleeding hearts plant inspired the bleeding hearts fairy house:

And since it's spring which makes me want to do fairy things, I put together this little fairy sewing notion cabinet last night at the end of a long nap that had me up all night;

Complete with little mossy stool for sitting at the sewing machine and a tiny fairy couture dress on a vine hanger.  Of course the wind blew the feathers on the dress all around so it was hard to get a good shot of it.  It's not that messy in person because the feathers are still.

 

 

Sold-The Miniature House of Bleeding Hearts from the Fairy Realm, completed

Update, now sold.

All done, and it's very pretty in person.  I only have one of these houses in this particular size so this is one of a kind and I cannot remake it.  I have two much larger houses and one will be in a fairy style but not the same at all.  So this little house is truly OOAK.  It's very well done, I did my best.  The interior of the house has a battery powered tea light inside the base of the bleeding heart plant and I did an intricate set of cut outs in the clay all the way around so light shows through.  The tea light battery has a push button turn on switch and the battery is changeable from underneath the house.  The other things inside the house are an acorn cap sink with a hand-pump water spout with faux running water, and a tiny table and chairs with an acorn teapot and small flower cup.  As small as the house is, this is all there was room for with the tea light in the middle of the room.  I wanted it to look as though this bleeding hearts plant had grown up through the house and out the top of the roof.  What's more fairyish than a plant growing out the roof of your house ?  :)  At 10 inches tall by 7 1/2 inches wide, it's compact and space-saving and so cute :)

Sorry for the numerous pictures but I can't ever tell which are the best so I add more than I should :)

Welcome all new members and thank you all for your kind comments, I read them all when I check my email but don't always have time in my busy life to answer them.  I have two children (and various stray kiddies from around town who pop in to see mine) and numerous people from our families here on and off.  My house is sort of the hang out for everyone being larger than their houses and in a more central location so I tend to get everyone :)  Please don't take offense if I can't get back with you when you post, I wish I could!   

   

Miniature Alice in Wonderland Rabbit Hole update 3-24

A talking rose grouping in a wonderland-style planter box, a book shelf with yellow flower vase, and the chair gets a shabby chic little lap blanket :)  I have to make a tiny open book for the chair, as though someone was reading it and set it aside to come back to it later.  I decided to coat the floor with a thick coat of polyeurthane before I start the tiny table, drink me bottle, and eat me cake.  And I decided I have to make the white rabbit (orginal disney cartoon style) because it's impossible to have a rabbit hole scene with no late rabbit running for the door.  Currently I just have his head made, so no pictures yet.  And a few wall decoratons and these other things and then I can start clothing Alice.  She has no hair right now :o  I pulled off the hair to add my own that looked more like her hair in the movie.  I won't put hair on her until she's dressed or it'll get messed up.  Anyways I'll shush up and show the updated pictures:

I'm finally getting somewhere :)  And this looks so much better in person, anyone who's bought from me can tell you that :)  My camera isn't great at this stuff.

Going to see Hunger Games tonight, it looks pretty good.  Here's a good song from the movie...shut off my blog music player (click the stop button) if you want to watch them and if you don't don't worry about it.

   

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 few updates as of 3-11 :)

Hi!  Long time since I blogged so I thought I'd pop in and say howdy do?  My in-laws are here, and we're having a good time.  Sherry has been attempting to teach me to knit with various results :o  Such as...once it looked like a two year old got a hold of some knitting needles and tangled a big mess so I yanked that apart, and then I got it somewhat right and then took it apart anyway again because it wasn't perfect still.  Ah well.  I'll get it eventually!  Meanwhile I decided I had better do some work on the rabbit hole for my long suffering client who has been waiting quite awhile for me to get in gear and make something of it.  So I've made a few things.  And while I was doing that my ten year old daughter picked up my knitting needles and with a few lessons started to show her Mother what a bumbling idiot she is!  She made me look like a dunce :)  Within a half an hour she had knitted a basic stitch over and over quite perfectly.  Here she is learning (A little too quickly in my opinion):

Disregard the piles of stuff laying everywhere, I have guests right now :)

Oh and after I started to complain about the unfairness of her perfect stitches and fast learning skills, my kids decided to heckle and mock me:

Oh look at them...can't you just feel the love at my house?  Little monsters :)

Here's what I did to the rabbit hole while she was busy showing me up on knitting:

Ok there's still glue drying that you can see in here but you get the general idea.

And two projects that I'll be starting after this is over:

I picked up two basic chipboard houses that I'm planning on decorating in two completely different themes.  These houses are only 11 1/2 inches tall.  

 

I'm planning on one of them being very natural and quite fairyish, with a tree growing up through the center and out the top of the house.  The inside will have branches with small mossy landings with different household things on it such as a fairy tub, a bed, etc.  I have some different papers that I thought of adding in some how or where, but I'm not sure if they'll all work out.  Here's a couple of them I'm considering and a charm that will be wall mounted with a small spray of greenery to hide the bail:

As for the second house it will be very different.  Inspired by the work of H.P. Lovecraft

who heavily influenced American writer Stephen King as can be read here:

http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/lovecraft/index.html

and inspires many etsy artists such as this one:

Located for sale here:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/87720763/cthulhu-hp-lovecraft-prop-coffin-box

and this one:

located for sale here:

 http://www.etsy.com/listing/82161033/forest-demon-necronomicon-fragment

to sort of show you what style I'm going with on this one.  It'll be sort of haunted house/steampunk/mad scientist/monster house style :)  I have an assortment of neat old looking papers I'll be using in this one:

This is going to be so much fun :)  There will be weird science tables, sculpted creatures in glass tubes, old cabinets full of creepy ingredients and books, and the outside will look like a dilapidated haunted house.  But first I'll be completing the rabbit hole. 

     

Miniature Dollhouse complete

This custom order is finished, and just in time.  19th Day Miniatures former co-creator Sherry is soon to be here for vacation, and I'll be super busy while she's here for 9 days.  I say former because she's gotten into jewelry recently and has sort of dropped off on making minis for the time being.  I don't know if she'll be back or not around my store since she has her own now:  http://www.etsy.com/shop/HauntedMansionJewels?ref=si_shop

But anyway usually we make something cool together in mini form while she's back but this time we won't be doing that.  Last years collaboration turned out this really neat miniature headless horseman: 

which sold right away.

This time however I've asked her to teach me to knit.  I've always wanted to know how so hopefully she can help me out :)  There's always new skills I'm wanting to pick up on, another is needle felting.  I've bought some supplies to learn that in my spare time but I barely have that right now.  What little I have is taken up by planning our family vacation to the Harry Potter theme park, and all of those located here:

http://www.universalorlando.com/harrypotter/

I've bought tickets to everything already and we're staying here:

  http://www.universalorlando.com/Hotels/Three-World-Class-Hotels.aspx

The first video clip shows our hotel, the Loews Royal Pacific Resort and I am so excited!  Park to park unlimited access and all the perks :)  The kids are going to have so much fun, and they're taking a friend so it'll be even better.  If you ever get the chance to go you should :)  I can't wait to go to the "muggle" Honeydukes shop and have a look around.  Should give me ideas.  In the meantime I'm internet shopping for things to wear and take with us so the fun's already started for me.