Philadelphia Miniaturia 2009

It has been a week and a half since I returned from the USA, but since other things have kept me busy, I didn't have time to write a post yet!

I have had a wonderful trip of which I spent five days in Philadelphia before and during the Philadelphia Miniaturia. I took two woodworking classes which were a lot of fun and where I have learned a lot. I got to meet and spend time with some miniaturists and ended up having a great time with some of the English miniaturists after the show.

View from my hotel room in Philadelphia

It was my first time visiting an American miniatures show and I loved seeing everything I had read about and seen pictures of. The two American miniaturists who really stood out for me were Elle Piccolo (even though I am not a doll person) and June Clinkscales. I had seen pictures of dolls made by Elle before and always thought they were fun, but seeing the real ones made me realize they are far better than the pictures do them justice. The expressions on their faces and detail in their clothing makes you think you're looking at a little person frozen in time. Wonderful work.
The miniatures by June Clinkscales were my absolute favourites though. I have stood drooling over her work a couple of times during my visits to the show. Her treatment and eye for fabrics, texture and colour is fantastic! Her work has a lively and artistic touch which I often find lacking in miniatures. Here too, the pictures I had previously seen of her work showed me it was good, but the real thing is so much better! I hope one day to be able to buy one of her pieces. Do check out June's fabulous work on her beautiful website!

Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the miniatures mentioned. In fact, I didn't take many pictures at all. The few I did take I will show below. All of these were taken at the booth of Le Chateau Interiors from Louisiana. Their booth had a wonderful collection of antique and unique miniatures and these beautiful roomboxes below. I absolutely adore both roomboxes. Maybe that has something to do with the fact that my major in art college was textiles and fashion design. I apologize for the quality of the photographs, they were taken with flash and rather hurriedly. All photo's open to a bigger size when clicked on.


The Painting in the background suggests the scene represents Madame de Pompadour:




The figures in this roombox are old wax dolls, dressed by Le Chateau Interiors:

Check out the red coat on the wall, beautiful!

Ready for take-off

I know I promised to show you the rest of the pictures I took at the Arnhem show last weekend, but I've been so busy I didn't have time to post them. It will have to wait for about two weeks because tomorrow I'm off to the USA! And yes, I will be visiting the Philadelphia Miniatura next week, lucky me!

Because of my trip I thought I'd do a little post with an air travel theme. You have probably seen the KLM roombox I made several years ago.



But recently I discovered this fab little roombox:



It is called 'Cockpit d'avion' and made by Dominique of 'Les mains calmes'. I think it is wonderful. If you want to see how she made it, click here (there are 15 pages on the construction of the cockpit!)

Arnhem autumn '09

The past weekend I visited the Arnhem Dollshouse Show (Arnhem Poppenhuisstad). There were many wonderful things to see, including a few new exhibitors from England and Italy. As usual I didn't have enough time to see everything. I had planned to take lots of pictures, but only managed to take a few which I will show you below. I apologize for the quality of the pictures which is not that good, but at least you will get some impression of the show. All pictures can be viewed bigger by clicking on them.

These first four pictures are of a little circus scene shown by Louise Meertens of Uncia (no website available). I loved this little scene as it was so different from what is usually shown:






The next scene is from Sabine Reckwerth of Bibaminis (www.bibaminis.com). Although I really don't like the dolls (I hate the frozen robot-like pose they all have), I love the shop itself with all the sewing accessories:







The next five images are scenes by Dutch dollmaker Miep Felix Perquin (no website available). You will probably recognize Rembrandt van Rijn and his wife Saskia in the last three pictures. I love Miep's dolls because they are true character dolls, not dolls trying to look like real little people. The pictures don't do the dolls justice at all, but here they are anyway:







The last four pictures I am showing you today are of a Dutch "Poffertjeskraam" made by Jacomine Mink of In Het Poppenhuis. A Poffertjeskraam is a place where they sell 'poffertjes', a type of small round pancakes (delicious!). They are usually served with icing sugar and a knob of butter, but I like them with sliced bananas and whipped cream. In the last picture you can see the cook baking the poffertjes on the special poffertjes range. The same ugly (sorry, I really don't like them!)dolls were used for this scene as in the second scene. As there was an acrylic case over the scene, it was difficult to get a decent shot so the quality of these pictures is even worse than the previous ones:






Tomorrow I will show you my last pictures.

A class with Jens Torp

The past four days (and evenings!) I have spent taking a class with Jens Torp. Jens teaches a class near my home about once a year and I've been lucky to have been able to follow five of his classes already! Jens is a lovely man and a great teacher and I enjoy his classes very much. We all made a beautiful silver bowl on stand covered with shells and starfish. It was a lot of hard work, but as always I had a lot of fun and had a couple of great days. In the picture above you can see my finished result. The pictures below give you an impression of the proces of making the bowl on stand.


During day one: some circles cut out from sheet silver, some doming and filing done. The pretty green bowl was turned for us by a Canadian artist.

Marking out the starfish design for the foot of the stand.

All the elements making up the bowl and stand.

Cutting out the starfish for the stand.

The first cuts on the bowl.

At work late in the evening, hammering in a few designs.

After a lot more sawing, filing, sanding and polishing....finished!

Autumn colours

It is raining...the wind is howling around the house...yes, definitively autumn!
The garden is showing its beautiful autumnal colours which I have used as inspiration to fill an autumn basket. I have put the basket in the Hall, where it combines beautifully with the colours of the wallpaper, the wood and the porcelain.







I also made a wooden etagere filled with autumn goodies which came from a little kit. I did change the handle for one I liked better. The leaves in autumn colours were my first attempt at flower making about 6 years ago. Although they don't show up well on the photo's, believe me, they are nice and I like them very much. The etagere is in the kitchen of my dolls house.

Shaker style sewing box

This week I finally finished a miniature which I had started some time ago: a Shaker style sewing box. I copied it from a full sized one I had seen pictures of. The original sewing box was 19th century from Pennsylvania.

For the box and handle I used cherry wood which I bent using steam. The sewing box is lined with paper with a William Morris print. I made the little sewing spools and knitting needles and bought some of the other accessories. I have put the box in the Drawing Room of my dolls house.

Second 'Louis XV Fauteuil' class

I have been quiet for a while, but I have been busy! Last weekend I taught my second class the 'Louis XV Fauteuil'. The results were great again as you can see in the photo above. Below a few photographs taken during those three days:



The group hard at work

Some very fine sanding had to be done

Marking out where the routing has to go...

...and then actually routing out the fine lines

'Precise' drilling by eye

Time to relax...

...and time for hard work (guilding work continued past midnight!)

This beautiful doll was knitted by one of the students...

...and was allowed to test drive her chair.

Three chairs nearing completion

In the kitchen

Beautiful aubergine (eggplant) and courgette (zucchini) given to me three years ago by 'Comptoir de Rouvray'.

The tray and leaf vegetables were made by me. Cookbook by Tine Krijnen

Large wine bottle in basket by Waldemar Backert.

Some of my favoutite chocolate scnacks in miniature. These have far less calories.

I keep some kitchenware on the shelf below the work surface. Bottles and jug by Elisabeth Bettler (via OSWI Miniaturen). Copper by Philippe Bordelet. Bundt cake mold by Anita Degen ('Keukengerei van rond 1900').

Surprise gift

Today in the category 'treasures', something I was given only one week ago.
Last week Friday, before the start of the class I was about to teach, one of my students, Lisette, showed me a beautiful birdcage she had made herself. When I realized she was giving it to me as a gift, I became a bit emotional. Such a beautiful gift! See for yourself:






Dear Lisette, again, thank you so much for your lovely gift! I treasure it!

Summer class

This past weekend I taught my first 'Louis XV Fauteuil' class to seven students. We had three very busy and fun days where everyone had to work hard, but the end results were great! I'll share some photo's of the three days:

Group photograph

There was laughter...

...but also serious work.

New skills discovered

A lot of sanding to be done

Precisely measured fabrics

The finishing touch

After three days of hard work, seven beautiful little fauteuils in a row.

Two chairs are all finished!

Proudly showing off the (nearly finished) end result

Little Lamb

Not Mary's but mine. Yesterday was a happy day as one of our sheep gave birth to a beautiful and healthy black lamb. I had worried about her because last year the birth of her lamb went horribly wrong and she barely survived herself.



We didn't plan on having any lambs this year, but our ram had different ideas about that. Although he can be quite an agressive little b*****d, he is proving to be a calm and caring father.

Pain stops play

Due to a pinched nerve in my neck these past few weeks, I haven't been able to do much miniature work lately. Fortunately I recovered enough to enable me to teach my miniatures class this past weekend. More on that later this week because today I wanted to show you a few miniature links I found in magazines lately.

In 'The World of Interiors' August 2009 issue there was an article about the writer and artist Denton Welch, who found a lovely 18th century house in a friend's cellar and decided to restore it. The house is now in the collection of the Museum of Childhood in London. Click here for the link. On the website you will find may more dolls houses from their collection.

Denton Welch with dolls house. Photo from 1937 by Gerald Mackenzie Leet (The World of Interiors August 2009)

In the September 2009 issue of The World of Interiors an auction of handmade doll's houses from Transylvania is mentioned, to be held on September 16th at Few & Far in London. Although in the magazine there is a lovely picture of a dolls house, I coudn't find any further information online. Here is the link to Few & Far.

In the August issue of the Dutch magazine 'Linda' I found two miniature references. The first one is a cute and simple dolls house for children made from cardboard, available from Wannekes.
The second one is about artist Tracey Snelling, who uses miniature scenes as art installations. Probably too late to go see them at gallery Cokkie Snoei in Amsterdam (until September 1st), but hopefully the photographs will still be available at the website here.

Photo from the website of gallery Cokkie Snoei. Artist: Tracey Snelling

Resume normal proceedings

After a wonderful vacation it is back to every day life again. I've spent some time in France where amongst other things, I visited Monet's house and gardens in Giverny. Thanks to a post Karin Corbin did a few weeks ago I realised this would fit in perfectly with my travel plans.

Monet's House in Giverny

In the huge gift shop at the house I found a few miniatures for sale. I apologize for the quality of the pictures. Whether or not the quality of the miniature scenes is worth the €160,- is up to you. (Just to clarify, I did not buy these scenes).

Monet's Yellow and Blue Dining Room in miniature

Monet's Kitchen in Giverny in miniature

As you can see in the first picture and the one below I am very particular about colour and like to dress my son to the occasion. I planned my son's outfits ahead of time so he wouldn't look out of place LOL

Colours of the Normandy coast

Come fly with me...

Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard KLM flight 0641 to New York...


As it is the time of year when so many people board an airplane to get to their holiday destination, I thought I'd show you something I made a few years ago.







I have worked as a flight attendant for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines for more than 13 years . With KLM as my theme, I decided to enter a miniatures contest "Small fantasies in large packages", held by the Dutch miniatures magazine 'Poppenhuizen & Miniaturen'. I used an old KLM catering container as my 'roombox'. Inside the catering container the scene depicts a 12th scale version of part of an airplane galley and cabin. It represents a moment during boarding of flight KL0641 to New York.



In the front of the container part of the galley can be seen, where the flight attendant is putting away some meal trays which were just delivered by catering services.



The right hand side of the galley with the ovens, coffee machines and circuit breakers. The guy from the catering service is waiting for a fresh cup of coffee.



The coffee machine on the left has nearly finished brewing some lovely fresh coffee. Champagne is waiting to be opened for the business class passengers.



In the back of the container I built part of the cabin of the airplane. Passengers are boarding and a flight attendant is assisting one of the passengers with his luggage. These four dolls in the back were my first ever attempts at sculpting dolls.



As working with clay is not my favourite thing to do, I was very happy with the way the dolls turned out. Painting the faces was something I found quite hard, although that may have had something to do with the paint and tools I used back then... ;) Something I really liked and which no-one has ever noticed is that I have dated the piece by using a newspaper page with the year 2005 printed on it. Look at corner of the paper the old man is holding...



This was my first doll sculpt, a tourist class passenger searching for his seat number. He will find his seat further towards the back of the plane...


All pictures can be viewed bigger by clicking on them.
For more pictures and the full story on how I've made this roombox, please go here.

Floral frontage

In my previous post I showed you the pretty and rare little Clematis which appeared in my garden a few days ago. I've now transplanted it to a temporary pot (I am a bit short on plant pots at the moment, so the Clematis will have to share for a while) and put it outside the front door of my Canal house. It is looking lovely in its new position!


I must admit however that I got the nomenclature wrong. I am sorry to have mislead you, but while I thought this Clematis to be a 'Little Fiddly', it was actually Clematis microflorum 'Blooming Easy'. If you'd like to plant one of these lovelies yourself, you can visit these nurseries in the US or in the UK.

As I was snapping away, taking pictures of the lovely flowers decorating the Amsterdam coat of arms over the front door, I noticed the flowers had already started to attract the attention of the local wildlife!

Look! A beautiful butterfly has landed on one of the flowers. Amazing to see those little creatures in a busy city center.

Now if a butterfly doesn't just fly over and land on your flowers, like it did on mine, don't despair. I happen to know that your can buy butterflies on the internet! They will be sent in a sturdy little container where the butterflies will be perfectly safe and happy until you let them out. To buy your own butterflies (also known as 'God's Flying Flowers') go here.



all images can be viewed bigger by clicking on them

Look what I found in my garden!

Oh my! I've discovered a rare species of Clematis clambering up through a hydrangea in my garden. It is Clematis microflorum 'Little Fiddly'.


Clematis microflorum 'Little Fiddly': Charming, deep blue flowers with conspicuous butter yellow stamens.

Slow to germinate, seeds may lay dormant for many years. If attended to properly in the developing stages, it blooms profusely and is one of the longest flowering varieties. Once established and flowering, the flowers will last for many, many seasons.


As it is a very slow grower, no pruning is required if it doesn’t hinder other plants’ growth. In case of necessity, prune before flowering.
Ideal for growing over fences, walls, or scrambling over rocks and old stumps. Particularly useful for planting near small trees, shrubs and conifers. It makes good ground cover. A very hardy plant with low requirements.

Award

This past week has been a very busy week for me, with no time for miniatures at all. Now that the weekend has arrived it is time to relax again, and when the weather is hot like it is in Holland now, what better way to spend the day than to read a little in the shade? How fitting then that I received this award from Casey at Casey's Minis.

The rules for the award are: I have to pick up a book that I have at hand, turn to page 161 and write the fifth sentence on that page here. Then I have to pass it on to five other blogs.

The book I have at hand is a very comprehensive book on the history of Dutch interiors. I use it a lot as a source of research for my dolls house interior.
The title of the books is 'Het Nederlands interieur in beeld 1600-1900' (depictions of the Dutch interior 1600-1900).

When I turn to page 161, the fifth sentence says: "Het voorhuis, via een trap vanaf de straat bereikbaar, heeft een typerende inrichting: een wandtafel op gesneden voet, enkele stoelen langs de wand en aan de muur opvallend een grote wereldkaart op rollen." Translated: The front house, which can be reached via stairs from the street, has a typical interior decoration: a side table on a carved leg, some chairs along the wall and on the wall a large world map on scrolls.

Interestingly, page 161 shows a 1690 picture of the side elevation of a canal house on fire. Great for studying details in architecture and interiors. But also interesting as it shows a canal house exactly the way my dolls house is set up: the long narrow house between the front and back gable with the side wall cut away for viewing the rooms.


I know I am supposed to pass it on to 5 people, but I like to bend the rules a little as to the number of people I pass it on to. So, I am passing the award on to these two book lovers:

1: Hannajaleijona at Hanna & Leijona kirjat -books
2: Jody at Het Poppenhuis Kladblog: De Boekenkast

Thank you Casey for the award!


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Entrance hall

I took some photographs of my Canal House as I had promised to show you all more pictures of the house. Unfortunately the sun didn't want to cooperate today, so I only have a few photographs to show you. (Click for bigger images).

Through the front door:



Entrance hall table (made by a friend of mine):



Front hall:

Cover story

A few months ago I was interviewed for a story in the Dutch dolls house magazine Poppenhuizen & Miniaturen. The June-July issue was released last Friday with a picture of my dolls house dining room on the front cover. What a great surprise!

Two awards

I was given two awards recently. The first one is 'One Lovely Blog Award' given to me by Sans of Dollhouse Diaries , a wonderful blog about building a miniature Maharajah's Palace. Thank you so much Sans!

I would like to give this award to Moon for her blog Moon's Miniaturen. On her blog she shows us beautiful pictures of the miniatures she makes. Always lovely!

The second award is the Award of Light, given to me by Rosanna of la stanza di giuggiola
Rosanna is a very sweet person who wrote some lovely things about the award. Thank you very much Rosanna!

The rules of this award are:
1. - To complete the following phrase: I AM A LIGHT AND WANT TO ILLUMINATE...
2. - Link the blog from where the award came from and leave a message informing that person it has been received.
3. - Link and pass the award to five blogs that, in your opinion, are blogs of light.

I must say I find the first rule very difficult, as I don't feel I am a light at all. So I'll keep it fairly general: I am a light and I want to illuminate the beauty of creating something with your own hands.

I will only pass on this award to one person: Lisette of Dollhouse and Miniature Lisette . Her sweet and positive attitude always makes me smile and her lovely miniatures are proof a creative mind. Lisette's blog is in Dutch, but the pictures speak for themselves.

Antique fabric upholstery

For the classes I'll be teaching this summer I've made a few other chairs with several different fabrics and finishes on them. Just to show the students the different effects that can be achieved with the same design.

I upholstered this chair with an antique silk embroidered damask, brought from China 100 years ago by my husbands grandparents. The fabric was disintegrating and fading badly, but I managed to cut around the bad areas so that I had just enough to upholster the chair. I gilded the frame of the chair with real gold leaf and then aged it. I love the combination of the gold and the faded fabric. Even though the scale of the embroidery is completely out, I think it works really well.

The fabric on the back of the chair is less faded than the rest because I used the wrong side of the fabric. The front embroidery was almost worn away. What amazes me is that the wrong side of the fabric is just as beautifully embroidered as the right side of the fabric!

Yesterday Reiko asked me how I made the mirror which is in the Salon of my dolls house. I had to hunt for a picture but I have found one. I apologize for the quality, this photo was taken in the days I only had a very cheap digital camera at my disposal.


So here's how I did it: I first determined the shape I wanted the mirror to have. For inspiration I used a photograph of an antique mirror I found on the internet. I cut the mirror material (obviously not glass but some sort of plastic) with a jewelers saw in the shape I wanted. Then cut that same shape from a piece of wood with the same thickness as the mirror. It has to be cut very precise, because the mirror is fitted into the wood (see top left of the picture).
De gold decoration on the mirror is made with paper embellishments like Dresden Trim. You could just cut a frame from a picture of a mirror you like and use that. Maybe use some paper clay to give it some extra shape and depth. I have done that on the ceiling of the Salon and although it was a lot of work, it looks great.
Paint the frame any colour you want. Done!

I'm it.

I've been tagged again! This time by Sylvia of lotjesdollshouse. The rules of this tag are: Name the person who tagged you, mention 6 things that you like and 6 people that you are tagging, leave them a note on their blogs. I am bending the rules a little bit, as I am only going to tag one person (isn't that how the real game is played ?).
I am tagging Eliza of Wasting Gold Paper. Eliza is quite young but has been a miniaturist for ten years and has amassed a lovely collection of miniatures which she displays in her pretty Victorian dolls house. She also makes wonderful 1:144 scale miniatures.


Here are six things I like:

*1* I like teapots. That may have something to do with the fact that I like tea. But I also like the shape of them. Amongst my favourites are 17th and 18th century pots. The miniature silver one in the photo was made by Jens Torp, based on a 18th century pot from Brugge.

*2* I like silver objects. Most silver pieces in my dolls house were made by Jens Torp. His silver miniatures are absolutely beautiful. The pictures on his website don't do the silver miniatures justice.

*3* I like porcelain and earthenware, especially with blue and white patterns. Most of my porcelain pieces are by Henny Staring-Egberts and by Cocky Wildschut (both from the Netherlands).

*4* I like hand knitted sweaters, socks, hats and gloves. The two beautiful sweaters at the top of the picture (not mine, but I do love them) were knitted by Althea Crome, they are little pieces of art! The work in progress is something I've been working on for several years now, I'm on my last sleeve. It will get done I'm sure (even if it takes me another couple of years!)

*5* I like embroidery on articles of clothing and on furniture. The miniatures on the photo's above are very high on my wishlist! The two caskets are embroidered by Annelle Ferguson, who will be teaching this class at the Guild School in Castine, starting tomorrow! The pretty embroidered slippers were made by Annelies de Kort.

*6* I like to peek through windows.

Peony time again

Here is something I made and have shown on my Dutch weblog last year, but as it is peony time I thought I'd share these pictures with you here as well.

One Lovely Blog Award

Today I received this lovely blog award from Rosanna at la stanza di giuggiola. Thank you very much Rosanna, it really is lovely!