A Beautiful World

Delft blue basket with fruit and flowers...

2012-01-31T11:42:00.000+01:00

Last week I took my yearly porcelain painting class from Cocky Wildschut again. This time we wanted to paint a scene on tiles. I found a lovely image of a basket of fruit and flowers on the Internet which I (and another student) decided to use as an example. Although Cocky had prepared a lovely example for us to copy (which was similar to this basket) we decided to draw freehand.

The nine tiles are about 3 x 3 cm. I did have some problems with my pen in the beginning as the lines were too thick to my liking. Later in the day I borrowed another pen which was so nice and thin, a pleasure to work with.

As I am a very slow worker I have to push myself to just get on with it, sometimes leaving mistakes as they are. Of course I always make time for tea and cookies.

On the top left corner of the photo you can see the example Cocky prepared for us. Normally you would make the back all black with pencil so you can copy the image straight onto the porcelain. Those lines are copied with the pen and then painted. The pencil marks will burn away in the oven. But as I said, I did it freehand this time, so no pencil, straight onto the porcelain with the pen.

Our work is ready to go into the oven. The vase and tiles on the right are mine. I made the vase another time but it needed some touching up. The tiles in the middle are by my friend who did a fantastic job, so delicately painted. She used half of the prepared example and added some elements freehand and it was only her second time painting on porcelain! The tiles bottom left are by Jeffry, who is such an accomplished artist!

In this photo you can see the wonderful work of the other half of the class. The two ladies who always sit opposite of me are very fast workers and make such beautiful work. They each finished three wonderful pieces where I only managed one. The coloured pieces are so lovely.

We hope to do another porcelain painting class next year, we all enjoy it so much!

Upon reflection...

2012-01-20T19:39:00.000+01:00

The Canal House I am building is based on a few paintings, existing canal houses and an 18th century architectural drawing of an Amsterdam canal house. In my plans I situated the dining room on the main floor, behind the front reception room. As I was studying another 18th century architectural drawing I realized the best place for the dining room would be on the ground floor, facing the garden.

So, a change of plans. This room will now be a reception room as well.

Last weekend I had great fun transforming a sheet of acrylic mirror into antique mirror glass which will become the overmantle mirror. It is hard to photograph but I think it came out very nice.

Between the two reception rooms I have made sliding doors. They are almost finished here, the decorative swags still need to be painted and then gilded again (they are too new and shiny now), and I have to find or make door knobs.

I routed a huge amount of wood for all the panels on the doors and the wainscoting. The adjoining room will have the same wainscoting so I need a lot (and I don't want to have to set up my router again). After the routing the fun could begin...not! Loads of mitering was needed. Not my favourite job.

Here's a photo you don't see too often on my blog...wires, a clamp, lots of unfinished things in plain sight. But I like the glimpse through the sliding doors from -what will be- the front room to the back room.

Fabulous fabrics

2012-01-11T13:36:00.000+01:00

I did some fabric shopping last week in Amsterdam. After I had finished the yellow curtains for the Dining room (which may now not be a Dining room after all, but more on that another time...), I thought it would be nice to use the same fabric in a different colour for the connecting Salon.

The fabric I used is by Den Haan & Wagenmakers, a Dutch company specialising in reproduction 17th and 18th century Dutch chinzes. The fabric I used is from the 'Ton sur ton' series, and has many colours to choose from. For the Salon I picked a beautiful blue fabric (photo two).

I also visited one of my favourite silk shops, McLennan's Pure Silk where I bought gorgeous silk fabrics.

Green silk changeant and the most luscious raspberry silk velvet. The colours are a perfect combination with a soft green rose fabric and wallpaper I had earmarked for a bedroom.

Earlier this year I had commissioned this painting (and the one in the photo below) from Leslie Smith. The original is by Christiaen van Pol. They were intended to go into the Salon, but the paintings look very nice with the bedroom fabrics as well!

The colours in this photo did not come out so well, as in reality they are coordinating much better. I want to use the soft blue silk for upholstery (even though I don't have any of the furniture yet), and maybe even do some embroidery on it. The silk velvet has the most beautiful colour called sea mist. The photo really doesn't do these beautiful colours justice.

These last fabrics are also intended for a bedroom. I bought a few yards of cotton with a typical 18th century feel, like this one with the wavy yellow pattern. The yellow and white fabric are very thin silks, which will be perfect for lining curtains.

A new year's recipe...

2012-01-03T23:38:00.001+01:00

Total time: three days

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes (x 8)

Ingredients (makes two curtains):

150 x 25 cm fabric

150 cm silk cord

coordinating sewing thread

sewing needle

2 small flower decorations

thick card stock

FrayStay

fabric glue

Pretty Pleater

Directions:

Cut four pieces of fabric according to the swag and drop pattern. Pull out threads to create fringed edges. Secure fringes with FrayStay. Glue silk cord along fringed edge.

Cut four pieces of fabric floor to ceiling length, the width of the window. Put FrayStay on all cut edges. Dry.

Pre-heat oven to a low heat. Soak one fabric panel in water, dab off excess and arrange fabric in Pretty Pleater. Place in oven and bake for 20 minutes, or until dry. Repeat with all fabric panels.

Cut two pieces of card stock the width of window x 3 cm. Cut four pieces of card stock 1 x 3 cm. Glue into two U-shapes and cover with fabric. Arrange and glue two pleated fabric panels on inside of U-shape. Repeat for other U-shape. Arrange and glue two fringed and pleated fabric pieces on outside of U-shape. Use needle and thread to pull up fabric in corners to create a swag and waterfall drop.

Cut two strips of fabric 1 x 10 cm. Pull out threads to create a fringe. Secure fringes with FrayStay. Use needle and thread to gather fabric and create a rosette. Glue flower decoration on rosette and glue this on the top centre of curtains.

Cut four 1,5 cm strips of fabric on the bias, fold long edges to the inside, iron and glue. Arrange as curtain tie-backs. Hang and arrange curtains in front of windows. Enjoy.

Well OK, this is not a real recipe, but it is what I have been doing the last few days. And I did put the fabric in the oven to dry it. So a recipe of sorts.

When I was going through my stash of fabrics a few days ago I found a piece of fabric which had the perfect colour for the Dining Room of my new Canal House. Although not silk as I had intended, the cotton looked so good with the wallpaper I will use in this room (see my blog post from July), I decided to go ahead and use it anyway.

I used the curtains in the background of this painting as inspiration. Of course I did not have a pattern to work from, so I just kind of made it up as I went along. They turned out quite well.

I still have to adjust some of the draping but I will do that when I install the curtains permanently once the room is finished. The other items in the room are just there for a bit of set dressing, they won't be in there when the room is finished.

Twas the night before Christmas...

2011-12-24T17:02:00.000+01:00

Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St Nicholas soon would be there...

Before you start asking yourselves whose blog you are reading, I can assure you that these two little people are actually in the Bedroom of my Canal House. Yes! These two lovely doll children are mine. Dolls. For a non doll person. Absolutely. I found them at the Arnhem fair last October at Angel's Little Ones and took them home with me.

Now mind you, these two lovely faces will not be residing in the Canal House. No, that is just a step too far for me. These kids will live in my Christmas House. But as that is far from finished I let them live in the Canal House for now. A few weeks ago I bought a lovely book 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' (made by Caterina) for them and I thought it was cruel not to let them read it until their house is finished. So here they are, big brother is reading to his little sister.

I bought the little sweater (Le Petit Tricot- no website) and socks (Annelies de Kort) in Arnhem as well. My friend and I were almost fighting over the little sweater, we both loved it but she let me have it! We have very similar tastes, even when there is a hundred things on a stall, we both pick the same thing.

The boy is wearing jeans for now, but I will make him a pair of brown corduroy knickerbockers when I have found the fabric. For the girl I made a pretty white blouse and little bloomers finished with lace. She is still waiting for her little pinafore dress (I am thinking of doing a little smocked bodice perhaps). But for now they are lovely as they are...

'Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good-night!'

Wondrously wonderful whale...

2011-12-23T19:48:00.000+01:00

I am a lucky girl! A few days ago I won Debora's giveaway, a miniature Narwhal tusk. Narwhals are the unicorns of the sea , with their beautiful long tusks they look like mythical creatures.

Debora is a very talented miniaturist and, hardly surprising, made perfect miniature versions of Narwhal tusks. Her attention to detail is wonderful, and is was a joy to unwrap my gift.

For the time being I have put the tusk in the library of my Canal House, but I want to give it s spot where the detail can be seen more easily. One detail I really like (and can't be seen in the photo) is the hollowed out end of the tusk, it really looks like the inside of a tooth.

But all of the detail is wonderful really, the beautiful curved grooves in the tusk, the little routed edge around the mahogany, the hand engraved brass plaque...

Thank you so much for your beautiful giveaway Debora, it is a little treasure!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

2011-12-16T12:23:00.000+01:00

...Christmas?

I was working a little Christmas scene and wanted to use little bottle brush Christmas trees. Of course I didn't have any so I searched for something to use instead. I found some chenille stems so I made them out of that. Very quick and easy, and they look so cute!

I thought some of you might want to make these too, so I made a mini tutorial for you. I made them in this blue-grey colour, but of course you can use any colour and use many different decorations on them.

For the base I used plastic thingies which cover up screws, but you could use a bit of a dowel or a pen, whatever you have laying around .

Have fun!

Attic bedroom

2011-12-11T13:26:00.001+01:00

Finally! I have started work on the attic bedrooms. As there is only one bedroom so far in the Canal House (which seems a bit odd for such a big house), I decided that the attic would have two bedrooms and a bathroom. For one of the bedrooms I have just finished making this bed.

The bed is in the Louis XVI style, made out of pieces of skirting board and matboard and upholstered with a white cotton. As it is mostly matboard (which basically is a thick cardboard) it is not as strong as a wooden bed would be. But as long as the inhabitants of the Canal House don't start jumping up and down on it, the bed should be fine.

The sheet and pillowcase are made of fine cotton. I printed the duvet cover on a piece of regular white cotton from an old sheet. The design is actually from an old rug, but I rather like it for the bed.

I made the mattress from a lovely striped cotton resembling ticking. It was supposed to be covered up by the bedding, but as I finished it I liked it so much I wanted to have it exposed a bit. Totally unrealistic of course, who ever sleeps on a mattress without any sheets? But it looks nice!

The painting is one I found on internet and printed to the right size for the little frame. I have had the frame for ages, I don't really know where it came from. It was very chunky though, so I reduced the thickness of it by at least half (just by sanding and sanding and sanding....) which now makes it pretty and delicate.

Thank you St. Nicholas!

2011-12-06T11:34:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I celebrated St. Nicholas eve with my family. The old Saint has been very generous to us (as always I should say) and we had enormous fun while opening our presents. I received a couple of very small packages which, as you can imagine, made me very happy.

In one of the gifts I found this beautiful antique opalesque glass and enamelled vase. It is French, made around the turn of the last century. I photographed it in the upstairs hallway (which I have nearly finished, but more on that later), the colours go so well together. Thank you St. Nicholas!

In another small package I found a box chock-full of old Chinese mother of pearl gambling chips. These are so very pretty, they all have different little designs on them. I keep getting new ideas of how to use them for my miniatures. I love these! Thank you St. Nicholas!

In the next few photos I will show you a not-so-little gift I received. My Dutch readers will probably recognize it immediately, as it is a well known part of our St. Nicholas tradition. The feast of St. Nicholas has been celebrated for centuries in the Netherlands. Many centuries ago, it became a feast celebrated within the family. As the children received their gifts anonymously (as the Saint originally did as well), their gifts were covered with a sack, the first letter of their names placed on top it to indicate who it was for.

For a long time now gifts are wrapped and the names are written on the wrapping paper. The idea of the first letter of the name has still remained, and we now get our initial in chocolate. These chocolate letters are available only around St. Nicholas time.

In my family it is no secret that I love, love, love a certain brand of chocolate, and when I get a big chocolate initial it usually doesn't last the day. The rest of the year I have to do without (which is probably for the best). Until now. One of my gifts was a big, heavy box. When I opened it I found this:

My first and last name spelled in chocolate letters! 14 of them! And my favourite brand!

St. Nicholas thought this would last me the whole year, so about one per month on average (yeah, like that is going to happen).

I am not sure whether or not to thank the old man for this ;) Thank goodness he also gave me new exercise clothes, although the size on one of them was XXL. Maybe he can see into the future? Oh, I surely hope not!

Busy days for St. Nicholas

2011-12-03T12:24:00.001+01:00

He arrived in the Netherlands three weeks ago, but this weekend he will be very busy! St.Nicholas eve is Monday night, but many people will celebrate today or tomorrow. Most people will help the old Saint and do the gift buying, wrapping, surprise making and poem writing for him.

Tall and small and XXSmall...

2011-11-13T21:29:00.001+01:00

...big exhibitions of the miniature world!

Remember this kitchen I made about a year ago? I am pleased to say it is now in an exhibition at the Museum Bredius in The Hague. The exhibition is called 'Tall and small' and shows a large collection of miniature silver, mostly from the 17th and 18th century.

It is the first time Dutch antique miniature silver is exhibited alongside some of its full sized examples. The exhibition shows hundreds of miniatures from the collections of the Museum Bredius and the The Hague antiques and jewelry dealer A.Aardewerk, supplemented with pieces on loan from international private collections.

For those of you who read Dutch, here is a link to a nice article in the paper De Telegraaf .

The exhibition can be seen until January 15, 2012.

Meanwhile at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (Municipal Museum of The Hague) there is another miniatures exhibition. This exhibition is called XXSmall and 'offers a model world of the past and present that will enthral visitors of all ages' as it says on the museum's website. The items on display will not only be Dutch, but from many other countries as well. You can read all about it here.

The Gemeentemuseum Den Haag houses the beautiful Sara Rothé dolls house, which dates from around 1745. This is one of the photos I shot of the dolls house interior when I visited the museum in June. (Bottom left room in the dolls house). The chest of drawers holds many silver items, a must in an 18th century dolls house!

The museums website says: 'Silver miniatures will be a specific focus of this exhibition, with a literally dazzling display occupying a dedicated gallery and a separate publication being issued on the subject.'

The exhibition can be visited until March 25,2012.

I certainly will be visiting both exhibitions!

Fair find

2011-11-09T17:42:00.000+01:00

One of the students I met at Chris Malcomson's class last week was Hubert Boom. Before the class started he told Chris he also made some furniture and asked whether we would like to see it. But of course! Don't we always want to see what others have made? Hubert took a box out of his bag and opened it up. When he presented us with the cabinet he made, our jaws dropped...

Hubert showing one of his cabinets at his brother's table at the Arnhem Fair.

Hubert showed us the most beautifully made Louis XVI cabinet. Perfect in every detail. Made exactly as the full size version was made. Hubert told us that he's a cabinetmaker by trade and enjoyed using his skills to make a few miniatures. We all wondered why on earth he was taking the class!

English bookcase (nearly finished) made of beautiful palisander wood.

During the fair, Hubert was helping his brother at his table (Piccolo, but the shop has now closed), where he had three more cabinets to show us. I took these photos at the fair, so unfortunately you can see me and my camera in the refection of the glass. This gorgeous bookcase was almost finished when I saw it.

It is so beautifully made. The two doors on the left reveal open shelf space, the door on the right hides three drawers, all fully dovetailed of course.

Early 19th century Dutch cabinet.

I love this cabinet. It is so typically Dutch. Just some very fine and simple decoration in the middle between the doors and below the columns. This cabinet was made from mahogany. The full sized cabinets were often mahogany veneered onto an oak construction or solid oak.

My mother has a similar cabinet in full size. I immediately noticed the bowed shelf inside the cabinet. Fantastic! What? A bowed shelf fantastic? Yes, because the full scale cabinets all have bowing shelves due to the direction of the wood grain used for these shelves. My mother's cabinet has bowing shelves as well.

Fine oak Louis XVI cabinet.

This is the cabinet Hubert showed us in class. He used the finest oak he could find for its construction. Oak typically has quite a coarse grain which makes it difficult to use in miniature projects. Hubert managed to achieve a very fine result.

Louis XVI style cabinet interior.

The beautiful fittings were specially made by Jean Claude Martin.

All the drawers are dovetailed, of course.

Detail of the broken pediment on top of the cabinet, with ornamental vase and carvings.

Hubert does not have a website (yet), so I offered to show his cabinets on my blog. I am sure you all don't mind me doing that ;) as I am sure you will all agree we have got another fabulous miniaturist in our world!

A day at the fair...

2011-11-02T14:47:00.000+01:00

...well a few days actually!

Last week I spent a few of days at the Arnhem Dollshouse Fair. My friend and I signed up for a Chris Malcomson class, making a Dutch wall table from around 1705. During the first day of class we worked at building the basic structure of the table, veneering and making a start on shaping the table legs.

I booked a wonderful hotel room in Arnhem with a huge roof terrace overlooking the Rhine river. The weather was gorgeous so we sat outside with a cup of tea working at shaping our table legs.

Friday morning, sunrise over Arnhem as seen from our hotel room roof terrace. Isn't this absolutely glorious? I assure you there was no trickery involved in this shot!

Tha table apron after a few coats of shellac. Just look at that shine! The table top had just had a a first coat of shellac and has been sanded down.

My table legs nearing completion. It is quite difficult to get them all looking the same!

Chris had given us Cuban mahogany from a broken old box of around 1740 to make the legs. I love the idea of the wood having so much history already. The wood may even be hundreds of years older as of course we don't know when the tree of which it came was felled.

After the class was finished Friday afternoon it was time to hit the Fair. Even before the first night was over, I managed to spend a big chunk of my budget. On Saturday I did some very careful shopping and went home with only 10 cents left in my wallet. Well done to me for resisting to go to the cash machine or pulling out my credit card!

I never have enough time at the fair, even though I am there for two days. There is just too much to see, too many people to talk to. It was lovely to meet a few fellow bloggers, like Debora from http://petitpunt.blogspot.com/, Peiwen from http://oiseaudenim.blogspot.com/ and Audrey from http://www.bopeep.nl/BoPeep/Welkom.html

Here is a quick shot of some of my purchases. Many of the items I bought are to go into this new house I am working on. Here you see the table I made in Chris' class (it just needs a final coat of shellac). On the left you can see one of the lights I bought from Ray Storey, who was at the show in person. He is such a lovely man, always full of great stories to make you roar with laughter.

On top of my little table are some bottles and glasses I bought from The Little Dollhouse Company from Canada. They come over each year and bring us a lovely collection of miniatures to choose from. In the scene I am planning for this room I would like to have two Martini cocktails. I got the glasses, now I still have to mix the cocktails!

Take a seat...

2011-10-14T17:46:00.000+02:00

Even though the rooms in my new house are not very big, I think it wouldn't look good if I put in many small pieces of furniture. When I was playing around with some odd pieces to see what would work, I had also used a half finished chair I started working on about four or five years ago. I never finished it (see the green chair in my previous post).

As the green unfinished chair was sitting in the room, I thought its style would actually work very well in the room. I just needed the finish the arms, put new upholstery on it and make some legs for it. I love the little casters on the legs!

Here's a little peek at the legs under the skirt.

The chair isn't quite finished yet, as it really needs some upholstery trim to hide the selvedge of the fabric. I do like this selvedge with the line and dots (thats why I kept it on show), but it also has the little holes which you often see on selvedges.

Languishing beauties

2011-10-09T15:10:00.000+02:00

I have started on a new house. Ah, I can hear you say: "What, another one? But you haven't even finished your first house and just recently started building the second!" Well dear friends, you are right. I will tell you what happened...

Remember this beauty? I found her last year at the flea market in Lille (see my post on it here). I had her on display in my real house for about a year now, but wanted to use her in a miniature scene. She didn't really fit in either of my Canal Houses, so I thought of maybe using her in a small roombox.

Then there is this beauty. I know, she doesn't look like it now, but she has the right bone structure and just needs some careful dressing and styling to turn her into something wonderful. I bought this Georgian style house from a very talented man several years ago. He had started building it and partially wired it, but could not finish it due to medical problems.

Although the structure is quite large, the hall and staircase are huge, making the rooms -which have all different levels- on both sides fairly small. For a long time I had plans to make it into my own costume institute and house my beautiful costume collection. As my costume collection so far only exists in my head, the house stood in a corner of my workshop, collecting dust and housing spiders.

I had made up my mind to sell the house, when all of a sudden I heard a little voice saying "Please give the house to me? I will make it into a lovely, comfortable country house!" How could I refuse? I could see it so clearly: a well loved house, which has been in the family for many years. Set in the years before the second world war...

Yes, I had the builders in immediately, pulling down walls, raising ceiling heights...

But the real birth of the new house started with this little bundle of joy. A few weeks ago my carpenter friend gave me some pieces of beautiful (and apparently quite rare!) American Black Walnut veneer. I am always very grateful for these leftovers as they are perfect for my miniature projects.

I took advantage of the hot weather we were having up until last week, and spent some time in the garden cutting hundreds of parquet flooring pieces. I then spent a leasurely afternoon sitting in the shade, fitting all of the pieces together to make up a beautiful floor.

I built a Georgian fireplace mantel to complement the Georgian façade of the house. It looks very good in the room. I put some odd pieces in the room to see how it worked, and even though it really is a small room (as you can see clearly in this picture the room is on two levels as well) I think it will work.

I decided on a brick back for the hearth, to match the parquet flooring. The bricks I used are leftovers from the ones I used on the street in front of my Canal House. Never throw anything away ;)

With watered down acrylics I changed the colours of the bricks a bit to go with the warmer tones of the floor.

From my stack of fabrics I picked out the colours I wanted to use in the room. The pretty portrait was the starting point for it all.

For the chimney breast and the back wall I used this very attractive moiré print cotton. I love the subtle playful lively effect against the rather strict and architectural fireplace mantel.

On the other walls in the room I used this warm red cotton with linen effect. I must say how much I love working with fabric, I think I will use it all through this house. Must order a lot more though, as I am fast running out on my stock.

By looking at this last photo, can you guess what my overall theme for the house will be?

Lights, camera, action!

2011-09-29T00:06:00.000+02:00

I have put some of the finishing touches into the bedroom of my canal house, finally! Ceiling moulding, skirting boards, decorative trim around the windows, fire basket, curtain rod and curtains...All little things but they take up so much time! I think the bedroom looks a bit like a set from an old movie now...

When this was all finished I felt the room needed more lights. I didn't want to wait until the next dolls house fair so I rummaged through my drawers and found an old silver ..well I'm not sure what it was, but I could call it a 'jewelry finding'. I played around with it a bit, using some glass paint and silk string and made it into a very eclectic light to hang above the chest of drawers. It is a bit odd, I admit, but I rather like it.

I also wanted a light on the fireplace mantel. I started out making a 'candle in a bottle' type of light with a lovely red glass bottle I had. The bottle was great and I managed to drill a hole in it to thread the wire through, but the candle was looking a bit too crude so I put the whole thing aside. I then found a pretty clear glass vase in my drawer and decided to use that and make a little lampshade for it.

In my hunt for material to use for the lampshade I came across a box of little beads, glass on the outside and silver on the inside, perfect for a pretty lampshade! I cut the lampshade from clear acrylic and wound a string of beads around it until the whole lampshade was covered (keeping the beads on the outside only).

I am quite pleased with both lights. I will adjust the voltage a bit so they don't shine so bright, but that will be in the future. Photographing the bright lights was not easy! When I looked at the photos, I noticed a spot in many of them. Unfortunately this is a spec of dust inside my camera. That's what you get when you leave your camera in the same room as where the sawing and sanding is done.

Learning from David Hurley

2011-09-21T13:08:00.000+02:00

David Hurley (no website unfortunately) makes the most beautiful, finely carved miniature Tudor furniture. About a week and an half ago (how time flies!) he taught a three day class close to where I live. I was one of the lucky people able to attend his class. We made a small chest with three carved panels.

It was a fantastic class, I have learned so much in those three days! I am really pleased with my results even though there is still a vast amount of room for improvement. Below are some photos of the finished chest.

Queen Mary's Dolls' House...updated

2011-09-18T22:47:00.000+02:00

...on 'The Queen's Palaces'.

On Monday 19 September, BBC One will broadcast part two of a three-part documentary about the official residences of Queen Elizabeth. In this episode of Windsor Castle, Queen Mary' dolls' house will also be featured. Watch the trailer below:

Don't miss it! It starts at 9 pm in the UK and at 10 pm in Holland (and most of the rest of Europe).

Yesterday I received an email from miniaturist Wil Leussink with a wonderful link to The Royal Collection Podcast: http://www.royalcollection.org.uk/default.asp?action=article&ID=880
Starting at about 1:30 minutes, the podcast shows some wonderful images from The Queen's Dolls' House.

Thanks for the link Wil!

Les assiettes de Quimper...

2011-09-12T12:28:00.001+02:00

These are the seven other Quimper plates which were in the set I bought. I bought them at 'Art de Cornouaille' (http://adc-quimper.fr/5/Accueil.html). They were € 20 for a set of ten. I believe they were made as 'feves des rois' (to be baked in a cake). Although not handpainted, they are real porcelain. I saw two sets when I was there, 2009 and 2010, mine are from the 2010 set I believe.

I found more sets on the internet, also quite nice I think: http://www.feves-collection.com/feves-assiettines/241-assiettes-personnages-de-bretagne.html and http://www.feves-collection.com/feves-assiettines/239-assiettes-de-quimper.html (and many, many more to be found in the sidebar). Unfortunately they seem to be out of stock at the moment.

Petit souvenir de vacances...

2011-09-08T12:21:00.000+02:00

...la faïence de Quimper.

I spent some time in Brittany this summer, on the beautiful coast of southern Finistère. On a visit to the nearby city of Quimper, I came across a collection of 10 miniature porcelain plates, all in the famous Quimper pottery style. Of course I had to buy them, such a nice souvenir of my vacation!

The photo's below show the old city of Quimper, the Cathedral of St. Corentin and some of the typical 15th and 16th century half-timbered houses. I think some of these houses would be a perfect inspiration for a miniature version, don't you?

The day we went to visit Quimper it was very busy on the roads into the city, and finding a parking space was not easy ( and that's putting it mildly!). What we didn't know, but apparently everyone else did, that it was the day of the annual city fair. Hundreds of stalls were lining the old city streets. It made it more difficult to get a good look at the houses, but it was fun anyway.

It's all in the detail...

2011-07-23T12:31:00.006+02:00

...some of it anyway...

A couple of days ago someone asked me what I look for when I add details to my dolls house. I think probably what I look for most are style, colour, shape and authenticity. These all have to fit the bigger picture of course.

The photos above are from the bedroom in my canal house. The room, although modern, has 'original' decorations from around 1750, is very feminine and has a pink and cream/ warm grey colour scheme.

In the first photo you can see a bit of authenticity coming in. The candlestick is a 1750 design. The candle seems to have been used as the wick is black and there are drips along the side of the candle.

In the second photo you can see that the twisted shape of the vase is repeated in both the candlestick and the perfume bottle.

The colour scheme is picked up in the flowers, the wall covering and the embroidery on the wall. The pink is counterbalanced by a few splashes of green.
To make it all a little bit more interesting I have added something which is the opposite of the bedroom theme: modern, black and male, an electric razor (by ULUS miniatures).

Guilding the light

2011-07-11T09:52:00.005+02:00

I have been very busy lately, no time for miniatures! A few weeks ago I did manage to work on a pair of wall sconces for the dining room of my new canal house.

As I was rummaging through my box of unused miniatures, I found a pair of metal wall sconces with candles which I bought several years ago. Unfortunately the finish on them was not the same, one was a beautiful shiny golden metal finish, the other one seemed to have been painted gold. I never really liked the painted finish.

I decided to guild and electrify them. I use 23 carat gold leaf from Giusto Manetti for my guilding. A book of gold leaf costs around 30 euro's but will last you a long time as the projects are so small.

The sconces had very pretty candles in them, but I wanted to have working lights in the sconces so the candles had to come out. As they were glued in pretty well, I used a ball router bit in my Dremel to remove the candles from the holders.

I cut a pair of electrified candles down to size as they were too long for the sconces. After testing them with a battery I glued them into the holders and onto the sconces.

As I don't have time now to finish the wall on which the wall sconces will hang, I took a quick photo of the elements I will use on the wall. The wall will have panels with pretty yellow wallpaper from Small Interiors in them. Above the panels I will use Dresden paper decorations.

Now you see it, now you don't...

2011-06-29T08:36:00.009+02:00

...and how things don't always work the way you'd like them to.

The daily morning weighing session. He is growing steadily!

What?!! A cutting board in the shape of a rabbit? What are these people like? I'm outta here!!
An update on the little hare we were raising: it is running around in the fields somewhere! Two weeks ago when he was outside in the rabbit run, our darling sheep managed to open up de side door of the run by laying against it. After seeing the cutting board I think our little hare decided it was time to go ;)

A few photos from my files: cabinet on the second floor landing (made by Erna who, a few years ago, gave all of her miniatures to me to make room for a new hobby).

I received a few comments about the photos on my blog going missing. I know, I am sorry! In one of my previous posts I mentioned I was getting a warning from Photobucket that I was approaching my limit of 10 GB of free monthly bandwidth. I think I know the cause of it now (see my post here) and my photos should be back July 2nd. Until then, my apologies for the interruption!

For some reason I am either not getting email notifications of comments left on my blog, or getting them two or three days later than I should. Anyone else having this problem? I don't know whether it is a blogger thing or whether my email program is having problems.

My list of followers is still back, most of the time anyway. Sometimes I can see it, sometimes I can't, but at least that is a huge improvement over not being able to see it at all.

Visits and viruses...

2011-06-25T11:46:00.009+02:00

...and how both can be good.

Yesterday fellow miniaturist Debby came all the way from Australia to visit me and look at my canal house. Well, obviously she didn't come all that way just to see the dolls house, but as she was holidaying not to far from where I live, I invited her over.

I very much enjoyed meeting Debby and seeing her work on the photos she brought with her. She had photos of a quilt shop, a nautical shop, a Venetian glass and jewelry shop and a few photos of her dolls house. All of them packed with detail, made with precision and great creative solutions.

Debby made me something as well! On the photos below you can see something typically Dutch, a box of chocolate flakes, which I eat on my bread almost every day. Debby made me a miniature box and a plate with two slices of bread with flakes. Such a thoughful gift (Debby read my website very well!) I love it!

Visits, yes, definitely a good thing. Now how about good things and viruses? Last week we had unknowingly downloaded a virus by clicking the X on a popup window. The virus stopped us getting to our regular virus scanner and was pretending to scan the computer for us, telling us we had to download this and that to prevent all kinds of bad things happening to our computer.

Our local computer store sorted it all out for us, but the computer had to have a clean reinstall. We lost a lot of info, emails etc. Very annoying and time consuming. How can that be good then, I hear you ask. Well the good thing about it all is that I got my followers back!! Just as many of you, I lost my followers list back in April, and I couldn't get it back whatever I tried.

So unless this is the way you want to get your followers back as well, here is some free advice from me (courtesy of our local computer experts): don't close an unwanted popup by clicking anywhere in the window, instead, find the popup tab on your taskbar, right click it and close it that way.

Update 26/6: Please read how Karin Corbin dealt with this very same problem in the comment section below!

Photos, fotos, foto's, φωτογραφίες, zdjęcia, foto, фото, صور , Kuvat, fotoğrafları, bilder, תמונות, fotografi, Myndir, etc.

2011-06-19T15:54:00.015+02:00

Many times I have been asked for a photo showing all of the rooms in my canal house. Yesterday I had a few lovely ladies visiting me and they commented on how they finally understood how the rooms were situated in the house. There was a lot of 'Oh I thought this room was....' and ' Ah, now I understand...".

I had wanted to put a photo up on my website for a long time, but one on which you could click the rooms to take you to the webpage for that room. For a long time I could not figure out how to do that, but today I did it and it wasn't difficult at all.

When the house is all finished I will take a new picture of it, as this one is a bit gloomy (just like the weather today) and I noticed not all of the lights are working. Click on the photo and you will be taken to my website where you will find my 'clickable' rooms. Confused? ;) Update: I see the photolink to the webpage is not working, click here instead.

While I am on the subject of photos...The photos I show here on my blog are linked through Photobucket. This allows me to show bigger photos on my blog, which I like. Yesterday I received an email from them saying I was approaching my limit of 10 GB of free monthly bandwidth.

The same thing happened last month. When I checked what was going on, I found that my Windsor castle photo was getting a huge amount of hits. I thought it must be the name of the photo so I changed it, and sure enough, the hits stopped.

So today I checked out which photo was causing the hits this time. It was the KDF hat one (last post). I really could not understand why so many people wanted to see that particular photo. I even googled the name I had given the photo to see what came up, it was an old VW car!.

Then all of a sudden it dawned on me...it is the first photo of each of my posts which is getting soooo many hits...the same photo that shows up on each blog which has a bloglist which includes my blog! Each time one of these blogs is opened, that picture is shown as well.

Easy solution: the first photo on my blogposts will be uploaded through blogger again. Smaller than I'd like, but it will work!

Hat to show you

2011-06-11T09:08:00.005+02:00

A few weeks ago I visited the Kensington Dollshouse Festival in London. I spent two wonderful days admiring all of the beautiful miniatures on show and chatting with the exhibitors. I love talking to other miniaturists and when I am at a show I always run out of time and miss several tables because I have been talking to so many people.

But by talking alone these miniaturists would not be able to do what they do. So of course I also bought a few lovely miniatures, some of which I will show you below.

While I was waiting for Gerd Felka to find me a box and wrap up my purchase from him (I'll show you what I bought from him some other time), I wandered over to a neighbouring table and admired some hats. I really liked this Marie Antoinette inspired model and thought it would look good in my bedroom.

The hat was made by Annette of The Little Hatter. She had a wonderful display of hats, corsets, parasols, hat boxes and dressing screens. When I got home I 'dressed up' a Chrysnbon dress form with linen to act as a perfect hat stand.

When it was nearly closing time on Sunday, I came across Ellie de Lacy's table. I loved her books! They are covered in thin leather and most of them have a wonderfullly used look. I bought several books from her, one of them this book about butterflies.

It was wonderful to meet and talk to Small-Time's Keith Bougourd and his wife. Keith made the beautiful artist's desk and chairs I bought last year (see post here). I had only seen his work online so it was a bit of a gamble, but it was well worth it! This time I bought a small tea caddy, veneered in faux tortoise shell. The photos are not that good, everything looks much better in real life.

The small book is by Ellie de Lacy. The twine spools are by David Edwards. I love the little labels on them. The silver pair of scissors are by Jens Torp. Again, these photos are not very good, everything is so much more beautiful in reality.

Lastly, two more items for my collection of sewing accoutrements: a lovely wooden sewing tape measure made by David Provan (no website I'm afraid) and a beautiful little ivory thimble case with a 14 carat red gold thimble made by David Edwards.

Say Cheese!

2011-06-04T11:17:00.003+02:00

In May I was having a lucky streak, not only did I win Sylvia's give away and win a bid for an miniature auction lot, but I also won Hanna Lindroth Miniature Chef 's give away!

It came in the mail last week and when I opened the package, I immediately got a craving for cheese. I think that says a lot about how good it is, doesn't it?
I had a bit of a problem getting a good shot of the cheeses, especially the Brie. A bit difficult to see perhaps, but it has that perfect consistency of young Brie, the soft inside and the slightly dryer rind. The knife in the photos was made by Sabiha, I thought it looked good on the board.

The cheese board now lives on the kitchen table in my Canal house kitchen, where it looks just perfect. Thank you very much Hanna, I love it!

La Belle Demoiselle

2011-05-28T15:51:00.005+02:00

Last week I taught my Louis XV style bed class to a group of miniaturists at my house. We had a lovely day even though my students had to work really hard. Before they all knew I was such a slave driver (lol) one of the students gave me a beautiful little gift.

Margot of La Belle Brigante is a talented dollmaker. She makes beautiful 12th scale dolls, but also makes these wonderful tiny dolls of which she gave me one. If you go over to her weblog at labellebrigante.blogspot.com you may still be in time to enter Margot's mystery give-away which ends May 31st!

The tiny lady Margot gave me is only 4,5 cm high and was made from fimo and silks. I found a perfect spot for her in the dining room. She's a lovely companion to the lady in the painting and the one on the blue and white plate.

Thank you very much Margot!

*Note to Catherine: I'm working on it ~lol~

A hare raising experience...

2011-05-27T11:21:00.004+02:00

...not a miniature post, but still very small and cute!

When we came back from our trip to England last week, we had a new addition to the little menagerie at our home: a baby hare. Our neighbour's kids had rescued the poor little thing from the claws of a cat and brought it to our house. As we weren't home, my mother (an experienced maternity nurse lol) and our son took care of the new baby.

He has been thriving on goat's milk, generous portions of hay, herbs (read: weeds from our garden, of which we have plenty) and special baby bunny food. He (I think it is a he) is now heavy enough to be weened off the milk. Thankfully he is eating all of the other things very well as well.

We have to let him go eventually, as we have a law in Holland which states you cannot keep any kind of wildlife in captivity. So we have to get him slowly reacquainted with the big outdoors again soon. Until that time, we are so enjoying him...isn't he the just the sweetest little thing?

The Queen, the Duke and His Master's Voice...

2011-05-22T18:34:00.010+02:00

London...one of my favourite cities in the world. I was able to go there last week and spend several days enjoying art and miniatures. It was wonderful.

After a post by Linda (Une Petite Folie)a few weeks ago, I was reminded to go and visit Windsor Castle and see Queen Mary's Dolls' House.
The Dolls'House is huge but beautifully made. I love the fact that so many companies and artists contributed pieces to fill the house. It is a shame that it is difficult to see all the detail as you - understandibly- can't get very close to the rooms. However, the two books about the dolls' house (on sale in their bookshop and on Amazon) and the website about The Queen's Dolls' House are very good and have detailed photos.

Unfortunately it is not allowed to take photos of the dolls house, so instead, here are two photos I took at Windsor Castle.

We spent two full days at the fabulous Victoria & Albert Museum, looking at some of their jaw-dropping collection. In their silver section I was able to name and date several full sized silver pieces, not because I am an expert on silver, but because I own some of them in miniature, made by Jens Torp. I thought that was so funny, collecting miniatures can be very educational!

Here is a rare photo of me, reflected in a late 17th century toilet service mirror.

During the weekend I spent a fabulous two days at the Kensington Dolls House Festival. I planned to take lots of photos (I even bought a handy little camera so I didn't have to carry my bulky and heavy DSLR camera with me), but I forgot all about it! I promise to take some pictures of my purchases soon though, and give you a little show report that way.

On the last day of our trip we went to Chiswick Auctions. When we arrived we saw a notice on the door that filming was in progress for the ITV show Dickinson's Real Deal. We don't get ITV in Holland, so I don't know this particular antiques show, but I do remember David 'The Duke' Dickinson from when he presented BBC's Bargain Hunt.

When the auction started they were still filming, so even though I won't be able to see it myself, all of you ITV viewers out there may be able to catch a glimpse of me in one of these 'Real Deal' shows! (If only I had known they'd be filming me, I would have put on a nice frock and some make-up, haha!)

During the viewing at the auction house I spotted a lot of around 20 glass topped boxes from the 1920's, some of which contained miniatures. The estimate was within my budget, so I decided to bid for it. When my lot came up, the bidding was fast and over before I knew it, but I got the lot! It was very exciting.

These are a few of the miniature items which were in the lot:

These two boxes are my favourites. Although the items in the second box look a bit tatty, it is not as bad as it looks. The two items on the outside are actually jars of marmelade and strawberry jam, the same ones can be found in Queen Mary's Dolls' House! The paper tops have started to disintegrate, but the rest is in reasonable condition.

And lastly: a real record from 'His Master's Voice' in miniature, with a recording of 'God Save The King'. A copy of this record can also be found in The Queen's Doll's House.

Isn't that just the most perfect souvenir from a miniature filled week's visit to London? I absolutely love it.

A win-win situation

2011-05-19T16:36:00.003+02:00

Two weeks ago I was the lucky winner of Sylvia's giveaway. She sent me this wonderful hand crocheted shawl/ bedcover. As I don't crochet myself, it is doubly wonderful to receive a gift like this. You can see in the photos below how finely it is made and how beautifully it drapes! Sylvia ( lotjes dollshouse ) sure is a multi talented woman!

Yesterday I came back from a week's holiday in London (more on that in another post soon) and found out I had won another giveaway. How lucky is that?! I won Hanna's giveaway (Miniature Chef), a rustic board with handmade delicacies. Again something I don't do myself, so a wonderful gift to receive. Of course I will show photos as soon as it comes in the mail.

Thank you Sylvia and Hanna!

Bees wax and elbow grease

2011-05-03T13:05:00.005+02:00

The Floor Scrapers by Gustave Caillebotte (1875)

I wish I could say I've had these guys in to finish my floor, but I have been busy myself over the past few days. I used old slats from window blinds as floor boards. As they were too wide, I had to cut each floor board five(!) times to get it the right width and length.

It was quite unusual for Dutch houses to have parquet flooring in the 18th century. In one of my interior history books I found several designs for 'parquet flooring' from around 1770 which I thought would work for my dining room. The design is simple but provides a little bit more interest than just floor boards.

After getting my boards all fitting perfectly, I rubbed down all the edges with sandpaper to give them some signs of wear. After gluing them all down (I stupidly forgot to mark them individually and no, they're not all exactly the same length!), I sanded the floor several times. I then mixed up a nice stain out of paint and old stains I had in my stash and gave the floor four coats of that.

The windy weather made quick work of drying the floor between the coats of stain. The next photo is not very good, but I wanted to show you a little detail I put in which is ever so faint, but very nice when the light hits it. I put nail holes in every floor board. After I had put the stain on (which has varnish in it as well) I put black shoe polish on the floor to highlight the cracks and the nail holes.

The final toch was to to rub the floor with a few layers of bees wax. It gives it that beautiful natural glow, so much better than varnish!
After all that work you'd think the floor would be proudly displayed when the room is finished, but in the late 18th century it was actually the fashion to have carpets in the rooms...

Orange above...

2011-04-30T15:29:00.004+02:00

...and a question below.

When I woke up this morning, I was just in time to see a glorious sun rise. A glowing ball of bright fiery orange like I have never seen before. How appropriate for a day like today, when we celebrate Queensday in the Netherlands. Orange is our national colour, linked to the House of Oranje-Nassau, our royal family.

So today I am flying our national flag (red, white and blue) with the orange banner above it, signifying the royal connection.

There is quite a strong wind, but it is still fairly warm, so no sitting inside for me! I have taken my wood and my table saw out on the terrace behind my house, and have been cutting what seems like hundreds of little floor boards for the dining room of my new canal house. The wind blows all of the dust away, saves me from cleaning ;)

And now for the question...A few weeks ago I noticed my list of followers had gone missing from my blog. Or I should say the list is still there, I just can't see it anymore. I can't see them on other peoples blogs either. It makes it difficult to keep track of who has joined my blog, and for me to join other blogs.

I have searched on the internet for a solution to this problem, but haven't found one yet. I've tried removing the gadget and then adding it back later...didn't work. Does anyone else have this problem? Have you been able to solve it? I would be very interested, thanks!

Lazy days of spring

2011-04-25T13:19:00.005+02:00

As I said in my previous post, the weather has been wonderful lately. The summer temperatures are perfect for a little relaxing on the water. A cool drink, something to nibble on, a magazine, peace and quiet... The perfect lazy spring day.

I'm in the garden...

2011-04-19T18:39:00.003+02:00

The weather has been so very beautiful here the last few days...It feels like summer! In the garden everything is growing at an incredible speed. I need to get some gardening done, but with this weather it is a pleasant task. So if you are looking for me, I'm in the garden!

Marfelous birds

2011-04-10T14:09:00.005+02:00

Two blackbirds fighting over breadcrumbs on the pavement in front of my canal house. Come on guys, there's plenty for both of you!

I bought the blackbirds at the spring show in Arnhem. They were made by Georgia Marfels from Germany.

Show and tell

2011-03-28T09:51:00.003+02:00

My friend and I went to Arnhem last Thursday. We took a class with Ann High on Friday, carving a relief design for a 14th century chest. It was a wonderful class and I have learned a lot, even though I did not finish the chest.
I planned to take pictures during the class but forgot all about it. However, you can read a short report on the class by my classmate Marion on her blog 'Marion's Miniatures'. In case you are wondering which one is me in Marion's photos, I am the one sitting opposite Marion, in the grey T-shirt (second photo).

On Saturday my friend and I went to the Arnhem Dolls House Show. As usual we didn't have enough time to see the whole show and missed many stands. But it was a wonderful show again and we both bought some great miniatures. This time I only bought a few small items, but I still managed to be out of money before the end of the day.

I quickly snapped a few photos of some of my purchases:

Some china by Stokesay Ware for my new dining room. I still need the flatware and cutlery as you can see ;) Also yummy sandwiches, some apple slices and an Easter bunny by Georgia Marfels. In the background you can just about make out the wallpaper I bought for the new dining room.

The china again, this time an accidental artist's impression. I hit a wrong button in my photo editing program and this image came out. I rather liked it.

This wonderful group of cherubs was made by a Spanish artist, Victoria Heredia Guerbós. Isn't it amazing? Just look at all the detail!

With my hand close to the cherubs you can get a better idea of the minute detail Victoria managed to get into this piece. Look at the little bellies on them, so precious.

The Art & Craft of Keith Bougourd

2011-03-23T12:46:00.003+01:00

Back in November I ordered a few pieces of furniture from Keith Bougourd of Small-Time. Keith makes beautiful clocks, but also wonderful furniture and other small items. Be sure to check out his 'how it is made' page, where you can see a short video from the Discovery Channel showing Keith making one of his clocks.

Yesterday the postman brought me the pieces Keith made for me. I love them! On the photos below you can see an Artist Metamorphic Desk with ivory brush pot, a Charles Voysey Swan Chair and an ivory telescope. Aren't they beautiful?

As a backdrop for the photos I clamped some Arts & Crafts wallpaper against a piece of wood and put a piece of fabric down to act as carpet. The room the furniture will go in eventually is the basement of my first canal house, but I haven't started work on that yet. The beautiful furniture has inspired me to get to work on it though!

My house is finished!

2011-03-14T13:53:00.004+01:00

...little work was required on this one.

Two weeks ago I renewed my subscription to Dolls House Nederland. Last Wednesday I found a lovely thank you gift in my mailbox, a 144 scale house kit. As I was a little bit stuck with my new 12th scale house, I decided to give the little kit a go.

The house reminded me of the houses I had seen in Broek in Waterland, a very pretty village close to Amsterdam. So I painted the house in a grey-blue colour which is common for the houses there. Once I had painted the house I realised the wooden tabs and slots now didn't fit together anymore. After a lot of fiddling and cutting down the tabs I decided to cut the tabs off and simply glue the house together.

I made a few changes to the house. I left the top floor out. The side wall with the window is now on the left side of the house. I decided to keep the right side open and to glue the gable to the front. On the front of the house the top half of the gable is added on, so I could change the shape of it. I changed the door a little and gave it a door frame. By adding moulding and frames (cut from acid free card stock) a little more depth was achieved which makes it a little bit more interesting to look at.

The final touch was the landscaping, I used model railroad materials for this.
It was a fun little project. I don't think I'l be starting on furnishing the house with 144th scale furniture any time soon though.

Man bites dog

2011-03-12T09:32:00.005+01:00

From Wikipedia: 'The phrase man bites dog describes a phenomenon in journalism in which an unusual, infrequent event is more likely to be reported as news than an ordinary, everyday occurrence (such as Dog bites man).'

The Dutch contrary current affairs show 'Man bijt hond' interviewed some miniaturists a few weeks ago. While going through their files I found several clips you might like to see.

This first clip is from 2003 and shows Annelies de Kort, a miniaturist who does the most fabulous miniature knitting, embroidery, lace etc. Take your time to watch the clip and visit her website, and discover all of the treasures Annelies has made over the years.

Eight years later, in February 2011, Annelies de Kort is interviewed again:

This next clip shows Bram who has been working on his miniature house for 11 years. The building has running water, heating, airco, a working elevator and many other fun details.

The last clip I would like to show you is about Wil and Hetty Fromme. The couple is interviewed about their vast collection of design furniture, after a devastating fire destroyed many priceless pieces from the collection of the Delft University of Technology in 2008. On Wil and Hetty Fromme's website you can see their collection in more detail and download some plans for free.

Anno 2020...

2011-02-28T18:21:00.005+01:00

...but I am not promising anything!

To give you an impression of what I have started to work on last week, I have adapted an original architectural drawing from an 18th century canal house.

On the right you can see the front half of the canal house as it was built in the 17th century. In the 18th century a grand staircase and back house were added on. In the back house the kitchen is situated on the ground level, below the great hall.

I made a cardboard model to see how big the house would become. It is quite big. Although not much higher than my first canal house, this second house is much wider and deeper at 150 x 55 x 145 cm (59.1 x 21.7 x 57.1 inches).

For inspiration and research I have read a great many books and online sources. I love doing that. One of the pictures I came across was of this neoclassical room from 1791. I really like the dimensions here, formal but still very intimate. I decided that part of my canal house would be decorated in this style.

In my first dollshouse the windows are made with acrylic glass. Very easy to cut, lightweight, practically unbreakable and cheap. The only negative: it scratches easily. I decided to have real glass in this new house. As the granddaughter of someone in the glass industry, I thought cutting the glass would be easy. Not!

Even though I asked "opa's" spirit several times to come and give me a hand at this glass cutting business, he must have felt it was better to learn from my mistakes...;) In the end I did manage to cut the glass the right size.

The first room I have started to work on is the dining room in the center of the house. The windows are facing the courtyard.
In the second half of the 18th century, a window was made up of 4 window panes in width. The height of the windows would depend on the height of the room, but were always kept rather big to let in lots of light.

To make working on the house and rooms easier, the house will be built as a series of seperate room boxes. When they're all finished, they will fit together to form the complete house. A slight stumbling block was the construction of the double doors opening between the dining room and the front room. My problem was solved when I found this picture from 1794/95 which shows sliding doors!

The painting by Adriaen de Lelie (which hangs at the Rijksmuseum) shows the art gallery in the canal house of art collector Jan Gildemeester. Through the open sliding doors the front room can be seen. It was probably the first time sliding doors were ever depicted, which would fit in perfectly with the time and style I want for my dining room and front room.

Both paintings are illustrations from the book 'Het Nederlands interieur in beeld 1600-1900' uitgeverij Waanders.

A clear view

2011-02-22T13:42:00.005+01:00

...on a new project!

I have started to build a new canal house! I know, I know, my first canal house isn't even finished yet. I have had these plans in my head for a few years now but just couldn't figure out a few details.

Two weeks ago the solutions suddenly came to me and I started sketching. And then of course I had to see if the size would work so I built a simple cardboard model. And of course I couldn't just leave it there so I went to get some wood cut for the walls.

Well then I couldn't help myself and I had to build one of the windows... As you can see on the photos above the windows are BIG. The house will have high ceilings, particularly on the ground floor and in the 'back house' (more on that in the next post). High ceilings, big windows, big house.

The windows are sliding early 18th century style windows. I have used real glass in my windows which makes them easy to clean. Easy to break too... and I have been known to be quite clumsy...

It is tea time...

2011-02-06T15:59:00.007+01:00

...and you're all invited.

I wanted to show you this wonderful tea caddy I bought a few monts ago...Based on an original eighteenth century apple tea caddy, this miniature version has an ivory interior filled with tea and a silver tea spoon. The tea caddy was made by Vonas Miniaturen. I'm afraid they don't have a website, but they do come to the shows in Paris, Soest (Germany) and Arnhem (Netherlands).

I got a little bit carried away taking photos, so here is a slideshow I made of them.

Bed time for Norway

2011-01-29T11:38:00.006+01:00

...but NO time for sleeping!

Last summer I was asked whether I'd like to teach a class at the 2011 Craft Retreat in Stavanger, Norway. But of course! I had a wonderful experience teaching in Norway last summer, so I would love to go back there.

This class would only be for one day, so that was a little bit of a problem. What can you make in one day? I came up with this French/ shabby shic/ brocante style bed.

Students will be making the bed with the upholstered head and footboards (not the mattress and bedding as there simply isn't any time for that).

If any of my Dutch readers are interested in taking this class, I am thinking of teaching it at my home May 21st. Of course, any one else willing to travel to my home in Holland to take the class is very welcome as well ;) I will post more details later, but you can send me an email if you're interested (see my profile).

A sample of my work

2011-01-07T10:59:00.003+01:00

Or the need for a sharp needle, sharp sight and sharp focus.

At the last Arnhem Dollshouse Show I bought a sampler kit by Mary van der Stel of Miniworks. I had done some full size embroidery in a distant past, but must admit I have never actually finished any of the projects I started. Miniature embroidery was new to me. I started off with an embroidery needle but just could not get it into the right holes. When I tried a regular sharp sewing needle I found it was much easier for me to work with.

Although I needed very good lighting, glasses and magnification to see what I was doing, I really enjoyed it and even started thinking of all the other things I want to embroider. This sampler is embroidered on 40 count linen with regular DMC embroidery floss and by no means perfect, but I'm allready thinking of what I could do with silk weaves and beautiful silk embroidery floss... I must be mad.

When trying to photograph my sampler I found that the focus on my camera is off. I managed to get a sharp(ish) photo by setting the focus about an inch in front of the sampler. You should have seen me trying to take these photos! My tripod is too short to get to the top floors of my dolls house, so I had it sitting on top of a bale of hay (don't ask!)and I was perched on a stepladder to check the focus before I took the picture. The first photo is much sharper in my computer files, only when I uploaded it to Photobucket it has become somewhat off focus. Has this ever happened to any of your photos?

Last post...

2010-12-31T14:22:00.003+01:00

...well, only of this year!

As you can see I have a new layout on my blog. I hope you like the bigger photos!

Yesterday I was taking some pictures of my pretty Stokesay tea set which I bought for the bedroom at the Arnhem fair back in October, when I noticed I have a bit of a theme going in the bedroom. Can you see what it is (apart from the toile and soft red colours)? A small clue: I don't have any problems going to sleep...

A wonderful 2011 to all of you!

'El deseo de Josje Bouwt'

2010-12-30T22:17:00.006+01:00

You may remember when, back in August, I posted about an interesting cabinet which was going for auction at Christie's in London. I wrote about it:

" I would love to have this cabinet. It would look great in my kitchen holding my favourite china, or in the bedroom full of linen. Or even better: it could go in my work room, holding all of my materials for miniature making. Of course it could become a 12th scale dolls house, I think the measurements would be just right for that!"

Unfortunately the cabinet was too expensive for me and even if I had been able to buy it, getting it from England to Holland would have been a major undertaking.

Fast forward a few months, it is now December 2010 and I get an email from Madelva, the editor of the Spanish miniatures magazine 'Miniaturas'. Madelva had seen my post about the cabinet and cooked up a little surprise for me... She had contacted Christie's and with their permission, published the building plans for the cabinet in 12th scale! (Miniaturas año 16, No 155)

Such a wonderful surprise, thank you Madelva! I will certainly build my own cabinet now.

Potluck

2010-12-20T12:56:00.005+01:00

Thank you all so much for entering my small 100th post give away and for leaving such lovely comments! I have drawn the results this morning using the online random number generator. I started laughing when I saw the who the first person was to be picked by the generator. I thought I'd better take photos so you can see for yourselves...

First winner is ...Linda Carswell!

The second winner is ...Marion!

The third winner is...Angelina!

And the fourth winner is...Tijm!

Congratulations to all of you! Could you please contact me with your addresses? You can find my email address in my profile.

No rain dear!

2010-12-17T11:21:00.005+01:00

It rained all day yesterday, but today I woke up to a beautiful white world! Perfect weather to start on my Christmas decorations.

At the Arnhem Fair two months ago I bought a few wooden animal miniatures from Reifendreherei Flath. Hans-Günter Flath is a German toymaker from the Erzgebirge (Ore Mountains). I want to make a little nativity scene with the wooden animals. Of course this should not include Rudolph, but I thought he was so cute, I just could not leave him behind!

Cooking 101

2010-12-12T16:33:00.006+01:00

100th post and a small giveaway

Last week St. Nicholas gave me a fantastic set of Le Creuset casseroles. The smooth enamel finish of Le Creuset cast iron is durable and hygienic. Everything you cook will taste just as good as you intended. They are the must haves for every cook.

As this is my 100th post, I thought it would be nice to have a little celebration giveaway. I will have 4 large casseroles to give away to four of my readers, each in a different colour. You can see the colours in the photos below.
Now please note that these are dolls house scale and not full scale casseroles ;) They are cast plastic and the lids do not come off. They're actually fridge magnets but are just about the right scale for the 12th scale dolls house.

If you'd like to win one of these miniature casseroles, please leave a comment on this post and state which colour you would like (green, cream, orange or red). You can enter until December 19th, I will draw the names of the four winners on Monday December 20th.

Christmas gifts

2010-12-09T13:34:00.006+01:00

Look what I got in the mail! Sherry has sent me this wonderfully Christmassy package. Sherry and I took part in Marsha's Christmas Ornament exchange, you can see what I made for Sherry in this post. But just look at what Sherry made for me:

A beautiful Santa with tassels and bells. Here he is in my kitchen (no, this is not dolls house scale, so I have photographed him in my real kitchen). Doesn't he just look gorgeous with my teapot and teacups?

Sherry has spoiled me even more, as there was also a little cowboy treehanger, some lovely potpourry, a Christmas candle and a set of Mary Engelbreit's Christmas cards in the package.

Thank you so much Sherry!

Give way to perfect shoes

2010-12-05T15:46:00.004+01:00

Remember the beautiful shoes and handbag by Patrizia Santi I showed you a month ago? Many of you asked me for her website and I thought she didn't have one. Well, good news, Patrizia has a blog called Patrisan. And even better news, she is hosting a giveaway where one lucky person will get the gorgeous shoes in the photo below. Aren't those heels just perfection?

The giveaway ends December 18th, so hurry over there, become one of her followers and leave a comment...Who knows you may be the owner of these gorgeous shoes before the year is over!

Christmas ornament exchange

2010-12-01T09:29:00.005+01:00

About two months ago Marsha from Sassy Mini Dolls organized a Christmas Ornament Exchange. Not a miniature thing per se, but I loved the idea and decided to join in. My swap partner was Sherry, someone I have never met, but judging by her blog and the emails she sent me, she's a very sweet person.

Have you ever tried to make something for someone you don't know? I can tell you, it is soooo difficult! I read Sherry's blog back to front to try and find out some more about her....still difficult ;)

I finally decided to make her an angel. The little bird she is holding refers to the birds on Sherry's birth announcements.

Unfortunately the ornament Sherry has made for me is still stuck in the mail somewhere between the USA and Holland. The fact that the Dutch mail has been on a strike I'm sure hasn't helped the matter...I am confident that it will arrive before Christmas though (don't worry Sherry!). I am still in full Saint Nicholas mode here and don't start my Christmas decorating until December 15th usually so I am very patient. Of course I will show you my gift here when it has arrived!

Check out Marsha's Blog Party to see the ornaments made by other participants!

17th Century Kitchen roombox (2)

2010-11-27T15:54:00.006+01:00

The 17th century kitchen roombox was designed to display silver miniatures from the 17th and 18th century. These miniatures were originally collected by wealthy Dutch women who kept a dolls house. The dolls house (cabinet) was not a toy, but a prize exhibit which its owner would show off to visitors. An expensive hobby even in those days, as some dolls houses would cost as much as a modest full scale canalside house in Amsterdam.

To enable better a view of the silver miniatures in the roombox, I made the front half of the ceiling out of glass.

The hollow beams in the ceiling hide light fixtures. As the roombox has to be on display without access to a power outlet, the lights run on heavy batteries which are hidden in the chimney breast. At the back of the roombox there is a little lid door which gives access to the batteries and the light switch.

On the right side of the roombox I made a large corner cabinet to hold more silver miniatures. The lovely gateleg table was made to my specifications by Colin Bird.

Just as I mentioned in my previous post, the miniatures in the photos are not the antique miniatures, but my own modern day ones.

The photo below shows an article which was published in the December 2010 issue of Dolls House Nederland, in which you can see the roombox filled with the real 17th and 18th century silver miniatures.
The last two photos show some of the silver miniatures in more detail. The colour of the cabinets is a bit off in these photos, it should be like in the photos above.

17th Century Kitchen roombox (1)

2010-11-23T17:24:00.005+01:00

For the first half of this year I have been busy working on a 17th century kitchen roombox. The kitchen was designed to look like the real 17th century Dutch kitchens did, but also had to have the look of the kitchens in the 17th and 18th century Dutch dolls houses.

I made the roombox for Mr. Emiel Aardewerk, an antiques dealer who specializes in Dutch silver and miniature silver. At the moment the roombox is on show, filled with gorgeous 17th and 18th century silver miniatures, at the PAN Amsterdam National Art and Antiques Fair.

The miniatures in these photos are my own, not antique ones. I made the kitchen cabinets from lovely mahogany, although that can't be seen anymore. The kitchen has been slightly aged as if it has had a few centuries of use. It was quite hard to put some grime on crisp clean grouts and freshly painted cabinets, but I do like the result!

The tiles on the wall are copies of traditional Dutch tiles called 'witjes' (little whites) which in fact aren't white at all but are slightly tinted with red, green, blue, yellow etc. The other tiles of course are Delft blue. The floor and worktop are painted to look like marble. Floor and wall tiles were made from acid free paper.

Heel!

2010-11-12T16:08:00.004+01:00

I can't resist a beautiful pair of shoes. You'd have to put me on a leash to stop me from buying them. But I'm not and I bought them. These are the classic shoes and handbag that every girl should have in her wardrobe. They were made by Patrizia Santi, her shoes and handbags are fantastic. Yes, Italian of course.

Gingerly placed jars

2010-10-31T18:05:00.003+01:00

Friday and Saturday I visited the Arnhem Fair with my friend. We had a fantastic time and were able to see and buy a few wonderful miniatures. In the weeks to come I will show some of the things I bought, starting today with some lovely ginger jars.

Over the years I have collected a few full scale ginger pots. They're not precious antiques as they were shipped into Holland by the thousands. In fact, I think you can still buy ginger in these jars. But they're very decorative and I love the green glazes on them. From the early 1900's they are frequently used by Dutch artists in still lifes, Vincent van Gogh being one of them.

At the request of a Dutch miniaturist, French miniature potter Elisabeth Causeret (Poterie Miniature) made ginger pots in miniature. She did a fantastic job, the glazes are so good!

Elisabeth made the pots without a lid and this is how you'll find most of them. The ginger pots were closed with a large cork which was sealed with wax. To find one with a lid is quite uncommon.

I love how the miniature pots have imperfections in the glazes, just like the big ones! When my friend and I came to Elisabeths stall on Saturday, she only had four ginger pots left, two for my friend and two for me. I hope she'll have a few more at the next fair so I can have a small collection of them, just like I do in real life.

Pretty in Pink

2010-10-22T16:19:00.004+02:00

I thought I'd share this photo with you as it has a little bit of a pink ribbon in it, and October is breastcancer awareness month! I made the rose as a small birthday gift to send with a chair I made for a friend in Germany.

Feeling blue

2010-09-25T18:23:00.004+02:00

Blue and white never bores me. The blue and white of the sky and the clouds, the water and the waves or the blue painted pigments on white porcelain...

Some months ago a took another porcelain painting class from Cocky Wildschut here in the Netherlands. I have taken several of her classes, each time painting some porcelain pieces based on designs by Cocky. This time was different. I brought a large antique Chinese lidded vase with me and translated that design into a miniature version. It was fun to do! You can see the miniature vase in the picture above sitting on a beautiful little table by Mark Gooch.

The large Chinese plate on the wall was painted by Cocky. The tulip vase was made by Henny Staring. I made a few parrot tulips for it. I cut the petals for the tulips from paper and painted them with water colours.

Perfect timing

2010-09-24T15:47:00.004+02:00

Two days ago my friend A. came to visit me. A. and I met a few years ago at one of Jens Torp's classes. We get along very well together, we live only about 15 miles away from each other and have very similar tastes in miniatures. I love to visit fairs with A. as neither of us will blink an eyelid when spending a small fortune on a beautiful miniature.

A. is a talented miniaturist (although she doesn't think so herself). She brought two of her most recent works to show me, a lovely hand woven basket and a beautiful walking stick, carved to resemble cane with a silver tip and a silver decorative band just below the handle. I don't have a picture to show you, but look what else she brought:

'That's just great', I can hear you think 'but WHAT is it?' Well, it's a very fancy vacuum cleaner. A. runs her own business as a dental technician and uses many machines and tools which are also perfect for miniature making. A. replaced this dust extractor by new one and brought this one over for me to use. If you have read my last post you understand how perfect this is for me!

I can plug in my sander or circular saw and hook up the machine with the hose. Of course you could use a vacuum cleaner too, but this machine will switch on automatically when using the saw and has a very quiet motor so much less noise! Great!

I am still working on some commissions, so I don't have many miniatures to show you. On top of my new machine is one of my nearly finished commissions.

I love you, but...

2010-09-18T11:21:00.004+02:00

This handsome fellow walked into our house this summer. Isn't he gorgeous? He's also the sweetest, most cuddly cat I ever met. My son wants him to stay. I want him to stay. That is, until I see the sclera of my eye wrinkle to resemble the skin of a Shar-Pei...No, not good for me.

Ahhh, the smell of sawdust...Don't you just love it? I do too. I have done a lot of cutting and sanding the last few months and I love it. Yes I do wear a dust mask most of the time. However, the itchy skin and eyes, sniffles and sneezes tell me that the mask is not enough though. No, not good for me.

If you're Dutch you'll recognize what's in the glass jar. For the rest of you, it is a chocolate bar. I love them and eat a lot of them. But somehow I don't react well to them. I slowly swell up, usually starting in the middle of my body and then it gradually starts spreading up and down. Recovery takes a long time. No, not good for me.

A miniature treasure hunt

2010-09-07T10:41:00.003+02:00

Or: 'A hunt for miniatures at the biggest flea market in Europe'.

This past weekend we have been out treasure hunting. We started in Lille, France at the biggest flea market in Europe, about 150 to 200 kilometers (yes!) of the roads of Lille center given over to pedestrians and stalls. Parking around the area is crazy, but as long as you don't obstruct traffic, you can park anywhere you like, no parking tickets are issued. We were very lucky to find a parking space only two minutes after leaving the highway, at only a three minutes walk from the start of the Braderie.

It was wonderful. So many goodies to look at. I was hunting for miniatures of course, and I especially wanted a miniature portrait. After only 15 minutes I found her, a lovely miniature painted on ivory. She is a beauty from 1943, very finely painted. After a bit of haggling I got her for a very good price. I am just thrilled with this lovely portrait. The frame of course is too big to hang in my dolls house, so I'll have to search for another one.

Oddly enough, almost all of the treasures I bought are ivory pieces. Old of course! The little ´bucket´ you can see on the right is ivoire de Dieppe (ivory from Dieppe), it is a little match holder or ´pyrogène´ from around 1880 in excellent condition. I thought it would make a nice umbrella stand or something like that.

I also found two little books with ivory covers. The biggest one is a 19th century little prayer book, with prayers and illustrations to guide you through the week. The smaller ivory one is missing the book inside, as you can see it used to hold fables.

On Sunday we decided to leave Lille to the masses and visit Gent (Belgium) instead. And wouldn´t you know it, it was the weekend of their annual flea market. More stands to look at and treasure to find! I found a little silver and silver guilt salt sellar, which would be perfect with a big plant in it. On another stall I found another ivory piece. This time a little statue of Maria with Jesus on her arm. I like the way the folds in her dress are carved.

At one stall in Lille I saw two lovely ladies holding a miniature metal and glass armoire, just right for a dolls house. I decided to wait and see if they would put it down, but they liked it very much and tried to get a price on it. The stand holder was not very helpful, and as the ladies didn´t speak French, I helped them get a good price on it. I know it has found a good home with a fellow miniature collector.

As you can imagine, after seeing hundreds and hundreds of stalls, it is not so easy to find something suitable for a dolls house, but I am so happy with my finds!

A fresh look

2010-08-27T16:06:00.006+02:00

After a busy time working on a commission (which is now finally finished) I took some time off to go on vacation with my family. In one of the beautiful Dutch towns we visited I found some really pretty fabrics, one of them perfect for the Drawing Room in my dolls house.
I decided to re-upholster my sofa and chair with this fabric. I love the result, even though the photos show the colours slightly differ, the colours match beautifully with the room. I kept the silk on the base and arms of the chair, this is the same silk I used on the curtains.

Once I had finished my commission, I thought it was time to treat myself to something very nice, and so I did! I bought a beautiful little 17th century concertina table from Mark Gooch. I think it looks gorgeous in the room with the silver tea set on it. The tea set (with adorable little ivory knob) is by Mike Sparrow.

Update 8/30: Click here to go to the website of Mark Gooch. And here to go to the website of Mike Sparrow.

Christie's Interiors Auction

2010-08-08T12:56:00.006+02:00

Next Tuesday, on August 10th 2010, Christie's South Kensington is having an Interiors Auction. Always interested in what they have to offer, I was browsing through their online catalogue and discovered this interesting cabinet.
The description says:

A PAINTED AND DECORATED CABINET OF ARCHITECTURAL FORM OF RECENT MANUFACTURE
Modelled to represent a Queen Anne shop frontage, with four mirror glass and glass mounted doors enclosing shelves, the lower section with four frieze drawers above two imbricated drawers flanking two faux drawers to the centre, on bun feet
73½ in. (187 cm.) high; 59½ in. (151 cm.) wide; 17 in. (43.5 cm.) deep

I would love to have this cabinet. It would look great in my kitchen holding my favourite china, or in the bedroom full of linen. Or even better: it could go in my work room, holding all of my materials for miniature making. Of course it could become a 12th scale dolls house, I think the measurements would be just right for that!

If you're interested in Christie's upcoming sale, click here to go to their website, or for a direct link to the cabinet, go here.

'Psyche' roombox

2010-07-25T09:53:00.003+02:00

When posting yesterday's photo, I realised that not all of you have seen my Psyche roombox. I made it a few years ago after a painting by John William Waterhouse, 'Psyche Opening the Door into Cupid's Garden' (1904).

The story of Psyche and Cupid:
In Roman mythology Psyche is the beautiful daughter of a king. Her beauty is even compared to the beauty of Venus, the goddess of love. This infuriates Venus and she sends her son Cupid to make Psyche fall in love with the most hideous man in the world. Cupid is the winged god of love who shoots his arrows into the hearts of both mortals and gods to make them fall in love. When Cupid sees Psyche, he is completely overwhelmed by her beauty. In the confusion he gets shot by his own arrow and so falls in love with Psyche himself, greatly upsetting his mother by doing so. In an attempt to separate the two lovers and rid herself of Psyche, Venus sends Psyche away with some inhumanly difficult tasks to perform. The gods take pity on her and help her to perform all her tasks. Jupiter (de Roman chief god) sees the true love between Psyche and Cupid and decides to let Psyche drink from the nectar of the gods. This makes Psyche immortal so that Psyche and Cupid can be together forever.

To see more photos of my roombox, or to see how I've made it, click here.

Gulliver

2010-07-24T07:42:00.004+02:00

Found this photo in my files, made last year with a photo from my Psyche roombox and an online photo editing program. I love the effect it creates.

A token of love

2010-07-15T19:21:00.004+02:00

No, I have not abandoned you! But it has been a long time, I must admit. As I am waiting for some glue to dry, I decided to delve into my files and show you some roses I made a few years ago. A token of my affection...

Floral inspiration

2010-06-18T10:29:00.006+02:00

I love peonies. I know many of you do too. I grow several peony bushes in my garden and, although later than normal, they have all just come into flower this week. The past few days the weather has been lovely and sunny, but quite windy. One of the flowering stems blew over in the wind so I cut it and put it in a vase in my kitchen. The single stem has six flower buds on it!

I would love to spend some time copying these beauties in miniature, I like to have the real thing to look at when I am making miniature flowers. Unfortunately I don't have time now, so I took a few photos for future reference. Aren't they gorgeous?

Mini trip to Norway

2010-06-08T10:22:00.007+02:00

A few months ago I was contacted by Janne, a Norwegian lady, inviting me to come and stay with her for a few days and teach a group of miniaturists from the Stavanger area how to make my Louis XV Fauteuil. The class was to be taught in a cabin in the beautiful mountains outside of Stavanger. That sounded great so I gladly accepted the invitation. Last week I flew to Stavanger from Amsterdam on my mini trip. I would like to share an impression of my trip with you.

Pretty house in the old part of Stavanger.

Old Stavanger has some very pretty streets with lovely houses and gardens.

We visited 'Breidablikk', a beautiful mansion from 1881 with completely original interiors.

The cabin in the mountains, looking rustic on the outside, on the inside a large luxurious house.

Gorgeous views around the cabin.

The same view, this time it is 02:00 AM. Being so far north at this time of the year, it doesn't get completely dark at night, giving the mountains a beautiful outline at night.

The class at work. Work continued late into the evenings, but we all enjoyed ourselves.

The weather was gorgeous, so we did some of the work outside in the sun. Not too bad with a view like that, right?

Hands at work.

The class results, the chairs are nearing completion. Each one looking different from the other, but all are looking very good. Teacher is pleased ;)

While sightseeing in the mountains we ran into a bit of trouble. The roads in Norway can be hazardous...No, not really, this is the old road which has been blocked off. The new road is leading through the mountain via a nice new tunnel.

More beautiful views. The last day of my stay I was taken on a sightseeing trip through the mountains. The Norwegian countryside is stunning.

I had a wonderful time in Norway. All the ladies in my class were lovely and hard working and the results were great. A big thank you to our hostess Janne, you did a wonderful job!

Sabiha's great giveaway gift

2010-05-01T14:49:00.005+02:00

About two months ago Sabiha was having a giveaway at her weblog Sabs Mini Interiors and I was one of her lucky winners! Last Thursday I found my gift in my mailbox. Oh how Sabiha spoilt me! Curious? Here's what was in the envelope:

The beautiful package was a joy to look at. It was accompanied by a sweet note from Sabiha. Inside the package I found two wrapped little boxes.

In the first box I found this wonderful wooden box filled with sealing wax and the tiniest pen nibs. There is also an ink pot and a lovely quill. But look closely at the lid of the box...do you see it? There's an inscription on it! It says: M. van Grootheest de Kleijne. Isn't that fantastic?!

Martha van Grootheest de Kleijne was the owner of Singel 224 in the 18th century. You can read Martha's story here. Isn't this a wonderfully personal gift?.

In the second box I found wonderful kitchen utensils. When Sabiha asked me what I wanted her to make for me, I told her I really liked the cutting boards she made a while ago. And look what she sent me! I just love the big board for cleaning fish.

The utensils include spatula's, milk frothers and a very sharp knife. It even has a sharpened edge! The cutting boards have signs of wear from years of use. I love them!

Thank you Sabiha for your lovely gifts!

Sweet surprise

2010-04-27T07:56:00.004+02:00

A few weeks ago I was at a PTA meeting at my son's school when one of the parents gave me a little box. 'I heard you like dollshouses', she said, 'so I have made you something'. Needless to say I was very surprised, even more so when I heard she also has a dollshouse (and her house is only a few hundred feet away from mine...)

When I opened the box I found a few dozen beautifully made chocolate bonbons. Aren't they lovely? And perfect for a chocolate lover like me.

Hommage to Eostre

2010-04-03T15:17:00.008+02:00

Eostre, goddess of spring and fertility, was worshipped during the time of the vernal (spring) equinox in pre-Christian Germany. Today we still see symbols of pagan beliefs associated with Easter as they became integrated in Christian religion. The symbol of Eostre was the rabbit and eggs were symbolic of new life and resurrection.

In my little scene I am using colour and flowers to signal the arrival of spring. I was given the chair a few years ago, I now repainted it a fresh green colour and made a seat and a cushion for it. I made a kitchen table to go with the chair.

The wooden fruit bowl is one I bought at the show in Arnhem last week. It is exactly like the one my parents have had ever since I was little.
And the adorable bunny...isn't it cute? Again bought at the show in Arnhem. It was made by Dolores van den Akker, a Dutch mianiature artist. Dolores was followed by a camera team of the Dutch TV program 'Man bijt hond' (Man bites dog). The clip gives you an idea of what she makes and a glimpse of the Arnhem Dolls House Show. To watch the clip click here.

The sheep has come home

2010-03-28T16:11:00.006+02:00

I'm sorry I made you all wait...These are some of the miniatures I bought at the Arnhem Show. I really love them!

The pull along sheep is by a new artist called Linda Watson (from England). Isn't it precious? I love sheep, I have a couple of real ones myself. This one just be-e-e-e-gged me to take it home with me.

The gorgeous wooden chest and cabinet are by Anne High (again from England). They are so beautifully made, and the carving...oh! She also had a larger chest which I adored but was too big for me, I don't know where I could put that. The small cupboard is really 24th scale, but I could see it hanging on the wall in my kitchen!

The ivory bowl on stand and candle stick are by Vonas miniatures (from Holland). Their miniature turnings are so beautiful and fine. The photograph doesn't do it justice. The ivory of course is legally sourced from old ivory.

Arnhem Dolls House Show 2010

2010-03-28T12:27:00.004+02:00

Just a quick impression of the location for the Arnhem Dolls House Show 2010. The quality of the picture is so poor because I took it with my camcorder.

The show was wonderful. The Eusebius church is a beautiful church right in the center of Arnhem. There were some excellent miniaturists and I have bought some gorgeous miniatures (photo's will follow later today!). As always my friend and I didn't have enough time to see everything, actually to my disappointment I have not seen at least 80% of what was on offer. We spent much of our time chatting to people!

We did manage to go to the Ronan-Jim Sévellec exhibition. How fantastic to see this! It was pure theatre, or drama and opera as James Carrington said to me. For some pictures of Sévellec's work, click here or visit the Arnhem Dolls House Show website.

Book of Jobs

2010-03-26T09:28:00.006+01:00

Tomorrow I'm going to church to worship and I'm taking my bible. My book of Jobs and of Inspiration. In which I find answers to some questions and help when faced with choices. Oh, my questions and choices are not major ones. They're small, quite small. In fact they're 12th scale.

The photos below show you some pages of my bible. A notebook in which I jot down ideas, measurements, names, prices. In it I keep samples of colours I've used, scraps of wallpaper and fabrics.

The first photo shows two pages of my notes on the Salon. Below it is a photo of my Salon sample card, on which I put scraps of fabric, wallpapers, paint samples and wood. The sample cards are easy to pull out when matching colours at a show.

Notes on my Dining Room and sample card for the Dining Room:

Tomorrow is the first of two days of the Dolls House Arnhem Show. This year for the first time it is held at the Eusebius church in Arnhem. Many of the world's best miniaturists will be there showing and selling their miniatures. I will be there too, with my bible. That reminds me, I still have to go to the cash machine.

Key things

2010-03-15T22:25:00.004+01:00

It has been months since I have made something for my own dolls house. Yesterday I had some time and made a little something again. Keys with little enamel numbers hanging from them. I know, nothing major, but I think they're cute and I enjoyed making them.

Giveaway winner...!

2010-03-14T11:13:00.007+01:00

First let me start by saying thank you all for congratulating me on my blog anniversary. I loved reading the many suggestions and requests on what you would like to see me make next. Just to clear up one thing, I wasn't short of inspiration, I was just very curious what you thought I should make.

What a surprise to find that 80 of you entered my prize draw! I've put all of your names on slips of paper, put them in a little hat, gave them a good stir and pulled out one name...

The winner is Ira of Merry Jingle.
Congratulations Ira! Your gift will be in the mail as soon as I have your address.

In her comment Ira wrote this:

'And to what I would like to see you do is some Chinoisserie furniture, lets say that a bamboo chair. This because I love the delicatecy of Chinoisserie furniture and there's hardly none in the market in miniature scale.

And if we go a little bigger, an orangerie filled with plants and mix and match vintage furniture. This is because your work is so suberb and I would love to see how you build the structure of the orangerie and the over all result.'

I love Ira's suggestions for making a (faux) bamboo chair and orangerie. Once I have finished my commissions, I will have a go at making these. In a later comment, Ira also suggested making a Venetian gondola...I think I'm sticking with the chair and orangerie Ira!

Last chance to enter giveaway!

2010-03-13T10:42:00.004+01:00

If you would like to enter my One Year Anniversary Giveaway draw, today is the last day you can enter! I will draw a winner tomorrow. Good luck!

Video tutorial

2010-03-06T10:54:00.004+01:00

This past week I needed a specific fabric design which I couldn't find in the shops, so I made a design on my computer and printed the fabric using my own printer. As I was busy getting my fabrics ready I realised not all of you may know how to do this. I decided to get my camera and film what I was doing.

I hadn't realised there was a time limit on YouTube (I have never uploaded any video's before), so I've had to cut the video in half. Part one shows you how to get the fabric ready for printing on, part two shows you the printing process. I hope you find them useful!

One Year Blog Anniversary Giveaway

2010-03-01T18:03:00.008+01:00

It is my blog anniversary! It has been a year today since I started this blog. Although I have been blogging in Dutch since February 2006, I really love this blogger blog because it has put me into contact with people from all over the world. Yes, all of you out there! To celebrate my one year anniversary with you, I am having a little giveaway draw.

For the giveaway I made a 12th scale mahogany chest with upholstered lid. The chest has a white wash finish on the outside and a William Morris design paper finish on the inside. The chest comes with 4 small cushions.

All you have to do to enter my Blog Anniversary Giveaway draw is to leave a comment on this post and tell me what you’d like to see me make next and why. You can enter until March 13th. The draw will be made on Sunday, March 14th and then I'll announce the winner here. Have fun!

Work and Study

2010-02-21T14:50:00.006+01:00

I have been sitting at my desk a lot lately, working hard on a new miniature project. This project is a commission which will keep me busy until May. I know I may be making some of you curious, but I will reveal all when it is finished.

After work it is time to relax. What could be nicer than to curl up in a comfy chair by the fire with a good book and a cup of tea? 'That's not tea!' I hear you say. Well no, that's a glass of cognac and a nearly empty bottle of whisky. But that is not the chair I am going to sit in either ;-)

Both photos show the Study in my Canal House with some wonderful items by miniature artists from all over the world.
Click photos for a better view!

The Vanishing Rabbit

2010-02-11T10:35:00.004+01:00

I have been working hard on a project for which I have had to do a lot of sawing. A lot of sawdust and wood shavings had accumulated in my workshop. The only clean spot left was where I had taken some photographs in preparation for a commission for one of my chairs. Time for a good clean up.

After I had cleared away the bigger pieces I went after the sawdust with the vacuum cleaner. It gives me such a satisfactory feeling to see my worktops so clean after only a few quick sweeps!

As I was putting a chair back into my dolls house I noticed I was missing my little rabbit. My little scruffy rabbit which always sits on one of the chairs in the drawing room. It is a little beige rabbit with some black stitching on it, the colours are a bit like, well, like sawdust really. You get the picture, right?

I had to cut open the vacuum cleaner bag -which was completely full of course- and sort through all of the dust and scraps of wood etcetera. Finally, there it was, poor thing. All dirty and dusty. I gave it a little reprimand, but only because I had been so concerned you see. Then I gave it a good clean and put it back on the chair by the fire, nice and cosy.

The Hall

2010-02-07T11:17:00.014+01:00

Today I thought I'd continue the tour of my Amsterdam canal house. So far I think I have shown you some photos of the Kitchen, the Bedroom and the Entrance Hall. It is now the turn of the Hall.

The story of my Canal House is that it is a 17th century house which was remodeled in the 1740's. In 1893 part of the top floor is destroyed by a fierce fire. Below is the photo as it appeared in De Telegraaf, an Amsterdam newspaper which had its first edition in that year (well OK then, I manufactured the photo in photoshop, but it looks pretty real, don't you think?).

After the fire the building was restored by its owner Mr. Leo Rickx. In the parts of the building destroyed by the fire Mr. Rickx introduced elements of the Arts & Crafts style which he had become familiar with during his stay in England. As you can see through the glass double doors, the original early 18th century Entrance Hall was untouched by the fire of 1893. The Arts & Crafts console was made by Kari Bloom of Miniton Miniatures.

Allmost all of the wood used in this Hall is teak, which was given to me by a carpenter friend. The Hall was the first room in the house I started to work on back in 2004.
The banister gave me some problems as I just couldn't figure out at which angles to cut them. My carpenter friend explained to me that in real life a specially cut angled piece is fitted between the two straight pieces of the banisters. It took me over a year, but I finally managed to make a curved piece to fit the banister (and it is almost a perfect fit, lol).

From the Hall you can take the stairs to go down to the kitchen or up to the Salon, the Study and Library and the bedrooms.

The house is set in the modern day, so items can be found from every era. The newel post is the perfect place to hang a couple of handbags. I love the 70's shoulderbag by Annelies de Kort.

I made all of the panelling, doors, door handles, risers on the stairs and the parquet flooring of teak wood. The door to the right leads into the Dining Room, this room was also untouched by the fire of 1893. Above the door is a miniature watercolour which I painted in 2004: 'Winter landscape with pollarded willows'. Pollarded willows are very characteristic of the Dutch landscape with its meadows and canals.

Update Monday February 8: Apparently there were some problems with the comments today and yesterday, caused by the snow script running on this blog. I removed the script, so everything should be working again! Thank you Patricia at Woolytales Miniatures and Sara from Graphic Pretties !

Shaker chest of drawers

2010-01-29T09:50:00.004+01:00

In November 2009 I was able to attend two workshops at the Philadelphia Miniaturia: 'Shaker Chest of Drawers' by Pete and Pam Boorum, and 'Magic of the Drill Press' by Tom Walden. The focus in the workshops was on learning techniques on the table saw and the drill press. The photos below show the Shaker chest of drawers I made in Pete and Pam Boorum's class.

We learned to rip, crosscut, dado, rabbet and make finger joints using the table saw.

On the photo below Pam Boorum is showing us a trick with the table saw.

The last photo is one I came across last night while flipping through the pages of the March 2010 issue of Miniature Collector (I scanned it from the magazine, so the quality is not too good). It is a photo taken by Mary Kalisky during Tom Walden's class 'The magic of the Drill Press". Even though I was renamed 'Joyce' in the caption, I am the tall one standing in the middle.

Mouthwatering Genoan eye candy

2010-01-18T14:35:00.008+01:00

Rosanna's swap arrived! When I opened the parcel this morning, I found three beautifully embroidered pillows looking like little jewels, deliciously presented in a box of Genoan sweets.

Rosanna's home town is Genoa in Italy and the card she sent me accompanying the swap is a beautiful engraving 'Veduta del Porto di Genova' (View of the Port of Genoa). On the card she wrote that the pillows were for me, but the sweets were a gift for my son. Needless to say, that made us both very happy!

Some time ago when Rosanna (La Casa Rossa and La Stanza di Giuggiola) and I agreed on doing this swap (see also previous post), I sent Rosanna a few swatches of wallpaper and fabric I had used in the bedroom. Rosanna used the swatches to design and embroider these three pillows for me.

I can't begin to tell you how pleased I am with the designs Rosanna chose for me. The pillows look beautiful in my bedroom. I love the red one because of the apparent symplicity and its perfect match to the pattern of the red cover on the bed. And the 'toile' pillow is so very, very pretty. The whole positioning of that pattern, with the tree, the girl and the road within the circle...just enough, beautiful.

The striped one is so perfect with just that little bit of green which picks up the green accents in the room and of course the tiny stripe in the fabric. The flowers in that one perfectly refer to my peonies.

Not only the front of the pillows are beautifully made, the backs are done in silk in colours perfectly matching the embroideries.

Thank you Rosanna for such lovely works of art. I will treasure them!

As always, all pictures can be clicked for a better view.

The tea is in the inkpot, so.....

2010-01-16T08:41:00.006+01:00

A few months ago Rosanna (La Casa Rossa and La Stanza di Giuggiola)and I agreed on doing a swap. Rosanna would do an embroidery for me and I would make her the frame of my Louis XV Fauteuil. Rosanna is a whiz at embroidery and she will completely upholster the chair with her art work. I so look forward to seeing it finished! I did not take a picture of the frame before I sent it off to Italy, but Rosanna has posted pictures on her blog if you're curious (and if you've been reading my blog you'll know wat it looks like).
The embroidery Rosanna did for me is in the mail and should be with me in a few days, I can't wait to see it!

Around the time Rosanna and I agreed on our swap, she had written a log entry about a long held dream of hers of opening a bookstore annex tea room. She had found the perfect name for it: Le Thé dans l'Encrier (The Tea in the Inkpot).
When I read that post an image popped into my head and I though it would be fun to paint it for Rosanna as a little gift.

I kept the design simple and used the colours I thought Rosanna would like based on the posts in her weblog. The letters pouring from the spout dictated the size of the painting, as I wasn't able to do the lettering smaller while still keeping it legible.

A Cameo Brooch

2010-01-08T09:41:00.008+01:00

A few days ago one of my Dutch readers asked me about the chest of drawers and what was in the red box on top of it. I promised her to take some photographs of the box and its contents, so here they are:

I made the chest of drawers a few years ago from a kit (The House of Miniatures? MiniMundus? I can't remember) I still have to make the handles for it, but I want to make silver ones. Jens Torp has explained to me how to make them, so now all I have to do is sit down and MAKE them. Easy. Right? Uhm...

For the flowers I used pre-punched leaves by VaRIAatjes, I love the look of these Peonies. The wash basin and jug are part of my handpainted collection. I have not finished this one yet, (it still needs leaves etc) but I probably ran out of time during the class and forgot to bring it the next class.

A more detailed shot of the red box. In it is a lovely miniature cameo brooch which I found at the Arnhem show last autumn. I think I bought it from
Nostalgia Interior Design Specialist, but I am not entirely sure.

As white as...

2010-01-04T14:48:00.007+01:00

This past week I was finally able to finish some things which had been sitting on my table waiting for the finishing touches. Amongst them was a chair frame I had used as an example during one of my classes. I had painted it a nice wood colour, but just didn't know what to upholster it with.

Maybe it was the snow which gave me inspiration, because all of a sudden I knew I wanted to upholster it with white linen. I rubbed the frame with some white paint so it looked as if it had white wax on it. Although it looks rather heavy and clumsy in the photo's, in real life it is much more subtle and combines rather nicely with the white linen.

As I was taking the photo's (above) I saw some movement from the corner of my eye. As I looked over my shoulder out of my studio window, I saw a couple of Great Tits (the bird variety) on the bare branches of my grape vine, busily hopping from one branch to the other.
All I had to do was turn my camera around and snap a couple of pictures of them. They didn't even notice me, even though I was only a couple of feet away from them.

After the parties...

2010-01-02T10:28:00.006+01:00

...the candles are snuffed out.
Of course that doesn't mean we can't light candles whenever we feel like it! Have a wonderful 2010!

Setting the table

2009-12-30T10:42:00.006+01:00

for New Years Eve!

Norma's gift

2009-12-27T12:34:00.013+01:00

A little over a month ago I came across a lovely new blog called Make Mine Mini by blogger Norma in Australia. I happened to become the first follower of her blog. Norma emailed me because she wanted to send me a little gift, as a thank you for being the first follower. Needless to say I was very happily surprised by her gesture.

After a few weeks (and only after Norma -and I as well- had a huge shock over the Australian postal charges) an envelope from Australia was dropped through my letterbox. Norma had made me a lovely gift, here's what was in it:

A box full of little goodies...

...of old letters and photo's, perfect for my bedroom scene.

Some beautiful old letters and an old photograph. The young soldier in uniform is actually Norma's uncle (her mother's brother) who went to war, survived and lived to an old age.

A favourite book, which has been read over and over again.

On the lid of the box of keepsakes is a photo of Norma's mother's toys, the original photo was hand coloured. The black and white photo in the box is a tiny copy of Norma's blog header, depicting her mother amidst all of her toys in 1918!
For a better, bigger view, please click on the photo's!

Your branches green delight us...

2009-12-22T19:28:00.013+01:00

O, Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
Your branches green delight us!

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree,
You give us so much pleasure!

Your boughs so green in summertime
Stay bravely green in wintertime.

Reminding me on Christmas Day
To think of you and then be gay.

For every year the Christmas tree,
Brings to us all both joy and glee.

Each bough doth hold its tiny light,
That makes each toy to sparkle bright.

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree,
Thy candles shine out brightly!

Best wishes!

2009-12-22T19:28:00.011+01:00

The days before Christmas

2009-12-19T18:03:00.007+01:00

Christmas decorations

2009-12-12T11:25:00.004+01:00

As I am trying to get into the mood to do some Christmas decorating (I always find it very difficult to switch from St. Nicholas straight to Christmas), I came across this lovely picture (below) on architect design™.

Wouldn't that just be the perfect tree for a miniaturist? Of course we could use any miniature we would like, I could just see my tree with lots of little pieces of furniture.... The only drawback I see is time. I've been working on my house for some six years now and it's not ever nearly finished. Using miniatures in my tree probably would make me want to put up my Christmas decorations earlier, but I'm afraid my Christmas tree would look very bare for many years to come....

Photo used with permission from architect design™

Surprises

2009-12-08T15:13:00.006+01:00

Today I can show you the St. Nicholas gift I made for my Swap partner Ineke, as she has finally discovered I was her secret Santa. I started by making her a large chest to hold laundry, but soon realised my mistake: I had forgotten about one of the rules of the Sint Swap...the gift has to be sent in an envelope. Postal rules dictate that an envelope can have a maximum thickness of 3,2 cm (= 1.2 inches). Oops! The chest would not fit through the letterbox so I had to think of something else, something flatter.

This is what I came up with: a folding drying rack copied from an antique one and a little box with some fine linen. Of course I had to use Ineke's favourite colour blue.

I'd also like to show you the miniature street scene my 10 year old son made (with a little bit of help from his mom) as a 'surprise' for the St. Nicholas party at his school. At his school, the bigger kids (who don't believe in the Saint any more) draw a name and have to buy a little gift for one of their classmates. They then have to make a 'surprise' and write a poem to accompany the gift. A 'surprise' is another part of the St. Nicholas tradition in Holland where the gift is disguised or hidden inside something you make yourself. To make the 'surprises' half the population in Holland is busily crafting the week before St. Nicholas. Of course this is all done in secret.

The gift hiding in this 'surprise' was a Lego street cleaner from the Lego City range.

Some DIY required

2009-12-06T14:01:00.005+01:00

This morning when I went into the kitchen to make some tea, I found that the lights were not working. Luckily St. Nicholas gave me a toolchest just a few days ago, so out it came.

I took out some of the things I thought I might need, like a pencil and maybe some screws,

a screwdriver of course,

and a hammer always comes in handy too.

After some delicate procedures using my new tools (and finding the bulb actually had fallen out of the fitting) I managed to get the lights working again.

Thank you St. Nicholas (Annemieke) for this great toolchest!

Ready for St. Nicholas

2009-11-26T11:47:00.007+01:00

In the Netherlands the feast St. Nicholas is an important part of life. Unlike in most countries where gifts are exchanged at Christmas, the Dutch exchange gifts on the fifth of December. Part of the tradition is making your own gifts and writing a poem to accompany the gift. You can read a good description of the Dutch celebrations and customs of the feast of St. Nicholas here.

One of the Dutch miniatures websites is holding its annual St. Nicholas Swap. Each participant draws a name and has to make a miniature gift for that person. The recipient will not know who made the gift, so part of the fun is in trying to decipher the clues and find out who your secret St. Nicholas is. Of course I have made a miniature gift for someone too and have sent it off already. Nooo, I can't show you a picture here for fear of discovery! However, I can show you the beautiful gift I received last year from Jody:

With a view to St. Nicholas I bought a pair of cowboy boots at the Philadelphia Miniaturia a few weeks ago. I thought they were very cute as they're a bit old and used already, but also a wonderful souvenir from my trip! But really, they are perfect for St. Nicholas Eve, just think how many gifts a pair of boots will hold!