29/04/2013

Faux stained glass window



The picture at te start of this post shows my faux stained glass window on the landing of the stairs. In the evenings, the light from the outside shines through the window inside my Miniature House. I love it, always!

23/04/2013

Liduina's give away: and the winner is.....




 

I got far  more reactions on my Give Away than I initially had expected and some commenters even  wrote they liked all paintings and would have difficulty to choose one.
 It is hard for me knowing I can't give all of you a miniature painting. 
Therefore I decided to give away all paintings shown in the
Give Away post of April 4: that is 10 miniature paintings.

This is the list of names I made yesterday evening late. You can compare the sequence with the comments on the post of April 4.



I used the Random Generator to extract a list of 10 winners. This is the draw:


So the winners are:

  1. Fabiola
  2. Fiona
  3. Fiber
  4. Hannah
  5. Giac
  6. Monique
  7. Maria Ireland
  8. Emily Miller Talbott
  9. Genevieve
  10. Norma
The first winner ( Fabiola) will have first choice, the second winner (Fiona) next, etcetera. In the picture beneath I gave the winners a colour on the list, so you can check yourself.



Congratulations to you all! 






18/04/2013

Concealing electrical wires







 


In her post of April the 8th Fiona (a Passion for Minatures) wrote about the wall plugs that appear to come with the coppertape system for creating electric light in a doll's house. I wrote a comment on this post about my coppertape system and how I agreed the rather ugly wall plugs had to be hidden behind tiny objects.
Wondering about this I remembered I initially had started out with a system of wires running under the floors in my Miniature house. But I did not like the bunch of threads hanging outside at the back of my house. 
So when I discovered the coppertape-system  I decided to use that instead, but later  I realised I really disliked the plugs.

Now I have ended up with a combination of both systems trying to have the best of both worlds for my Miniature House. I will show you in this post.



The advantage of the coppertape system is that you can hide it under the wallpaper and and with aid of a special Cir-Kit device, you  can plug lamps directly into the ceiling. Replacing the lamp is very easy in this way.



However  the drawback of the coppertape system is you need to make plugs in the walls. The electricity plugs are far too big and obvious. I try to hide them with some furniture or tiny accessories.


Sometimes, the Cirkit-device shown above can't be used for a ceiling lamp. This was the case with the lamp in my bathroom. I solved this problem by leading the wire up the room above, under the floor to the back of the attic where I had made a kind of fake corner.




The same trick I applied to the kitchen ceiling: the wires of the kitchen lamp end beneath the bath tub.  If you look well, you can still see the grooves I made initially for the wiresystem; in the back wall of my house are still tiny holes where I wanted to pull the wires through.  I can still do it if I choose to....



Then there was the problem of the hearths. I decided to hide the plugs behind them as you can see in the pictures below.  

I made the hearths out of paper, cardboard, wood and fabric, painting them afterwards.



Again the wire of the ceilinglamp in the livingroom runs under the floor of the room above and ends behind the hearth there.









At the attic I wanted to create a wall to put the red cupboard I made in front of it. This created the opportunity to hide the wire of the hanging lamp.


So far the secrets of the hidden electrical system in my Miniature House.


























11/04/2013

Pictureframes



Instead of buying frames for the pictures in my Miniature House, I tried to make them with the materials I already have at home. In this post I will show you how I did this.

I started to determine the measurements of the frames I needed for the paintings by using two
L-shaped pieces of paper.







I transferred  the measurements  to a piece of 1 mm cardboard and cut the rectangle  or  square  out.




Next I took some ribbon or lace and I glued this in a straight line on a piece of 1 mm cardboard. I used a kind of white glue that can be used as a primer for acrylic paintings. (in the store of Peter van Ginkel; Mowilith DM-2)




I made sure not only to glue the fabric on the cardboard but also brush the glue over it's surface. In this way I could avoid the fabric getting fringed later in the process.



When the glue had completely dried, I cut the fabric. In the picture below you can see that I made the glued on ribbon  a little less wide by cutting a long strip off. I did not want  the frame to be too big and heavy around the painting.



When the ribbon was as broad as I wanted it to be, I started  cutting it fit around my painting, using the template I made.  You can see this in the pictures below.






On  the frame, that was now created on the cardboard, I applied a  coat of paint.


I glued the coloured frame onto the painting itself and cut it all out again. I applied a final layer of paint to conceal the edge of the painting underneath.

And  below you can see the results;











04/04/2013

A Give-Away from the mini art gallery



I would like to give away a miniature painting. I made them especially for this Give-Away, trying to take into acount the general taste I gather from what I see on most  blogs.
I know love of art is often  a matter of personal taste and therefore can't be disputed. But I do hope most of you can find a picture that suits your taste and would fit in your own doll's house style.

All paintings are made with high quality acrylics and finished with a matt varnish, so I suppose the colours won't fade (but never expose them to the burning sunlight anyway). Some paintings are made on real canvas, others on primed cardboard.



no. 2
2.7 cm x 3.5 cm

No 8
2.1 cm x 2.5 cm



No 14
3.3 cm x 4.2 cm

No. 7
3 cm x 3 cm

No 5
2.5 x 3.5 cm


No 11
3.8 x 2.5 cm

No.1
2.5 x 3.3 cm

No 13
4.3 x 3.5 cm

No. 6
2.1 x 1.6 cm

No 12
2.2 x 3 cm