Forgot to mention ! And update on kitties...

During last months I actually did make some minis.

This witch was made by me in August from a kit by Nancy Cronin , who makes the best witches and crabby old ladies that I know of . As you can see , she has a mini-me with her 😁 . The kit was excellent with clear descriptions, was quite well prepared, as well. Moonyeen Möller did a lot of work on it . It was about the first mini I had made since a long time and I do owe Nancy and Moonyeen for getting me out and back on track. 

The other thing I made was (in October) a bunch of 1/24 narcissi from a kit by Georgina Steed (The Miniature Garden ) ; she makes excellent kits in 1/12 and 1/24 scale. The last ones are rather hard to find . Thank you Georgie !

The vase was made by Elisabeth Causeret.

PS the tape in the pic is a centimeter, not an " inchometer" !

                                       In the meantime my kitties are growing up fast !!

The one with the white nose is Fluffy, the black nosed one is Spotty, and the big striped tiger is Tiffany. 

Cobweb , getting there !!!

Cobweb is a Tudor cottage. I read up the book by Brian Long and had a good hard look at the beams inside, as ( although I have never seen a RL Tudor cottage in my life) I was absolutely sure there should be beams in it! If I would have had to follow the pattern outside I would have given up immediately, but fortunately I got away with some  more simple constrictuction on the inside.

So off I headed for a railay model shop, where they sell those nice balsa slats and then - me having off some days and happily mini-ing away- there I went, full steam ahead, cutting ans staining and sticking little beams until I nearly DREAMT beams.

Here we are now:

Of course, I had to take everything out to do this, now it is back again, lighting installed, as well ( and by golly, it works ! ):

I also bought some little canisters and a canister of pickles, both from ebay, made by Sam Dunlap (?)

                             
                                    ( the little bowl of eggs was also added , so sweet !)

More Cobweb !

recently some more halfscale items ( from ebay and Homes in Miniature ) did come in, and this week I made up some kits of Jane Harrop . I justput some of them in.

Here are some of the thingies I bought:

                                                          Jelly chest

                                                   

                                                             drawer  chest

                                 Wash stand and a beautiful set of porcelain, jug and basin:

                                                Sorry for the pic, but here it is....

                                                 And, of course, I could not resist that doggie !

                 Still- beams to be added, plus lights to be installed !! Will have to wait, though.

Reanimated Cobweb inside

OK, here are some pics of my sweet little Cobweb (1/24 scale) after the operation :-) . One can still see the mistake, of course , but it is not really a problem , the house  is accessible and can be viewed quite well.

That so-called "slate"floor was made by scoring, painting and satin-varnishing cardboard. Eccept for cutting the whole carboard to measure  fit in, no hard measuring  etc. I always prefer to do things the easy way !!!

And now the fun part- furnishing , decorating ( and, I hope, some dolls!!)

Cobweb rescued !!!!!!

Hurray ! after my sad Cobweb story Josje was so kind to offer her help ( now SHE is a  builder, which I definitely am not :-) ). So last week I drove there, house on board - one of the best things about smaller scales is that you can easily take houses for a  spin or walk, if they like to - and she did some cosmetic surgery.

This was what had happened - don't laugh so hard you!!!! I did , actually, but it was a shame as I had spent so much time on the dear little cottage :


HUH ??????? Chimney over the frontdoor ? What about Health and Safety rules????

But now it looks like this :

What she basically did, was removing the tabs atttachments and replacing them on front. And it works !!!!

So THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Josje !!!

Cobweb nearly done !

Apart from the fireplaces, which are STILL a sore in the eye , everything is done now and ready to go.

I finished front and back ( windows, doors, etc) and the roofs plus chimney. Fortunately remembered just in time that I had to glue the chimney stack on before roofing!!!!!

                                                           Front :

                                                     Backside of roof

                           Again , those darned fireplaces, nope , still do not like them one bit better:

                                   Roof and front laid side by side (or on top)

Cobweb continued

Hmm, not quite a success, although most parts do look decent now or are going well.

Big disaster struck when I worked on the fireplaces. As per instructions, I let the filler I used dry thoroughly before chiseling stonework. That was a non-starter!!!! I chiseled and chiseled and chiseled....Could not chisel the inside, at all, so the fireplaces are a mess.

Here you can see what happened...:

Honest, they are an eyesore, even if it does not look too bad on the pic. I was ready to bin the whole cottage, as these fireplaces are so central to construction, plus they hit you in the eye as soon as you open the cottage.

Fortunately Tony ( Mr Bea) has promised me to send me an extra set, so I can prepare all other parts of the cottage and as soon as I have made new and decent fireplaces, it will be easy going..

The chimney stack was OK, I let the filler dry only so much before scribing into it:

( dont look too much at the color, is still under revision and looks better by the time I am typing this)

The walls have been mucked up :

They look nice and dirty ! Maybe some extra "mould".

Meanwhile I have taken up roofing, hope that will turn out OK :-) !!

Cobweb up till now- after one week

OK., had taken hols from job  to work on minis. But, of course, there are loads of RL things I have to do, as well, not having had time for those !

Well, in between these boring things I worked on Cobweb again and tthis is where we are now! Lots of loose pieces lying around everywhere , some of them tend to hop off whenever they can :-(

                             Outer walls done , well, have to muck them up as yet:

                           Inner windowframes, doorframe first floor , staircase painted

                            First floor door housing, chimney stack and two plastered hearths

                                       That is as far as I have got for now !

A new adventure begins; Cobweb cottage :-)

When I was at the Apeldoorn fair, splashing out big time, I also acquired a kit from Petite Properties for their new halfscale (1/24 scale) Cobweb Cottage kit. I have taken off some days from work to do a lot of things that I ought to ( like visiting vet with my zoo,3 times, eek!,  getting winter tyres sorted , etc) , but certainly also to mini! And I love having days in a row to do this, so that I do not need to tidy all my stuff away every time, hoping I will remember where I left it when I start again.

So here we go...

Cobweb is kind of a 3D puzzle. The kit is very easy to handle ( and me being me nearly blooped big time already ). The  manual is very nice and clear, although it is about building only, so one has to think ahead about wiring, decorating, etc; well, the good ole' stuff, really.

Up till now I have glued the fireplaces together and am in the process of sticking the "beamwork"to the wallls ( I want to dry them flat under a weight, so wait until I have got the ornaments in place before building.
The fireplaces  are different, though, one has to glue them together first thing , as they will be stone (read : filler).

So this is where I am now; doesn't look much , but it still a bit of work ( well, a gal has a RL to attend to) :
           

                                         Fireplaces:

                                                         Front wall , painted

                                                beam panel , sticky tape on backside

Ditto, with side panel 

Rear panel, beams in place

Needs some mucking up, but it does look like something!

Crosthwaite cottage

Last fair I bought Crosthwaite Cottage from Herdwick landscapes slightly mofified to suit my needs :

  Recently I bought some furniture to go with it, and also , at the fair, I added some more smaller things to go with it ( like all that porcelain!!) . I did spend most of the afternoon trying to tack / attach my thingies into the house.

Most of them are in place now, I could just photograph them before dark.

                                               The kitchen/living room

                       
                                             Once more:

                                               Room next :

                                                     Upstairs 1 ( bed for granny?

                                                                upstairs 2

                                                          scullery etc :-)

Some more from my splashing party

Here goes:

I did serious damage both to my account and Elizabeth Bettler's stand (sorry , she has no website , but you can see 1/12 samples of her pottery here ) .

                                       This is all 1/24 or halfscale :

                                             Teapot, cups and a milk jug

                                           
                                           pots of jams, washing jugs

                                              adorable salt box to be mounted

                                             plates, saucepans, pieform

                                                    small vases,jugs

                                                   kitchen stuff together

                                                    Some fiery 1/24 kitties :

                                                             
                                                              and two ditto dogs :

                             (And, of course , a very happy 1/12 kitty, could not resist that face!)

                                         The little critters sewn by Shirley Scheibehenne :

                                          sleepy baby hare

                                           VERY sleepy ducky, flat bellied!

                                        tortoise

                                                 Little hedgehog