The Wine Bottle Challenge

You may remember, in my post that included the half-scale gift basket, I was bemoaning the fact that I couldn't find decent half-scale white wine bottles.  Carrie had the idea of checking Stewart Dollhouse Creations.  They have 3-D printed wine bottles that you can color with glass pens; unfortunately, they only make them in 1:48 scale. ☹ I looked on Shapeways, though, and found wine bottles in 1:24 scale.  😊 I ordered a set, as well as the pens recommended by Stewart Dollhouse Creations.  The bottles are in smooth translucent plastic.

I tried both the pens and some Gallery Glass that I had on hand.  (I ordered a sampler set from Amazon a while ago.)  Here are the results.

Going from left to right:  The red glass pen looks too much like ketchup to me.  The green glass pen looks kind of blotchy.  The burgundy Gallery Glass looks way too pale (despite 3 or 4 coats), probably because of the white translucent core.  Because of that, I tried coloring the bottle with a black permanent marker, then adding a coat or two of the burgundy Gallery Glass.  I like the look!  I also like the look of the yellow Gallery Glass for the white wine.  I made a couple more attempts at a green bottle—first with just the light green Gallery Glass, then trying to color the bottle with an India ink pen before using the Gallery Glass.  I'm not happy with either result.  However, I think, based on my tests, I could produce both a red and a white wine bottle color that would be acceptable.

Now here's the problem.  This is the comparison between the same type of half-scale red wine bottles I used in the gift basket, and the new Shapeways bottles.  There is a huge difference! 

The Shapeways bottles are probably closer to reality.  The original wine bottles I got are ¾ of an inch tall, which would translate to 18" in real life.  I measured our wine bottles; they are between 11 and 12", depending on the shape of the bottle.  The Shapeways bottles are 7/16", which is pretty close, but they just seem so small!  Ideally, I would have something in between.  I had a similar issue with the champagne in the Orient Express.  I bought an unpainted metal mini of a champagne bucket with champagne, and a green bottle that I thought could work as a champagne bottle.  They were both listed as half scale, but look at the difference in size!

Ultimately, I went with the larger bottle (which I painted, stuck a label on, and supplemented with miniature ice), as it seemed closer to scale with the rest of the food items, even if a little bit large.

The green bottle (which I still have) could potentially work as a white wine bottle, once it's been given a "cork," but they're pricey--$4.95/bottle!

Here is one of the new bottles next to the gift basket.

Maybe I can use them as sauce bottles (gourmet barbecue sauce? flavored vinegar? ketchup?), but they just don't look right to me for wine.  I've also tried the various bottles in a wine rack.

The original red is too big; it didn't fit in the wine rack at all.   The newer bottles seem a bit small.  *Sigh*  That's the problem with miniatures.  Even items of the same scale can vary greatly in size, and items that are perfectly to scale sometimes don't look quite right.  The search continues.

Hope you all are having a good week, and that your minis are behaving better than mine.  😊

Gardens and Greenhouses – How I Got Back into the World of Miniatures

Here's the first in what may be a series of Throwback Thursday posts for those interested in seeing my other, earlier builds.

I received my first dollhouse for Christmas when I was four years old.  These are not my pictures, but this is the house, both exterior and interior.  It came with molded plastic furniture that was all one color for each room.  Note:  It was half scale.  😉

Unfortunately, I don't have any good pictures of the dollhouse my parents built for me when I was around ten years old.  They made it from left-over materials used to build our 1:1 house, and I thought it was marvelous (even though it had no windows, doors or stairs).  The house was 1:12 scale, but my collection of furniture was—um—eclectic.  I think I had 1:18, 1:12, and a kitchen table that was definitely bigger than 1:12, although not 1:6.  I loved it, and still have some of the pieces from it.

I got back into miniatures a few years ago through fairy gardens.  We were doing a Japanese-themed summer barbecue, and I've always wanted a koi pond, although we simply don't have room for one in real life.  While looking around on the Internet for party ideas, I saw a miniature koi pond, and had the idea of making a Japanese tea garden in a pot.

I made the koi pond from a tutorial by Lesley Shepherd, using Styrofoam for the pond and clear styrene for the water.

It took two weeks of applying clear tar gel to build up the waterfall, bit by bit.

It went into the pot, along with a Bonsai maple (also submerged in its dish), some Bonsai lanterns, various grasses and plants, and a "tea house" made from a wooden birdhouse from Joann.  I wanted a Tori gate but couldn't find one, so I settled for a little Tori-shaped set of wind chimes.  Here is the finished garden with our beloved cat Owen (may he rest in peace), who loved to photobomb my pictures.

If you look closely, you can see a tiny white cat curled up under the bench next to the pond.  😊

I loved sitting on our deck and looking at the garden, and "walking" through it in my mind.

I then made my own tea house for an indoor dish garden.

From there, it was an easy jump to an indoor fairy garden conservatory.  I found a great greenhouse planter on Amazon and made a small scene to fit among the plants.

I used real ceramic tiles for the floor, and the furniture was built from kits from Karen Benson Miniatures.

I had tried to find affordable wicker or wrought iron furniture, but nothing was coming up in my searches.  These were the first pieces I made from kits, and the size (half scale) was dictated by the size of my little greenhouse.  A passion was born.  😊

While looking around for garden/conservatory inspiration, I fell in love with the beautiful greenhouses made by Lady Jane.  (Check them out if you haven't;  they make for some incredible eye candy.)  Unfortunately, they were totally out of my price range, but I found a half-scale greenhouse kit on Etsy and took the plunge.  I opened it, read the instructions, and packed it all up again three times before getting the courage to actually start work on it.  I thought the instructions were crazy when they said to use egg carton for the floor tiles, but, of course, I know now that egg carton is used by a lot of miniaturists to make wonderful, realistic stone.

I bought one set of "Busy Lizzie" plant kits from The Miniature Garden on Etsy, and I bought a set of plastic plants from DeJoux Miniatures.  However, I really wanted to try making my own plants and flowers for the greenhouse.  There are hundreds of tutorials on the Internet, and an excellent article in A.I.M. (Artisans in Miniatures) Magazine Issue 54 had some wonderful suggestions for edge punches I could use to get leaves, flowers and petals small enough to work in half scale.  (If you've never checked out A.I.M., it's worth a look. Their magazines are free online and include a lot of fun and interesting projects, in all scales.)  I cheated a bit and used small shamrocks for my geranium leaves and cut the larger shamrocks from the same punch into quarters to make the hearts for my rose petals.

Climbing rose in progress, next to a toothpick.  The trellis is from Heritage Laserworks.

The right-hand table was an unpainted work table that can be found in various miniature stores online.  The left-hand table is the potting bench kit from SDK Miniatures. 

The lovely little wicker chair was a splurge from Uncle Ciggies.  I made the remaining tables myself.  The pots are mostly from Braxton-Payne, the bird cage was a charm that I painted, and I made the little gardening set from paper, crochet and unpainted metal minis.  I liked it so much that I ended up making several sets for a half-scale swap.  

And there you have my reintroduction to the world of minis.  Next up—my first house, the half-scale craftsman bungalow from Real Good Toys.

The Rug Is Finished!

I have finally finished the main rug for the Sagamore Hill library!

Its border looks lighter in the photographs than it does in real life.  It almost looks white in the pictures, but it was worked with DMC 739 (very light tan), which to me looks like a pale, peachy gold.  I am very glad I did the borders around the medallions.  They definitely give the border more punch.

Still one more rug to go (the one under the orange chair), but I am taking a break from cross-stitch for a couple of weeks!

I have been playing around with a some more design ideas, including two more purses.

Can you tell this is supposed to have a caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly in it?

Also, those of you who follow Samantha (BluePrintMinis on Instagram) may have seen the San Francisco-themed gift basket I made for her.

Since half scale is really my preferred scale, I wondered if I could create a half-scale version.  I did run into a few snags--for starters, I can't find half-scale mugs anymore.  They definitely used to make them, but I've looked just about everywhere and can no longer find them.  ☹ I also can't find white wine bottles, so the half-scale basket ended up with two reds, which I guess is OK.  I may see if the guy who makes the 1:12 bottles I use would consider making half scale.  The final snags were that I didn't have a jar small enough for the olives, and the candy bars weren't easy to see when shrunk to half scale.  I ended up substituting chocolate sauce for the candy bars and mustard for the olives.  I also substituted copyright-free versions of the all of the pictures.  Google allows you to search by usage rights, and I was pleasantly surprised by how many good pictures of San Francisco are available free for commercial re-use.  All in all, I'm pleased with how it turned out. 😊

My final bit of news for this entry is that Carrie decided the new tenant in my Fairfield needed a maid, so she dressed one for me!  She found a great half-scale doll that had already been painted, and gave her hair, a dress, apron and cap!

I had already set up a maid's room when I built the Fairfield, so she lost no time making herself at home in her new digs.

She then went to work immediately, serving tea in the sitting room . . .

and cooking what I'm sure will be a delicious meal!

Many thanks to Carrie's fabulous Victorian employment agency!

Enjoy the weekend, everyone!  Hope you get a lot of time to do minis (or whatever your passion is).  Thanks for stopping by!  I really do appreciate all the comments I get.