LITTLE UPDATE

I can barely believe I'm actually writing a little update today...! When our daughter was born two years ago my priorities changed drastically, and for a long time I didn't work on anything miniatures related. It wasn't so much lack of time, but having the breathing space needed for new inspiration.

Luckily it looks like my little daughter is already hooked on minis! 

I found her a Momoll dolls house including all the original furniture for 10 Swiss Francs on a local auction website! The previous owners had painted it really badly in garish colours, but after a little sanding and a new lick of paint it's as good as new. And now it's filled with furniture that I used to play with, when I was a child. It's great to see how a simple house like this can spark her imagination!

And now baby No 2 is due in a couple of weeks, but I actually managed to work on some minis since the beginning of the year!

In January I started work on The Mountfield kit, which I had bought a year earlier from The Dolls' House Emporium. I had all the plans worked out in my head. There were a lot of changes I wanted to make to the kit - mainly to make it even more useable for taking photographs. It's an absolutely amazing house, which is much more interesting than traditional front opening dolls' houses, and very close to a typical British 1930s detached house.

So first I spent a lot of time sawing and glueing, then came the outside finish. I wanted to have the bottom half of the house bricks, and the top half pebble dash, which is very typical for this type of property. And that meant a lot of this... :-)

If you're not familiar with the egg carton technique have a look at Brae's great tutorial.

I'm not done with the outside yet, but I just had to make a start on the inside :-) So here are a first few snap shots.

The idea for the house is, that if my family and I would live back in the UK, this could be the type of house we would live in. I will copy a lot of the furniture and accessories we own in real life. First up, was the IKEA Lillesand bed and an old mirror we own.

Of course there will be lots of vintage furniture as well and stripped floor boards throughout - just how I would have it in real life...

VERO FOR SALE... AGAIN

I just wanted to let you know, that I have listed my lovely vintage VERO on Ebay, as it didn't sell earlier in the year. I hope it will find a new owner this time!

BACK FROM FRANCE

I have just come back from ten days in France and I've been to the most amazing place! I hope you are ready for a picture heavy post... This place I visited was so full of mystery...

decaying beauty...

...and otherworldly atmosphere...

All I can say, if you ever find yourself near Lyon in France you have to go and see the Museum of Miniatures and Cinema. The countless shadow boxes on display there are the best I have ever seen. For example this attic room:

Or these modern loft apartments:

And of course the stunning work by Ronan-Jim Sevellec!

I had seen his work online before, but being able to almost get into these scenes and photograph the details was such an amazing experience.

And then there was also a room totally dedicated to a collection of miniature objects. Some of my favourites were the perfectly to scale toothbrush (including real bristles!) and the amazingly detailed tools by Adam Pascal.

And right at the end of the exhibition was the best surprise for me - a beautifully messy hippy room!

There are lots more photos on my Flickr. Enjoy!

MAKING SPACE FOR THE NEW

Exciting news - I have decided to start on a new project! After a year of almost no miniature time at all I am now confident that I will have the odd minute here and there to work on a new house. All will be revealed in due time...

But first I have to make room in my craft room and I'm therefore selling three of my vintage houses. I will list them on Ebay next week, but I thought I would see first, if any of you would like to give one of these beauties a new home :-) Just e-mail me if you would like to make an offer or for more pictures and if you have any questions.

First up is this beautiful 1:16 scale VERO. I fell in love with the wallpaper and the turquoise floors when I originally purchased the house. The condition is great, and except one circular spot in one room, all the wallpaper is intact. It's the perfect backdrop for mid-century scenes.

The second house is also a VERO, but a larger scale one. Actually the same one featured by The Shopping Sherpa recently. The previous owner has added a railing to the roof and new wallpaper. The original wallpaper is still there, but hidden underneath the newer one, which has come off fine on one of the panels. There is a lot of original wiring on this house, including a door bell! I have used it for spare parts, so unfortunately there are only three of the five glass window panels left, but other than that it is in great condition. 

UPDATE - THIS HOUSE HAS NOW BEEN SOLD
The third house I would like to sell is technically not a whole house, but the ground floor of a 1967 LUNDBY Roof Terrace house (according to www.toysmiles.com). I found it in a junk shop in Berlin and again fell in love with the beautiful wallpaper and colour of the floors. And look at this fireplace...! Here is a scene I set up in this house when I first got it.

Looking at all these photos reminds me why I originally fell in love with these houses... it would be nice to know that they are going to a good home!

I'M STILL HERE!

I can't believe how long it's been...
My daughter Alice Elsie was born in March, and life changed so much from one day to the other!

I truly enjoy being a mother, and the first few months I really took my time getting to know Alice and getting used to my new role. Now things have settled down a bit, I am working again as an art director and designer. As you can imagine, this doesn't leave me much time for miniatures.

But I was lucky enough, to work on a re-brand for a beautiful local toy shop a couple of months ago and got the chance to put a miniature scene together! More on their website.

I still read all your blogs and will hopefully be back with some new stuff in the new year!

I made this scene last week for the birth announcement card of my friends' baby boy. It's full of personal touches - for example the football strip of our local team and references to music etc.

Some of you might know that I'm expecting my first child as well - basically any minute now! So I will close my Etsy shop tomorrow morning and will take a break from miniatures for at least a couple of months. But of course I will keep up to date on all your lovely blogs!

BACK IN DECEMBER

This seems like ages ago, but I still wanted to share this exciting project with you!

In December I was contacted by dutch ad agency UbachsWisbrun / JWT to build miniature scenes inside a christmas gift. I only had a few days to build the whole box and to put the rooms together. Then the people were photographed and I added them as flat paper cutouts to the scenes. And here you have the final result!

Here are the rooms before retouching so you get to see more of the details that went into each room.