Walnut Cottage

A walnut cottage in a summer landscape. The "hostas" in the center foreground were made from HO scale kits left over from the 1/4" scale flower arrangements I made for the Toy and Dollhouse Museum of Kansas City. I'm a huge fan of hostas, which grow very well here in Michigan, and have many varieties in my yard.

The inside.  There's a fireplace on the left wall, and a shelf holding books and accessories above the door.

Another Way to Make Plates

I also occasionally use .005 white sheet styrene (available at hobby stores) for plates. It can easily be painted any color you like with acrylic craft paints.

Nuremberg Kitchen

As sometimes happens, I've been so focused on working that i neglected to stop and take pictures.  Here's one of the things I just finished:

Toy kitchens have been made at least as long as dollhouses. Many were made in Germany, hence the name "Nuremberg Kitchen."  This one is an 18th Century version.  I love making these, because it gives me a chance to make lots of little detail parts. The hutch and settle are my own castings; the table and chair are scratch built. The accessories are mostly modified cast metal.  I make the plates by coating paper with about 3 coats of acrylic gloss medium, punching them out with a 1/8" hole punch, and making an indentation in the center with a very small nail set to give them some dimension.  For more elegant settings, I often paint the rims gold.

Whitledge-Burgess Connection

Ray Whitledge and Scott Burgess are teaching a great class, "La Coeur de la Maison" in Milwaukee, WI on October 13-16, 2010.  As you might guess, it's a lovely Country French style room. The original has two of my room boxes built into one of the back walls.  You can see it at:

http://www.whitledge-burgess.com/gallery/album18/room1

You can increase the size of the image by clicking on it.

Christmas in July

For some reason, I always start thinking about Christmas around this time of year. (Maybe it has something to do with a longing for cooler westher!) That may be why I decided that my class for Tom Bishop's 2011 Chicago Show would be a Christmas Dome.  Here it is:

I included the penny in the shot so that people not familiar with my work could easily see what the scale is. In the past, some people have signed up for my classes not realizing that they would be making something so small. Although they always stayed, and always successfully completed the project, I do prefer people to know what they are getting into!

The one day class will include making the tree and  painting and detailing all the other components, including the 1:1728 scale dollhouse. It's a fun project and doesn't require any special skills.

It's suitable for anyone, whether you have experience in 1:144 scale or not. If you are coming to the show, I hope you will consider joining us.

Guild School 2011

I'm happy to announce that my class proposal for the 2011 Guild School has been accepted!  I will be teaching the Garden Cottage - see my blog posting for June 8th.

If you're coming to the Guild School and would like to try 1:144 scale, this is a great project.  It covers all aspects of the scale - construction, furnishing and landscaping.  No special skills or power tools are needed for this one, and it's fun to make!

There will be time in the class to completely finish the whole thing.  I'm obsessive about that, always take care to design my classes so that nobody leaves with a partly finished project. (Full disclosure: when I take classes, I'm always one of the last to finish, and have way too many unfinished pieces from classes I took years ago.  I don't want that to happen to my students.)

The Guild School 2010

The Guild School was one of the most enjoyable weeks I've had in ages. How could a whole week spent with people who share a love of miniatures be anything but wonderful? 

I took Mark Murphy's class, and made a beautiful Japanese tea chest.  Mark is an excellent teacher; everyone in the class left with a finished piece.  Here's a shot of mine while I was working on it:

I still have to stain my finished piece - that was something we were supposed to do at home, as it takes a couple of days for the stain to dry completely.  I've been busy getting together a sample and class description for Chicago International 2011, so I haven't done that yet, but hope to get to it this weekend.