Cross stitch cushions

It started with a trip to an art and craft shop.  Rather than order it online I thought I'd go to a real shop instead because I had a little list - translucent fimo, brown and burnt umbre pastel, sticky labels.

The thing is I love looking around craft shops. Some people can spend all day looking at clothes, I can spend hours looking at card, beads and other bits. In this shop they had some aida fabric.  More importantly it was 18 count which is small enough to use in a dolls house. I bought the fabric and a pack of embroidery threads. The strawberry making went by the wayside and I started stitching some designs which will probably end up as cushions.

Hearts and Valentines

I know today is the 4th of December and the christmas tree is up in the corner of the room but I am thinking ahead and making minis. I work full time as well as making dolls house food so there's only so much time I have to make things. 

So yesterday and today I started on valentines things or more precisely a few hundred hearts in different colours, the bottle tops are the perfect size to hold everything in. 

I'm quite impressed with the strawberry halves which will make their way onto tarts and pies. They are very small - around 3mm long and quite fiddly to make. I tried using sandpaper for the texture on the outside of the fruit but I wasn't happy so I went for the 'stab lots of times with a needle' method. 

This morning was spent making my first few cakes and tarts and this is the results. Plenty more to do but I'll spend the rest of today making more strawberry halves as I think I'll need a few for my valentines and other spring ideas. 

I made leeks while Wales lost.

Yesterday Wales lost to New Zealand. They gave a good fight but it all went wrong in the last 10 minutes or so. Living in Wales you can't get away that this is a rugby obsessed nation and although I'm no good at sport I can do the next best thing and make the national emblem in miniature! 

While the game was on television I was mixing clay ready to make the leeks. I make small batches of anything like this as I think if it does go wrong it doesn't ruin too much clay. I woke up early this morning to finish them off and cook them. 

Using the skinner technique of shading the clay, having a pasta maker and patience  the finished leeks look just like the real thing. I even remembered to add a bit of the root on the bottom of the leek this time. 

Biscuit Christmas Tree

I'd seen these biscuit christmas trees a few years back in some posh kitchen supplies shop. I love the idea of doing something like this but I'd stopped myself because for once I thought of the calories! Instead this year I've made a miniature version. It's a gingerbread biscuit as opposed to a butter biscuit or shortbread with icing and tiny silver ball decoration. I've put some chocolates around the edge of the tree to look parcel like. 

I bought the cutters from a seller on ebay, I could kick myself as I'd gone out and bought one cutter for £4 from a shop because I was a bit impatient to do a couple of things and then I bought four  sets of three  cutters - round, oval, star and square for the same price from the land of bay. 

I think the plate needs to be a different colour but I only had white at the time. A festive green or red would brighten it up. I'll have to look in my paper pile to see if there's anything appropriate. 

Hidden surprise cakes.

I have to admit to having a bit of obsession with Pinterest. I'll have a look for inspiration on there and spend far too much time then wondering how to recreate it in miniature.  I also have a couple of boards with real life cakes, dinners and foodie ideas but they seem to be permanently in the 'make at some time in the future' rather than this is what's for tea tonight.

I left it a bit late this year to plan any specific Christmas goodies so I started thinking of next year and to  begin with  Valentine's day. I came up with a cute little red sponge heart encased in sponge covered with pink icing and different decorations on top. These are the ones I've made today but I'm sure more variations will appear in the future. 

I love the way the sponge looks so real and lifelike. It's done with a simple technique of using a needle on the fimo clay in small circular motions very lightly on the surface. It takes a bit of practise and patience but it's worth it for the end result. 

Pastries and pies

I do like a good pastry pie. The thing is I'm not the best pastry maker in the world. I more often than not  resort to a packet mix or a ready made version. Mini versions are a lot easier to make. There's something about adding the pastel shading or acrylic paint with a final brush of varnish that brings those little things alive.

I made a few fruit pies, pastries and fruit tarts. For the blackcurrants I used tiny seed beads and mixed some translucent liquid sculpey with a tiny amount of colour added. 

The orange segments were made from a mix of translucent fimo mixed with a tiny amount of ochre and orange cut into segment shapes and textured using a needle.

Orange tart

Orange tart

Orange and chocolate tarts

The custard and icing was made from TLS mixed with a tiny bit of oil paint. It also acts as a glue between the uncooked pastry base and the cooked preprepared fruit pieces. Cooked apple filling was made using translucent clay mixed with a bit of bright green apple colour clay. This was cooked then chopped into little bits, mixed with TLS then cooked again.

Danish Pastries

Shopping and Making Boxes

I normally buy most things that I need for my miniatures on the internet. Partly its because I work full time as well as making minis and don't have the time to go out and finding things I need in a real shop. The other reason is that where I live there wasn't any craft shops and 'normal' shops don't have the kind of useful bits and pieces we need. 

Then a shop opened in town and it's an emporium of paper sheets, bits and bobs, things you never thought you needed type of shop. I bought some paper, lace trim and a few other bits. I must look a bit mad looking at something like lace trim and working out if I could use in in miniature. 

I then made some box templates on a draw program at home and a box making production line started. 

Petit Fours and Truffles.

I started making the truffles on Sunday, and I finished them today. Three days to make some tiny truffles no more than 3 or 4mm round. Three days!

The most laborious part was making the sprinkles. I chopped up some pieces of cooked fimo and kept chopping until it was really tiny. I then sieved the clay to ensure only the tiniest pieces were going to be used. At least this is a job I can do sat in front of the televisions in bursts rather than slogging away in the craft room. There is probably a less labour intensive way of doing it but I couldn't think of one at the time. 

I made the plate using some glitter translucent clay mixed with a bit of dark pink. It's an inch across to give you an idea of scale, although I added a pencil to give a visual reference of the size. 

The petit fours are a mix of tiny biscuits, truffles and fancies, Because they are so small it's a useful way of using up odds and ends of clay that may end up in the bin otherwise. 

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Christmas Jewelled Cookies

Today's creations are sweet little christmas cookies. I took my inspiration from the boiled sweet cookies that I'd seen as Chrsitmas decorations. Shortbread cookies with icing and small gold balls and boiled sweet centres. I'd also made some christmas tree shapes and some snowflake fancies. 

Pizza and Garlic Bread

I've made a few pizzas for those lazy can't be bothered cooking days in the doll's house.  A classic cheese and tomato, pepperoni and red onion and pepperoni pizza. I cut up a a couple of pizzas ready to be eaten on a paper plate with some garlic bread slices.

Lunch - Meat Sandwiches

I've been making cakes for the past couple of months and decided it was time to do something different. So I made some meat sandwiches. The photos aren't the best because they were taken with my phone rather than my camera.

These were the first ones I made and as usual forgot to take pictures during the process of making them. I've made another batch of bread rolls and maybe this time I'll have remember to take some.

New Listings on Etsy

Link to my etsy shop

I've listed a few new things this morning. I've made a few dozen danish pastries, belgian buns and apple danish. 

Belgain buns

Assorted pastries.

Miniature Needlework Bedspread

Something that I made for my own doll's house. It was made on 22 count aida fabric and took me 5 months on and off to complete. I had a vague plan of the design but I didn't really plan anything. I also made the cushions.

How To Make Bread and Butter

When making miniatures getting texture into the clay is quite important to make it look more 'real'. I tend  to use semolina to make bread look more realistic.  

1. To make slices of bread mix an equal amount of translucent and white and add in a touch of ochre to lesson the whiteness. Add semolina to the clay until well mixed.

2. Squash the clay down into a square log around 1cm square which is about the size of a standard white loaf of bread.

3. Use artists pastels to give the outside some colour for a crust. Scrape a knife along the pastels to create a dust and then use a paintbrush a lightly build up colour around the log. 

4. Leave the log to firm up for a couple of hours or you can put it in the fridge for a little time. This resting time is important as it lessens the distortion of the clay when it's cut up. 

5. Slice the clay into slices a couple of mm thick. 

6. To make the butter add some liquid sculpey or liquid fimo to some butter coloured clay and mix together. The mix has to be firm enough to spread onto the bread slice but not runny enough to be like icing. In the picture above the butter mix was a bit runny and more like melted butter rather than spreadable butter. 

7. Cook the clay as per packet instructions. 

Strawberry Tarts

Yesterday I spent several hours sat on my sofa making a strawberry cane from polymer clay in order that I could make some flans and tarts today. It takes time and patience to make a good cane - I know from past experience that if I rush cane making the result is sometimes not quite as I would like.

There is also the have I mixed it enough/not enough/opaque enough/translucent enough etc etc. These thoughts always go through my head especially when making anything red like strawberry and tomato canes and there is a moment of anticipation as I cut the first slices from the cane to see that it's all worked out alright. 

It doesn't help that I'm using some old clay which can also affect the result. But after very patient mixing and baking I had a whole heap of strawberry slices. I didn't take any pictures of the process as I didn't think about it at the time, however I do have pictures of the finished tarts I made today! 

What A Start!

It's been less than a month since I decided to start selling my minis again and I feel like I haven't stopped! It's not that I ever really stopped making as I continued to do things for my own collection but I did stop selling.

The break has done my some good because I have a renewed energy and creative burst which has had me working on several new items. 

I'm selling on etsy, the shop name is Magenta Minis, link on the right. Below is a selection of the current items for sale.