Christmas cookie biscuits

Christmas is coming ... 

I decided to make some more modern kind of foodstuffs and Pinterest came to my aid again with seasonal Christmas biscuits.  I always look at the food on there and think is it possible to make it in miniature and more importantly make it look real in miniature from polymer clay.

I decided I'd have a go at making seasonal cookies. As usual I have ideas of how to do lots of different ones but decided to start with two simple designs - snowman and robin. 

This is the basic robin in the making. On the left tile - a yellowy clay for the beak, red for the chest and brown for the body. The tiny caviar beads are used for the eyes. On the right hand tile is the biscuit base and the stages of making the robin. 

Left to right how the different pieces were assembled. 

After cooking they I glazed them with a semi matt varnish.

The snowmen were made in the same way with glittery fimo for the snow effect and caviar beads for the eyes, nose and mouth. Each biscuit is around 7mm round which in the real world would be 8.5cm which is more a cookie than a biscuit size. I did try and size it down to a biscuit but it seemed too small and this seemed a much better size. 

Happy birthday Magenta Minis!

Magenta minis is one year old ! This time last year I decided to start selling my miniatures on etsy. It's been a good year of learning new skills, meeting new people, learning about the whole world of social media marketing and making and selling minis!!

I'm still as passionate about it as ever, and hope to continue crossing things off my to do list as I go ..

Chocolate brownie.

I haven't abandoned the food side of things. I was waiting for more clay to be delivered and then I decided to buy some new cutters and I'm waiting for them now. I had been using cheap plastic plunge cutters but fimo and other polymer clays react with the plastic and eats away at it resulting in it being unusable. 

It took me a while to find a UK source. I could find plenty in the USA and a high postage to match which would have been too costly. Eventually Google led me to www.clayarond.com and have found the cutters and other fimo goodies. 

Anyway while I'm waiting for them to be delivered I made a chocolate brownie, ice cream and chopped nuts dessert. It helps the diet that it's calorie free. The plate is sat on a pound coin which is 22mm across. 

Miniature crochet

A couple of weeks ago I bought a lot of 1ply wool and a couple of crochet hooks. And began crocheting.

The first piece was a bit of a disaster. Kept snagging the wool and I was using a 1mm hook, This was the result which I was happy that I'd achieved something but unhappy that is was so messy.

I tried again with a 0.6 mm hook and oddly I am doing much better with the smallersize. I've begun with easy bedspreads in the style of a big granny square and it's the perfect way to end the day as I can't mix or colour clay at night.

I thin I'll do a few of these before I tackle anything more complicated .

The never ending to do list.

A couple of weeks ago I sat down and went through all my half finished, half loved projects - both big and small and said no more making or buying until everything was finished. Not just miniature projects but big ones too as I had a lonely knitted sock without the second one made and a blanket that was nowhere near finished. 

The socks are now finished. Once I'd sat down and started knitting it didn't take too long. That's the beauty of knitting plain socks without a pattern they can be made in no time at all.

The (full size) blanket is a different beast. There are pictures of the work in progress on my instagram account www.instagram.com/c6c8 but after I finish writing this today I am back making more crocheted flowers as there aren't enough to make the central panel yet. Then all I have to do is the border round the edge so it fits onto my bed. 

It is a time consuming monster but I really want to get as much of it done over the weekend as I can. 

So everything is ticking along, I have a list of miniature food that I would like to make to put into the shop as I haven't actually made anything while finishing the half finished things. I haven't abandoned the miniatures as I've been doing other stuff that isn't sitting down and actually making anything. Mainly I have been painting and gluing and finishing another half finished project which is the miniature food frames. Also on my to do list is to do a blog post about them, at some point in the future. 

And then what do I do? I happened to be on facebook and a lady was selling a lot of 1ply and 2ply wool. I'd looked at doing mini crochet before, even looked online to buy some but always didn't quite get to the buying part. I have enough hobbies, there aren't enough hours in the day, I have a full time job when will I get the time to it .... so I bought it! 

There is a certain method to the madness. There is honestly. My dollhouse is filled with things that are a reflection of my life. It's not an accurate replica of the house I live in, but inspired by it. So there is a craft room, a dollshouse (which is actually a Tetley tea house that was free with a box of tea many many years ago), small photos from holidays, a kitchen full of food, a bed cover that have been cross stitched, cushions, books etc etc. One thing I haven't got though is anything crocheted because it's one of those skills I've always admired but never tried. 

Now I can though with my newly acquired instant stash of wool!! Eventually when I attempt something with it there will be an update but when that will be is an entirely different matter. 

Artists not being given credit where credit is due.

I've copied the post below from my Facebook page  ... It really does make me so mad. Even with the benefit of doubt that the person is just adding pics and then sharing them without really knowing what they are doing - even after me and others have pointed out that the pics are other artists work and should be given credit the poster has remained silent... but is still posting which probably annoyed me more!

It takes a lot of time to make miniatures look good in pictures. Taking the images and editing them to be appealing to an internet audience. I admit I don't always watermark my pics but sometimes I think I really should add something to each picture I take like the one above so if it is used then they know it's mine!! 

..... copied from my Facebook post earlier ... 

VENT ALERT!!

I'm a member of many miniature groups on facebook. As I've been browsing though the posts there are a number which are of artists miniature food being posted by one individual.

In the big scheme of things there is nothing wrong in sharing other people's work BUT there is no text accompanying the pictures and you could be under the impression the work is of the person posting.

I've commented on a couple of posts, there are watermarks in some of the pics but if you use a mobile to view it may not be clear that there is one.

It is annoying that this person hasn't edited any post to clarify that these are food items she admires/likes as I'm not even sure if the intent is to pass the models off as her own, she has stayed silent apart from posting the images.

Anyone could take one of my pics and pass it off as their own. Way back many years ago one of my pics was used in a blog post which was along the lines of - the people that make miniatures and in particular miniature food are mad and why would they do it? I found it by googling one day by accident.

I do say on my blog please respect and play fair and if a pic is used to give proper credit as me being the maker. I do with anything I write about mini or not I try to link back to the original picture or at least credit the website/blog/facebook page of the artist.

Last week I saw some things I'd made years ago for sale on a facebook page. The lady was selling them along with other food miniatures from several artists. What she wasn't doing was passing them off as her own work but said they were items she had bought and now no longer wanted.

All anybody asks for is credit for their work which if everybody played fair they would do but not everyone plays fair.

Steps down from soapbox ...

Blast from the past!

Shop room box filled with miniatures I made up to 2008. 

A couple of days ago a blast from the past hit me on a Facebook page. Things I'd made years ago when I was trading under a different business name were being sold by the lady that bought them. Every artist has their own style and I recognised them immediately. I can't remember exactly when I made them but it was somewhere between 2004 and 2008. I'm half tempted to buy them to remind me of my past adventures into polymer clay model making. 

Nowadays you can turn on the computer and connect to a whole world of information. There are videos, blogs, tutorials, any number of miniature pages that will teach someone how to make miniature food. When I bought my first dollhouse in 2001 there was no internet and the only way I could fill it was to buy magazines that had adverts for mail order, The Dolls House Emporium being one at the time. I also bought some how to make miniatures books and started making things, the memorable one being a shelf unit from lollipop sticks! I also bought some fimo from the Polymer clay pit and wool and needles from Buttercup miniatures.

I still have some miniature food items from that time. The cakes in my shop are mainly from that time and I have a few things in my Christmas room. I look at them now and see how amateurish they are but I do have a fondness for them as I made them and I was learning and it's where I was at that time. I'm redoing the Christmas scene but I think some of the food will stay. I use the cake shop picture on Facebook with the cakes on the shelves behind the counter. 

After I bought a computer in 2003 and connected to the internet new possibilities presented themselves. The usual thing of 'your things are good you should sell them' line from friends and family came up and so I started selling on ebay. When I had that first sale I was so happy! Mad I know but I thought maybe I am good enough to do this, although at the time I was swaying between mini cross stitch and cushion designs and food. I decided to concentrate on making and selling food. 

Cushions and cover for bed I made on 28 count aida. 

Real life sometimes has other plans and I stopped selling in 2008. I stepped away from miniatures completely for a while and concentrated on other things. The problem with having time consuming hobbies is there are only so many hours in the day and I decided on other priorities. To be blunt I was fed up of making things. Spending hours planning, making, creating and preparing the models to sell to only have a few pounds profit at the end of it. I needed a break but I didn't really intend it to be this long. 

The break has done me good though and I decided to start making miniatures and selling again last year. It's been a steep learning curve over the past year, I don't sell on Ebay as I don't think it presents itself with the right creative market place. Instead I sell on Etsy and the fees are much much lower than ebay. Even though it was only a year ago I look at the first models I made and really think it was me learning how to model in miniature again. I did sell a few things but not lots. I'm better now than I was then but still learning all the time. Even with so many how to tutorials out there the apples I made at the weekend I made by trial and error trying different techniques until I was happy with the final result. I think it took three or for attempts to get a 6mm blob of clay to look like an apple! 

Then the eternal question what do you charge for the skill, knowledge, hours of making, preparing etc etc that go into that tiny model that generally measure less than an inch in size? Especially nowadays when there are so many mass produced items a customer doesn't always appreciate the time, effort and work that goes on behind the scenes so to speak. I think the ethos behind Etsy where the marketplace is of individual handmade pieces and the people that shop there will appreciate that fact.

Social media has a massive part to play in order to sell things. There are hundreds of people selling miniature food why should they buy mine? I have had invaluable advice from people who are more savvy than me and this part of the business is the biggest learning curve and possibly more important than the model making itself as my products, my name and me need to be 'out there' on social media networking to bring that elusive customer to my shop. 

More pictures, better photography, editing, cropping, uploading, instagram, pinterest, twitter, facebook this blog, all things I actively try and do something every day on at least one platform which in my previous mini life I never did but are absolutely essential now. 

This post started with me seeing something I made years ago on the internet and  having a bit of a think about how I was then  and how I do things now. I still work full time and I think if I'm being realistic this will always be a hobby business but I still smile when I make something that looks real, I still appreciate every customer that sees my things and wants my items in their dollhouse scene and as long I still have that I'll keep making miniatures!