Read the beginning of this story.  If I am not mistaken, there are three ways of dealing with antique and vintage items: preservation, restoration and renovation. With the first, the purpose is to keep the artifact exactly as it has been preserved: aged, damaged, even partially destroyed. With this approach, I would perhaps want to keep the remaining wallpaper, but I would not attempt to remove the paint, nor the partition. The house would be a monument to itself. For instance, a previous owner has left some marks on the back. For preservation strategy, these would be valuable. But I wil ..read more

Every now and then I go back to my old projects and either dismantle them or improve them in some way. I have for instance made room boxes with shops, and I keep adding objects or things get "sold" for other projects.  It is almost impossible to alter something in a project that you have gifted. For some time, I kept giving my friend new items for her shoe shop, but there is a limit to how much you can squeeze in a shoe box. Mostly, when a room box leaves your hands it's out of your control. I even wonder how many of them have been kept. I shouldn't care, but I do.  I have for a whil ..read more

I made my first miniature plants many years ago, when I first started miniature-making, and as with most other early endeavours, I cannot but find them pathetic although I was quite proud at the time. I have since made various flowers and plants, including a florist shop, which I still have although there is little left of the original flowers. I also once shared a long blog post about how it took me eight hours to make a geranium, which I carelessly titled "Why are handmade miniatures so ridiculously expensive?" One harsh comment to that post was: "If you ask this question there is no po ..read more

Last autumn I was looking for a theme for a longer project, like a room box. Typically I build room boxes around a particular miniature, for instance, a piece of furniture, or a category of miniatures, such as clocks, shoes, bread, vegetables or flowers. But a theme can also be a starting point, for instance, a wedding.   One day as I was having dinner, I looked at a painting I have on my kitchen wall, and suddenly I saw my new project. I would make a room box based on the painting.  It is a gouache painting, titled appropriately "Found on the Beach" by the Swedish artist&nb ..read more

I haven't been good at blogging in the recent months; I have hardly blogged at all, and one reason is that I have been very busy making miniatures! In the past, I used to make stuff to be used in various projects: furniture and accessories for dollhouses and room boxes, fruit and vegetables for a market stall, bread for the bakery, messy stuff for the messy kitchen, books for the library, and so on. I have seldom, if ever, made anything for the sake of making it, without having any special project in mind. Partly this was because I started attending a miniature club where you could do a l ..read more

  When my daughter suggested that I make a Dark Academia room box, I had no idea what she was talking about, but after some research on the web I thought it was an interesting challenge. And of course the suitable format was a book nook rather than a room box. I had only made one book nook before, and I find it a fascinating format, but it has its special demands. A scholar's study would be just right.  I made the crime scene book nook in a large cat sand box, but this project would be smaller, so a cat food box felt the right size. I covered it with wrapping paper.    ..read more

After a long break in house restoration I felt I should turn my attention to my other houses since Womble Hall is more or less presentable. The Tudor house hasn't suffered as much as Womble Hall, and the worst damage was totally my own fault. After I had unpacked the house, I left it unattended overnight, and it was attacked by wild beasts who managed to pull it down from the table onto the floor, during which the roof went off. I feel strong affection for the Tudor house, because it was found in a dump, and I restored it and added a lot of details both inside and outside. I did extensi ..read more

 I will not keep you in suspense about my market stall display. Here is the final project:  I must admit that I didn't spend a lot of time making the display, but I am still quite happy with it.  I used the market stall I had before, with al the stuff I have now discarded, but of course it was too small for the amount of produce to display.  Therefore I made a simple diorama from cardboard, then made two long benches to put crates on. I wasn't very careful with crates either. I probably won't keep this display and will use veggies and fruit in other projects, for instanc ..read more

I could of course make more vegetables for my market stall, like Brussels sprouts (ugh!), avocado, various lettuces and cabbages, but somehow it would be repetitive, and anyway I wanted to leave room for fruit. I had made fruit before as well, mostly apples and oranges because they are easy to make from air-drying clay. I also dried berries that look like fruit, and I made a pineapple from a pine cone.      But now I wanted to use my newly acquired sculpting skills to make more realistic fruit. And a larger variety of fruit.  Unless you make sliced fruit (which I will do ..read more

Inspired by my miniature baking, I decided to try making other food stuff from polymer clay and, perhaps not surprisingly, chose vegetables.  I made vegetables a long time ago, when I was a beginner, and I made them from air-drying clay because I thought it was easier. Now I know it isn't, and the results are far better. Air-drying clay dries quickly, it often crumbles after a while, you have to paint it. Having now tried both I clearly prefer fimo. Back then, I even made a fruit stand that I filled with veggies and fruit, that I was quite happy with at that time. I also made fruit and ve ..read more