Half Scale House Progress

This month I have been working hard on the half scale house, trying to finish the bulk of the work before my Architecture studies resume in March. I am trying to finish the complex interiors, so that during the busy semester, all I need do is paint the exterior and furnish the house at my leisure. 

Frankie Mayonnaise, the Scottish Fold puss has taken a particular shine to the house, and tries to scale it whenever she is presented with the chance. 

These are the two finished bedroom fireplaces. I used Phoenix cast inserts, and made the surrounds. I tried to give them both a Gothic flavour with assorted tiny laser cut bits.

The finished flowery bedroom. 

For the blue bedroom I had a blue paper ceiling, with a plain ceiling rose which I made from left over bits from the fireplaces. The tiny wire is fine, and easily passes under the ceiling paper unseen to be connected to a battery in the attic. 

As another little exercise I made some picture frames from strips of moulding. I painted them gold. It can be tricky with half scale being able to find appropriately scaled frames.

For an embellishment I edged the frame with some gold fabric edging I found lying around. Turns out later I had used the last scrap of garment edging my mum had saved from the fashion boutique my grandmother operated in the 1930s. I think it is kind of nice that it is now immortalised in my dollhouse forever. 

Choosing a picture for the frame was pretty easy! Here I did an image search on the ipad and picked the one that looked best. 

These are the assorted bits now waiting to go into the parlour. I have also been making some silk curtains, but more on that in another post. What I will say though is that silk is a fantastic fabric to work with in miniature. It sets like a board when sprayed with starch, and gives such a realistic shimmer that your eye is distracted from the fact that the material has a bigger grain than it should. 

Meanwhile I have also been volunteering at the National Trust headquarters at the beautiful Tasma Terrace in Melbourne. If you are in Melbourne, do visit! Such wonderful inspiration for future miniatures. 

A Little Bed Spread

A lot of progress has been made on the 1:24 scale house since the last post. I have been very lazy, and so here is the first post in three months! I have wallpapered the four main rooms. Today I went to work on doing the covers of the little Phoenix Miniatures bed that I bought some time ago. 

I made the mattress of two layers of corrugated cardboard. I covered them with white cotton from a shirt I murdered for the purpose.

I discovered that some wide threaded cross stitch cotton I had looked perfectly like a woollen knitted blanket in 1:24, so I used it for the bed spread. I tasseled the end by pulling out a thread. 

It looks good in the blue room. 

 Still plenty of work to be done!