The walls are up and the lights are on…come in!

Tags

art, bakery, crafts, dollhouse, French, mill, miniature, Undersized urbanite

Here is my entry for the Undersized Urbanite. The house itself still has a ways to go before it is finished (and it will be finished!), but I have the bakery nearing completion. It is the “space” I am entering for the contest.

I have to say things came down to the wire…The house wasn’t even assembled until about 2pm yesterday, and completing the circuits took another couple of hours, but as an electrician’s daughter, this house was going to have lights!

And what pretty lights they are… I will do a post on the light fixtures once I have all of them finished, but most of them were made of jewelry findings, including these glass cabochons.  There are two circuits in the house (one flicker for the candles and one solid glow), which made for a lot of snaking wires to hide.

And now, moving on to the bakery.

The wallpaper has its own story, namely, when your artist mother asks you if she can design the wallpaper in your dollhouse, let her, because it is going to turn out amazing. I had been trying to create different patterns using the GIMP, but after a couple of tries, I still wasn’t satisfied. A few minutes with my mom and she had sketched out the design on the back of an envelope, to become what you see here. And even better, she gave me some of her Arches watercolor paper, which is a French company that was founded in 1492, and still produces their papers in the same mill today. I made a digital version of her design and got it printed on the watercolor paper, which turned out beautifully.

I knew the space was tight, but I really wanted a shelf behind the counter, so that when people looked through the front window they would see lots of bread. It wouldn’t hold much, but the owners would have taken advantage of whatever retail space they could. I wanted it to be simple and no frills, with beadboard at the back. I sat down for an evening and within a couple of hours of whittling and gluing I had the little beauty you see here.

I also got to make the counter, which will be home to an old-fashioned cash register and lots of tasty goodies.  Here it is before I stained it, so some of the detail can be seen. (I’m so proud of it!)

So you are probably asking yourself, “Where’s the bread?” Since I was running low on time I had to pick something to leave out, but rest assured, the bakery will be brimming with loaves and pastries soon!

Thanks for stopping by 🙂

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Enlightenment

Tags

art, crafts, dollhouse, English, fleur-des-lis, French, Gallery Glass, light, miniature, paint, rose, stained glass, sunlight, Tudor, Tudor rose, Undersized urbanite, windows

I had planned for the round stained glass windows to be a sun and a moon from the start, but months into the project the idea still wasn’t sitting right with me.  So I consulted my best reference.

“What do you think the stained glass windows should be?” I posed to my husband as he was trying to drift off to sleep one night.  Being a good sport, as always, he groggily asked me questions about the tiny inhabitants, and before long there was an epiphany.

In my story of the mill cottage, there is an English mouse, Anna, and a French mouse, Gustave, who fell in love and renovated an old mill that belonged to Anna’s father, turning part of it into a bakery.  (I decided on mice over humans because I enjoy making animal figures more, and because mice are classic inhabitants of mills.)  When my husband suggested the fleur-de-lis to represent Gustave, I immediately realized Anna would be the Tudor rose.  The old heraldic symbols fit together beautifully, and so the name of the bakery became “The Lily and the Rose.”  I am certainly not the first to make this pairing, but the images go with the story and the colors I have in mind for the rooms.

The “stained” glass is a piece of lasercut acrylic, with Gallery Glass leading and paint.  I sketched the lines in Sharpie then dabbled on the leading paint with a fine-tip embossing tool.  After that it was more or less a matter of coloring in the lines.

If you want to have an idea of what comes in the $15 Gallery Glass sampler on Amazon, here you go!  I made the palette after I realized there was a difference in what I saw printed on the back of the box and what I saw in real life.

During our nocturnal discussion, my husband’s primary, very logical question about the windows was how a young married couple living in a rustic windmill would be able to afford a king’s ransom in stained glass. We decided my frivolity in design choice was a little more feasible if a close relative gave the windows as a wedding present. A very nice wedding present, given by Gustave’s father, a glassmaker.

Like real stained glass windows, they don’t come to life until light shines through them.  I got the best photos when I managed to catch the morning sunlight from the back.  When they aren’t illuminated, it is easier to see the textured effect of the paints.

As for the parts that would have been “original” to the mill, no Tudor building would be complete without casement windows. Glass was so expensive in those days that people opted for smaller, more affordable panes held together with leading. I made these made by painting wire craft mesh black and then coating the pieces with a layer of resin. Once cured, I tinted some of the sections with Gallery Glass paint.

And of course, my husband did not remember any of our conversation come morning :-).