I needed a break from the monotony of thatching the cottage (which I will post about soon), and turned out this little beauty for the bakery counter after a few hours of work.
I had been given some scraps of dollhouse trims and shelf supports as a freebie, and realized one pattern was just right for a half-inch cash register, with an extra bit of wood for a base.
Victorian cash registers often had lots of intricate designs, and I tried to mix motifs from the time period. I sketched the designs with a pencil and stippled on layers of puff paint to bulk them up. Sorry about the fuzzy phone pictures, I was too lazy to get up for the Canon.
Since I had so much stained wood in the house already, I decided to give the register some bling from the other side of the miniatures world, war gaming. I picked up some metallic Citadel paints from our local gaming store and was anxious to try them out. I have to say, the color names are way more fun than what graces craft store acrylics, with titles like runefang steel, balthasar gold, agrax earthshade, and leadbelcher. The verdict? They are better quality, too, and the shades make the details pop. I used a base coat, a layer, and a shade wash (below), and being acrylics, they are easy to clean up after and manage.
Dollhouse miniaturists, do yourself a favor and visit your local gaming store for some metallic paints. While you’re at it, pick up some awesome board games like Betrayal at House on the Hill or Snake Oil. (You can see we support our LGS with our gaming habit :-).)
*Cough to distract you from our closet of games* Back to minis…In looking at antique registers, I noticed many of them had stained wooden bases and I had to oblige. And my brass headpins are turning up everywhere, this time as the register keys (which my fingers are too big for).
This thing is very tiny, and I’ve got my work cut out for me with furnishing the rest of this 1:24 house.
The next post is going to give you your daily dose of fiber :-P.
Oooh! You have a stack of awesome games! Game nights must be epic! 😀
LOVE what you did for the cash register. That’s pretty ingenius using a bracket as a base. It’s super adorable. 😀
Haha, thanks! We try to make game nights fun, and have a variety for the hardcore gamers or the “I’ve only ever played Monopoly and it was boring” crowd. I was part of the later crowd until I started dating my husband.
Thanks also for the kind words about the cash register. It just so happened that I had it and it was the right size.
Well thank you for sharing the wealth! I’m keeping this post in mind if I need to make something like this for a future project (especially now that I’m entering the 1:24 scale world).
Aww, yay, and if you ever want one of those bracket pieces, I have several left. And as someone who is also getting used to 1:24, I’m finding that it’s not nearly as well-charted as 1:12. Here there be monsters.
Thank you — will keep that in mind! 🙂
Also snorted out the tea from my nose when you wrote “here there be monsters.” My brain immediately replied “Yarrr!” (don’t ask — think the flu’s making me really loopy)
Haha, yarrr to you too! (Sorry about the teasplosion.)
Awesome. You make me look at random tiny things in a whole new way. 🙂
Haha, cool beans!
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