Simply Curious

Item Four of Very-Hard-To- Find-In-One-Inch-Scale items: swords.



Attempt at a Katana. Roughly four inches long, so it's just a little bit too long for true one inch scale. (that'll teach me to eyeball things.) The silver and gold clay by Premo has a really great effect to it, doesn't it?

However, I'm having a problem. I'm not sure if it's the clay or the way I'm baking it. While this sword may LOOK halfway decent, it, well, it's a bit . . . floppy. Admire it all you want, but take it in your hand and it will allow you to perform daring feats of strength and skill by bending it almost in a circle. On letting go, it will slowly begin returning to its original position. It's basically a miniature rubber sword.

That wasn't exactly the effect I was going for.

Stop laughing.

2 am, and I'm making miniature canopic jars.

Worried. DEFINITELY worried.

I think they turned out well. I really like that 'gold' clay. Took quite a bit of research to figure out just what canopic jars traditionally looked like. It boiled down to a figures of a human, a jackal, a baboon, and a bird (falcon? hawk?). The baboon proved to be the hardest to sculpt. I realize there should be writing on the jar, but I'm not sure how to go about it. Hieroglyphs are a lot more complicated to do when they're that small!



Go ahead and add THESE to my list of things not available in one inch scale!

I'd like to rant a bit at the miniatures world for their lack of certain items. One inch scale cameras are very hard to find (at least realistic looking ones) and video cameras next to impossible. (I've only seen ONE, and it looks very old.) Most of what IS available are modeled after antiques. Come to the 21st century, my fellow miniaturists! I'm willing to give you money for what you can produce!

In the meantime, I have to make do with my own sorry attempts at digital equipment. Two attempts at digital cameras, one at a MiniDV camcorder. Really,they're very SIMPLE designs! I need a bit more practice.




Oh yes, and one last attempt. I wanted lots of pieces from around the world, and thought Sake flasks, or Tokkuri, would be appropriate for Japan. Here's attempt number one. (definitely needs a second try!)

Bag End in One Inch Scale

Fantastic job! It'd be a cool project to try someday. I think I have floor plans somewhere, too . . .

I've gone from having a creative streak to being a creative freak.

This is actually an old project, but I was never happy with the heaviness of cardstock. Today I thought I'd give it a try with the leftover Bristol Board from my interior decorating project. Perfection. They even SOUND like composition notebooks. I'm quite pleased. I also had to print a page of them, so there will be lots! The whole thing was designed in Photoshop. I did try to use images of real composition books, but it just didn't work out the way I liked it.

I also uploaded the original image for other miniaturists to try and print out. I have no idea how well that will work. I may try to create a PDF file once I get to work.

I failed to resist. I bought Stikfas.

They came in nice neat packaging, but I still hate flash. It took me over an hour to remove, trim and assemble these lil fellas. My fingers hurt! And I'm a bit disappointed with the white showing underneath the darker colored pieces. I guess I'll try painting over them and seeing what happens. The kitty and the brown girl are part of the Jungle Adventure theme. She came with lots of stickers that seem to be repositionable. So I gave everybody eyes (or sunglasses) and the white dude a tattoo. They were a bit goofy, but I liked the variety of items. There was also a HUGE variety of accessories. Guns, whips, dynamite, backpack, canteen, telescope, shoes, hats . . . Very amusing.

Robert gave me a weird answer when I asked how to pose them for the shot. Fingers! So I did. The box in the background says Stikfas on it, but obviously it didn't show up.

I'm going to take a few to work, just to have something mentally relaxing to concentrate on once in a while.

I may possibly stick one in the car. Merlin could use some company.

I've been trying to keep myself amused while waiting for the postman to bring me stuff. (Hurry up! Creative urges don't last long!)

Amusement 1 was borrowing the Da Vinci Code from the library. Probably a bad idea. The historian in me says, oh, wow, what? And then I run off to look up Da Vinci and Mona Lisa and the Knights Templar and Paris and cryptography and special encoded keys and it'll be a while before I finish this book.

As for Amusement 2, I went to Miniatures in the Attic today - possibly for the last time. In the back of my mind are all my projects and the specific items I want/need for them. Because of the book, I'm thinking about history and archeology, and because of the miniature shop, I'm thinking of my Archeologist's Study.


I'm planning to create a web page for the room, but I keep thinking, "I want to add THIS first before I take a picture." There's a lot of THIS going on. More furniture to display things on, more things to display on the furniture. It's hard to find 'just the right thing.' I started thinking about how it needed more books, and started looking around at books, and then started looking at the really NICE miniature books and then, while looking at those, up popped "I can do that."

Well, what else have you got to do? Dig under the bed for an old leather purse. Find a little detachable mirror inside with a perfect small leathery grain inside. Get the X-Acto knife. Take mirror apart. Find parchment paper that doesn't seem to end. Measure and cut. Remember old envelopes with really shiny pretty insides. By some small miracle, go right to them and pull them out. Cut apart, measure, cut. Get glue everywhere. Mess with metal bits until you decide not to bother. Find some bunka and tie. Say "whoa, I did that."

Run tell the world.



Plan the next book, and how to make it better.

*UPDATE, a few hours later*

and here's the next book. This time I used a block of balsa to represent the pages. Turned out better, at least they cooperated by staying in place! I scored the page edges with a knife and painted it gold.

I really lucked out with the leather for this one. I had an old wallet that was apparently really good quality. It had the flower embossed on the outside, and on the inside had ridged leather for where the wallet bent as it opened and closed. I used the ridged for the side of the book, although it's a bit hard to see in this picture. (had a hard time with reflections, may try again later.)

I still need to figure what to do about the edge of the leather so the white doesn't show. Perhaps a little paint?

I'm pleased with the results. And since I've run out of purses and wallets for the moment, I think I'll stop for the evening.

Creativity's flowing out of nowhere.

The picture here is what I'm using as inspiration for Rána's lantern. I found it at Alley Cat Scratch in her Lord of the Rings Section, apparently it was a display at Neiman Marcus?

That part was free. The rest is going to be testing and spending money. I purchased a frosted shade that I think will work well (don't want the bulb to show!) and several types of 3 volt miniature bulbs. Remember, this is an experiment! I also bought a 3 volt battery holder that runs on 2 AAA's, in case I panic about using electrical tape and a coin battery. If there's an on/off switch, all the better! I forgot to check about that. Hope to soon find out!

Now I need to get to sculpting.

My search for something plausible to light the lantern took me all over the place. I found a web site for a cute little something they just called Throwies, a very basic design of an LED light attached to a battery and a magnet. (sounded rather fun for parties!) Didn't need the magnet, but obviously I could go a lot more basic than the necklaces I had been looking at! (and make sure it didn't flash.)

In the end, all I really needed was a 3 volt battery and an LED light. A bit of research and discussion lead me to believe I could use dollhouse conductor wire so I could seperate the battery from the light. While looking at the conductor wire I discovered that Cir-Kit Concepts made 3 volt grain of wheat bulbs on an 8" wire.

**insert stunned, shocked and 'doh!' expression here: 0.o **

So technically, I should be able to run that light on a 3 volt battery. (if not, I know there's 3 volt battery packs available. I can work around the fact it's made to look like a dresser.) I made the staff hollow so I could run fiber optic wires (my previous option) through it, and it should feed the regular wires through just fine.

Now to design the lantern!

Started thinking about that lantern for my miniature elf again. My experiments with the fiber optic wire did what I expected, but it seemed to be a lot more effort than it was worth. So it was back to the drawing board.

Glow in the dark paint could be an option, although I'd prefer to be able to see that it was lit without the lights being out.

LED lights just might work. There's quite a few available as jewelry - pendants and such. The main problem is that most of them have flashing lights. It'll take a lot of digging to find one that doesn't.

Speaking of miniatures, I realized I'd never taken a picture of my Alice Zinn cat.

So, um, I took a picture. It looks much sleeker in person, I guess the hair got lit up by the flash.

Chicago International Show - Hogwart's

I love Rik Pierce's work. I'd love to take one of his classes, but I just don't have the space for the finished products. (I'd certainly be willing to spend the money!)

Showing off my recent creative streak.

This is my new Obitsu doll I was talking about, with the many many joints and poses. I painted her face, created her wig, and made the shiny red shirt. I haven't gotten any farther with the clothes, which is why I haven't taken any photos demonstrating the incredible range of motion. She's currently wearing Barbie's capris. (They're too big. I used a fashion doll pattern for the shirt, and found I had to shrink it about 15% to get it right. Hooray for scanners!)

I find when I make dolls, they tend to take on their own personalities. I was hoping to create bigger versions of the 1/12th historic costumes I love copying, but discovered that, once I painted her face, it just wouldn't work. She seems to have attitude issues. So the hair became short, wild, and multicolored, and the clothes decisively modern.

It's actually a refreshing change. Modern's so much easier to do! I have a much broader reference base for clothing ideas - pretty much every catalog that comes in the mail. Now I can find a good use for the Victoria's Secret catalogs that seem to arrive every week. (Just how many ways can you organize the same clothes in a catalog, anyway?)

One challenge I want to tackle is her feet. I like the fact that they have magnets in the sole so that she can stand on a magnetic base, but they're so small! They're practically the size of the feet of my one inch scale dolls, and have the look and shape of the feet you'd see on antique Jumeau type dolls. They aren't shaped for high heels and other fun shoes. I have a couple of experiments in mind for making them seem more realistic, I just need to get the FIMO clay to cooperate.

Hey, it's a challenge. Keeps the mind active. If I'm good, I can create and sell patterns or clothes. Probably patterns. I hate sewing on the machine, and prefer to do things by hand. It's time consuming and a little inconsistent.

THE DOLLHOUSE CASTLE

*Drooool*

This site is for all those people who think that dollhouses are toys for children. I'd like to see it in person, and I understand that it's on display - but it's closed! Time for some window peeping . . .

Have I mentioned Puzzle Pirates?

It's got repetitive, addicting games. It's got a pirate theme. It's got a very complex economy and a lot of things to do. You can run a shop, sail the seven seas, work in town, work for the Navy, play card games, participate in brawls and tournaments, etc, etc . . . I've only explored one small portion of it, and am amazed at how BIG this game feels to me. And there's updates. And when you read their message boards it's not full of posts from players complaining about the game and its owners. It's full of useful information!

I fear for Realm. I really do. It got hacked again, and now there's 'major security issues' that have forced the owners to physically remove the server from its normal location (as well as take it offline) so that they can try to address them. Or so they claim. The last update they tried to implement a few weeks ago (the first in many months) proved to be buggy and they took it down. The code is so old that hardly anyone knows how to write it. Not to mention the many, many patches that have been added to it over the years. It was one of the first online role playing games, released when Sierra was in its heyday in the mid 90's.

So, while waiting for it to come back up, I've been indulging my pirate fetish. And working a bit on my miniatures. Soon I'll be posting about my new shrinkray!

This is my Christmas present to my grandparents. This kitchen island came with the house, and my grandmother's been wanting it tiled ever since she found out it wasn't a true butcher block surface.

With the right tools, tiling is really very easy. The hardest part was figuring out which pieces needed to be cut to make everything fit. Fortunately, my brother-in-law's best friend owns a tile cutter. (how's that for bizarre relations?) I took the tiles up to my sister's house over the weekend and he cut them for me. Everything fits perfectly! I have to wait 24 hours before I can add the grout, and then I'll be done.

She had asked other relatives to do it, and they all hemmed and hawwed and found excuses not to. She finally complained to me, and, well, you see the results above.
Sometimes, the best gift you can give someone is your time. I have plenty of that to give away.

Oh yeah. Happy Halloween. This year's pumpkin is based on the rare "worth 5 million on the Trading Channel" shocked face pumpkin on the Realm. It was a good, easy face to do, and I get to make jokes about it on Channel 1. The realm graphic was blatantly stolen from Bored's web site.

If you're easily grossed out by medical photos, don't look. If you've put up with me and my braces for the past year and are curious to see what changes have occured, well then, by all means, take a look!

The Willowcrest is now back in the basement, where it was born. It was a high school graduation present, and I spent the following summer and part of the fall down there, putting it together and doing my first kit-bash when I enlarged the kitchen and bathroom. I had just joined my first miniature online group - Small Stuff, I think it was, and had been learning a LOT about different techniques for decorating.

I had wanted a house that looked like the beautiful victorians we drove by on our way to Harrisburg, PA, but with decorated in a contemporary style. It was going to be MY house, no dolls in this one, just stuff that I wanted to own life size. Of course, I dressed a modern doll, and then she took over the house, and both wove themselves into one of my stories. I'm not sure if I've forgiven her yet for that.

My favorite part of the house is the brick facade. The siding that came with the house warped horribly when I painted it, so I smeared wood putty all over the side of the house and drew lines in it to resemble bricks. Then I painted it. I was incredibly pleased with the results.

I wanted a big stained glass window over the tub in the bathroom. The first one was ok, but I wanted a bay window, and had to wait a few years before I felt confident enough to try it. It was only recently that I was finished that section of the house.

I had too many ideas, and only one house. The bedroom turned into a Pool room, and then a study. The attic went from an attic to a guest room to an office to a bedroom to a, well, you get the idea. I feel I'll be much better off sticking to room boxes. For now, I will finish the house, empty. Perhaps give it to my cousins, or to some neighbors. Possibly donate it to charity? Who knows. My other dollhouse will not leave my possession - it means too much to me. There's so much work to be done on it! At least this one has a definite theme! I've only one room completely finished in there - the kitchen. And considering I just stole the kitchen table for the shelf and haven't installed the doors on the bottom of the pantry, it isn't finished after all.

My room looks so bare now. I'm painfully aware that the only things hanging on the wall are a mirror and my Middle Earth Tapestry. I was thinking of using floating shelves to display the dolls I've finished. Now to go and find some . . .

Pumpkinglow.com The site for pumpkin carving patterns


It's that time of year again! This is one of the best sites out there for free carving patterns. I did Calvin and Hobbes in the wagon last year - now to decide on this year's pattern!