Greetings dear online friends! I had fully intended to work on something different for my Creative Challenge last week but ended up getting sucked into a magical miniature rabbit hole instead.
↑ A standard sized pencil for scale. Miniature collectors work in different size scales and that’s one thing I’ve been working on. The scale I’m going for at this stage is 1:12 which means that the items are 1 inch tall for every 12 inches in real life. This seems to be the most common scale but I’ve also seen people working with items that are half this size, as well, at 1:24. For reference, the scale for Barbie dolls is 1:6 so items for her and her pals are double the size of these things. Calico Critter dolls (which I have) are used for 1:12 but can also work with 1:24. Ok, enough with the numbers now! ↑
The various doilies are crocheted, using patterns I’m still working on developing. The beige ones were made with cotton thread that is nearly as fine are regular sewing thread and a very tiny hook, so making those was tricky. Someone asked me recently how I can see the details when working with small things like this. Years ago, my mister Nick, thoughtfully bought me a a headband thing with magnifying glasses built right it (called a Magnifocuser), which I use all the time. Granted, I look very special when wearing it but it sure does help with seeing the small details.
The basket is also crocheted, again, following a pattern I’m working on. The apples were made with glass beads, black wire and plastic leaves. The flower pots are beads and the flowers and stems were taken from a pre-made regular sized bouquet, that I trimmed and played with to get to look right. The napkin rings are tiny split rings usually used in jewellery beading, with a glass bead threaded on. Getting those tiny beads onto the very tight split rings was the most challenging thing to do for all these things. Let’s just say that there are still rings and beads in far hidden places around my workspace, after they flew great distances off my pliers when trying to be manipulated in a certain way!
↑ I also made this rug from paper, printing the image of a real rug on cardstock and adding a fringe of double thicknesses of clipped paper. The paper is the offcuts from the book pages used last week to make some tiny books, so it is thin, old and sepia coloured with time.
The pillow turned out to be a bit too big for 1:12, more scaled for Barbie doll size, so I’ll be giving it to my doll Francie. Don’t think I’ve forgotten Barbie. In fact, she and her friends have been on my mind because an appreciated online friend recently sent me a very generous gift, a stunning assortment of vintage clothes, dolls and accessories for them, which I’ll be sharing here soon. It’s amazing! ↑
↑ I mentioned last week that I had gotten a new Calico Critter family, called The Sweet Peas. This is the mother rabbit. You’ll notice that she’s wearing an apron, which is sewn right into the seam of her dress. Goodness, mother must surely want to take her apron off some of the time! So …. ↑
↑ … I opened the seam, took the apron piece out and sewed it onto a ribbon waist tie. ↑
↑ Now father rabbit can wear it when he’s making lunch. ↑
Thank you kindly for reading. xo loulou
