Small Talk

The Princess and the Pea II

I’ve decided to use the Bespaq tester bed as the centerpiece of this vignette.  I will make the mattresses with silks left over from the drapes and beds in my big house (although I am sorely tempted to ask Marty to make them for me).  Of course I will have to head to the fabric store soon for more fabric, but I am also hoping to find some at the Tom Bishop Chicago Miniatures Show this weekend.  On a trip to Michael's (the craft store) I bought the batting and foam core that form the basis for the mattresses, as well as a feather boa that I intend to deconstruct and transform into a duvet for the top of the pile.  I mean, these folks are supposed to be royalty, right?  Their beds would have sumptuous bedclothes!

 

 

While at Michael’s I happened upon what was labeled a football display case, but looked like a roombox to me. 

 

   It’s 14.5” wide x 9.5” deep x 8.5” tall – the perfect size for a mini scene.

 

 

I want the room to look medieval (since that’s the way I always envisioned the story in my head).  It has to have stone walls and I would love to include a stone fireplace, so I am going to try to make the stone walls out of Paper Clay, following the directions given by stone mason and miniaturist Larry Bolduc in the September/October 2008 issue of Dollhouse Miniatures.  This may be beyond my skill level, but I’m going to try and will let you know how it goes.

 

However, I’m thinking about using Richard Stacey’s ashlar stone brick finishing paper (which I will see at the preview tonight) on the floor – I’ve laid enough slate floors by now to know that if there is a realistic alternative, I’m going to try it! 

New Project: The Princess and the Pea

Do you remember the fairy tale The Princess and the Pea?  It’s the one about a prince searching for a real princess to marry.  When a bedraggled young woman shows up at the castle door claiming to be a princess, the queen devises a test:  she piles the girl’s bed high with mattresses, then slips a single pea underneath them all, reasoning that only a real princess will be able to feel such a tiny pea.  The next morning when the queen asks their visitor how she slept, the young woman says she couldn’t sleep a wink and feels black and blue all over.  Voila!  She is revealed to be the real thing and she and the prince marry and live happily ever after.  It is a fairy tale, after all.

 

Here are some recent kids' book covers illustrating the story. 

 

 

And this is how Lord & Taylor portrayed the story--I like this best:

 

 

 

What does this have to do with miniatures?

 

Several years ago Nicole Marble Walton and Judee Williamson detailed a miniature bed project based on this tale – it appeared in the August 2006 issue of Miniature Collector magazine, and is still available at Scott Publications.

 

I hadn’t discovered my mini-obsession then, but bought the issue anyway because I always loved the story and was intrigued by the cover.

 

So now I am embarking on my own take on this charming tale.

 

I will post regularly (I hope) as the project progresses.

 

 

 

 

My Mini Tribute to Ladurée

C'est La Rentrée!

And it’s time for me to get back to blogging in earnest.

I have been very busy on mini-projects in the interim.  This week I completed my tribute to the French patisserie Ladurée ( http://www.laduree.fr/index_en.htm)

and am anxious to share some photos with you.  I’ll include one here to encourage you to look in the album for more detailed photos of the interior.

 

 

The façade was purchased from La Bôite a Joujoux  (http://www.joujoux.com/)

 a miniatures shop in the Passage Jouffroy in Paris—thank you, Dominique!  I had the box custom made to fit by Think Small in Chicago, the workshop where I am completing my big house.  More on that in another post.

Once I saw the façade, I knew it was perfect for a pastry shop.  Since Ladurée is my favorite in Paris, it was natural to use their shops as inspiration.  Fortunately, there are many, many excellent photos of Laduree on the internet, and believe me, I looked at them all.  Here’s their site:  http://www.laduree.fr/index_en.htm

The shop colors were chosen because they remind me of Ladurée’s macarons

(macaroons in English, but not those coconut things we think of as macaroons.  These are light as air and filled with the most intensely flavored fillings.  The green is pistachio, the pink raspberry or strawberry, the brown is chocolate, and the yellow is lemon.  My absolute favorite is caramel, but I don’t have one that color).  I hope to stencil a swag around the outside someday so the box will look just like one of Ladurée’s  macaron boxes—you can check out beautiful watercolors of many Ladurée macrons, boxes and other items at http://parisbreakfasts.blogspot.com/ -- a wonderful blog about Paris

and painting by Carol Gillott, who kindly included my little project in her blog last week.

The floor, made of tiles from Anne-Marie Miniatures in the UK

(http://www.dollhouse-miniatures.co.uk/ ), is just like the floor at Ladurée on the Rue Royale.  The wallpaper is Jackson Fruit and Flowers, which I also got in the UK.  The whole interior is designed as a tribute this particular location, from the floor to the pastry cases, the walls, the light fixtures, and the painting on the ceiling, which I framed for the back wall.

The display cases and tables and chairs are Bespaq, purchased from my friend Debbie McManus at Lynlott Miniatures (http://www.dollhousejunction.com/

The cakes, pastries, etc. were made by Lesley Burgess of The English Kitchen  (http://minifoods.com/mini/index.php ) and Betty Sartorio, a French miniaturist whose pieces are available through Swan House Miniatures (http://swanhouseminiatures.com/store/).   I have some additional pieces coming from  Emma and Neil at  http://www.emmaflam-miniman.com/. They did some amazing Marie Antoinette pastries which are completely sold out, but you can still see them in the gallery on their site.  The cash register is from Reutter and the pâtissier is from Marcia Blackstrom/Falcon.

Enjoy!

Buying Miniatures Over the Internet: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I’m going to veer off a bit from my usual territory into a subject that affects just about anyone who buys miniatures at one time or another:  buying over the internet.

One would think this would be relatively simple.  But Google “dollhouse miniatures” and 1,260,000 results present themselves.  Some of those results are dollhouse shops, some are shows, some are blogs, and some, oddly enough, are magazines.  There’s absolutely no way to distinguish among them without clicking on every single link.  Even when you narrow the results down to merchants who sell dollhouse miniatures, there is a wide range of quality and it pays to look around before you buy from any of them.

First let’s talk about how a good site is organized.  I prefer not to have to work too hard to find things.  So I like to be able to search by broad categories such as:  furniture (with subcategories by room or type), accessories (with subcategories such as food, drink, china, crystal, silver, decorative items, artwork, mirrors), lighting, architectural elements and trim, wallpaper, fabric, carpet, and window treatments, garden and floral, shops and stores, room boxes, and holidays, just to name a few.  I also like to have the option of searching by artisan or manufacturer, or by key word.  It makes absolutely no sense to me to expect the buyer to know all the manufacturer’s names, although I suspect that if there were a category devoted to Bespaq furniture or Reutter accessories, most of us would know what to expect.

I like the photos to be big enough to see – I hate being forced to click on a tiny little image to enlarge it.  I like for the site’s owner to have taken the photos themselves instead of relying on manufacturer’s catalog photos and lists of item numbers, which is just plain lazy in my view.  And the photos need to be of decent quality, which is not all that difficult since everyone has a digital camera these days.  For each photo, especially furniture, I want to know who the manufacturer is and what the dimensions of the piece are.  In fact, I like to know who the manufacturer is of anything I am contemplating purchasing.  The reason is that some manufacturer’s furniture is a little smaller and better quality than others, and some is a little bigger and the quality isn’t quite as good.  There’s room for everyone—I just like to know what I’m buying.

Also, I don’t like to scroll down long pages of photos. And when I put something in my basket or cart and want to continue shopping, I want to go back to where I was—not back to the home page —I might want to order something else in that section.  I also find it convenient to have a “back to the top” button at the bottom of the page.

Now that I’ve talked about the shopping experience, I’m going to talk about the e-commerce aspects of shopping over the internet.

When I put something in my basket, I expect that it is actually in stock and it will be sent  to me within a reasonable amount of time—say a week.  This has got to be my biggest pet peeve about buying over the internet.  Unless you read the fine print, you are very likely to find out that many, many sites don’t have in inventory, available for immediate purchase, anywhere near the amount of merchandise they show in pictures on their sites. 

It is very likely that they have to order what you order them from a distributor before they can send it to you.  That’s why it can take anywhere from two weeks to 6 months after you place an order to receive what you ordered.  Some sites don’t even acknowledge that you’ve placed an order with them.  They may or may not notify you that they don’t have what you ordered in stock.  They may charge your credit card when you place your order, not when they send it to you.  They may or may or may not notify you of further delays.  So it pays to read their “Ordering Information and Policies,” “Purchasing and Payment Terms,” or whatever the fine print is called.  I can’t imagine how they get away with any of this, but they do, primarily because we, the buyers let them.  If I get caught in one of these situations I never order from the site again no matter how much I want the merchandise.

Here’s what a good website does when you place an order.  Immediately acknowledges your order with an order number, a list of what you ordered, the price of each item, the shipping cost, method, approximate shipping time,  and total cost of the order.  When the order has shipped, they let you know.  If for some reason there is a delay, they let you know and offer you the option of a partial shipment.

The sites that get my repeat business let me know that there is a human being behind the website.  If I send an email to inquire about something, they respond quickly.  I can tell you that there are folks out there who have gone way beyond what I would have expected to get me a custom order from an artist, to let me know when they were getting a shipment in by an artisan that I liked, to send me a piece on approval.  That’s service—and that’s what builds customer loyalty—on the internet just like in bricks and mortar shops.

Patisserie Update

 

It is axiomatic that nothing is as simple as we think it’s going to be, and that’s exactly what happened with the Patisserie that was supposed to be a quick diversion from my big house.

 

While I was waiting for the box I was having made to fit the Parisian façade to arrive, I made myself a foam core model so I could play around with the layout of the store fixtures and the tables and chairs.  I did this with my big house—it’s a good way to visualize how everything will fit together.  It turned out that the store fixtures I intended to use were not truly 1:12 scale, even though they were billed as such.  I really wanted to use them because they had real glass shelves and doors, but they were just too big.  If I hadn’t made the model, I really wouldn’t have been able to tell.  In the end, I used the Bespaq “new” store fixtures in mahogany.  They look great and the scale is perfect.  The bistro set with the marble-topped table is just adorable and fits right in with the French ambiance.

 

The box was beautiful, but once I had it in hand I realized that I should have designed it with a Plexiglas top.  Because it was made with mitered corners, there was no way to lift the top off and just drop in a sheet of Plexi instead -- as I found out when I went to the glass store to buy a piece of Plexiglas -- because there was nothing there to hold the Plexiglas up.  Zut alors!  Shows how much I know about construction techniques.  Fortunately, my dear husband came up with a solution.  He used a jig saw to cut away the whole top except for an inch border all the way around.  Then he built a channel out of some other wood and glued it down both sides and across the front.  Voila!  The Plexi slides right in from the back and you can look right down into the shop.  Thank God for handy husbands—and major disasters averted.

 

I installed the black and white marble floor in a jiffy.  I used one-inch tiles from Ann-Marie Miniatures in the UK,  which I have used with great success in other projects.  Only one row required some cutting to fit, which I did by scoring the back side with an Exacto knife and then snapping it the piece off, which I later learned is not the preferred technique, but I intend to write a whole blog entry on these marvelous tiles, so I’ll save that explanation for later.  I bought ¾-inch baseboards, which I primed with gesso, sanded, and,  painted high gloss white—but they weren’t dry enough to install and anyway I didn’t have a miter box to cut the corners.

 

Even though I haven’t even primed the box or gotten past priming the façade, I just had to see what the display cases looked like in the shop.  And I had to see what the cakes and pastries looked like in the display cases.  And what the pâtissier would look like behind  his display cases in his shop.  So I put a piece of wallpaper along the back wall and got out my camera…..

 

 

My Dollhouse Decorator - 2

So the first floor was easy.  Beds are harder than drapes because the bedclothes have to be made for the particular bed and glued on so that the fabric hangs right -- who knew?  I had to send all my beds to Marty to dress, and to make drapes to match the bedclothes.  The first to go were a sleigh bed for my artist son’s third floor studio and the twin beds for the older boys Monkeyshines room—so named for the Brodnax Monkey print wallpaper and the coordinating Palm Trees print bedspreads and cornices.  Those were relatively straightforward.   Marty even made sheets and dust ruffles to go under the bedspreads, and little bolster pillows to match.

 

For the girl’s room I wanted something really different -- a Louis XV baldaquin bed -- so I sent Marty the one piece of Les Chinoiseries’ Sombreel rose and gold silk fabric I was able to get and the cream painted Hansson bed, along with several photos of French beds.  Once he had everything in hand, he made several sketches detailing various top and side treatments and we went back and forth a couple of times on their relative merits until I finally chose one -- then he made it for me!  I know this posed a real technical challenge, and on top of that, there was a limited amount of the fabric to work with because the manufacturer was out – but I think Marty really enjoyed pushing himself and the end result is just beautiful and totally unique!  Any little girl would be very lucky to have such a delightful bed with mounds of matching pillows and drapes.    

 

The guest room was another challenge.  I wanted the bed to be very sophisticated and luxe with a leopard print bedspread, but I couldn’t find the right fabric.  I did have a leopard velour scarf, however, that was just the right scale, so I asked Marty if he could use that.  “Sure,” he said.  And that was that.  Gold silk sheets and drapes completed the look.  It’s just perfect for the Heidi Ott city girl who has come to visit with her piles of alligator suitcases.

 

Last, but not least, is the master bedroom four poster bed.  I really had a hard time finding wallpaper and fabric for this room.  Finally I settled on Les Chinoiseries Reveillion wallpaper, which is a classical design with gold cherubs, vases, trailing vines, and flowers.  Because the wallpaper has a lot going on, the fabric had to be relatively simple.  At one of the shows I found a silk fabric with a burgundy background with gold swirls that I thought would work.  Gold dupioni silk would work for the drapes, but again, the design would have to be simple.  We settled on pull-back drapes lined with the bedspread fabric, one for each window.  The result is just perfect. 

 

Marty hasn’t done much in the way of self-promotion, so I’m going to do it for him.  The quality of his workmanship is superb.  The scale of the prints and trims he uses is exactly right.  His eye is unerring.  Everything he makes hangs perfectly straight and the prints line up exactly.  I can’t recommend Marty highly enough!!!

 

Now I want to build another house so we can start all over again.

 

 Check out pictures of Marty's work in Marty's Album.

My Dollhouse Decorator - 1

Today I’m going to reveal my top secret dollhouse decorator:  Marty Pickens of Chantilly Designs.  He doesn’t have his own website yet, so the best way to contact him is through eBay.

 

I first came across Marty’s eBay shop about a year ago, when I was first starting to think about curtains and drapes for my big dollhouse.  I couldn’t find anything I liked in any shops in my area, so I was out trolling the internet.  (My husband calls it my “research.”)   I had pretty much realized that I was going to have to have everything custom made, but I really didn’t know how to go about it, which is why I was looking on the internet.  Unfortunately, if you Google “dollhouse curtains” you get about 269,000 possibilities—most of which are dollhouse shops with e-commerce– and most of them have the same stuff from Dollhouse Shoppe.  Occasionally there’s an artisan listing.  That particular evening I was lucky enough to stumble upon Chantilly Designs.  Although I didn’t see anything that exactly fit the bill,  I liked what I saw, so I shot off an email to ask if he accepted commissions.  The long and short of it is, he did, and the rest, as they say, is history:  Marty has made every pair of drapes and dressed every bed in my house—and that’s a lot. 

 

We work together by emailing and mailing back and forth, which has been surprisingly easy.  The first couple of sets of drapes, for the living room and the dining room, Marty already had made.  I sent him photos of the wallpaper and  he just sent me some fabric swatches so that we were sure the colors matched.  The Library has a triple window so I had to send the dimensions for that, but he had a design that I liked, and since I had the swatches, I just picked a fabric and we were done!  For my kitchen, I found a black and white picture of the style of cornice I liked.  I measured the window and the window seat that fits under it, and ordered the fabric that matches wallpaper, which I sent down to Marty.  Soon enough I got a little package in the mail with a cornice and a window seat with the most adorable little pillows! 

 

 

My Conservatory

Remember the metal conservatory that Debbie McManus found at her local Target?  Well, mine arrived, as did the many lovely things that I collected to put in it, including:  two green wicker chairs and a wicker chaise and table that Wilhelmina made just for me; a Uncle Ciggie's tea table (thank you, Jan), on which I have placed a Betsy Neiderer pink lemonade pitcher, two glasses, and a plate of cookies on a silver tray; a discontinued fountain surrounded by flowers, two orange trees from The Dolls House Emporium in the UK, and two lovely ferns in pots that I found at shows.  Sitting in one of the chairs is Eve, a young lady with long dark tresses who is dressed in lacy pink lingerie, including a lace-up corset (!).  She's just arisen from the chaise where she was reading. Her pet kitty is streched out on the floor in the sun.  Here are some photos.

Diversion: Boulangerie Patisserie

The shop facade I ordered from La Boite a Joujoux, a miniatures shop in Paris, arrived this week to my delight.  Interestingly, it was set in a box that was intended to hang on a wall, so it was only 4 inches deep--not nearly big enough for all the goodies I want to display in it.  So the first thing is to make a bigger box.  After playing around with templates of the fixtures I want to include, I settled on a 12" x 12" so I will have room for everything.  Leon is going to make it for me this week, I hope.

Meanwhile, I kept busy searching for images of French patisseries on Google--mainly to refresh my memory, but also to serve as a visual reference throughout the project.  I paged through a couple of books I had on hand as well, especially a newly published book called Patisseries of Paris that had lots of up close photos. 

I'm going to paint the facade pale mint green, to honor our favorite Parisian pastry shop, Laduree, which is famous for its macaroons.  At first I thought I would recreate the interior as well, but doing so entailed gold-leafed coffered ceilings and trim, which seemed too daunting considering that this project is a diversion from the big house. However, my patisserie will have the same black and white tiled floor, courtesy of ann-marie miniatures (again), and pale wooden fixtures that Debbie McManus at Lynlott Miniatures found for me.  It was impossible to find a typical modern pastry case of all glass with glass shelves on a painted base--believe me, I tried.  I even contacted a woman who had something similar in one of her room boxes that I found on the internet, but she couldn't remember who made it for her.  After trying a couple of artisans I thought might be appropriate, I decided that the fixtures I have are just fine. Verisimilitude has its limits.  Debbie also had a full baker's rack by Taylor Jade that I quickly snapped up, as well as the Bespaq bistro tables with marble tops and little black bistro chairs, which we agreed would be ideal for those who wanted a quick cup of tea.  Each table will have a tea set, which gives me an excuse to buy more of them.  Later I found a bronze Reutter cash register that will be just perfect for ringing up sales.  At the Three Blind Mice show last weekend, I found an ornate coffee urn, which got me thinking about an espresso maker.  As there was not one to be found, I have asked a couple of different artisans to make one for me. 

On to the most fun part of the whole project:  I started hunting for goodies to display in the cases.  My first top was The English Kitchen for some more of Lesley Burgess' exquisite miniature cakes.  I already have several, bought at different times for no particular reason other than the fact that they are irresistable.  I am hoping to pick up some more at the fall Bishop show in Chicago.  Uncle Ciggie's website yielded a highly realistic baguette basket full of beautiful loaves--another great find. 

Lastly I needed a Patissier/Boulanger to serve as the proprietor of my little shop.  Unfortunately, I couldn't justify the original Marcia Backstrom chef, so I had to settle for her Top Chef made for Falcon.  He was by far the most realistic looking of the chef dolls that I found, so he will have a prominent place behind the counter from which to greet his customers.

More when I have some photos to post.

More on My Modern Bathroom

A week or so ago I reported that my modern bathroom had arrived.  It looks absolutely great, but there was still work to be done.

I took the vanity and tub down to the workshop to see them in the space last weekend.  While there, I measured and remeasured the walls and floor so that I could tile the space from floor to ceiling using the creamy white "marble" tiles from anne-marie miniatures.co.uk.  The tiles are one half inch square and were relatively easy to use (compared with the terra cotta tiles in the kitchen--nothing will ever match that hell!).

I made a template for each wall out of file folders, and spread Tacky on an orange stick and then on the file folder--about two rows worth at a time.  Any more dried before I got to it.  Then I proceeded  lay the tiles side-by-side in horizontal rows, starting at the bottom left corner.  It really wasn't terribly difficult to keep them straight since I didn't have to worry about spacing them--they were snugged in right next to each other.  After five rows I added a thin border all the way across for a little visual interest.  Any tiles that didn't fit exactly could be scored and snapped, but fortunately, I only had to resort to this technique once or twice.  The next step will be to add mortar, just to make the walls look more finished.

After that, all that's left to do is glue the tiled sheets in place and set up the shower, shelves, and towel rack.