What A Klutz!

Today I decided it was about time to get my figures ready for putting together... I made them all shoulders, made sure they all had a matching pair of hands and feet with footwear (I hate sculpting shoes - feet are easy, but shoes are a pain! lol), and drilled holes ready for the armature...

And that's where it started to go wrong!

My drill is too tiny, so I borrowed hubby's Dremel to drill the holes I needed as it's bigger than mine. 

Firstly, I misjudged how powerful it was, and when drilling, the little arm flew out of my hand, and with the power of the Dremel behind it, shot across the room somewhere. Half an hour of searching, and I finally retrieved the appendage and started again - holding on a lot more tightly this time.

Next mishap... I was holding tightly to "Come Give Grandma A Kiss", when I felt a terrible burning sensation in my fingers... because I had drilled through the side of the arm, and the drill bit was whirring away, burning my hand! 

Darn - what a Klutz I was being today!

I got out some more clay, and added a bit to Grandma's arms... and was so heavy handed as I was trying to mold the clay, I broke off Grandma's thumb, little finger and ring finger! Out with the Liquid Sculpey, and on to trying to fix poor Grammy's hand. I had to do the two fingers first, and whilst that was in the over re-baking, I decided to clear up a little... and 'cleared up' her thumb. An HOUR later, I managed to relocate the missing thumb under my desk, and reattach it with Liquid Sculpey and baking again. The thumb moved. Somewhere between me placing the limb gently in the oven, and getting it out 10 minutes later, the thumb had turned... so now Grammy has severe arthritis in her left hand with her disjointed thumb.

What a palaver!

On the plus side... Grammy has a lovely little pair of lower legs with pink slippers...

Lets hope I can put her together without doing any more damage!

I have to add this... Hopefully Ms Lizzie will put a photograph of her Fred onto her blog soon.

She came for a visit on Sunday, sat down with a lump of clay, and made 'Fred' - her first figurine sculpture, and he is amazing! She's a natural :)

For myself... well, I have had such a lot of fun making Grammy, that I shall probably make a few more to sell - all different and unique - because I don't use molds :)

Just Toddling On...

It seems to me that the most fun I have at the moment with miniatures, is when I am destroying or wrecking something.

The yellow wallpaper room is suitably ruined, and I had sprayed a little fireplace so many times, I'm surprised it's not twice its original size. I actually lacquered the fireplace and the topper I made before the previous paint layers had dried - so now I have a faux-marble fireplace with a lot of 'crackle effect'. Ah, well... never mind :)

I happened across a wonderful blog not very long ago, and have become enthralled by the writers amazing talent. Giac (that's his name) is making a late-Victorian English manor doll house - from scratch. Though I know I'll never match his talents, he has become a real inspiration. Please, if you have time, visit his blog and be prepared to be floored!

As for my own little dolls house - NOT made from scratch (oh, how I wish I had the tools, time and talent to do so!) - is coming along slowly. I made a few foolish mistakes with the kitchen walls and floors. As previously shown, I had made the floors for the kitchen and scullery after deciding where the partition wall would stand. Yesterday, I decided to place the partition wall back into place and fix it permanently. I moved it over about an inch than I had previously decided as I thought it looked better, and hammered in some nails. It was only then that I realised with a full face-palm, that the floors would no longer fit. The scullery floor was too big and the kitchen floor now too small. No problem... I made the kitchen floor bigger with left over tiles, and the scullery floor I began to cut down little by little - I didn't want to make a mistake. It was only when I had laid the kitchen floor down and went to measure the size of wood I needed to fill the doorway sized gap in the floor, that I noticed a huge space between the wall and floor edge. I had placed the partition wall in crooked. Out came the wall for a straighten up, and then some more fiddling with the floors to get them in as well as possible. In all fairness, it's not all my fault - this dolls house is similar to my real home - not a single right-angle or plumb line in sight! I discovered this when I measured the fireplace topper at the front of the room, and when pushed to the back, it was about half a centimetre too high! 

Next, I decided that I wanted to put back the opening side doors of the basement - kitchen and scullery areas. It was at this point I realised my next mistake. I had not left room for the doors to sit into the opening - so I had to carefully remove about 2 strips of wood from the inside edge of the doors. Then I also discovered that, although I had been very careful to make space for the hinges on the doors themselves, I had covered the scullery-side wall hinge. That then had to be cut and chiselled out. 

It's all done now - and though it is a bit of a mess, at least it's MY mess lol

I'll post some photos soon.

The Experiment That Failed!

I'll always have a go at something if I get an idea... and today was no exception as I had an idea forming on how I might make some 12th scale green pepper slices (bell peppers).

First off I strapped four cocktail sticks together.

Then I got out the polymer clay - I mixed up some green (I don't usually have coloured clay, I just have white that I colour using shaved chalk pastels), and then mixed togather some transluscent (a lot), pearl, and a tiny bit of yellow clays.

The transluscent mix I rolled out and wrapped it around the bound cocktail sticks. The green clay was rolled out thinly and also wrapped over the transluscent mix around the cocktail sticks.

Then I baked it all according to the manufacturers instructions on the clay packets. After it was cooled, I sliced bits off of the 'cane'. I couldn't get the cocktail sticks out, so had to cut slices through the whole thing!

Not too impressed with the results after all my hard work *lol*

Next time (!) I'll use tin foil for the centre, less transluscent in the mix, and make them smaller too.

Ah, well... a few experiments going awry won't hurt I guess :) Hopefully the next try will be successful - though I admit it may be a while before I try this particular idea again.

Polymer Clay

I have found the delights of polymer clay... hello Fimo, Sculpey... and Liquid clay that smells so addictive *lol*.

I've discovered that I can make a whole range of 24th scale foodstuffs - vegetables mostly - and do it quite well. The advantage to 24th scale is simply that, although tiny and fiddly at times, you don't need to add the amount of detail that you really have to in larger scales.

However, there are rules...

I have been using oven-baked clay. This type of clay needs to be slowly baked to harden at a temperature of 110 degrees celsius or 230 degrees fahrenheit.

You DO NOT forget whether your oven is celsius or fahrenheit, and promptly put your clay in the oven at 230 degrees Celsius. OOPS! By the way... important information here... polymer clay fumes are poisonous if the clay is heated and burnt!

When making small globes for the centre of cabbages and also tiny candles with itty bitty wicks, you really don't want to spend hours making them, only for your oven (with a bit of added utter stupidity) to do this...

At first, I thought that the speed of 'cooking' and hardening was just because the objects I'd painstakingly spent hours making were so tiny... NO! It was just a few 'senior moments' and forgetfullness. Well, until hubby said "It's a Celsius oven... silly moo!"

Just to prove that I eventually got something right, here's the candles with a few other things I made...

Now THAT'S better! The christmas pressies had bows and ribbon made out of paper. The box is a cigar box (printed from Jim's Printable Mini's) with tiny cigars inside it too! The newspaper is a copy of the Martha Tabram Jack The Ripper story (I am fascinated with Jack The Ripper). The 'marble' rolling pin and board were made from leftovers, as were the tiny candy canes - which I will have to make again in red and white instead. And then there's the candles... unburnt and uncharred :)