Queen Mab has arrived....

 June 1st - June 18th 2021

Well, been a bit busy of late. Full scale life got complicated and summer has finally arrived. Up until about a week ago, it was tolerably hot.  Now it’s boiling. The sun scorches your skin even before it’s at its highest peak. I take out my beagle Max every day at noonish and it’s getting more difficult due to the sun’s relentless attack. I do not like summer much. I am not a beach goer (more a lover of lakes and mountainous scenery) due to my super pale skin (yes type I) and the constant need for 50+ sunscreen (that ends up attracting kilos of sand) and my own self image issues (I hate showing off my puffy white thighs in a bathing suit) so living in Italy does have its downside - for me anyway.  So much good food that puts on layers of fat and a sun I cannot enjoy.  Oh, the irony.

So, here I am up in my hobby attic - dollhouse building, sewing, drawing etc. and thank god we installed a decent AC unit. We actually upgraded it in 2019. The other one was more than 15 years old, so this one works rather well.  Without it, no way I could sit up here and play.  
In fact I went back to playing with the tiles since the ink pens arrived. They were not as great as I had hoped but will be workable. The ink refill bottles are perfect for the job of inking up the images I need with a brush then applying the clear embossing powder.  Works a charm. In this picture, you can see the printed tiles I will be using (I have 12 small spaces and 4 larger ones that need tiling) and you can see the reflection of the pebbling effect from the clear embossing powder.  Now I just need to mount them on the white backing for inserting into the panels (which I still have to paint two more - I got side tracked making the tiles - they were more fun than painting).

Embossing the printed tiles - you can see the pebbled surface I like

.

I had bought a long time ago when it was on sale a series of pub signage.  It was a large frame, a sandwich board, a wall board and a hanging sign for outside all in one package.  I had found an image which I really liked of an art Deco style woman holding a flower of some sort with little children or “putti” holding her dress.  I liked the subtle colors and the image and decided I would put her in the large frame. That meant that once I printed it to size I had to cut the frame to size as well.  First issue was that my printer started acting up.  I had bought new ink cartridges last year but as usual, they never last as long a they advertise. When I went to buy more, I found that the prices were getting out of hand (€47 euros for two cartridges and only on Amazon!!) especially when I can buy a new HP multifunctional printer here for €59. Ho hum…. So, I managed to print out most of my colored tiles (seeing as it was the black ink that was acting up - probably due to the heat in the attic when the AC is off) and the deco Dandelion lady. I will deal with the new ink cartridges later. Then I set out to cut the wooden frame. Easier said than done. My dremel attachment (a diamond type disc) wouldn’t stay in place so I ended up having to hand saw the frame. No problem, I have lots of different saws and vices so that just took around an hour to cut and glue.  Once dry on the next day I got to sanding all the edges to smooth it out. To be honest, I am not very happy with how the cut shows but since I had decided to gold leaf the frame I figured it wouldn’t show that much.

Deco Dandelion lady and the now cut frame.

Yes, a bit crappy but was going to be covered in gold anyway.

Adding a little embossing shine to areas inside the image.

Getting back to the Dandelion lady, I could not read the signature on the image and I wanted to label it. I wanted to figure out if, in fact, she was Deco (since I was going for the idea that the limonaia would have been old but updated around turn of the last century) and upon doing a Google image search, I found out all about it.  She would be a version of “Queen Mab" from  a book about fairies called Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens illustrated by Arthur Rackham -1906. Turns out he illustrated many books - not just fairy tales and such - and his work is a bit frightening yet beautiful. I found a nice entry  from the same blog listing all the books he has illustrated and mentioning that he knew Tolkien and influenced some of the tree imagery for Lord of the Rings. We can even see influences in Disney’s nightmare in the woods sequence from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.  He also illustrated The Wind in the Willows which is a favorite book amongst many young people even today.  So, yes, this image would work well.  As I said she is a version of “Queen Mab” - who rules the gardens - but not always.  She has morphed in many different literary works from someone beautiful to even one of the most famous evil queens - The Queen of Hearts - in a retelling of Alice in Wonderland (Andrzej Sapkowski).  So, yes, after enjoying all the information and imagery I believe my Queen Mab will fit into the limonaia just fine.

I managed to find the actual glue I had bought a hundred years ago for gold leaf but it was pretty melma (slime) like.  Almost like snot. (Sorry). But it did work better then the other glue types I had. Soon enough, after around 20 minutes I remembered how much I disliked gold leafing. I did cover most of the frame (but not perfectly - it is supposed to be old), then varnished the gold to set it into place as the actual leafing glue was not 100% guaranteed to hold. Then, I found a darkish Burnt Sienna acrylic and lightly sponged areas of the frame to “age” the gold, sponged the back and the inside and just needed to frame the image.

Glueing the gold leaf onto the frame...

...covering as much as possible.

Sponging in a bit of bronze coloring....

...finished frame.

You can see that the external sawed edge is practically invisible. Inside will be under the image.

I set to work aging the image of the Queen Mab and even added a little bit of texture to the surface (by pressing the front onto a small piece of netting) to give it the look of canvas.  Then I aged it with some more chalk pastel and set her into her frame. I think she looks fairy-ly regal. Will just need to decide where to hang her inside the limonaia. I am still working out how the room will be decorated. Anyway, slowly making progress and still having fun.

The image on the left before aging onthe right.

The piece of netting I used to give the image a canvas look.

Close up of the canvas texture.

An idea of size - I like that it's large.

Painting....

14th - 28th May 2021

So waiting for the stupid ink pen to arrive I started working on the other panels sanding and cleaning the window panes and painting everything white.  I decided to stop painting the panes separately and just glue them and and paint them on the panel. I figured it was the same thing more or less and less of a struggle to get the panes into place since everything swells a little after painting. Easier this way. While doing this, your mind wanders so I listen to music or something else but mostly contemplate about these tiles and the structure etc.

Anyway, I got to thinking, there must be a better solution than the pens since a lot of times they dry out and I really do not need to write anything (these pens are great for calligraphy).  I just need to fill in the entire tile to look shiny like a tile but rough like they’re old. Then a few nites ago, I got an idea when checking the tracking on the pen I ordered (2 weeks later and hasn’t even left the USA yet) and noticed that Amazon sells ink refills for the slow drying ink/glue used in embossing. You buy this little bottle and spread it on your ink pad. So, I read the reviews on Amazon US and found out that they are sold like little droppers (about half an ounce) and are exactly the same ink glue stuff that would be in the pens. Eureka! I find comments that you can use a brush to cover larger areas too. So, over to Amazon.it to find out if they sell it.  They do, at twice the price. Ok, bummer, but even if the other pen arrives, this solution I think is better. So I bought the ink (like €11 with tax!) and received the package only to be pleasantly surprised. They put in two bottles instead of one (I double checked and the description said only half an ounce (15ml)) but yes, I got two. Jeez what a break! Of course in the afternoon I went straight upstairs to test it.  I mounted the test tile on the white foam type backing and painted an area over the tile, sprinkled the transparent powder and heated it.  The white backing bends with the heat but is easily bent back and the ink works perfectly.  I’ll probably have to emboss each tile before mounting them on the white backing but hey - we are a go for this process once I am ready to start embossing the tiles.Very cool!

You can see the pebble effect I like in the shiney area on the right.

But I can still make the embossing thick enough to be smooth.

While painting the panels (still another two to go) and doing some cleaning of my craft supplies, I came across a bottle of Crackle Medium. I bought this back when I was doing a lot of decoupage type projects. This medium gets painted on between two layers of contrasting paint (usually a darker one underneath) and causes the top layer of paint to crack showing dark areas underneath. Hence crackle medium. I had the idea that I wanted to age the paint on the bottom of the panels where maybe lots of moisture build up would cause cracking. I decided to test if I just dusted some of my chalk pastel color on the first layer then put the crackle on to see if the result looked oldish. It did actually! So we are a go for using this to make the bottom parts of the panel look weather worn. I did the first panel and I do like it. Saves on having to paint and weather by hand.

Making a test for the cracklé medium.

Applying the chalk on the painted surface.

Using a brush to spread the chalk.

Final effect. Looks fairly water damaged.

 

 

 

And various museums are re-opening this month - Boboli and its limonaia today. Restaurants are opening for indoor seating on 1st June - next week. Course reduced capacity and masks and distancing are still required but slowly we should return to normal after a year of lockdowns. I hope anyway. 

 

(oh, and the pens arrived today - so that's a good thing. I need some good things to be happening as there is way to much negativity going around that I can't control. So it's nice every now and then.)

Tile Experimenting (continued)

1st May - 9th May 2021

Tile trials - embossing tile lines.

I continued experimenting with the tiles that are going to fit the inside panels under the windows. I put one tile on a piece of corrugated cardboard for backing and painted some glossy varnish over it.  I think 3 or 4 layers. The ribbed corrugated cardboard shows thru (so that will not be an option for the backing) but luckily I was in a dollar store and found some white foam type material which should work better. I had to use a ball embossing tool to bring out the tile lines and press a little into the cardboard so I needed something that wasn’t too rigid to allow me to simulate that these are like single tiles and not just one big one. I think the white backing should work better than the cardboard.

Corrugated backing shows too much.

Anyway, it just took so long to make one tile I decided to try and find clear embossing powder. Easier said than done. There are no more stores dedicated to crafts around where I live.  Given that it’s still semi-lock down here, it’s not like I could wander around trying to find embossing products. No luck on line either. Amazon had one but it was like €16 euros which is amazing considering these things cost like under $10 in the USA. Talk about a rip off!  So, I had an idea - I had bought thru Amazon Germany in the past. Even with the cost of transport from Germany it would still cost less for a 25gr container of transparent powder.  So I ordered it off of them and it was delivered in under a week. Crazy! You would think during lockdown that stores that sell craft supplies would be stocking up. Weird.

Test fitting in the panel.

My idea was to use the clear embossing powder since it would be quicker than the varnish method and would look more interesting because it would not be a perfect surface. The idea is that these tiles are old and have been in place a while. So they cannot look new. I printed off all my tiles on a piece of photographic paper to get the colors as intense as possible.  I made a few tests on the crappy color prints just to see how the colors responded (the ink pen I have leaves a slight light blue tint so it’s not perfect for light colors) but I figured it would work.  

Printed tiles ready for embossing.

Clear powder on blue looks great.

 

 

You can see the blue hue on the white.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The transparent powder does a great job keeping the color but the blue hue in the glue pen was obvious. So, back to ordering another pen off Amazon.  This one is going to take a month to get here. Go figure. No problem - the time spent waiting will be filled with painting the panels white, something I am realizing is taking longer than I thought. 

I did finally receive the miniature cribbage boards I ordered though.  Pretty fun! So here is a pick of all the different board games I’ve managed to collect so far.  The baseball board game has been the most costly thus far.  It has all kinds of little game pieces inside.  And I have no idea yet how I am going to set up the Chinese Checker game - it comes with all the little colored rounds pieces! Maybe I will just have to fashion a miniature bag to hold them. Still missing checkers and backgammon board. Will keep my eye out for them.

Board games for the games cupboard

Cribbage !!

I’ve been making blueberry muffins lately and would like to try some different ones. Setting my sites on this lemon muffin recipe with buttercream frosting. Decadent.

 

Baked Goods and Experiments

 April 28th - 30th 2021

One of my recent purchases was a bread tower. Or that is how it was advertised anyway. I found it on a nice Etsy shop and the dimensions seemed ok for putting it somewhere in the Tea Room/Orangery/Limonaia.  It came with some small wooden trays that would slide in and out of the slots. The top is open, so I figure I will end up closing it off and making a top shelf for bags or something but for now, I only made a few changes.
Part of the tower’s exposed wood had been laminated and part of it not.  So I rectified that and added some of my own (of course from left over pieces of my other projects) and then stained the remaining exposed areas. Looks a lot better to me. I also aged the trays as they were too new looking. I imagine that in a setting with lots of bread and hands constantly pulling the trays out they’d be beat up a bit. (I soaked a bunch of wicker baskets while aging the trays making them darker and pulling out the useless handles. I’ll use them for bread and other sundries.) I then “made” some paper to line the trays and pulled out my stash of miniature breads that I have been buying over the last few years. 

The original state of the tower. You can see my piece of laminate to the right.

I just needed to add laminate to some sides.

Looks much better.

Shelves painted now too.

Staining the trays and darkening baskets.

Crimping paper so it will be soft and fit in the trays.

The same shop that sold the tower also had some baguette and a little shokupan type loaf. I bought both but when they arrived I wasn’t 100% pleased. The baguettes are bowed and much too light colored for my taste. So fixed them up a bit. The little loaf was not the best either - you could see the seam where the loaf was made in a mold. I have no issues with molds but at the very least they could clean up and trim off the seam lines.  So I made it into a little whole wheat loaf and sprinkled some “flour” on the top of it. Looks better. I also added a little flour (actually scraped chalk) on the large whole wheat loaf I bought (different shop and better quality). Once I fixed up all the bread products and added them into the trays I was pleased with the final result.  Now I just have to make a bunch more bread bags.

New and improved tower.

New and improved bread.

And better baguettes.

Template for making bread bags.

I also stained the cheese board. I scratched it up with knife marks too since I imagine it would have them being a cutting board and all. Looks much better.

Cheese board

I finished painting the two window panes for the door panel. They look fine and of course, since I didn’t put much paint on the sides they are not fitting snuggly.  I will probably have to glue these ones in - or just add more paint to the sides and refit them. More likely that.  So I started to look at the inside of the panels and thinking about how to decorate them. I already have an idea of the designs and “tiles” I want to use. But I thought that just printing them on photographic paper would be too flat and boring. So, I started screwing around with embossing powder.

The tile - powder and pastel chalk.

Mixed green chalk and resin.

The powder is sprinkled over wet ink and then “melted” with a heat gun creating a pseudo 3D effect. (Embossed effect.)  Thing is, the damn powders are expensive and I wasn’t even sure how to use them. So, after navigating the net for info I decided to mix the powder I have (white) with pastel chalk. I couldn’t find anywhere that suggested doing this but I figured it had to work. I experimented on the black & white pic to see if the powder would melt and stick.  The green was fine so I tried yellow.  But since I am not sure of the ratio, I was afraid to put too much chalk in and I ended up with a pale colors. No good. Still, I was able to use it on a color print out of the large lemon tile and I actually like it. I may want to make some areas in the designs in relief. Then I can varnish them thickly to simulate a tile like surface.  There is also the option of buying alcohol based inks and adding those into the white powder.  I may try and find some inks and see if that works too. Anyway, it’s fun finding a new process and experimenting.

Applying the powder to the brushed on ink.

After applying heat. You can see it's glossy.

Adding the yellow embossing to just part of the design.

And here is some more info on my favorite lemon the bizzaria. It is so damn ugly! I would like to taste it one day.

Painting and Door Knobs

April 21st - 26th 2021

I admit, my blog is more a story about trial and error.  I am not a miniature artist or builder with any experience - all I know is from what I try to accomplish and sometimes it works and sometimes doesn't. It's a hobby that presents challenges to me in finding the best and more effective way to create an object or a look that I have envisioned - but that really doesn't exist. This is why I enjoy it - but for you, maybe it's boring reading about my constant fails - dropping pieces, splinters, burns.... The dangers of "screwing around" with things I really have no business doing. Well, it's fun for me - and hope you enjoy my creative endeavours and I look forward to finishing this project! Hopefully it won't take as long as the Japanese Dollshouse did.....

Anyway, I finished painting the first panel white including the window panes. They were easily removed but to put them back in I had to sand down the sides a bit. Course they were quite loose coming out so I thought they’d fit snuggly going back in - but they were a bit too snug. So quick slight sanding did the trick. At least now I won’t have to glue them in place and I know that all the others I should just put a very light wash on the external frame to save time from sanding.  I hate painting - I think it’ll be easier if I just give them a slightly diluted paint job and a second hand rather than straight paint from the tube.

I decided to paint a door panel next.  The doors are pinned into the frame so I had to be sure that when I removed them (or even if I should) they’d go back in easily.  I have never done a build with a pin hinged door (the Ryokan dollhouse just had sliding doors) so after checking info on this kit it seemed ok to remove the bottom pin and slide the door out. Which I did, only to have the top pins fall out and onto the floor.  Ho-hum.  Boring. How many times have I dropped miniature parts on the floor which of course hasn’t been swept for weeks?  Anyway, I used my trusty dust pan and brush and found the missing pegs after about 10 minutes of cleaning/searching.  I pulled out the second door panel and took those out now since I will probably paint that panel next anyway.  I then removed the panes from the doors and carefully made sure I put each with its own door as they are also a snug fit.  I sanded down the areas where the tapes they used to stabilize pieces during shipping had left some gummy residue and put masking tape on the “window” panes since those are not removable.  I was then prepped for painting.

Masking off the windows for painting

 

First door done, second to finish.

After painting more, I had to clean the window pane since the dirt and grime had accumulated a bit there. I used some alcohol and cotton and a cotton swab to get it fairly clean. Course it’s impossible to get it perfectly clean.  I then checked the other door to find out which side was inside and outside (since the panes get installed on the outside) and managed to coax the window panels into place. Again, nice snug fit because of the small amount of paint on the inner part of the door frame. That done, I tackled the second door in the same manner and fit its pane as well.  Next up, door handle and embellishments.

Doors painted and trial fit.

I had seen a really nice antique door with kick panels on the bottom. I really like the idea that the Tea House would have some kind of bottom protection for the front door.  I mean, the idea is that people have always been coming in and out and banging up the doors with pots and plants etc. Then once it was refurbished, they just decided to leave the kick panels and give them a quick brushing.  I recently had our front door rejuvenated after 20+ years and so much wear due to weather that I noticed that the front brass door knob was pretty tarnished and sad looking.  The guy that did the work said no need for chemicals, you just give the door knob a good rubbing with steel wool.  He left us a nice size piece since the materials were already paid for in the renovations so I used that to burnish and blemish the panels. You can see the difference on the left where I rubbed the brass and let the black residue shed off onto the door. I did the right side one to match them up a bit.

Cutting the lamina, again.

Gluing the door kicks into place.

Burnished areas and dirt added on the left.

Next up was the door handle.  I bought door handles (two) because I had no intention of adding actual handles to the back doors - although I may change my mind later. Also, thinking how doors usually work, I really only needed one on the outside and one on the inside of the working entrance door.  The left door is what would swing open - not the right.  As a shop, they could prop open the right door during business hours but the entrance is really just on the one side. Or it is for now. Anyway, the doorknobs did not come with screws (grrr) so I had to steal 4 screws from a tiny hinge kit.  They of course were super difficult to pick up and put into the respective holes but I eventually got the front door knob on.  I dug out a little more wood for where the key would go (which will be on the inside only) and fixed the knob and screws with a drop of glue here and there.  I then decided to glue the other two screws onto the door knob plate thinking it would be easier to just tap them into the wood on the back of the door to fix them in place. It would have been had I not forgotten to mark the holes on the back of the door.  Ok, pulled them out and tried again. The key won’t fit right now since I need to dig out a little more wood but they look good! They are just propped in place as I still have so much more painting to do - but I did put them in a zip lock bag in case the knobs come away and the screws come out - I’ll never be able to find them again if I didn’t.

Doors propped into their frames

Well, sorry for the long entry - to make it up to you, check out this room fragrance Cedrato di Firenze made by Wally Cosmetici - its inspiration being the Bizzarria Lemon of course !! It is the most wonderful fragrance spray especially in the kitchen. Check out their site and hopefully you can find it close to home -

“Bizzarria”, chimera, legend and love spell

Introduced in the citrus fruit collection of the Medici Gardens, it comes from the

countryside of Pietrasanta (Lu).

Cedrato di Firenze is the most fragrant and sweet of all lemons

"For its grateful smell superior to all the others”- Wally Cosmetici, Montemurlo (PO) Italy