Extra Long Post for Christmas

This is an extra long post packed with photos to you dear readers. As I will not have time to write before Christmas, take it as Christmas post J

In the last weeks I made a big improvement on the salon de thé. First I was scared to death to start the exterior painting, but I could not skip this step and leave it white... So collected myself and started to paint. I applied two thin layers of basic limestone colour (a mixture of cafe cream and matt white).

 then the „artistic” work started: I had to apply several layers of different aged and/or damp limestone shades, even dirty ones. For these layers I thinned the paint mixtures with water. All in all I used 7 different shades to get the correct effect.

I decided to paint the back wall really aged and damp, as it is usual when the building wasn’t renovated outside, but certainly did not want to repeat it on the front facade, it will not match well with the luxurious interior. Therefore the front got an average limestone look with smaller damp patches and some dirt at the feet.

Finally I took some „simulation” photos today, though the end result will not look like this. The floor will be white marble with tiny black squares, the walls covered with white and golden wood panels decorated with pink toile de jouy wallpaper and an ornate ceiling decorated with golden patterns. The golden décor will reflect the light of the wall sconces and the crystal chandelier. Mouth-watering extraordinary cakes will fill the marble counter, each windowsill will be decorated with a macaron topiaries and macaron tower, which will allow the guests to see the park, but will protect them from the visitors’ stares.

Dear Readers, I wish you merry Christmas, I hope you will return in 2012!

Orsi

RL - Advent Preparation

This is a totally different post, because it is about real life and not about miniatures.
As the Christmas' approaching I try to switch the home into "Festive Mood". I am not the person who puts pine and yew branches everywhere, I usually use scents intstead of them. This year I found a new Greenleaf scent, called Merry Christmas, it mixes cinnamon and cloves basically and it reminds me the granny's kitchen and gingerbread. I hide 1-1 bag in the kitchen, the hallway and the living room, put some yew branches into a simple bucket and made a pretty decoration from planting pots, crystal, moss and pine cones. I usually use glass, crystal and silver ornaments, as they reflect the sunshine and snow perfectly and look like ice.

Beside them my two cactuses surprised my some weeks ago, when I wanted to remove them from their current spot from the window and found out that they are full with buds. I got them in spring and they were on sale because looked very weak and unhealthy, so I was really amazed when I counted 60 buds on them. It seems they like their current place extremely as they started to grow during the summer.

I am far from perfect gardener, I have to tell you, but like to take care of my plants, especially about my orchids, therefore the other surprise was my zygopetalum orchid which is now in full bloom (it shares the place with the cactuses... maybe it is a magical spot.. according to the feng shui, that is the love corner of the living room). Now every orchid has tiny new buds, they will be in bloom in January-February I suggest.

I will be back soon with miniatures.

Have a nice weekend,

Orsi

Birthday, Birthday

A very good friend of mine had her 40th birthday 2 days ago and a colleague of mine had the 50th yesterday, so I made them two tiny cakes as birthday gifts. I used their favourite colours, so Erika got a Mad Hatter style orange, pink and pale green cake with stripes, dots and curves, while Eva owns a gift box cake made of "chocolate", filled with chocolates and truffles and decorated with an orange ribbon.

See you soon,
Orsi

Further Improvements

I wasn't lost :) just spent my days with pretty hard work during the last 3 weeks and now I can show you the latest improvements of my salon de thé. Until this I worked only on the flat walls, as the front facade will be joined to the "body" later with hinges. Working on the back wall was totally different experience and now I realized how big house this will be....
During the last weeks I worked on the back and side walls. As I mentioned earlier the back wall will get the same design as the front facade. I built it from cardboard and balsa and I have my 2 cents again: if you worked with balsa, I'm sure you realized how hard to glue the balsa to any other material, as it starts to curve at the moment the glue meets its surface. This time I didn't want to go through on this nightmare again and decided to varnish the balsa first with waterbased varnish originally used on wooden furniture. And IT DID THE TRICK!!! The balsa became sturdier and I could cut it and glued very easy. My last tasks on the outside before I will start the painting is making the decorative railings and the stuccos on the back wall. I hope I can start the painting procedure before Christmas. Fingers crossed. Probably I will do it between baking cookies or preparing some Christmas stuff.

Back wall - cardboard and balsa cut and glued



Covered with liquid wood and painted with gesso

See you soon,
have a great week,
Orsi

M A Facade

I wish I could post earlier.... but I didn't have any time to deal with miniatures, I did some pre-Christmas clean-up in my flat and put together a lifesize chest of drawers which came from the blue-yellow Swedish shop (aka Ikea). As its total weight is 75 kgs (12 stones) it was a real challenge :)

But finally on this week I finished the stuccos on the salon de thé's facade and happy to post some photos about them. It was annoying to make the tiny grapes, I did not even count how many small balls needed to create them..... 1 stucco has 13 fruits, with 25-30 balls each, so we can count 300 balls per stucco, which is altogether 1200 small balls.... no wonder it took 6 hours to make one...

In the upcoming weeks I will spend my time with building up the back, left and right side and leave the stuccos for a while. And can I tell you something? I won't miss them. Though I'm happy with them it was PIA to make them. Now I'm eagerly waiting to finish the outer walls and paint them to a rich, aged limestone colour.

See you soon,

Orsi

Danish Pastries

Before I return to my salon de thé, I made some Danish pastries to subdue my hunger for sweets...
I just imagined it would be a perfect breakfast with a cafe au lait (coffee with milk). So, here are the photos:

See you soon,
Orsi

Happy Birthday Little Princess!

I spent some days on this week with food making. It sounds strangely, but I missed it.... First I just made some apple and pears:

then decided to make something not too fancy, but lovely, so I made a chocolate fountain with ripe strawberries, biscuits and marshmallow. Somehow I was in pink mood and made pink candies and pale pink meringues to upgrade the scene. I plan to sell the chocolate fountain, but probably will keep the second tray with the pink and green plates.

And now, as I don't have any marshmallow, candy or chocolate in my pantry, I think I will eat an apple...

I can tell you it is really-really hard to make yummy and tasty food and eat nothing of it :-( 

See you soon,

Orsi

 



Shabby Chic 3

The kitchen cupboards are finally finished :) I made them really worn and old looking and I filled them with food and plates for the photo taking. Though I usually prefer the green to the cream colour, but it this case the cream is my favourite. I hope that you and the customers will like them :)
First the cream coloured cupboard:

And the green one:

Shabby Chic 2

I finished the pink and blue furniture sets, and just happened again... I like the blue one so much, that I will keep it to myself. I think I will build a roombox with blue and golden walls and cover the floor with very dark brown floorboards.

As you see I couldn't resist and placed some religiuses and St. Honore onto the small pink table. The cream and green kitchen cupboards will be ready by next midweek :)) Aaaand after that I will continue the salon de thé.

See you soon,

Orsi 



Pickles & Preserves

I think I won't repeat this experience in the near future. As always, an idea born somewhere deep inside my head, and I made it... now I have significantly more grey hair than last week....
It seemed easier, but certainly the bottle's opening wasn't wide enough to push the table into the bottle, so I built the legs first and glued it into the bottle, glued the filled basket into the bottle too, then continued it with the tabletop and all the food items. Finally I prepared the cloth which decorate the top. The photos are terrible, but I wasn't able to take a better one. I honestly hope the new owner will like it.