Mini elephants!

I so think these little elephants are so cute :) I made them out of a kit I bought at Miniatura last year. Don't ask me whose kit it is, as I've totally forgot already...erm...sorry! I fell in love with these elephants immediately, but somehow the kit I purchased to make them was left in a drawer for so long. Finally though my elephants have come to life, and I'm really happy about them, they're so cute :) They'll be a nice addition to my toys shop.

Have a nice weekend!

Grocery shop

Hello,

Today I'm taking you on a tour of my unfinished grocery store, part of my shops arcade of course!

As you can see, the grocery store is on two floors, with the second being a terrace where customers can seat and enjoy some delicatessen. But you'll just have to use your imagination for the time being :) What you see on the terrace at the moment is just pure clutter (things that I have to finish for the grocery shop...one day!). 

Next is a close up of the arches in the shop. I've decorated them with some sheep (coming from a nativity scene package) and some shells (which I picked at the sea ages ago). 

From the pic here below you can clearly see the clutter on the terrace, ermmm....just pretend it's not there, ok?!

And finally a close up of the shelf I made myself for the shop. Now all I have to do is make LOADS of grocery items so that I can stock up this shop!

I apologize for the right mess in this shop, but at least you can see some work in progress ;)

I hope you'll all have a lovely week ahead!

xxx

Cozy slippers

Recently the weather outside has been so uninviting that I've felt like spending cozy nights in, wrapped up in my warmest and softest blankets, with my feet being all nice and comfy in my slippers ;) 

So...inspired by the season, I've made a few pairs of miniature slippers, all lined with fur! Which pair do you prefer? Confetti pink for the most romantic of you, or pale blue for the sporty one? Or how about some more traditional colours? ;)

A good and warm day to you all!

 

Lavender

The best thing about building a shopping centre is that you don't have to stick to one shop at a time. 

For someone like me with thousands of plans, this is ideal. I can make something totally different from one day to the other. For example...no later than Sunday I was busy finishing off a patisserie counter and tables; now I'm taking a break from that, and I'm moving onto the florist' shop! This is my first attempt at lavender and at aging pots too. I'm sure that the technique can be improved, but I'm quite happy with the results for the time being, and I need to move on to other parts of the shopping centre! Aren't you just curious to see on which shop I'll be working next?! 'Cause I am, and I'm waiting for my next strike of inspiration tomorrow!
Last but not least, a sincere thank you for the lovely comments on my previous post and for the warm welcome backs!!!

Hugs :)

A lot to be done!

A warm hello to all my readers which have been kind enough to wait for such a long time for a new post from me! I'm such a bad blogger...But the breaking of my camera didn't help either! 

I'm sure someone out there might be wondering what are the progresses of my shopping mall, so I thought I'd share with you the latest pics :)

I'll start off today from the patisserie.

So here's a closeup of the main counter which I built and decorated myself. The front panel is actually a dollhouse door which I found about 10 years ago amongst theatre broken props. Yes, the front panel has actually had the honor of staging in the Annie musical!

On the counter there's loads of mini bottles which I found in a Chinese local shop. I'm just not sure about the caps...how should I substitute them???? I don't like them at the moment, so any ideas are welcomed!

Here's a view of the entire patisserie..

A close up of the entrance door, with a handmade faux marble column (column made out of an empty thread spool).

And finally I've made 6 of these tables. I still have to put some tablecloths over them, and build the chairs, but so far so good. There is progress in the patisserie!

I hope you've liked my mini tour :)

Hugs

Wigging

This miniature lady is modeling my very first wig. Yep, I'm using this head just to model the wigs. (The hair that you see can actually be taken off the head, and put on a hat stand).

My idea is to have a few wigs on display in one of my many shops of the shopping centre. Eventually, once I'll have enough wigs, I'll redress (yes, come on, the dress of this doll is absolutely ugly) and re-do the hair of this lady, but for the time being she'll have to be very patient with me and let me experiment with viscose.

Viscose is one of the messiest materials I've worked with so far. After a whole morning of wigging, and after a thorough clean up of my place, I'm still picking up viscose bits here and there. Quite frankly I'm not a big fan of sticky fingers with sticky viscose on, and viscose flying around the place, landing everywhere. But hey, I like the result, so I'll keep making some more wigs!

Here you can see some pics of the wig, I hope you'll enjoy seeing them!

Miniature Shoes

Hello! As you can see, the construction works have been interrupted again in order to leave room to some accessories making -which is my favorite part!-

I have been wanting to make miniature shoes for ages, but I've always been too shy to attempt it. But this time I decided that I HAD to try it....So there you go, my very first 5 pairs of shoes!!!! Ta da!!!!

Even though they're imperfect in many ways, I still love them, and I think that they will look cute in my women's fashion boutique, paired with some lovely dresses (yet to be sewn of course, you know it'll take me a while to even get to that!).

Of course now that I've started to make miniature shoes, I have plenty more leather colors and fabrics that I want to experiment, mix and match with different styles, and so on. I think this might be like with the hats...After I made the first hat I HAD to make more, it was so addictive.

Well, I'll leave you with these pics for the time being, and I'll go back to more shoes making :)

Enjoy xx

PS. Sorry for the blurry pics, but the weather here in England is so horrible that it's almost impossible to take pics with some sun rays!

Patisserie

And...continuing with the series 'slowly but steadily', here's the works that have been going on in the patisserie shop!

The patisserie will be on two floors, the lower one with counters full of cakes and individual desserts, and the top floor with tables where customers can sit and enjoy a cup of tea with something sweet to compliment it.

As you can see from the pics, there's still loads to be done. The counters are still missing, and the only 3 bits of furniture that you see for the time being is just to give an idea of the colour scheme; Pastel pink and green for the walls, and deep dark brown furniture for some added contrast. Remember that my setting is the late 1800s, early 1900s!

As you can see from the closeup, there's still lot to be done to the balcony, there's still metal trimmings missing to cover up the front bits, plants to be put along the railings, and so on......

And here's another bit to show you the fake red marble in contrast with the wooden columns, and the hand made floor (yep, another one!). A lot of wall lights are installed, just think what they'll all look like once they're lit! And of course the main central chandelier is still waiting patiently in a box to take its place. 

I hope you've enjoyed to see the progress in my shopping centre, and I hope that you'll forgive my lack of posts in the past few weeks. Unfortunately this is a very busy period for me, and I haven't been able to devote to minis as much time as I would have liked to. 

Enjoy your weekend ahead!

Pull Along Toys

Here we are! I've been working a lot lately, and I have a lot of structural work to show you...if only I'd grab my camera and snap some good pics...So, in the meantime, something more fun than structures. I've been wanting pull along toys for a very long time, but due to their price (especially because in a toy shop I needed more than one!) I've always postponed my purchase. In the end last week I went and bought some material and made the toys myself. What do you think? I've found that they're very addictive to make, and now I've got many more ideas for them. In fact I've already gone to buy some more plastic animals. I'm now waiting for the wheels so that I can go ahead and design more pull alongs :) Which one is your favorite so far?!

Hugs!

Hello, hello! I have been very busy, but I've managed to make a few things for my shopping centre....For example...I built the massive shelf that is featured in pics 1&2. Yes, I'm so proud of it, I still can't believe I made it all myself. It is quite a simple structure to design, but to get all those shelves right....well, that's another story! Anyways, here it is, all finished. Initially I was going to paint it in a nice colour; but after finishing the whole thing, I actually thought It looked nice in its natural shade. So what do you think? Also, as you can see, there's going to be some sort of balcony in the shop. Notice all the tiles?? All individually cut, sand, and painted :/ 

I'm afraid you will have to be very patient with me, if you want to see the progresses of this shop? So, any other ideas on what this shop is going to sell?????

While here you can see my cat inspecting the works on a ceiling I was meant to do ages ago. It is going to be the ceiling of the ground floor hallway. It is going to have a bit of a vault shape, as you can see from the pic. The problem with this ceiling is that I couldn't come up with the decoration of it. I simply didn't have any ideas. Till one day I was browsing through old FMR magazines....and ta da! Found the perfect thing! Went to a photocopy centre, had the magazine scanned and enlarged, and now my ceiling doesn't look like plain wood sheet anymore. I still need to do something to the ceiling, so that it doesn't look like a plain photocopy stuck onto it, but hopefully it's not going to take me another 2 years. Yeah, this is the time it took me to find the right decorations!

I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I have been up to lately, and I promise I'll keep you updated on the developments of my shopping centre.

Hugs!