Innholdsfortegnelse for July 2023 i Dolls House & Miniature Scene

The month of July sees the celebration of Independence Day for our friends over the pond in the USA, so to keep your mini makes right up to date with the festivities we have an American flag pie to make by Sadie Brown, plus a miniature baseball set on page 62 for that all-American feel! Elsewhere, turn to page 26 for the final part of Moi Ali’s Retro Fit Realism series – have you been following it through the last six issues? Which was your favourite part? We’ve had some fantastic feedback on this mini-series, you’ll be pleased to know that Moi will be back with another series – this time for 12 months – very soon! We have a new contributor to introduce you to this issue, Kim Finch, who…

Stairway to success A spacious executive property with bespoke kitchen and staircase, along with a beautifully landscaped garden, this exceptional house was designed and built to the owner’s specifications. But this isn’t an affluent development in the leafy suburbs of the home counties, it comes straight from the imagination of talented miniature architect, Amy Yates. Unrecognisable from its original form as a Victoria’s Farmhouse kit, the finished build took Amy five months to complete and appears to have jumped straight from the pages of a glossy sales brochure. Indeed, the overall design was largely influenced by a full-size build Amy discovered online. “I think I may have saved the same house at least three times to my Pinterest board!” she says, enthusiastically discussing the many changes she made to the…

YOU WILL NEED Materials required • White, red and shades of green paper• Various green florist tape• White paper tape• Green, fuchsia/purple and red Sharpie pens• Light green, leaf green, yellow, orange and red acrylic paints• Covered florist wire• Brown polymer clay• Small styrofoam ball• Green scatter (model railway source)• Selection of colouring pencils• Varnish & white glue• Small bottle tops or miniature pots Tools required • Small sharp scissors• Wire cutters• Small five-petal flower paper punch• Fine paintbrush 1 Anthurium Cut several green leaves and coloured flowers from paper using the templates provided. Cut a florist wire stem for each leaf and flower. Emboss the veins using a needle tool and slightly cupping them. Fix each leaf to the top of a wire stem. Paint the remaining wire tips…

It’s not everyone who can wear an outside ‘privvy’ on their head and still look elegant. But this unusual Steampunk style of Kitten Von Mew of Stratford-upon-Avon, is a style she loves, and it reflects not only in her fashion sense, but also in her dolls house miniatures. There’s nothing traditional or even ‘normal’ in her intriguing old house – her debut doll’s house incidentally. It’s a house full of mystery – clearly it was – maybe still is, a house that’s been lived in and used. It’s packed full of photographs, letters, posters and documents – all kinds of clutter and collectables in fact. Even the cupboard drawers are filled with personal belongings and things amassed if you care to look. And there is such a lot of items…

“I blame my mum!” laughed Sue Carson, a miniaturist from a village near Chester, just inside the Welsh border, when I asked how she discovered this wonderful hobby. “She was a headteacher in Hampshire and in her downtime liked to make little shops; an antique shop, deli, toy shop, greengrocers and more. Whenever we visited, I’d peep inside and admire how real they looked! At that time, in the late ‘80s, I didn’t have a dolls house. When mum retired and my parents moved back to Chester, I’d accompany her to local dolls house shows. There used to be one at Chester racecourse. I loved looking at the wonderful things people made and began to wish I had one of my own.” Sue bought a large, ready-made black and white…

That lightbulb moment It was 1879 when Thomas Edison invented the incandescent lightbulb, which would go on to revolutionise the way we live, but nature had been lighting the way considerably earlier. Celebrated for their bioluminescence, the firefly is one of our most extraordinary creatures, believed to have been around for in excess of 100 million years. Stood on a stack of handcrafted books which cleverly hide a small LED light, mixed media artisan and visual storyteller, Alison Ratty’s beautiful firefly lantern perfectly captures that wonderfully evocative sense of history. Influenced by a fascinating combination of nature and the ethereal, Alison’s miniatures are inspired by ‘Aunty Nature’, who she wonderfully describes as Mother Nature’s ‘slightly daft sister’. Entirely self-taught in the field of miniature art, Alison has a long history…

YOU WILL NEED Materials required • Egg carton lids• Pewter grey, slate grey, white and ballet pink acrylic craft paint• Glue of your preference Tools required • Paintbrushes New contributor alert! Kim says… “The allure of rustic stone walls in a kitchen is simply captivating. The rugged beauty and earthy texture create a warm and inviting atmosphere, evoking feelings of comfort and nostalgia. These stone walls not only add aesthetic appeal but also serve a practical purpose by regulating the temperature, keeping the kitchen cooler in summer and warmer during winter.” 1 Give the entire room a light wipe down, then apply two coats of pewter grey paint, allowing it to dry completely. 2 Using a paintbrush, coat the inside of the egg carton lid with slate grey paint and let…

Buy now bit.ly/DHMSBOOKSHOP SCAN ME *This product is subject to availability and priced correctly at the time of publication. Geographic restrictions may apply.…

YOU WILL NEED Materials required • White, sunflower yellow, midnight blue and terracotta polymer clay• Golden ochre, brown, dark cadmium orange, dark blue, black, pillar box red and crimson red pastels• Gloss varnish Tools required • 1/12th scale silicone pie/flan mould• Small paintbrushes• Small ball tool• Craft knife Team Top Pick! “I love the detail in this, the cherries look so realistic!”Emily 1 Mix white polymer clay with sunflower yellow to create a pale shade of cream. 2 Fill a 1/12th scale silicone pie/flan mould with some of the cream clay, ensuring that the top of the pie is completely flat. 3 Use the end of a paintbrush or a small ball tool to make a hollow in the centre of the pie, creating a crust all the way around the…

LDF debut award Something that we have been promoting for the last 12 months is our commitment to finding new and talented makers for our shows. For this reason, we joined forces with Emma Waddell of Dolls House Grand Designs to offer a new award for new craftsmen attending our shows. This took in all new makers from the Christmas Show in 2022 and our Summer Show in May. We are pleased to say we had a total of 39 new stands at these shows and picking a winner was a tough job. We wanted to support a business that we felt would be around for a long time and who had really thought about what they were selling and how they were promoting their business. We were pleased to…

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1/12th Scale Drawing Drawings Four sides, Drip Tray Surface Development (0.2 mm thick Copper) and Drip Tray Support Drip Tray - Surface Development Drip Tray Support Plane the wood to a finished thickness of 1.6mm. I use a Proxxon Thicknesser or a Sander Thicknesser (most of my 1/12th scale models need exact 1/12th scale sizes not available to buy). Cut out detail items jigs and fixtures or CNC Cut to exactly match the drawing sizes (I use a mini CNC milling machine but any suitable method that will give the exact dimensions can be used) Mitre angles Cut the compound mitre angles on the sides of the sides of the umbrella stand (I use a sine vice and fixture to hold the detail at the correct angle in conjunction with…

Moi says… “Sand the edges of the kit to slightly round off the sharp edges – although avoid sanding the parts that will make contact with glue, as these need a tight fit.” If mid-century modern is your bag, then Jane Harrop should be one of your go-to kit makers. Her affordable, well designed and easy to assemble range of Scandi-inspired designs are perfect for a post-war vibe in miniature. I selected from Jane’s range a set of four teak dining chairs inspired by the Danish furniture designer Erik Buch (1923-1982), who designed iconic pieces that are highly prized today. Jane’s kit is so well designed that it requires very little assembly and it’s so nice that it uses real wood rather than the more common MDF used in many…