Back to work......

I have recently suffered from the dreaded 'Artist's block', followed by me having to have our little poorly cat put to sleep, so thought it was about time I did some work. Concentrating on a 'good weather' theme, I decided to have a go at making some faerie garden accessories . I first thought of little paths, as these seem to make the gardens come alive. I also did a couple with glow in the dark polymer clay, which look lovely as evening falls. Adding a magical feel to any little garden or flower pot......

Sleeping Beauty Cupboard.

Finished this and sold today! 

Faerie glow windows

The second custom order was for four arch butterfly windows. I had one for sale in my Etsy shop, and had just enough of the colours to make three more. These are quite popular as they do look rather magical glowing in the garden after dark!

Custom Orders, faerie closet.

Today I finished all but one of the custom orders. Just waiting for some paper roses to come, although I have a sneaky feeling they will be too big.
The first was the faerie closet, with crowns, slippers and tunics, and of course cake!

Custom orders

I begain some work on two new cupboards. These re custom orders, one a 'faerie closet' which the client requested to contain clothes, crowns, shoes and wings! The person who ordered has already purchased several of my cabinets including a faerie closet(Clothes and shoes) and a crown cupboard I made. This was an exciting challenge as I usually look at a piece of furniture and know immediately what to do with it. This time I ordered a doll's house wardrobe especially for this project.

 I chose a blue green to begin with although made it more blue after the paint had dried a little. I then added some pearl mauve , since this would go with the colours I had chosen to make the shoes with. I try to compliment the contents with the main colour. I then began work on some polymer shoes, and of course cake! This has become a bit of a thing with me, as my first ever faerie cupboards contained cakes!

 I chose a pastel lime and pale lavenders for the complimentary colours, which I think work quite well. I then started on the clothes. I actually dislike sewing the most, especially as they are such tiny, fiddly things to craft! I mostly use hand dyed muslin for this as you can work easily with it and can always add a little diluted P.V.A to 'mould' the finished item. I also used a little felt as of course you do not need to hem anything!

 I put the glue on first and then add 'flower soft' , micro beads and glitter to the clothes in fairly random patterns until I think it looks right.

Fox Spirit doll

Some of my work apart from making miniatures, is to make spirit dolls. I have made and sold several in the past, but thought I would try a fox. The idea came to me from someone who buys and has blogged about  my dolls. Corvine Magic has bought and worked with several dolls including a crow doll I made for her. She spoke of the spirit of the fox and what the totem represents, since I often watch the foxes at close range. I am grateful to her for sharing her spiritual magic and made this in her honour.

Finished three cupboards today! :)

 Tea in the Garden

 Rapunzel

Princess and the Pea

New cabinets

I made a start on three cabinets yesterday. I painted after removing doors on one of them, and began to add the flower soft....a fake 'moss' made from plastic, but it looks realistic enough to resemble small flowers. As you can see I am not terribly tidy when I work....sort of more like a burst of energy and compulsion, a little like the man with the mashed potatoes in 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'!

 This is the cupboard I removed the doors from. I often do this as they hold more potential that way. I then covered it in complimentary coloured flower soft. Sometimes I work on one piece straight, but more recently have started more than one and I must say it does relieve the monotony!

The other cupboard is painted in pale green and I have glued a large 'beanstalk' around the side going up to the top.....Big clue there on that one!

Making moulds with silicone putty

I bought some putty to make some silicone moulds. I had already used my tiny copper jelly moulds to make jellies and blancmanges  but they are tricky to remove once baked. This will make it possible for me to make and bake more than one at the same time. I followed the instructions and mixed the two parts together in equal quantities . It's really easy to tell when it is mixed as they are in two colours. Once mixed you have about five minutes to press your chosen piece into the mould. You leave the piece in the putty for about twenty minutes and then remove. You then have a mould at a third of the price of shop bought ones! It's a bit tricky to get the moulds even though as I was trying to get the most out of the putty! But with practice I soon got the hang of it. Will definitely be ordering more .

Faerie Wing Mender's cupboard

Faerie Wing Mender's cupboard

I wanted to put some 'fixed' items in the drawer of this cabinet,  and some removeable ones. The scissors are moveable , the thread cards I made and there is also a tiny 'needle'!

More cabinets

This is what it looks like now the flower soft has been added. I usually do this first and can always add more later to fill out any gaps. I also painted the next one........

More cabinets

I have had this cabinet design before and I really like these. You can do so much with them. Here I have started to paint it as already have an idea of what I want to do. It will be a fairy wing and wand mender's cabinet!        

        

Wizard of Oz Cabinet

The first item to go in were the ruby slippers. I included the scarecrow's hat and the tin man's funnel hat too. The rainbow cake was a challenge as not made one of these before , but I quite liked the effect of all the colours together.

Wicked Queen's mirror cabinet

I made a tiny spell book and left it open at the Poison Apple spell and the pedlar's spell! In the drawers are little pages from a herb book. The poisoned apple is beside the book.

Wicked Queen's mirror cabinet

                       

I had such fun making these tiny poison bottles and spell ingredients! Of course I had to watch the Disney version again, since I needed to get the potions right! 

Re vamped Garden cabinet

I had made the original many years ago and it never sold. I pulled off the old plants and mushrooms, added new 'moss' and some Easter eggs and spring flowers and the cupboard sold the same day! 

Beauty and the beast

This proved a lot harder than I had imagined! Loads of ideas , but making Lumiere was quite tricky.....gluing all those jewellery findings, baking in parts.......Never again!
The castle was easy as I had already made this for cinderella and not included it in the final piece.

Had to include 'The grey stuff' here , though not as 'delicious' looking as the real thing!

Beauty and the Beast

Garden Hutch