Blog feature

A friend of mine writes a blog about crafty things and I was very pleased to have a piece about me and my miniatures featured in it recently.  Here's a link to the blog: https://northeastcraftyblogger.wordpress.com/2015/03/27/meet-the-maker-dinky-diner-miniatures/

Afternoon Tea

Who doesn't love a little indulgence sometimes? The tradition of Afternoon tea was first introduced to England in 1840 by Anna, the 7th Duchess of Bedford.  The evening meal in her household was served at 8pm and Anna would often feel hungry by about 4pm so asked her servants to bring her some tea, sandwiches and cakes at this time to keep her hunger at bay.  Anna would later ask her friends to join her and this soon became a social occasion adopted by many others.  The Earl of Sandwich famously popularised the sandwich in 1760.  During a poker game, he did not wish to leave the gambling game for a traditional meal so asked for a meal of convenience to be made of meat between two slices of bread.  Miniature finger sandwiches are often included in traditional afternoon tea sets.

Afternoon tea is becoming popular again here in the UK with many cafes and hotels offering a delicious selection of scones and cream cakes to go with your tea.   This gave me the inspiration to make an afternoon tea themed set.   This set consists of a tea pot containing freshly brewed tea; a milk jug with milk; a sugar pot with realistic white cane sugar; four cups containing tea with milk and four matching saucers; a plate of fruit scones; a plate of hot buttered crumpets; a plate of cinnamon swirl pastries and a plate of strawberry cream tarts.  This set is currently on sale in my Etsy shop www.dinkydinerminis.etsy.com

Full English Breakfast Set

Nothing beats a full English breakfast to set you up for the day ahead! This set consists of a coffee pot half filled with freshly brewed coffee; a milk jug with fresh milk; a little sugar pot with realistic looking white cane sugar; four little cups containing coffee with milk; four matching saucers; four plates each filled with two pork sausages, a rasher of bacon, one fried egg, fried mushrooms, baked beans and half a slice of buttered toast. This set is currently on sale in my Etsy shop www.dinkydinerminis.etsy.com

I'm back!

Hello everyone! Sorry it's been a while... I've still been making my miniatures, I just haven't been blogging! I'm still getting to grips with all this social media business, there's so much to get your head round these days and it takes so long to keep everything updated! I haven't worked on my dolls house for a while..last year I was busy doing craft fairs so I couldn't afford to buy anything for it - but, now I'm back in blogging land I'm going to share photographs of my food miniatures with you and any news I might have. As it happens I do have some pretty exciting news...I'm very pleased to say that I'm going to have my miniatures appear in a few dolls house magazines over the next few months along with a tutorial or two! I'll keep you updated! But for now, I'll share some pictures of the miniature food I've been making..

Living room

In the living room I began by painting the ceiling with the same white silk emulsion I had used in the kitchen.  When I first put my house together I'd originally painted the banister and staircase white but this didn't look quite right now somehow.  In my research I discovered that brown was a popular choice for staircases in the 1930s and 40s so brown it was! I didn't have a brown coloured paint so I mixed my own brown colour using the colours I did have - scarlet red, ochre yellow, olive green and black acrylic paint which gave me just the right colour I was looking for.  I was very pleased with the results - very retro!

I then looked at my room and realised it needed a focal point.  There was no chimney breast wall (as both chimneys are on the side of the house) in the centre of the room to make the fireplace the main feature so I decided to create my own.  My Grandad used to have a wonderful Art Deco tiled fireplace in his living room and I wanted to create the same look.  To construct my wall I used a box made of very strong cardboard and cut it down to the size I wanted.  I then covered it using the cardboard from the back of a writing pad to make the shape neater and more sturdy.  I glued the box and fixed it to the wall then I left it to dry.  For my living room wallpaper I used the 'Roman Swag' Art Deco wallpaper from the Dolls House Emporium.  I measured the lengths I needed making sure that all the pieces would match when it was hung on the wall and I glued my paper to the wall using ordinary wallpaper paste.  I painted the back of the paper using a medium sized paintbrush and starting at the left hand corner of the back wall I begun hanging it piece by piece.  I smoothed out any bumps and bubbles along the way using a dry, scrunched up piece of kitchen roll.  I left the left side wall until last.  That was the part I was least looking forward to doing as I'd already glued the banister to the wall! Ooops! To paper this bit I measured, cut and hung a piece which stopped just short of the hand rail.  Next I cut another piece roughly 2 inches wide to piece around the banister.  I measured where the banister came to and made a vertical cut up the paper (slightly higher than the height of the banister) then made cuts at 12, 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 11 o' clock so I had what looked a bit like a fairy wand shape in the wallpaper (see picture below).

Once I'd done this I pasted the paper and attached it around the banister smoothing it down so there were no gaps or mismatched pieces in the paper.  Finally I pasted the last piece and attached it to the wall, again making sure the wallpaper matched.  Once the paper had fully dried I cut the ragged pieces around the banister using a sharp Stanley knife.   I'm planning on putting coving at the top of my walls and skirting boards at the bottom so I am not too bothered that the edges of my wallpaper aren't perfect.  This is what the room looks like fully papered..

Next for this room I need to decide on what type of flooring to have and at the moment I'm thinking painted/ varnished floorboards with a nice little rug in front of the fire.  I've already seen the perfect fireplace just like my Grandad's which is from Hearth and Home Miniatures.  It is pretty expensive but I think it'll look amazing.  Here it is..

  

Inspiration for my kitchen

I've found Pinterest a wonderful source of inspiration for my doll house.  I love these images from the Cats, Dogs and Eiderdowns blog of the Imperial War Museum - this is exactly the kind of look I want to achieve in my kitchen.

I love that the floor tiles look old and grimy - mine are far too clean at the minute so I'm going to try and make them look more 'lived in'.  Not sure how I'm going to do it yet and I don't want to ruin them either so if anyone has any tips - please get in touch! I also want a drop-leaf kitchen cabinet similar to the one in the photograph to store my kitchenware.  Jane Harrop does a great tutorial for one in her book 'Thirties and Forties Miniatures in 1/12th Scale' but she also sells the kits on her website so I think I might buy one instead.  At least then all I would have to do would be to glue it together and paint it! A basket like this one would also look great in my kitchen along with a miniature ration book and full of groceries.  The photograph below is not one of my own but was another one I found on Pinterest. This is the 1930s/1940s kitchen on display at York Castle Museum.  We visited the museum a few years ago and it is well worth going.  This was part of an exhibit about British kitchens through the ages - there was a Tudor kitchen, an Edwardian cottage kitchen, this kitchen and a 1980s kitchen.  The installations are amazing, it's just a shame you can't get in the kitchens to have a good nose around and pretend you're part of a period drama!  Or maybe that's just me :-)

Sink, shelves and cooker

Today I began painting some of the parts for my cooker.  The cooker I've chosen for my kitchen is a Phoenix 1940's gas stove which arrived last week in loads of tiny little pieces which was a bit of a shock because I thought it would come ready made (silly me for not checking the small print!) So, before I assemble it I'm painting the parts first.  I've been using Humbrol enamel paints in white gloss and matt duck egg blue to paint the door, sides and top of the cooker.  I've ordered some black paint to paint the inside and stove tops.  It's the first time I've ever used enamel paint before but I'm pretty pleased with the results so far.  The duck egg colour covered well and seemed to dry a lot quicker than the white gloss.  Saying that, the gloss is a lot thicker, but the most frustrating part is it takes literally forever to dry and gets covered in little bits of dust as it's drying.  I'm going to leave it to dry overnight and see if sanding it a little may help.  While I was waiting for the cooker parts to dry I decided to have a little go at making my own enamelware pans.  I used two metal baking trays and a set of three silver metal lidded pans.  I painted them with a couple of layers of the white gloss paint and I plan to order another pot of enamel paint in either royal blue or emerald green to give them that old fashioned enamel cookware look.  I was thinking of chipping little bits of paint off them and making them rusted in places so they'll look well used.  I'll see how they turn out after I paint the trim on them.

Next I glued the brick pillars to my Belfast sink.  I bought the pillars a few weeks ago but wasn't really happy with the finish.  They're made from some sort of resin with a dark red brick effect printed on them and to be honest they looked a lot better in the photograph on the website but it wasn't a big deal as I already had some red brick slips and mortar to cover them up with.      

Whilst the front facing bits don't look perfect, I'm a lot happier with how they look now.  I also have a wood effect draining board to go with the sink unit so I just have to decide now where it's going to go.  I think I'll make my mind up once I've got all my furniture in the kitchen.  

I filled the gap around the pantry wall by using a long piece of dado rail to cover the section coming down the stairs, and for the vertical gap at the bottom of the stairs I packed it with a thin piece of wood and covered with decorator's caulk.  Once the caulk had dried I painted it white so it looked like it was part of the staircase.  

Finally I glued the long shelf to the wall on the right hand side of the kitchen.  I will fit the brackets underneath it tomorrow and I will have a think what kind of things I can display up there.  Perhaps some pots and pans, plates, cooking utensils or books.  I want to put as much stuff up there as I can - I want my kitchen to look 'lived in' so the more clutter the better!  This is how the room looks so far today...