My little christmas buildings

Lots of people love building christmas villages . I have seen some that I really liked but never got one because they were too expensive.

THis year I am starting Christmas with two houses that cost only  50cents !

This is what I bought at the charity flea market. A little  carry along house that opens into two little half houses. One with a pink roof and one with a blue one.

This is the inside of  one half house. I tried tons of furniture inside but nothing worked. So I decided to concentrate on making the outside look good and use them for my  Christmas decor.

A coat of primer and some paint changed the whole look of the house.

To add glass inside the window frames I used Mod Podge and a brush. It takes a bit of patience to carefully cover each little window with the Mod Podge but it is well worth it.  Some windows will have holes in them after drying. No panic ! You can remove the Mod Podge and  try again.

More paint and some snow paint were added.

And some christmas decorations.

A battery tealight fits perfectly inside the house to light it up.

Here is  " Twelf and a half cents cottage  "all ready for Chrismas 

The cottages also  fit inside my christmas wreath.  With the tea light to light the house and lights on the wreath  I think  this looks great too. The batteries for the lights can be hidden inside the house. Brilliant !

 This is the other half of  "50 cents cottage"

From broken DH doll to lovely ornament

What do you do when someone gives you a broken doll for your dollhouse ?

The head and arms were sort of OK but the rest was broken. Still I could not make myself throw her away so she lived in  a box for a long time.

But then serendipity took over. I found a bag of pretty tassels at the thrift shop and remembered seeing some tassel dolls on Pinterest.

I know mine is not a real elegant lady like the ones they showed there but I am still pretty pleased with my little angel ornament.

Here is the head I used. 

And here is the tassel. I felt the top part of the tassel looked a bit like a bodice already.

I glued the doll head on top of the tassel. The ruler is there to show the size.

Arms with a piece of chenille stem added for length and the fabric I chose for the sleeves.

Sew fabric into tunnel and insert hand.

Gather fabric at wrist.

Fold the fabric over the arm to make the sleeve.

Sew sleeves to sides of tassel at shoulder height.

Ready for the hairdresser and the details.

I added some chenille doll hair and to cover the  neck area I used some  angel hair yarn from my stash and wings made out of pretty  ribbon.

There she is with some jewelry added and enjoying the nice weahter in my garden.

Here is her twin sister who  I made this weekend.

I got carried away and also made a grandmother for them who know lives in my  kitchen scene.

Old clock into old world Christmas

When we hear the words winter or Christmas  a lot of people, including me, start thinking about the world as described in Charles Dickens stories. One  artist who illustrated this wonderful world  very well was the Dutchman Anton Pieck. I am a great fan of his work. I have in the past done several projects based on his art  work but when I found this battered old clock case in a charity shop I was tempted once again.

Actually it was my friend who saw it first.  He held up a rather unfriendly looking building  supposed to look like a pub and said :  I bet  not even you can  make something  nice out of this.
So I gave it a good look and  noticed it was supposed to be a clock but that the actual clockwork  had gone missing and that taking the dial off  would  give  me  a nice  upstairs window because there was a hole behind the dial  where the battery unit had been.


.  The wood was fine and all the out of scale stuff like barrels and bottles and signs and the dial  could be easily removed plus it had the advantage of being able to stand or hang on the wall because it was actually just the front of a building.  It was sort of 1: 24 scale and the price was right: $1. So I took it home , made coffee and started thinking about this new project.


 I knew it had to be done in Anton Pieck style and  I wanted either a toy shop or a bakery.  I also realized that unless I wanted to build a sort of box or house behind  it I would be left with a very shallow place with very little room for any kind of interior.  After a good think  I decided that  decoupage would be the best way to solve this problem. I searched the net for pics by Anton Pieck and found some gorgeous bakery scenes  but no suitable toy shops and I knew it was to be a bakery.

But first I had to strip the sad looking house. My hairdryer soon melted all the big blobs of glue and I got rid of bottles and other  stuff. I decided to leave the door and the door frame  so I had a base for the new door. I gave the whole place a coat of white paint and then glued crumpled tissue paper all over the front and sides . After a few coats of cream paint that turned into nice old looking plaster  and I was on my way.

I tackled the roof first because I was not yet sure how I would deal with the interior of the shop. I cut shingles out of sandpaper and glued them down with tacky glue. Then I painted the roof black and dry brushed it with gray so it would look old.

By that time I had figured out that a shallow sort of box frame glued to the front of the house where the original   bottles and barrels  had been would make a nice shop window. The Anton Pieck picture I wanted to use did show a bakery shop seen through a window so it was perfect for my scene. I decided that I would use a small section of the picture behind a glass door and the rest would go behind the window I was going to make.

  I glued the piece of the picture I wanted to use for the door on top of the old door.  Then I made a door frame what would fit over the old door and sit  on top of the old frame. There would be some space between the glass and the picture this way and that would add some depth.  I glued clear sheet behind the door frame  and glued it in place.  It is a good idea to paint the door frame before you add the glass ..............yup I learned the hard way.

For the window I used a wood box frame which would look  nice beside the door size wise. I glued the other part of the Anton Pieck picture to the back wall of the box. I did give the sides a coat of clear varnish. Then I added the shelve  and filled the window  with baked goodies left over from my clay free experiments. Remember to make sure you will still see the picture behind the shelves !!

 Adding the baked  goods will immediately add a 3 D effect I glued the box frame to the house before adding the “glass “and the  window frame.

I Painted the wood to match the door. Yes  I did spill some on the walls but decided it would add to  the old and well lived in look that I needed and I just wiped most of it off with an old cloth.

Then I had to face the top floor . I will tell you all about that later so bear with me..

Recipe for clay free shepherds pie

Clay free shepherds pie

You will need :
You choice of serving dish.

Grated cork. You can buy this at shops that sell stuff for model trains. But you can easily make your own using a cork and a fine grater. The ones you use for lemon zest or nutmeg work great. The grated cork will become your mince meat. You will a real cork not the modern plastic kind. Last time I made this I used a cork mat and it worked like a dream. Easy to grind and so good looking !


For the vegetables  some tiny  pieces of orange and green craft foam  or plastic. You can cut them from a plastic bag if you like. I chose green for peppers and  orange for carrots but you can pick any color you like.

Glass paint in a light brown color. To make the sauce.

From left to right : cork for mince meat, carrots and peppers and glass paint for the  sauce.

For the mashed  potato on top you will need :
Snow paint ( like Aileene's true snow) and some cream paint. Mix a little cream into the snow paint till it looks like mashed potato.  If you cannot find snow paint try white puff paint or some of the stuff you use to fill holes in the wall with.  They all give similar results but I like the snow paint best.

To add the nice brown color on top you will can try things like : light brown chalk, oil pastels or even eye shadow in the right color.

Let's start cooking.

Put a blob of glass paint in the dish you want to sever the pie in. Add some cork and some veggies and give it a good mix.  If needed add more paint or more cork. If you want the dish to look like mine with some of the pie already served you need to have more filling on one side and you may have to remove some excess.

Believe me it will look like a real mess. But give it time to dry and you will be amazed to see how  good it looks

             
Then it is time to add the potato topping.  Mix  the snow paint or whatever you are using  with some cream paint to create a nice colour. Make sure it is not runny or it will be allover your dish. You want it to be like the real thing so puree like.

Spread over the top. A knife works really nice there. I make some little peaks using a toothpick for I think that makes it  look better. Leave to dry. Overnight is best.

The finishing touch is adding the golden color to the top of the dish using pastels, chalk or eye shadow. Use a Qtip or a small brush and start with a little bit of color. Adding is easy taking off not so easy.

Now you are done , serve with pride and enjoy

Food pictures

Today I am sharing some "golden oldies ", photos of mini foods I have made over the years.

All food has been made without clay using everyday items and ingredients that will surprise  you.

At the moment I am working on little ebooks to share my recipes in.

Buffet of cakes, pies and puddings all made without clay or Fimo.

Collection of different breads. All clay free.

Mac and cheese and shepherds pie  plus the  veggies   for the pie.

 Dutch winter food called Boerenkoolstamppot. It is curly  cale / green cabage mixed with mashed potatoes and served with  a Frankfurter type saucage   and gravy

This is not my favourite but it is a very popular Dutch winter food as well. It is called Hutspot which roughly translates into Hotspotch. It is mashed potatoes mixed with boiled carrots and and onion. The best thing about this dish for me is the  meatball and the gravy LOL

There you go . lots of options for dinner and no clay and no cooking involved.

And  there also will be some yummie deserts.

Even some done in crochet. 

I am also going to work on poly clay free breads.

Happy Blogger.

Writing a blog is a fun thing to do but it is even more fun when people actually read your blog.
It takes time and efford to get  the word out and to get people interested. Sometimes you feel like you are doing it all for just yourself and you may  even think why bother ?

But suddenly last week  I got 575 views in one day! A lot of likes on Face book and even some comments in the guestbook.

                                 Wow !!!

People are actually reading my blog and they even take the time to tell me they do.
So I want to thank all of you for making me a Happy Blogger.

I love to share projects and it is a great feeling that people are actually seeing them and liking them and who knows will get some inspiration from them.  It is inspiring  so watch this space for new projects.

Special thanks to Taeggi, my very best Furry Friend.

Some people have told me that they cannot register to follow the blog or subsribe by email. I am not sure what the problem is. Some did manage to become followers and others did not. Some people subscribed and others said they could not. I have tried to figure out what is wrong but no luck.
Cannot find any info on Blogger anywhere.

I am very sorry about this and I am working on it. Please try again if you did not get in. It seems it is working sometimes .............

Anyway  I will announce new posts on  Facebook so you don't have to miss anything.