Tales from Florence ~ Part 4

 

 

 

Being unwell and stuck at home, means I have lots of time on my hands. Now I'm not one to sit around doing nothing, I tend to feel worse if I have nothing to do, so Hywel's way of keeping me busy, but sitting down and sort of resting was to make me these two little room boxes. As explained in a previous post, I have made them into two coordinating shops... a sweet shop and a vintage haberdashery with a twist!

 

The twist is that it has a couple of my friends witches hats in it, well can you really see me not having a witchy/ wizard twist somewhere? :)

 

Regular readers of my blog, also know that I like to have characters in my themes and buildings, so the wonderful Florence is the main character for these room boxes.

 

Here she is with her cup of tea! 

 

 

 

At 12 inches square, these room boxes are quite small and quick too dress. I did enjoy painting and dressing the different furniture and displays to go into this little haberdashery shop though, I think the colour scheme worked well and caught my creative imagination. In fact, working on this went a long way to cheering me up and keeping me distracted whilst I am poorly.

 

I'm quite pleased with how it has all come together and I hope you like it too :)

 

 

 

 If you should be visiting Swansea at anytime soon, it is currently on display in the 'Inspiration' section of our main window display at our shop in Swansea Indoor Market, Swansea.

 

 

 

 

As for me? I have to stay home just a little while longer, so its time to think of something else to work on now. I'm thinking.... back to the wizard scenes?

 

Florence by Jain of The Giddy Kipper

Hats by Kat Hazelton 

 

Julia xx

 



This is post copyright to the author. It may not be re posted, reprinted or distributed without express written permission of the author.

Tales From Florence ~ Part 3

 

 

This week, I have tried to decide what type of furniture I want in the cake shop and I have been playing around with the different layouts. The layout above is what I finally decided on, although the chair to the right will eventually move to make way for a cake stand. I will be painting the cake counter too to match the dressers and then I have to dress them all with some mouth watering mini cakes and sweets.

 

It seems someone else has his eye on a couple of cakes too....

 

 

 

 

Florence's little dog 'Joey'

 

 

 

 

Because I am working on two room boxes at the same time, once I knew how I wanted the cake shop to look, I moved on to the coordinating room box that will sit alongside it.

 

 

 

This room box is very similar in colours, with a darker and richer feel to it.

It will become a vintage type haberdashery with a twist!

 

 

 

 

 

Florence seems to approve of the little pieces that I have found for the haberdashery shop so far....and the twist?

 

Well, it sells pretty vintage witches hats of course! ;)

 

 

 

Julia xxx 

 

Hats by Kat Hazelton

Florence by Jain of The Giddy Kipper

 

 



This is post copyright to the author. It may not be re posted, reprinted or distributed without express written permission of the author.

Tales From Florence ~ Part 2

 

 

 

With the room box decorated, it was time to add some light. After rummaging around in my 'old lights tin' I came across a great little pink chandelier. The wiring was very short, but as I was intending to use a portable, battery socket for the lights, I didn't need a long piece of wiring.

 

 

 

 

I used a Dolls House 9v battery socket that we sell in our shop, which would fit neatly in my 'attic' space.

 

 

 

 

Then, after wiring on a new pin, I attached the battery, plugged in my chandelier and Wallah! We have lights!

 

 

 

I think Florence is pleased with her pretty lights...

 

 

 

 

Now that the room box is ready, I can begin to make and dress the room box with all things sweet.

 

But I am going to start with my special purchase from Nikki 

 

'The Cake Baking Table'

 

 

 

Julia xx



This is post copyright to the author. It may not be re posted, reprinted or distributed without express written permission of the author.

Tales from Florence ~ Part 1

 

May I introduce Florence!
 

She is a dear, some what eccentric old lady, who has spent the last couple of months wandering happily through my room boxes in our dolls house shop in Swansea.  

 

She has been hand sculpted by the talented Jain of  The Giddy Kipper Dolls and I absolutely adore her quirkiness. She has become the inspiration behind a set of room boxes that I will be making through out the summer, starting with an old fashioned tea rooms.

 

 

The room boxes are quite small... 12 by 12 inches and Hywel has made them for me with a small attic space in the top. Here I can hide the individual lighting systems neatly, but still be able to access them if I need too. I am going to try out a 12volt battery attachment that we sell in the shop to power the light and I am hoping that it will be a cheap, effective way to light individual room boxes. I'll let you know how it goes! To hide the lighting system, I am going to put a small, pleated curtain across the front to hide the 'attic' in the hope that it will give the effect of looking in through a window!

We'll see :)

 

 

 

 

These are some of the colours that I am going to use in the tea rooms, which were inspired by a cake baking table, which I was lucky enough to purchase from the very talented Nikki of Witch & Wizard Miniatures. The wallpaper I have used in the tearooms isn't traditional dolls house wallpaper. I have discovered printed card making paper! I love the designs that I can get and it is nice to work with, not too flimsy and gives a nice smooth finish. But.... it is expensive! Still the pad of card making paper I bought will be enough for a few projects, so it will get used and shouldn't be a costly waste.

 

Here, you can see the finished papered walls and the small attic space. That is a roll of masking tape in the attic, to show the size. It's big enough for the electrics, but not too big so as to spoil the overall look of the room. 

 

 

 

 

 

and here comes Florence....

 

 

 

 

to inspect my progress so far....

 

 

 

 

I'm sure she will agree that it is looking very pretty. Strange for me after so many years of wizards and all things old and ragged looking!

 

Julia xx

 



This is post copyright to the author. It may not be re posted, reprinted or distributed without express written permission of the author.