Peeswick Pets

Welcome to Peeswicks Pets.. a little unloved kit I bought on Ebay some time ago and worked some magic on :0)

 

I began by painting and waxing the door, paper maching the walls....

.... and using air drying clay on the bays and marking out cobbles!

 

I aged the walls with my 'tea mix' and gave the bays a coat of brown emulsion, wiping it all off just before it had dried, leaving the majority of the paint in the gaps between the bricks.

After 'planting' some weeds and grass, it was time to start dressing the shop.

Regular followers of my blog may remember that Joy  sculpted my fabulous Pet shop owner Alice Peeswick and her little mischievous boy, Neville :0)

I think they both look at home at Peeswick Pets :0)

There is still some filling of shelves left to do inside the shop, but I have started by making the cages look old and used.

Hubby has been busy making me some dragons to sit on the top of shelves and cupboards and of course, my three welsh coal red dragons are sitting happily on the windowsill.

For now, I think I have gone as far as I want with Peeswick Pets and it's time to move onto my christmas project. I am also making plans to start a large project next year, which won't be based on magical miniatures. I haven't totally decided on the era yet, but it is looking likely to be loosely based around the end of the victorian era. It will centre around a grocers shop with living quarters above and Joy has already sculpted the shopkeeper for me, he is just perfect and I will share his photo with you all soon :0)

AIM News

As most of you aware, due to the editors of the AIM magazine having other commitments at present, there has been no November imag, neither will there be a December imag. 

But fear not, as the fabulous yearly Advent Calendar will be starting as usual on the 1st December on the AIM website

Every day upto christmas, there will be a new door to open, behind which will be a very special project for you all to try out at home.

The AIM magazine will be back in January 2012

For those peeps who have been following my Tumbleton Towers series in the AIM imag, there will be a special concluding post here on my blog soon :0)

Julia xxx

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Introducing Alice and new projects maybe in the pipeline!

The postman has brought me another wonderful parcel from Joy  :0)

So may I introduce Alice Peeswick .... Neville's mum and wife to Angus... yep, Hazel Hill village now has it's first family in residence. 

When I first began making miniatures, many, many moons ago, I never imagined that I would have any 'residents' in any of my houses!! But... one day whilst browsing through Ebay, I came across a fabulous purple dressed gypsy. She was wonderful, but I was adamant that I would not have dolls in my houses and I let the auction end without bidding :( 

But I did save the seller to my favourites and I kept an eye on her listings, until I fell in love with another of her dolls...'The Flower Seller' and this time I bought her :) And the seller was?  Well, most of my blog readers will know her and follow her wonderful blogs too, the lady is of course our lovely Julie of Bellabelle Dolls  Now, some four years later, my houses have many residents and Alice is the latest edition :)

Alice will feature in my tales from Hazel Hill here on my blog and hopefully in the future in the brilliant AIM Magazine where we are currently running the Making of our latest building 'Tumbleton Tower' which of course is home to yet another of Julie's wonderfully sculpted dolls, Agatha.  

When I am not working on the Tower, I am working on an Apothecary, a pet shop, a toyshop and now I think the Peeswick's could do with a home of their own... wow... I can see busy winter days ahead!! LOL

So, to speed things up a bit, I am going to cheat slightly on the Peeswick's residence and use a house that I bought as a bargain find on Ebay back in the summer. It was going to be a hat shop but alas, that will have to go on the back burner for a little while now!

So here's the house, ready to be adapted and aged.. etc..etc

The roof and the main walls are fine, but I think I will add a layer of real brick work where you can see the brick paper at present.

Inside, I can imagine a large kitchen cum sitting room on the lower floor....

Whilst upstairs, I am going to add interior walls so that there can be two bedrooms and possibly a small bathroom....

 and here is the whole 'family'...

Angus, Alice and Neville Peeswick

Alice will be the pet shop owner and looks quite at home already with her little frog sitting happily in her hand :) 

If you would like to see all the characters of Hazel Hill, I am currently working on a new blog as a showcase and link base for all my 12th scale dolls and favourite purchases. It can be found at:

http://wizardsandwands.blogspot.com/

xxxxxx

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An update on Peeswicks Pets

I haven't had a great deal of time lately to work on Peeswicks Pets, but I have done a fabalous swap with Nicky for some of her delightful dragons to go in the shop.

When her parcel arrived, I was absolutely thrillled, Nicky not only had made me dragons, but she had made all sorts of animals for the petshop. I thought perhaps you'd like to see :0) ..........................................................

Here is a darling little dragon, waiting for that cage door to be opened, so that he can fly out quickly. Lets hope he doesn't bump into the wonderful little tortoise Nicky sent :)

On the shelves, there is an array of cages with Gunther and Vuuraka awaiting new owners...

Then we have some of my frogs in their jars....

and on the shop counter sits Rompold Rat, keeping a safe eye on the shop's invoices!

Whilst Casius Crow, keeps an eye on the window, looking out for new residents soon to be coming to look after the shop.

I love Nicky's creations and treated myself to one of her wonderfuly detailed 'Dragon and Gremlin Tic Tac Toe' miniature games. It now sits proudly in the window of Wizards and Wands :)

Then to finish off, I treated myself to Incognito... a little Gremlin popping out of a Wart Potion Barrell :0)

Nicky's wonderful Dragons and Gremlins can be found in her online store, so if you fancy catching yourself a dragon or Gremlin, click HERE

Julia xxx

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Peeswicks Petshop

I had a good day working on the pet shop yesterday, which now definitely has the name 'Peeswicks Pets.' 

Hubby had covered the walls in paper clay and Air Drying Clay, which is easy to use and gives a good effect. This clay is DAS Terracotta Air Dry and he rolled it smooth and carved the brickwork into it with a thin craft knife. (Don't mention that he forget to glue it first and it fell off... it's safely glued now LOL )

This wall will be the top room, which Hubby is doing himself.... with lots of guidance from me on what to put in it LOL and he has been busy sculpting faces for this room, which are surprisingly working out as he wants them!

Downstairs in my pet shop, the ceiling beams are in. Access to the pet shop is through the lift off roof, which also doubles as the top room floor, so the beams are ideal for holding everything straight and secure, preventing the top floor sliding when I lift the whole lot up! 

The ceiling is plain papermache, which I have left white as it reflects the light a little. Theres going to be lots of little cages and baskets hanging from the beams and I happily discovered yesterday, that my tiny dressmaker pins will tap gently into the beams to look like old copper nails. You have to be very gentle with the hammer though, otherwise they just bend.

Outside, I have had a great time doing my favourite bit of all... ageing the walls :)

The woodwork has a coat of Jacobean Oak Wood stain and the paperclay has been suitable 'tea-stained'

The door has been distressed with Craig and Rose Chalky Emulsion, Oak Wax and then finally Clear Wax and the gold door knob will eventually get a coat of black or dark green enamel when I am painting the cages! 

I'm not sure if you can see it, but around the bottom of the bays and in the corners by the door, the 'soil' has gone down ready for tufts of grass (not one at a time with a tweezers this time, Michelle! LOL ) and I have some lovely flowers left over from Janice, so they will going in as well :0)

My next job is too add the damp and 'staining' to the inside walls and then I can start adding some cages and animals :0)

Julia xxxx 

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Petshop update

We've managed to get quite a bit done on the magical pet shop this week :)

Well, Hubby has!!

He has plastered the exterior walls and added brickwork to the bottom part of the bays. 

I've just wandered past now and again, adding a touch of paint here and there when I have had a spare 5 minutes!! The bricks are made from Air drying clay and he placed the shop on its side to do the slab of bricks. They went on great.... BUT promptly slid off when we put the shop up straight LOL Never mind, a layer of glue fixed that problem!!!

Thankfully we are used to working with paper mache, so no disasters there!!

The beginnings of the shop floor are down and it needs sanding now and then painting to look like grey slate flagstones. The smaller patches around the edge of the base will hopefully look like a cobbled pavement when finished.

Hubby has also made his upper floor which will his 'Whispering Walls' dark arts room!!

 So, that's where we are up to and this afternoon I intend to dig out my bigger paint box and start adding the distressing and damp to the walls :0) 

 I have been thinking of names for the pet shop too, what do you think of.....

Peeswicks Pets

????

See you all soon, hope your having a great day  :0)

Julia xx

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A magical petshop in the making

I am jumping between projects at the moment.... one day I am making little balls of wool for the Welsh Shop, the next day I am knitting with full size balls of wool and I have also started on a magical petshop project to add to Hazel Hill. Today, I have done a bit on all three, but I am going to share my latest petshop project with you for now :)

I was really lucky to spot this little shop on Ebay recently and as luck would have it, the seller lived not too far from me... so I put on a bid and yep, I won it :) I drove down to pick it up and double luck, the lady was selling a Kates Cottage too, so I have 2 new projects to do now :)  

The Kate's Cottage will be a fancy witches hat shop and the little shop will be the Petshop with a top floor for hubby to make into his 'Whispering Walls' .... more on that too follow...

So, today I have been busy painting the door and interior walls. I painted the door with a light blue, leaving patches of the natural wood showing through. I intend to sandpaper the door down when it is dry and then give it a coat of wax... hopefully, it will look old and worn, with just some colour showing through... we'll see!!!

Inside, hubby has put a thin layer of papermache on the walls and I have painted them using normal emulsion paint 'Malt Chocolate'

Its quite difficult to get into the corners as the shop was already glued together, but the floor and roof is detachable.

I plan to have lots of different little animals in here... although I don't think I will be able to find a pet Werewolf for the shop, which our little Meg wants!!!

But, I have started to plan the inside, which I hope is going to be very dusty with a slate and sawdust floor. I have bought some little cages ready to hang from the ceiling....

and this wonderful bronze owl will decorate the wall behind the counter... which I now have to nag hubby to make me!!

I will also be after a petshop owner... winks in Joy's direction and some pet dragons... winks in Nicky's direction ;0)  Oh, and while I'm busy winking in people's directions, I need a little welsh doll for my welsh shop... wink goes in Julie's direction ;0)

So, with all this winking going on, I am off now to make some mini stuff to sell in my Etsy store... winks cost money don't you know :0)

Hope your all having a lovely week,

back soon,

 Julia xxx

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