A few days away from the lathe......but I'm back

Due to a shoulder injury I had an enforced break from turning which made me sad. Also a trip on Friday to have a delicious dinner and film with family for lil sisters birthday. That burger was so good I am making burgers for sunday lunch. With brioche buns. mmmmmmmmm bacon.

I had turned another little bowl on wednesday to take to my woodturning group on thursday but since then I had not turned until today (sunday evening). Twas the first time I had taken minis to club and I think the members were reasonably impressed with the delicate work.

Wednesday bowl (possibly walnut)

I also picked a 2" piece of walnut out of the shavings after the demonstrator had finished making a whistle and he proceeded to give me a piece of African blackwood to try. Supposedly it is very fine grained and strong, dense and perfect for holding the small details needed in mini work. Quite frankly I am too afraid to cut into it yet as it is pretty expensive so I will continue building my skills before cutting into this piece. (Edit: several days later postman brought me 5 pen blanks [3/4" square about 6 inches long]  to try before cutting into the bigger piece.)

But I am back on the lathe with avengance.

Today I was determined to make a candlestick after far too many fails at the end of last week and nothing to show for a good amount of working time.

Progress photos which never reached completion

 
 As a precaution I thought I would practise with some cheap 9mm hardwood dowel which was left over from making lace bobbins.

Not quite a matching pair

Surprisingly it worked rather well and a pair of vaguely similar candlesticks emerged. The light wood would also be great for anything that was to be painted.

Then another little bowl and a kitchen paper stand and I was finished, a very productive turning session indeed.

Until next time, Kim

More miniature woodturning

Another session at the lathe and I have a few things to share, two bowls and a small drinking cup about 8mm tall. This one gave me some trouble when I dropped it behind the lathe station into a pile of shavings and spent half an hour on my hands and knees searching for it. Time I think to put a back board on the lathe station me thinks.

After completing the tiny tumbler I placed it beside my first mini turning and made a funny squeeking noise.....

I was so pleased with the first turning, I was overjoyed with the second only about a week later. The walls are so thin! Less than a millimetre. Much like the cake stand which didn't survive the final stages of polishing.

I seem to have reached the limits of the commercial tools I have, with the 6mm spindle gouge unable to reach the bottom of this container. Taking a cheap (and useless) wood carving tool from the craft stash I hit the grinder and shaped it firstly to fit in such a tiny vessel and secondly gave it the profile of a scraper to help me thin down the walls of the cup and flatten off the bottom. I can see me making many more tools to complete these pieces, there are some available online but they are very expensive and the scraper is about the simplest tool there is to make, even if mine does look home made it did the job. Next task, hollowing tools.

To finish, this is a group of my fave tiny turnings so far....

We shall see where this road takes me from here......any suggestions?

Todays images brought to you by Nikon+macro filter rather than Samsung galaxy phone.

First turned miniatures

And so....

Taking one of my tiny chunks I glued it to a block of scrap pine and just decided to see what happened. A plant pot appeared from the block of wood followed my a slightly more curved one the day after.

Plant pots.  Push pin for scale.

The next day came another two minis from the same type of wood, a bowl and a deep platter which I don't have pictures of for some reason. [Correction. Making up for being a bad blogger I went and got them and photographed them.] The base of the bowl on the left is a little too thick but all good practise.

First Bowls

The next session at the lathe I used a piece of Yew wood which had cracked during drying and was no use for full size work. Broke it down and glued it up for this little pair of beauties, the wall thicknesses were getting thinner and I was very happy with these items. The little dish is just 6mm (1/4") tall.  I think yew may be my favourite wood, works easily, has a lovely warm colour and grain and finishes wonderfully.  We are lucky to have a tree surgeon amongst our group and I shall have to offer him baked good for more yew (and other woods)

Yew

Now we are almost up to date, I hit the lathe again this afternoon and after turning a spinning top (normal size) from yew as a warm up, I started with another bit of the same wood as above. Perhaps I was getting over confident and the first bowl I made was destroyed in a catch, there was still a little left so I went for another little dish like the one above but I was an idiot and made the same mistake and lost that too.

Next a piece of sapele, turned a small bowl, sanded and finished and just needs the bottom cleaning and finishing before I can photograph it but very nice. Still lots of wood left so I started a plate, which began to develop a base which turned into a cake stand, all was going well and it was just as I was finishing the polishing up that I held it wrong and it was destroyed, the top was super thin (in scale but fragile) and it would have been stunning. I was rather sad. Thin top platter with an simple but elegant pedestal in a warm brown wood.

Perhaps all of my walls today were too thin and overly fragile. That is the danger of mini work, walls less than 1mm thick and it is so easy to slip and destroy nearly an hour of work. At least I am not short of practice wood, G tells me there are more scraps to salvage in his workshop, his timber come from local joiners so they are somewhat limited in variety, hopefully when word gets around our club that I can use pieces that are firewood to them I may find myself inundated with a larger variety of woods (a terrible burden). For exotics I may have to resort to actually spending money and buying them. And hunting in the garden. We have a lot of garden.....seriously.

For anyone wondering, I am trying to get back to my blogging and the mini community in general so I would love to get set up for some swaps or personal exchanges. I would happily swap something I have made for something nice that someone else has made with love. I will get set up for better images as I do have a dslr and a macro lens, I just need to get somewhere set up with decent lighting. The next upgrade at the lathe station will be two lamps for excellent lighting and I am hoping to put together a little photostudioroombox which can sit (with magnets) on the lathe bed and borrow the twin lights for good photographs.

And maybe, in time..........an etsy shop?

And because blogs need pictures and the latter part of this blog is lacking, here is a cute kitty in a bag.

I couldn't bring myself to take the bag away.

Petit Paint Pans and Questioning my Sanity

Hope you are all keeping well

I sat down tuesday evening (in preparation for the livestream of the evening of awesome with Hank and John Green) with some crafting supplies to experiment.

I can't make a box for the watercolours until I see how big the pans will be, so that is the first thing to do. Full size pans are 30mm x 19mm x 10mm which seems fine until you start to divide by 12.

To give me a form to work around I cut a matchstick in half to give me the closest measurement I could get (Image 1 below). This was 1.35mm x 2.25mm when measured with a digital caliper which is quite possibly one of the most essential tools in my still limited experience. Mine are a cheap set from ebay, I'm sure they aren't 100% perfect but they are 1000 times better than me squinting with a ruler and guessing.

This is a few pans from my collection, two whole and one half pan. These got calipered (that is a word right?) which led to the decision that Belinda will be using whole pans, I'm crazy but not that crazy.

My technique was to wrap a 10mm strip of paper (thin, like tracing paper) around the thinned end of the matchstick like quilling, using white glue to form a slightly squashed tube. Remove from the matchstick and allow to dry. (2-5)

Take slices approx 1mm from this tube (chopping off any uneven ends) and squeeze into a rectangular shape. (6+7)

Take a little square of paper 5x5mm or so. Dip one end of the squared off slice (from the tube) into the white glue and press down onto the little paper scrap, allow to dry. Once dry the excess will be snipped off. (8&9)

Giving you pans which may not be quite 1/12th of my original pans but are freaking tiny and will leave your family questioning wether your medication dose needs increasing.

To fill, you could put in some polymer clay or a dab of acrylic paint. For accuracy however I took a scalpel and dug out a little pea of semi-solid paint and poked it in with a toothpick. If you have a brush small enough then you could make tiny little watercolour with this set.

I may try again and see if I can get a better result with polymer clay but I suspect the wall thickness may be an issue. Unless I make them all as one large block, experimenting will continue.

SO. This has been my first tutorial, let me know what you think and whether I should do more in the future. If so, what items would any self respecting witch have that I can experiment in making?


Thanks to all for visiting my fledgling mini-blog, please leave me some love below.
Kim


Two little notes.
1. Metric Measurements.....I am in the UK so whilst I am quite familiar with imperial measurement and will use them for quilting and baking, when it comes to dividing by twelve, and getting down to 32ths of an inch it only makes sense (to me) to use metric.

2. Photography. I like cameras, but until I have my new desk set up, all images will be on a light or dark background whichever is most appropriate (the black above is my planner). Also my digital camera is about 7 or 8 years old and just 3.2MP. It does good macro but so far I have been using my phone which has an 8MP camera (Samsung Galaxy S2). Later this year I hope to replace my olympus camera and will set up a little "studio" on my desk, a little foam core roombox with soft light from both sides which should improve my shots. My images are edited in GIMP, a free graphics program which I use to scale the images down and convert to jpg, this means photos with 1/10th the file size so my picasa allowance goes further.

Project One - A Home for Belinda the Witch

Good day all.

So I listed my preferred mini themes in an earlier post, but in the last few days whilst I have been resting up a back injury (moving the desk perhaps not a great idea) I have had Belinda the mini witch on my mind, and all over my pinterest account. Tudor cottages and dark furniture in 1:1 scale and some amazing magical scenes in 1:12 filled my mind. So this scene will be my first project back into minis.

I spent some time last night (couldn't sleep, back pain) sketching out some ideas for my witches house, a modular construction allowing me to display on a bookcase but put together as a complete house when I wish to show it off. More about that at a later date.

To begin with, I shall make lots of nice things to go inside what will be a temporary roombox. Meanwhile, I can work on rough cardboard prototypes of the actual house, allowing me to put a lot of hidden detail in each section before actually investing in the materials to build and dress the final house. Also, once most of the main furniture has been made, I can better determine the size needed to allow me to add decorative items for years to come without anything looking too empty. More on the design at a later date.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So now we come to Belinda, who is for the time being just an image in my head. An image mostly consisting of her character and very little of her appearance. Perhaps I shall sculpt her myself, perhaps she will come to me whilst at a show or from an artists shop. When I see her, I will recognise her. For now, think of Heidi Ott's Old Lady doll. She will likely wear a lot of black (and other dark colours), but have a worn kindly face, that of the local witch to whom everyone goes to for advice. She takes walks in the woods, communing with nature and spends hours in her garden tending to magical herbs and traditional vegetables.

I am sure that I will not be the first mini-ist to inject certain aspects of myself into my mini characters. One thing I like to do and that has entertained me whilst I was ill has been drawing and sketching, a little bit of journaling. Maybe a bit of zentangle. I think Belinda might share this interest also, and so the first thing I want to make for her is some art supplies.

• Watercolour paint set in an old wooden box
• Brushes and a water jar
• Tubes of spare paints
• Ceramic Palette
• Art journal to sketch in
• Completed work

It is late here now and I must go to bed, I have a busy day of errands and guides tomorrow so give me a day or two and we will see how the above plans go.

First, the little pans that hold the paint within the box.

Scale size should be......2.5mm x 1.5mm x 0.8mm ........this could be interesting!

Pinterest, my internet drug of choice.

Hello. My name is Kim and I have a Pinterest Addiction.

I would ask if y'all were as addicted to pinning miniatures as I am but from the number of people out there pinning and repining I think that question answers itself.

With a total of 1364 pins over 35 boards (and a not too shabby 272 followers)  it would appear I have a terminal case of pinterest addiction. In fact, I am sure I spend so long on pinterest and other useful sites looking at other peoples work that I never actually get around to doing any of my own.

Whilst my physical spaces are rather cluttered it seems that my digital spaces are just about the same. I was thinking of dividing my mini board into smaller boards (such as shabby chic, techniques, witch-y, antique-y) but I have such a hard time classifying a single picture into just one category. What to do when the same item but in different colours/patterns would fit in very different scenes? I am terrible at picking favourites or making decisions so it will likely remain as it is indefinitely

In the mean time, you can find me and my most relevant boards here at

Just Me
Miniature Magnificence (minis I love, by other people)
Polymer Clay Tutorial (translates well into minis)
Miniatures - Full Size Inspiration (real size goodies I would never have in real life but in mini YES)
My Miniature Creations (Currently empty but not for long)

Do you have a mini related pin board? If so let me know so I can follow and adore.

(Image property of pinterest.com with whom I have no affiliation, just an addiction)

Hello and Welcome

Good evening from rainy England.

My Name is Kim and I have long been fascinated by miniatures, how such dainty versions of ordinary objects take on an almost magical cuteness. In case anyone is wondering, I turned 30 last year.

I have made miniatures before a few years ago and enjoyed swapping with other UK based mini-ists, however ill health meant I left the group to concentrate on getting better. Several years and two major surgeries later I am back in fighting form and wanting to get back to my love of miniatures, so as part of my 2013 goals is to make minis once more. Even at my sickest I never stopped reading mini-blogs and later pinning images that inspired me, and to help me get back into the fold I am starting this blog for interaction with other people who share my interests.

Living in a small house space is in short supply, another reason that minis are a great hobby, room boxes need never take up that much space. And materials tend to go quite a long way when you make tiny things. I did start a scratch built house with basement all those years ago but I discovered that I didn't want to do whole period houses, furnished with low end purchased pieces. I have no interest in doing a mini bathroom.

I would rather concentrate my efforts on a few various room boxes in a mix of styles/themes and make as much as possible myself,swap with others and buy only metal and glass items which I can not work with. I want to concentrate on learning new techniques to create ageing and wear and on making really high quality pieces which I can then swap with some of the bloggers whose work I adore and broaden my collection. Techniques such as mold-making and casting are also fascinating and I can't wait to try them. Some day I hope to buy a kiln and learn to work with fired ceramics and glass (lamp work), but that will have to wait till I get my financial footing back and a more dedicated workspace.

My room boxes will be - in no particular order and often simultaneously

• A witches house, her name will be Belinda. Or at least the working part of the house, again, a witches bathroom doesn't interest me, or her kitchen. I want to see all her books and jars of potion ingredients, cauldron and black cat.
• A shabby chic teashop/bakery with a gift shop This will eventually be two boxes one above the other but will inhabit one box until it expands.
• Some kind of antiquarians office/library full of books and artifacts, no specific period and will be filled with various curiosities. Everything from artifacts from fantasy realms such as Tolkien (OH is a big fan) through to a miniature versions of the mars curiosity rover.

Of course this being the first ever post on the blog only a few early and/or very dedicated readers will ever see it, once I have some actual posts for people to see then I will start being more public about it.

So that dear readers is quite the treatise.

Step 1 will be workspace, turning my former computer desk (I always use my laptop on the sofa now) into a working area, and as funds allow, adding storage drawers below (hello IKEA) and boxes on shelves above for my most used tools and materials. Large fabric yardage and rarely used items will have a shelf upstairs.

And in case you were wondering about the kitten at the top? I hate blog posts without pictures and since I had nothing relevant I played it safe with our youngest cat as a kitten. Her name is Astrilde and she is now 6. She is the sweetest bundle of love you will ever meet. You will meet the others in later posts.

Till next time
Kim