New in - Fast food 2.0

but don't worry - no animals were used in the making of these tasty miniatures. 

Check out all of these items now in the Brunch menu

Hot dogs, chicken goujons, chicken sandwich, burgers, fries and onion rings

Improved burgers

Chicken burger and fries

Chicken goujons / nuggets with meticulous breading detail!

Onion rings are also available now as a side

Since Puppen Haus is still an ongoing project, I spent a big chunk of my week making this sofa for the living room. I used Tilda fabric, cereal boxes (cardboard), quilt batting, foam board and a lot of glue. Some sewing and interlacing was needed for the skirting and cushion. 

It doesn't just look comfy. It's a very soft and snug sofa thanks to the thick quilt batting

Close-up of cushions. Duck egg spotty cushions made with Tilda material. Embroidered cushion from a miniaturist in Germany and heart pillow from IKEA Huset set.

Side profile. I had to sew the pleats for the skirting

I made everything here :) 

A side of the living room. Rocking chair and coffee table is vintage Sindy. I re-upholstered the chair cushion with Tilda fabric

Sadie loves her new comfy sofa! She can't decide to sit on the bay window seat or sink into this sofa

The living room was designed with comfort in mind. Breakfront cabinet is vintage Sindy

Peeking into the living room from the window

Puppen Haus is almost furnished! Just need to make a bed and it's all ready for Sadie to move in :)
She's still in her ballerina costume to motivate me to practice ballet more often. Maybe I'll take her to my ballet class :D

This is just a little extra information that I should have included in my last blog post about the making of the Playscale Townhouse. I got this book all the way from America and it has all the drawings of each part and a guide to decorating the interior. I highly recommend it especially if you are building this house from scratch (not from the kit). It was also very useful to have all the parts drawings since I had to replace quite a few things since the kit was 40% damaged.

OK, that's all for this week. I hope you have a fantastic weekend and have a Happy Halloween!

Ta!

New arrivals, new updates and NEW recipes!

Hello Littlest Sweet Shoppers!

We are now back in the Littlest Sweet Shop diorama for some new arrivals, new updates and macarons in a new recipe!

Did you miss the diorama? I tried to make it look ready for Halloween

So our first new arrival is COTTON CANDY! Now available in the Sweets Boutique menu

I've updated these items with some new variants / choices and recipes.  

Mini cheesecake in new fruity flavours. Find it in the Cakes menu

Marshmallow (soft pastel rainbow mix) ice cream flavour in the Ice Cream menu

Powder pastel macarons in a new recipe. Lighter meringue-like shells just like the real thing! New in the French Pastries menu

Chocolate bundt cake with powder pink icing and light mint rose

Since I'm just a housewife I don't have a lot of cash to actually buy new miniatures and I realise a doll house needs a lot of little things to make it a home. I organised a swap with some other talented miniaturists and these are what I made for the swap. They are all to fit 1:12 scale so it's also nice chance to showcase my skills in doing 1:12 scale miniatures. 

A 1:12 scale cabinet with 1:12 items and a Euro 20 cent coin

These macarons are only 3mm in diameter!

Size comparison with the different scales. L - R 1:3, 1:6 and 1:12

1:12 scale ice cream cone with mint scoop, chocolate syrup and a cherry

Ice cream cone in 3 different sizes. 1:3, 1:6 and 1:12

I'm also including this gold doily with the 5 miniature macarons. She wanted them in soft pastels for her 4 inch bears.

If you are also a miniaturist who has something (a non-food item) for the Playscale Dollhouse (Puppen Haus), I am still available for a swap. Please contact me directly if you are interested and we can barter miniatures of the same value.

Okay, that's about all the updates you get for this week. Stay tuned to next week when I bring in new arrivals for the Brunch menu.

Bye bye!

The making of Playscale doll house

Hello!

I wish I've taken more photos during the making of the dollhouse but I managed to take a few to show how the work was progressing. Most of the photos are from my iPad but I hope this will give you an insight on how I built this dollhouse.

Basically, I had to build the dollhouse from (almost) scratch. It is built using cabinet grade plywood and manual labour required. I used good old fashioned nails and wood glue to join the pieces. Everything had to be put together and dried for at least 24 hours (and weight had to be added to it whilst drying) before adding more parts. This process challenged my woodworking skills to the max

At one point the house was upside down (forgot to take a photo) and I attached the foundation. All it is now is just a big, sturdy box. I thought it looked like a very nice doghouse

The kit came with nothing for the interior. The edges and ceiling is painted with white Dulux Satinwood. I tinted and varnished the drawer with oak colour. 

I spent 6 hours (non-stop) painting each shingle! The ones on the left are broken ones. I mixed dark oak and light oak varnish and individually painted each shingle. I tried my best to get different shades of oak for every shingle tile

Every end shingle (that but against the roof trim) had to be manually cut at an angle. I love the finish effect and it was definitely worth painting them all individually!

I painted the house with lilac spring custom colour from Dulux. It is also Satinwood which has a nice semi-gloss effect. The strip-wood and roof are painted in a custom light rose colour from Dulux. Everything was painted with at least 2 coats and everything had to be sanded before that second coat.

Some of the components of the house. The spindles needed to be assembled and I managed to purchase some new windows to replace the broken ones. I couldn't buy some broken components so I mended it with PVA glue and lots of TLC. It's not so obvious until you look at it too closely ><
It was the most tedious thing ever to have to sand all of these bits before being able to paint them. 

The lights that I used are all from The Dolls House Emporium. They had the best selection of classic and traditional lights. This included the socket strip so I could do all the lighting wiring myself.

Wiring the house took 2 whole days. The first challenge was how tiny the wires were and I had to extend and solder some wires. It was not easy to work with wires at this size! I used a Dremel and added grooves onto the walls and floors to 'hide' the wires.

I used 4 different Laura Ashley colours to paint the interior walls. It is matte and the colour matches the 'wallpaper'

I used not 2, but 3 Tilda paper pads. This was also used to make pictures frames, posters, boxes, books and many other soft furnishings. The reason why I had to buy 2 Corner Shop pads is because every pad only had 3 pieces of 1 design and the bigger rooms needed at least 4 papers to cover it. It wasn't the most practical thing to be used as wallpaper since it had a 'washed-out' look at the edge and had to be cut off to get that continuous pattern. Nevertheless, I knew it had to be Tilda paper since I am in love with this Norwegian artist's work

Lights work (phew!) and wallpaper has been applied! The windows look gnarly without any inside frames so I had to cut that out manually.

This is the window frame for the bedroom. It was cut out from some remaining stripwood I had (that was already painted rose pink). I had to use balsa strips for the rest.

Other remaining wooden mouldings and balsa wood was used to make these picture frames. The pictures are all from the Tilda paper pad

This is the kitchen completed with all interior mouldings. The chair/dado rails and skirting rails are pinewood. The crown (painted white) is hardwood. They are all from Richard Burbridge.

This is the living room. My husband made me a custom mitre block so I could custom fit all of the mouldings onto the bay walls. I covered the floor with balsa strips and even made a bespoke bay window seat. I love the idea of chilling by a bay window looking out. Even the cotton fabric I use is from Tilda

So this is pretty much how I did it. I'd love to answer any queries if you have them since it's quite rare for anyone to work on a dollhouse at this scale. I'm still currently making furniture for the dollhouse so the inside will be revealed as soon as I am done with that! 

Have a great weekend!

:D

New in: Halloween Specials & Cheesecake

Hello Littlest Sweet Shoppers!

I present to you the latest Halloween specials. Halloween is one of my favourite holidays since it involves a lot of candy and fancy dress.

I missed modelling so much that I had to create a whole new set of items. The dollhouse is pretty much built and decorated however it is still being furnished. The kitchen and dining room is completed which is why I decided to debut these new arrivals in the Puppen Haus dining room/kitchen. All of the new items for Halloween is listed in the Seasonal menu.

Halloween banquet

In the new Puppen Haus dining room/

Sindy vintage 80s dining table set and Sindy vintage 70s sideboard.

Spider web cheesecake. New York cheesecake with web design in sugar icing with chocolate spider. 

Chocolate spider detail

Slimey Monster cupcake. Delicious peanut butter and chocolate cupcake with lime gello icing. Topped with spooky eyeballs and tentacles. 

The Halloween cupcakes doesn't come in a paper liner to show off that lovely marble pattern on the cake

Stars iced cookies. Available in Black, Purple, Orange and Red.

Orange cake with chocolate fudge icing - decorated with candy corn. The perfect Halloween party centre-piece

Gooey thick chocolate fudge

Pumpkin Pie. Pumpkin filling with a light and puffy crust. Perfect with cream or a drizzle of chocolate.

Enjoy dark chocolate fondue with kiwis, strawberries, blueberries and marshmallows

Not forgetting the drinks! Miniatures by re-Ment

Candy apples is a traditional treat during Halloween

Sadie Sprinkle in her Ballerina costume. I wish I had the time to sew her a new costume :(

More photos of the kitchen/dining room:

I made this frame using remaining pinewood mouldings

Retro style fridge which is a vintage Barbie item. It was so rare and expensive but I knew it was the only fridge (that I could afford) for my dollhouse

Sindy Eastham E-Line 70s vintage kitchen

Sink details. Miniatures by re-Ment

The wall cabinet even has a light

Other new items:

Dark chocolate Mr Softee cones with air-dry material option (instead of polymer clay). Listed in the Ice Cream menu

Dipped cones with lovely candy sprinkles also now an option for any ice cream cone

Mini heart cheesecake. Topped with delicious strawberry sauce and realistic buttery/crumbly cookie base
Find it in the Cakes menu

All of our cheesecake bases are modelled to look good enough to eat!

Hope you enjoyed all the new items. I will be back this weekend to show you some work in progress photos of the dollhouse build. 

Bye!