2023 Mini Show(s) Acquisitions

 This year's shows were highly anticipated and lived up to the expectation. Here's some of my finds:

Chair and pillow are Ron Hubble:

The girl is avidly reading. Pat Jackson of Pat's Mini Boutique is the artisan.

The oval hassock is Valerie Casson

Patsy Mac Enterprises - "Texas Darlin"

Not sure if the music stand is Bespaq or JBM

English Kitchen

Trunk has marking "E+F Gerratana"

Screen  - Rosemary Torre Decoupage. Tall Candlesticks - Simply Silk Miniatures by Linda (England). Rug - unknown artisan.

The ottoman is Valerie Casson, the mules, unknown artisan, the cat - unknown artisan.

Bath accessories - Loretta Kasza

Pan with crepes and baking pan of brownies - Ill. S miniatures (Ileana Sadean)

From Art of Mini 3 metal items - 

Bathrobe - unknown artisan

Warren Richardson - from Little Dollhouse Company - going in the French Country

Luminations by Mr K - Going in French Country:

Ballet attire on a shelf - Bette Jo Chudy:

2023 Mini Show Workshop

Chicago had its 2023 Miniature shows this past weekend. 

I did one workshop - draperies by Marsha McClain of McBay Miniatures. Here's the prototype. 

I wanted to use this in my Chateau, and would need 2 for either LR or DR. I chose a taupe color because I have patterned wallpaper. 

The header is layered gaterboard, and its slightly rounded on the front. I may have to cut out a notch on the bottom of it, so it fits right over the top of my window frame. I don't have much room between top of frame and crown.

Marsha is all about finishing all areas - even the underside and inside of arches. So we cover the header with fabric also. 

You can see the shape of the valance, and even though it is straight on the top, it will shape on the arch when we attach it..

These cardstock templates also get covered, and these will hold the back side of the pleated drapery in place.

Once side panels are hemmed with Stitch Witchery on all sides, the pleater is sprayed with water and we pleated these in and left them to dry. 

This part takes time - after gathering, it gets pinned to a cardboard template so we can spray with hairspray to lock in the pleated valance.

Trim is glued onto valance, tiebacks.

Here's where the cardstock template gets attached to the pleated draperies. Once this is dry, trim is applied to sides of draperies.

Cautiously placing the finished draperies in the Living Room to see the effect. I'm quite pleased! Now to make the 2nd one on my own!

Chateau Bathroom

The Chateau's bath is on the 3rd floor and it's a nice large room. Since it's the third floor, it has attic ceilings and presents some design challenges. I have been envisioning this room for months and purchased some Reutter porcelain - tub, sink, and toilet for it - simple white with gold accents. 

While looking at Les Chinoiseries wallpaper and the tile in particular, I was intrigued by 2 patterns. One became the kitchen floor, and the other I knew would be the bathroom floor. I also had to work out wallpaper and kept envisioning wainscoting. I never jump into these design decisions fast, and they marinate for months sometimes. So the size of the bathroom would be determined by the wallpaper tile, and it has a border. I went through one iteration of this floor without the border, thinking I would cut down the border a bit. Seems it was really too small of a border, and had to order more paper tile. I got the wainscoting and chair rail but before beginning that, I knew I needed to build a dado wall to cover the angled wall on one side. 

The window dormer presented some interesting challenges. I first thought I might paint it but the surface wasn't smooth enough so I decided I'd paper. A bunch of templates later, I could paper in the recess and am very pleased with the results. 

I also knew that I wanted the finished floor to be able to slide in and out, so if I needed access to the chandelier wiring in the room below, I could do it easily. Cardboard templates led to thin basswood pieces and it all came together. The flooring was a challenge, as I had to also cut it so it slid up to the dado wall and had a section in the center that went into the dormer space. 

Today I installed the chandelier and the wall sconces and soldered them. It's coming together! I have some baseboard quarter round and some chair rail to finish, and the mirror should be arriving next week. 

Here's the room with the finished floor cut out and borders applied.

Hobby Room Ikea Cabinet - Butcher Block Top

 Back in December I bought an Ikea storage cabinet and put it together in my 2nd floor office - where my current in progress Chateau is. 

While in a big box store last month, as I was purchasing my soldering iron, I came across a butcher block top that was exactly the right size for this cabinet. I brought it home and fitted it - its perfect! 

It is packaged as a counter top that you can hinge, to save space. It comes with brackets to support this type of installation, but obviously I wasn't interested in that. Sometimes you happen upon things when you aren't looking. And, I shopped around online and found it at another big box store for less...bonus!

Learning to Solder

 My Chateau electrical connections have been giving me lots of trouble - warm wall where the power source comes in, bulbs burning out quickly and then all the angles and tapewire connections on the roof sections. 

I fed tapewire up to the 3rd floor and to the angled ceilings in the kitchen and solarium. So there are lots of connections to potentially fail. I have 6 lights each in the kitchen and solarium, and my eyelet connections on the roof sections of these wings were tenuous, not to mention the extremely thin wire on some of these lights. A variety of vendors - Lighting Bug, NovaLyte and Ray Storey - use varying thicknesses of wire, making wrapping around eyelets a challenge. 

First purchase was a bust - I went with a Cir-Kit soldering iron and started a test board. It was extremely frustrating and I only got success on a horizontal surface. Yes, I watched videos and was getting nowhere fast. I was beginning to doubt my determination to learn soldering. 

I marched off to a big box store and got a real soldering iron - A Weller, it's got multiple bits - one being a chisel. That gave me purchase on a larger spot to heat up. This soldering iron has a wider ring around it, and an LED light. For me, the appeal was the wider section - provides a buffer between the hot tip and my hands/arms. The instance of my burning my hands dropped dramatically. 

My collection of soldering supplies and my test board house.

Here's one of my more successful soldered connections on my test house.

My dilemma with the warm wall, I think the wall thickness was one of the problems, it was thin. I think the electricity was connecting from the outside.

My fix was to remove the tapewire on the inside wall. 

Here's the roof of the Solarium - lots of eyelets and tape holding it all down. It will get covered by a strip of grey board. But still I don't want to trust this scotch tape. 

Here's the soldered connections. I got good at this once I found a way to strip the mylar off the top of the tapewire where my connection was going to be made. 

One of the chandelier soldered lights 

I even got good enough to do a vertical solder - this goes to the very top roof and will now be a secure connection.