New Easter miniatures for 2014

The first day of 2014 is here. I was hoping to be able to go for a lovely long stroll in the cold winter sunshine and walk off some of those over indulgences of the last couple of weeks. However there is no lovely winter sunshine today but dark grey skies, gale force winds and horizontal heavy rain outside which kind of puts me off venturing outside. Hopefully the weather will pick up for the weekend and I'll get my stroll then.

Today I have decided to work on my miniatures instead while listening to Birdsong! By Birdsong I mean the channel Birdsong that you get on digital radio stations. If you close your eyes when listening to this you can totally imagine you are back in the middle of summer in a meadow somewhere. This channel completely chills me out and if I'm feeling a little stressed it really helps. Does anyone else like this channel or even know about it, I can thoroughly recommend it.

Anyway back to the miniatures. In the photo above you will see my latest Easter items I have made over the last couple of days. I have listed them in my Etsy shop today so take a peek if you're interested. I relly love making little white bunny rabbits (as you can probably tell) and have added them to teapots to give them a cutesy look. I'm going to be making many more over the coming weeks and will have white rabbit wreaths, more teapots, shelving..etc. I think Easter is my favourite time to sculpt for as I feel so inspired by Spring (I'm sure I've said in the past that Halloween was my favourite time, or was it Christmas? Anyway now it's Spring). Anyway the weather is still miserable outside so I'm going to head off back to my desk and create some more miniature wonders. I hope where ever you are you are having better weather than me and are getting out and enjoying the fresh air.

XXX 

Happy New Year

I've left it a little late to wish you all Happy Christmas so I will wish you all Happy New Year instead. I hope you all had wonderful a Christmas, got lots of lovely presents and got to spend that special time with family, friends and loved ones. It has been such a busy time for me over the last few weeks. In the weeks leading up to Christmas I had a Christmas market to prepare for, my daughter's fourth birthday party to prepare and also two Christmas dinners to cook. Needless to say the last few weeks have left me craving a much needed rest, and now that Christmas is over have I put my feet up? No of course not. My sculpting has been put on the back burner over the last few weeks and now that I have a little time back to myself I have begun sculpting away like there is no tomorrow. I think it is fair to say that I am well and truly addicted to playing with polymer clay. I thought I'd share with you one of the latest items I have put into my Etsy shop. The above photo shows a lovely little trio of fairy houses in soft pink colours. They make the perfect addition to a terrarium and to potted plants and also look cute when used to decorate shelving or desk tops.

Now that Christmas is over I have been thinking ahead to Spring, already I know! I find January and February the toughest months of the year to get through as winter just never seems to end. I look forward to March when there are more daylight hours, and when you can hear the first grass mowings of the year and that wonderful smell it produces. I love seeing the first daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops pushing through the earth promising us that warmer days are just around the corner. Well needless to say that these thoughts have lead me to start creating a few miniature Easter sculptures. I have made 5 miniature Easter treats this evening and they are just sitting in my oven waiting to be baked and have their final details painted onto them. In the next few days I'll have some photos ready and will hopefully remember to post them on here. I'll say goodnight now as it's way past midnight and I need my sleep so that I'm full of energy ready to paint my daughters bedroom in the morning, she wants a Rapunzel/fairy bedroom (another project I hope to have photos of to put up here soon). Happy New Year everyone XXX

Winner of the snowman giveaway

The winner of the miniature snowman is Anna White. Congratulations Anna, please contact me with your address so that I can send the snowman to you. Thank you to everyone who has taken part in the giveaway. I'm thrilled to bits that so many people entered the draw and I hope to be doing more giveaways in the near future thanks to the success of this one. Thank again everyone :)

Dollhouse Christmas snowman blog giveaway

I promised a blog giveaway at some point and here he is. My miniature snowmen have been really popular lately so I thought I'd make one specifically for my first blog giveaway. He measures exactly 2 inches tall and would make a great ornamental snowman for a shelf or by the fireplace in a 1:12 scale dollhouse or he could be used as a 1:24 scale small snowman for the miniature garden. Anyone wishing to win this little snowman will need to follow my blog and enter a comment below to say you are interested in winning him. All entries will be placed in a draw to take place on 1st November 2013 8pm GMT. I will inform the winner here and obtain contact details through email so that I can arrange to send the snowman. Goodluck to anyone wishing to enter and I hope to be doing more giveaways very soon after :)

More miniature Christmas makes in polymer clay

Here are my latest miniature Christmas items. I'm fond of making miniature teapots and have made a couple of Christmassy ones here. All of the above items will be listed on my ebay site http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/fizzyclaret/m.html?_ipg=50&_sop=12&_rdc=1 tonight at 8pm GMT to finish next Sunday at the same time.

Twelfth scale dollhouse Christmas miniatures

I have finished my first batch of Christmas dollhouse miniatures and have managed to get them all painted up and ready for their photo shoot! Here they are in the photo above. Last year I had real trouble trying to make miniature holly leaves. I found them so fiddly and very difficult to replicate the several sharp points that each leaf has. This year I have found a way to make them much more easily and have added them to just about all of the Christmas items above. This has led me to the idea of making tutorials. I'm going to have read up on how to produce tutorials and add a link here so anyone can access them. I also need to get round to making a freebie for a giveaway which I promised months ago but still haven't got round to yet (slaps wrist). Anyway I haven't forgotten about it and as it's getting closer to Christmas it will probably be a Christmas themed item. As soon as it's ready I'll post details of the giveaway here :)

The above miniature Christmas items can be found in my ebay shop this evening from 8.10pm GMT and will be finishing on Sunday 20th October at 8.10pm GMT. My ebay link is http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/fizzyclaret/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=25&_trksid=p3686

Incredible folk art Halloween sculptures

I'm currently making my Christmas miniature items at the moment as I wanted to be well prepared this year and create lots and lots of different Christmassy themed items before Christmas draws near. I'm still thinking about Halloween too and have been awe struck by the incredible artists who create such fantastic pieces of folk art. The picture above features the breathtaking work of Laurie Hardin. Her attention to detail is staggering, I am simply blown away by the imagination and sheer effort she clearly puts into her work. Take a look at more of her work through her blog http://lauriehardinsaccents.blogspot.co.uk/
Another incredible folk art artist I have come across is Johanna Parker. She too makes incredibly brilliant Halloween folk art sculptures. You can view her work here http://johannaparkerdesign.blogspot.co.uk/.