Some people might ask, why make such silly things? Well, life is kinda scary right now, between the smoke, fires, and Covid here in CA, it’s a worrying time. For me, when life gets scary I like to retreat into complete fantasy. When I am absorbed, all my cares and worries fade away. Having a story to illustrate has given me an excuse to make fun, imaginary things.
Nieva’s Grandmother Zuri. The characters I created for my story have a life of their own and I am very fond of them so I decided to repurpose my Grandmother Zuri character so that she can be a new character in my continuing story.
Those of you following this may remember me making Nieva’s grandmother Zuri months ago. Sadly, in my story, her death is the catalyst for Nieva’s journey. Well, you can’t let a good character go to waste, so here she is repurposed and ready to play a new character in the tale.
I replaced her grey hair with curly white and added a few more bags and wrinkles in her face. I tried to model her on my grandmother and I think she looks quite adorable. I haven’t named her yet, but Zahrah is my favorite so far. The photo was taken in front of the original “cabin” that I made for Nieva and her Grandmother. I will repurpose that too, and have started making changes by turning what was the inside into the outside.
Zahrah, is a scholar, and will be key in helping Nieva and my dragon rider, Affie, find a place to live. With that in mind I was down a Pinterest rabbit hole and found some wonderful people who make miniature books. Of course every scholar has books…so I had to make some!
I found some great instructions and free printable antique looking book covers and pages on the internet. All you have to do is print, cut, cut, cut, cut some more, then glue, oh and glue some more……and embellish. It’s a fun, fiddly thing to do and used up one or two of my many tiny jewelry findings.
The parts of a book - the pages are put together in a stack and glued along the spine, then a little bit of cocktail stick is glued to the spine to give a curve to it. The covers are painted with a glaze of acrylic paint and gloss medium before assembly. The end papers are glued to the inside of the cover, then to the first and last pages of the book.
I initially made four books to get the hang of it. The three thinner volumes I embellished with copper foil, leather, and tiny bits of jewelry findings. I colored the edges of the pages with a gel pen to make them look gilded. To try something more advanced I put a leather clasp on the thicker volume. It was difficult to glue the tiny stud that the strap hooks on to and it remains to be seen if it will last long, but it is my favorite book by far. The stud is the end of a head pin. I was thrilled with the way the little books turned out and decided to make some fun ancient scrolls too.
For the scrolls I actually printed some things from my family history. The open scroll is a tiny printout of my Great Grandfather’s apprentice indenture from when he trained to be a papermaker in 1881. Total length unrolled 3”, height 2” at the ends. The larger scroll is a miniature 1824 map of my home town in England.
I already had a set of “fairy” shelves which I made last year, but I decided to make a desk and chair for Zahrah so that she would have somewhere comfortable to do her studies -hence the Twigge Towne Furnishing Ad above. You will be surprised to know that I am now almost out of twigs in my studio. Lol! - who thought this day would come!
After the success of the books and scrolls I looked around for other “miniature” things to make and found that I could repurpose my eye drop ampules as tiny little bottles. Then I cut some short bits of glue stick, melted it a little, stuck some jewelry wire in the center of the glue stick and painted the end black - voila a candle! Then I had more fun with beads and jewelry findings in order to make the Lucidite lamps on the little chair. The little inkpot on the desk is a bead, and the tiny quill is a real feather that I found in my garden.
It’s a perfect little world of my own making - I just wish reality was as controllable!