Autumn Cigar Box - 1/24th Scale!

Here is a new Cigar Box miniature scene I have just done, in 1/24th scale! I usually collect 1/12th scale doll house miniatures, so this was quite a challenge working with items half the size - especially with tiny apples! Hope you like what I've done, and everyone have a happy Autumnal Equinox! :)

The Borrowers - New Miniatures

I've been buying some new miniatures from ebay. I love ebay for the unusual items you can find, plus I've found by looking in non-dolls house categories you can find suitable things for The Borrowers. For example, a search for McDonalds Toys could contain something you could use as an ornament. Do you remember the Chess Piece Ornament The Borrowers used in their original home under the floorboards at Firbank? The 'statue' gave the room an air of prestige. Although a McDonalds toy isn't quite so majestic, it does give an amusing and colourful addition to a Borrowers living room, or bedroom. Here's my recent addition:


When I first bought him I didn't realise he came with such a large base, I'm now wondering if my Borrowers would even be able to lift Sylvester & Tweety Pie? Although they would probably be able to sit on the edge of the base quite comfortably!


Spare Board Game pieces are also handy as ornaments or even useful utensils. This Scrabble Tile Rack is handy as a shelf for displaying coins or ornaments, and these spare scrabble tiles could be used as a chopping board, or turned upside down and becomes a bowl! Try searching on ebay for Spare or Part in the Board Games section.



Looking under all toys and games on ebay is where I found these Lego Helicopter skids. These will be good for propping up against a wall and hanging laundry from. A Borrowers gotta do their own washing!


Food is important to a Borrower, so I picked some grapes in a basket from ebay's Dolls House Miniatures section. To a normal 12th scale dolls house these would be perfect size for grapes, but I found them excellent size for Blackcurrants or Brambles, in a handmade basket! Perfect! I also have this crazy idea that as Borrowers would go foraging for food humans drop, and if you look on the streets these days, humans drop all kinds of food, mostly chips in plastic cartons, but also many different kinds of sweets. I imagine a half-eaten Mars bar would make a great dessert for a borrower, just keep it cool (in a dark shady place under the floor), cut a triangle shape out, maybe put a small slice of fresh fruit on top (a sliver of fresh wild strawberry perhaps?) - and it would look a lot like this novelty bead I found on ebay!


Now as for wall decoration, wouldn't keyrings be the most easy to hang wall ornament available to a Borrower? Nails are easily found dropped down the back of furniture, with a small stone to hammer it into an under-floor joist. Keyrings come in all shapes and sizes, but these picture ones would be the closest to having your very own framed picture! And yes, I did choose Bella and Edward from Twilight, but it's only because they are both climbing in trees, and it reminded me of Arrietty and Spiller climbing the hedge in The Borrowers novels - honest! ;)


I hope you like my choices, and hopefully come up with many more of your own - I'd love to hear about them!

The Borrowers Home

I am planning the basement of my new dolls house to have a floor for The Borrowers, I loved the TV series as a child, and soon fell in love with the books by Mary Norton when I received it as a Primary School leaving present back in 1993! I think the Borrowers in Mary Norton's book were set in Victorian times, whereas my Borrowers will be set in modern time, therefore I have the fun of choosing unusual items for them from modern times - giving me scope for a whole host of new things for them to play with! Well, ok, for me to play with! LOL!

A little while ago I put together some of the pieces I had for my Borrowers and arranged them on a shelf in my bookcase. I thought I'd post a few pictures of them here, and add some new pictures of items I've more recently bought. I hope you like them!


Here's the room as I first laid it out, you can click on the pictures for a larger image. On the left you can see a pink heart-shaped tin filled with a few beads, buttons and christmas cracker toys I've kept from when I was a little girl. For some reason I was loathe to part with these things so I kept them in a little tin - I'm so glad I kept them now! In the middle you can see a trinket box with small perfume sample bottles, a metal beer bottle top, a plastic thimble and some Tudor Food I bought on ebay. I thought the 'steak' in the stew would resemble stewed garden worm!


In a little sack to the right of the middle trinket box is a small sack of parsnips, another ebay purchase, which resembles unearthed dandelion root, which is meant to be edible, and can be roasted up like potatoes. Next to that there is a Tealight Candle with a metalwine bottle top, the kind that holds the cork stopper in, which serves to hold the cooking pan (a camping cooking pan from ebay) over the fire. In front of that we have a plastic white egg cup from my kitchen, and a small trinket box with a plastic button holding a glass marble as an ornament.


Here you can see I added a black coffee jar lid as a table, standing on the white plastic egg cup. I now have the 'worm stew' and a couple of rolls of bread (both from ebay) on top. You can now see my Kinder Surprise Turtle I've had since primary school, and a little plastic yellow bed bug from a board game I can't remember! I thought these would make nice ornaments! You can also see an open compact mirror, which will make a nice dressing table if I can think of a way to prop it up. I'd also like to have some kind of a mantlepiece for displaying the ornaments, but I haven't thought of one yet. Unless I just put up a shelf of some kind for that.

In my next post I'll show you some of the new items I've been buying for my Borrowers! Any suggestions or ideas are very welcome! :)

Scripts, Art, and Miniature Dreams!

For some reason I've been feeling down in the dumps lately. I don't know what it is but I've been letting things get on top of me, stuck on page 13 of ScriptFrenzy, seeing lots of things I need to do at once, and not really knowing where to start. After some pushing, I finally managed to make a start and get some odd jobs done and start to make a hole in my To Do List. A Big Thank You to Wendy Lu for her enthusiasm and encouragement to cheer me on with my own script, and to follow my own art and writing dreams!

First Ever Dolls House!

I've also been getting together my first ever dolls house together today! I nearly have completed an MDF kit, of a gorgeous little town house. It's starting to look like a proper house! I will post pictures soon when I manage to take them (the batteries have gone flat in my camera - charging them is another little job for me to do!). I've already started planning what I'm going to do in what room. The attic is going to be converted into a sci-fi spaceship, the ground floor will feature a wizard's flat, and the basement (which will be arriving soon), will be a place for The Borrowers! All the furniture will be made from normal size items you could find around the home. I love The Borrowers stories and TV series starring Ian Holm, Penelope Wilton and Rebecca Carlton. Just brilliant for sparking off the imagination!