a few new-old pastries...

ooh look, more colour! XD

oops. colours look a little washed out here.

let's take a closer look....each danish is approx. 1 cm wide. 1:12 scale.

mm. i like this shot.

very odd. i took these 2 pics under 'fluorescent mode' on my camera, and they look prettier than the ones i used 'sunlight mode' on. grrr.

i'm so pleased that the tray fits nicely into the 'bread box'/display unit that i made out of acrylic sheets and recycled packaging. yes you heard (read?) right, i am resourceful that way. that and i have a lot of junk lying around. i take ages to empty my bin. maybe that was A Good Thing (tm) in order for this project to succeed.

see the stupid scratches? yea, there's serious issues with my construction methods. the bread box wasn't meant to be constructed this way.

but do i care? NO. cos i'm too tired from all that sanding and cutting to care anymore! that and getting E6000 stuck all over the places except on the plastic where it was supposed to go.

another vanity shot. cos i can. :P

my inspiration for this bread box came about from a wonderful tutorial held on CDHM. the link is to the right of my blog, if you aren't already a member you probably can't view it, but membership is free, and the tutorials there are AWESOME. it was originally done in wood, and Linda of http://linsminis.blogspot.com/, has also made her version of it in her latest post (as of this post, that is hehehe). i think the tutorial is excellent, and a must-see/must-do. thank you SOOOO much Lauretta! you can also find more of Lauretta's work here:

http://www.cdhm.org/user/midnightmagicminiatures

she does mostly 1:144 scaled houses, and they're all....jaw-droppingly beautiful. i hope one day to try it too, so many things to do, so much pain my hands, and so little time!! augh!

so why didn't i make it in wood like in the tutorial? uhm. i donno. cos i was itching to give it my own twist, and decided, there's only so much i could do with wood since i'm really quite bad at it judging from the little experience i had. not that i'm any better with acrylics, but i really really love clear plastics/acrylic displays....it's tough to work with it but i think on the whole it's worth it. :D i'm getting better i hope!


and....back to the drab colours.....

seeing double? or triple (since i posted something similar recently)?

 

above are the non-prototypes :P finally got the bread portion done.

ok i think that covers updates. gonna go work on more of 'something old' again. yea you guessed it, macarons -_-"

2-in-1 post (or maybe 3-in-1)

Part I, in 1:48 scale

pardon the dirty clay, these are practice ones from scrap clay.

1:48 tea set. didn't take measurements but you can probably tell how tiny it is. crazy small. i think the cups aren't even 3mm wide.


Part II, in 1:12 scale

these kept me busy most of yesterday...........

have not given these a satin finish. figured would be easier to do that once the pastries have been glued onto the earring backings and clips. will let cousin have first pick, and some of these will make it onto etsy. i hope. haven't updated my store in...ages. sheesh. slack much? :P

ran out of earring backings hehehehe

decided to switch back to polymer clay. i think i'm definitely more comfortable working with polymer clay. i do like the textures that ADC gives for breads and pastries, but i am unfamiliar with its properties, and it bothers me that i do not know how to seal them appropriately. i struggle with painting, and that's another issue i'd rather not deal with anymore. these breads were made using molds, i made a master and then made molded them using alley goop. i really love that stuff. :P a bit of detail is lost, but i simply have to detail it a little more, the mold is just to get a consistency with the shapes and sizes. the details such as oats and sesame seeds are added later. i thought of placing them in the molds before i push in the clay, but it just seemed too cumbersome. maybe i'll try it out when i'm feeling more adventurous XD


Part III, in 1:6 scale

Yotsuba got some mail last week! :O Sans of http://sansdollhousediaries.blogspot.com/ sent me a surprise gift :O

it is not a drum...

it is not a beret, nor a stool....

hrm...wonder if i can fit in there. well, not this way for sure....

slowly does it....

oh it's pretty roomy in here!

seeya later!

kids, do not try this at home!

ok enough of that silliness :X thank you Sans! your surprise gift put a silly grin on my face the whole night! i know, i'm too easily amused. as you can tell, Yotsuba enjoys her new gift very much ^ ^ she sends her thanks, and her love! i don't know how i'm going to find space to make a new setting, i don't know how to incorporate it into any of my scenes either, i sincerely hope you don't mind finding it used in goofy ways :X

1:12 pastries, breads, danishes (i don't know the names!)

i'm trying to get some prototypes out of some breads, danishes etc....it's more to get comfortable with working with the various mediums, and give my customer some ideas of what she might like. all items in 1:12 scale, mostly air dry clay.

i forgot to include an item for scale, but look! an ant happened to stroll by, so it shall be my marker XD i finally got the croissants shaped the way i like them (top 2 are the latest tries) but i think i still need to work a little more on colouring them better.

no matter. the ones i don't like will become choc coated croissants *grin*

and here are the prototypes. my favourite has got to be the swirly one at the bottom. i used to have that with each visit to Delifrance, way back when i used to enjoy the food there. the square ones are my first run at colouring the danishes, i don't like it all that much. i prefer the pains du chocolat (sp?) and the roll thingamabob colours ^ ^ the breads i found to be the most challenging to colour, cos there seems to be sooo many varieties and many of which i seldom see. yeaa i don't get out much .......

i used air dry clay for most of the works depicted here. i think they produce the most realistic breads/pastries in minis. i will test run a batch in polymer clay tomorrow (?) if i have the time. one of the biggest problems with ADC i find is the long drying time. :(

the left most is supposed to be coated with sesame seeds, i grated up some sesame seed coloured clay, but after giving it a coat of matte sealant so that it doesn't fall off, the colour seems to have melded in with the breads! ohnoes! will have to discuss other possibilities before i proceed. my customer provided me with plenty of beautiful pictures to work with, but i wanted to get out a few prototypes before actually getting down to the order. am waiting for some other stuff to dry too, need to paint them up. brown is a tough colour to mix up :( :( :(

heeee a closer look at my 2 fave pastries! ^ ^

these i filled with polymer clay and polymer clay fruits etc. see the feathered one there? LOL it 'puffed' up when i put it to bake in the oven! the bases are ADC which i'd left to dry for almost a week, but still......:O luckily, that was the only one that bloated. the ADC bases shrunk further after baking, which might or might not be a good thing. again, although i really like ADC for the danishes, i think i have to seriously consider switching to PC if i cannot control the shrinkage/bloatage etc...

waiting for the other batch of 'better' coloured square bases to dry fully before i decorate them. i have another shape that i forgot to fill, didn't know if i would ruin these 6 during the baking process, but now that i see they've somewhat emerged intact, i think it's safe to proceed.

for those who might be keen on making the danishes, i learnt how to make them via tutorials from this wonderful webpage. it's in japanese, but you can easily use googletranslate or similar, but i find the pictures to be more than sufficient. she uses air dry clay, but again, the methods can be easily adapted for polymer clay.

http://donguricake.bitter.jp/main.html

at the bottom frame, there's a 'how to make' link. :)

'tis been a hectic but fun week! Asuka and I went adventuring, and thankfully, we didn't get -too- lost. XD managed to finally pick up a fresh batch of silicone molding material.



remember this post?

http://snowfern-clover.blogspot.com/2009/08/i-have-had-difficulty-sourcing-for-good.html

well, they ran out of the RTV 585. so i decided to try my luck with RTV589. the cool and funny thing is that the catalyst is pink, so the mold turned out...strawberry yoghurt coloured! Asuka came over and helped me with it...and the whole time we were like "hrm....smells like strawberry". HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!! (it's not funny to you but there's a follow-up inside joke that's too gross to bear repeating :P )


anyhoo. weekend's here. time to give the hands a break. have fun everyone! ^ ^

more progress, and some good news

wow look at me go! what, third post in a row? i must not be as busy as i thought i was! XD these are unbaked uh...well they're supposed to be lady fingers, gonna attempt some 'normal' charlotte cakes :D (is there some redundancy here?)

the good news first. brother is out of the hospital after one night's observation. what they thought might be appendicitis turned out to be....well i don't know, but i'm guessing, a huge relief *snort* go me, and my toilet humour XD thanks to those who have expressed concern, i was kinda sorta worried but tried not to let it get to me. guess you all could tell, huh!

so part of the request included some multi-grained breads. the bread part, i can make rather quickly, but once more details such as fruits and nuts are required...oh boy. my hands are now sore from all the rolling and especially the slicing. so i decided to take a break and catch up with my fb games. the thing with RSI's is well, the "R" part. i am gonna try out resting my hands every half hr or so, do some simple stretching as recommended by my aunt, and see if it helps. i'm sure it will, for as long as i remember to take breaks  :P

forgot to take pics of the full teapot + cups + saucers in 1:48 sets. d'oh. i wonder what 1:48 ladyfingers would look like....HRMMmmmmmmm..........................i hope.not like maggots, which i suspect would be the case ha ha ha!

1:48 teapots, and some 1:12 almost-pastries

soo....i'd been requested to make more 1:48 items. i haven't made much in that size since the last 1:48 commission, i was fearful that i'd forget how, but i think i did ok, considering how rusty i am. here're 2 teapots and a milk jug/server thingamajig. i'm working on making a mold for the teacups, it's insanely difficult to mold something this small.

how small? here's another shot for sense of scale.

also, playing around with some pastry bottoms (!?!?)

they don't look like much now, but just you wait! XD

air dry clay is so fun to work with. pop pop pop! in case you were wondering, i made the master, then molded the shapes. at least i didn't screw up this batch this time.

can you tell what these are? they're barely 1mm wide. some are 0.5mm even (yeah i measured). i'll be using them on some of the 1:12 breads i've been tasked to make.

on a more somber note, my middle bro is staying overnight at the hospital, the doctors initially suspected appendicitis, but the pain is in his lower abdomen, so they have ruled out most other possible causes. if the pain remains or worsens tomorrow, and does not shift to the right, he'll have to go for a scan. he seems to be taking it pretty well. i'm not really worried either, i guess cos my family's pretty used to being at hospitals (non-too-serious stuff) ....just a case of wait and see. mini-making will be on hold a while....i do apologize for the delays, those whom i owe packages and updates to....: