Vintage copyright free images!

Today, I discovered an amazing flickr site, "Internet Archive Book Images", which already has over 2 million copyright free, public domain images, which I thought would be very useful for future miniature printable projects. It's quite difficult to find images that are safe to use freely these days, so I am over the moon about this site, and the best part is, it is searchable, though a little bit hit and miss, you can still find some great images relating to your search word.

Image courtesy of Internet Archive Book Images.

Each image links to the book, from which the image was scanned. By searching for "doll-house", I found the above image, which linked to a book published in 1905, which has instructions and plans for building the above dollshouse. The book is available to read online here, and the instructions for the miniature house begins at page 71.  On page 109, you will find some instructions for tiny furniture too. There are even plans and instructions for a working miniature elevator on page 95. It is a lovely book to "flick" through!

P.s. When searching for images, make sure you have checked Internet Archive Book images in the drop box, below the search box. Flickr is a little confusing and you may inadvertently search all uploads to Flickr.

You can read more about the project here. 

!!Thank you Mr Leetaru and to everyone else involved!! 

1:12 scale Victorian style Ice skates

I realise today is Halloween, but I have been busy getting ready for Christmas. It had crossed my mind to put some sliced fingers on the "ice" though, which would have made a horrible Halloweeny themed horror image or just the scene of a terrible accident! 

The ice skates are the first object of my Christmas display to be finished. They are made with real leather, with a wooden heel, thin card soles and laced up with thread. I made a pair of small fimo feet, to glue the leather over. They also have a tongue at the front and loops on the back.  The metal skates are by Phoenix Model Developments, and they dictate the size of the boot, the sole of these boots are 23mm long which would make these about a UK ladies size 7. A white pair would have been more what I was after, but I only had brown glove leather (p.s. you cannot paint leather, it looks awful, I tried it). The pine cones are made using paper and paint with a fimo base, I used a small flower punch to make the "scales" for those.  

I am also working on decorations, garlands, wreaths and candles, which aren't quite finished yet, but everything is in the final stages, I might just be finished in time for Christmas.

The sky here has been very cloudy with the odd burst of sunlight, so not great for taking photographs, hence the odd lighting, as usual.

The ice is wax and the snow is salt. The clumps of grass poking through are railway modellers field grass.

Terrible lighting.........I will take better photographs when the weather picks up.

Miniature cobbling. The metal skates are by Phoenix Miniatures www.phoenixmodeldevelopments.com/ I had to come up with the pattern for the boots by looking at pictures of real ice skates and shoe patterns, and somehow managed to make it work, though the leather stretches a bit, which helped enormously. I used a beading needle to lace them up, before they were glued onto the fimo foot.  Thankfully, the rest of the table didn't make it into the frame, it is a complete mess beyond the edges of the photograph. Who would have thought you could turn a room upside down making something so small :D

Tiny teddy base sculpt using fimo.  He has since been furred and "earred" and is ready for Christmas, but his eyes have to be painted, and unfortunately, the black paint had dried up....must put the lids back on the tins properly in future!  I think I may have mentioned this before, but I find it easier to make a rough shape of something in fimo, and then refine it after it has been baked, using exacto knives and files. The wires are there just to hold him together. He is fully jointed.

I think he will be called Shrug.

Bloomers and Camisole FREE GIVEAWAY PRIZE COMPETITION!!!!!!!!

Camisole and Bloomers will include everything in photograph (except the rose). Robinson & Cleaver Ltd. was a real department store in Belfast, that was around in the Victorian era. The clothes label thread is tucked behind the button and can be easily lifted off. 

Exterior of the box. Slightly on the large side, but I didn't want to compromise the safety of the camisole and bloomers. This would look nice tucked under a bed :)

 So, now that I have the 1:12 scale Camisole and Bloomers tutorial out of the way, I have been left with two almost identical sets, and I would like to give away the new set, shown below, to one of my current followers on blogspot. The last one in was Diane, at 106. (Hi diane :D)

To enter the giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment below. The giveaway is open to all of the current followers of my blog, anywhere in the world. I hope the non english speakers, recognize the words "free ", "giveaway", "prize", "competition", I put a few exclamation marks in the title, to grab attention too.

I am not sure how giveaways normally work, but as I have only 106 followers at present, the chances of winning are a lot higher. So I would highly recommend not spreading the word :D Sly, eh? 

The giveaway will be open for the next two weeks, closing on Saturday 7th September at Midnight (GMT). On the Sunday after, I will write the names on paper, and do the draw, and announce the winner that same day. They will be posted as soon as possible, within the week of receiving the winners address.

The only terms and conditions of entering the draw, are that you must post a picture on your blog, showing the bloomers and camisole in their new home, if you can, as they are my babies and I am sad to see them go :D

Good luck!

P.s. In the rush to get the giveaway online, I put the expiry date down as 7th July, it is actually the 7th of September, thanks for pointing that out Carmen! :D