My new obsession

Oh my God! I can't beleive my last post was in September. I'm a very, very bad blogger, and I'm sorry for that. But I have a new obsession and everything else just slipped out of my mind. So, the new flame is still life in miniature. Actually, it's not so new, but now it's on the first place.
I found inspiration in some excellent painters' works, such as НИКОЛАЕВ ЮРИЙ ВИКТОРОВИЧ (sorry for the Cyrillic letters) and Loran Speck. They rustic style is just after my heart.
I can't promise I would post more often in the future, but you could always check my latest works in my Pinterest album (http://www.pinterest.com/erzsebetbodzas/miniature-foods-in-112-scale/).

I'm still alive

So, I had a little bit of a vacation from my blog. Sorry for that. Summer is always is a hard time for me. The kids are at home (mostly), my garden needs me, too, something has to give, and it's usually my blog. I just hope there is still someone who reads my blog. But now I'm here and full of new ideas.
Though I didn't post, I was working all summer and made a lot of miniatures. And I created a Pinterest gallery for my works so you can see I was really busy. Here is the link,

http://www.pinterest.com/erzsebetbodzas/

One of my readers asked me to add a follow by email widget to my blog, so she could get my posts delivered into her inbox, or something like that. I thought, of course, why not, I would do that gladly, if I just know what the hell a widget is. So I did what I always do when I have a computer related problem, I arranged a meeting with my personal system administrator, aka I went into the study and asked my husband. And he knew what a widget is, of course. Sometimes I think he lives in the next century. Or do I live in the previous one? And he started to tell me about widget types, and pros and cons, and it was at about the third sentence when my mind closed up, because every second word was unfamiliar. That's me and the computer. I'm pathetic, I know. But I'm on the widget thingy, it would be available in a few days. (I hope!)

Now about the minis. It's fall and time to carve some pumpkins. Here are my jack-o'-lanterns and other miniatures with pumkins.
Recipe for the pumpkin pulp,

orange fimo
liquid fimo
cotton wad (I got it from a cotton disc), this adds the fibers to the pulp.

Red fruits again

Now it's only raspberry with a little branch. I usually make the leaf from paper (cherry branch), but for the raspberry branch I used fimo. I still don't know which material is the better.

And some other miniatures "from the garden".

I'm in!

A wonderful thing happened to me. I'm in a dollhouse magazine. Wait a minute, I have to correct that. I'M IN TWO DOLLHOUSE MAGAZINES!!! It's like Christmas and my birthday present mixed together. I'm happy, and proud and grateful and so much more I haven't found the right word for.

The first article by Janet Kubiesa is  in the Dollhouse and Miniture Scene magazine (2014 June). It's an Easter themed article with mostly my eggs.

The second one is by Janet Stuart (and partly by me) and in the Dollhouse Miniatures magazine (2014 May/June, 39. issue). It shows  my various miniatures. 

Thank you, Janets for the articles!

I know the resolution of the pictures is not enough for reading them, but I have only these pictures for now. I haven't got the magazines yet, but I hope I will hold them in my hands soon.

My favorite fruits

I'm a red fruit kind of girl, I love them all. And luckily I have them all in my garden. (It's not for luck actually, since I planted them in there years ago.) They are in full bloom right now, and thanks to the mild spring weather, the generous amount of sunshine and the busy bees we expect ample harvest this year. Yummy!
But we have to survive the weeks (or months) before that somehow. My way of surviving can be seen on the photos. Too bad, this scene just added fuel to the fire. So much so that I almost bought some  hothouse strawberries! But no way I would do that. I hate the taste of them! The strawberries that saw real sun while growing have such incomparably delicious taste I'd rather wait for them patiently.

Eggs and eggplants

Making a realistic egg is not so simple as it seems. My first attempts were very misshapen, and when I tried to correct one it got even worse. Then I found the perfect hand and finger moves and now I can produce eggs like a chicken farm. By the way, I share my secret how I can make the same size of things even after months. I use my pasta machine and my Kemper cutters (or other types) for measuring. I have a book where I jot down which thickness of the machine and which cutter I used for the needed amount of clay for a fruit, a pastry or an egg. Next time I just take my book and could reproduce the same thing.

When I need a split fruit or vegetable I don't even try to make it right away, it always get malformed. I just make the whole  thing and cut in half after baking. Then if the inner structure of the fruit need it I carve some clay out and refill the hole the same raw clay, so I can make the pits or some specific texture and coloring. After that I bake it again. You can see the result on the split eggplant.

Scenes with fruit

I'm suffering from low vitamin levels after the long winter, perhaps that's the reason I'm thinking about fruits all the time. And they are in so many colors and shapes I just couldn't help making them in miniature. 

Tip for peeling the apples: peel them while they are warm after baking. You can slice long stripes of skin this way without breaking them. After cooling the polymer clay gets rigid. Of course you need also a new blade for fine slicing, but please try not to cut your fingertips off with it!