JS Miniatures - Updated Website and Special Offer!

Happy New Year to all my followers.

This will be the last post about my business on this blog as I have created a blog specifically for JS Miniatures at http://blog.jsminiatures.co.uk/.  From this point on I will be back to blogging about my own dolls house progress, or lack of in my case!

It's the first of January and my website has been updated!  It now contains far more information about the business including standard pages such as 'about us', contact us', 'shipping and returns' and T&C's / Privacy information.

I have also got a special offer running from today.  If you purchase a fireplace you will receive a FREE hearth with wood edging worth £1.49.

Free hearth included when you purchase a fireplace.





It is a typical Georgian hearth which is designed to sit flush with your chosen flooring so you can use it on any type of wood flooring.  See photo above.

If you have any questions about the hearth please get in touch.

I've been quiet because....

I've been hard at work preparing to launch my own business making miniature fire surrounds!

It's been a long time in development and it's meant I haven't had much time to work on my own dolls house but I've just launched the site www.jsminiatures.co.uk and I hope it will be a success.

My first product is a Georgian style fire surround with faux marble insert and can be bought as a kit or ready made.
I'll be using the first one in my own dolls house and I hope that some of you might take a look at my site.

I've really enjoyed making my first product.  I've realised that this is where my passion lies and I would love my business to be a success.  I would therefore appreciate any feedback you may have on what you think of the website and the fire surround.

The intention is to expand to produce fire surrounds for all periods.

The finished article in one of the 4 available colours:

Georgian Style Marble Fire Surround

Kitchen Dresser Finally Finshed! - July-August 2010

Firstly, welcome to my new followers.  I hope this post makes up for the long wait for an update.  I would have posted this a couple of weeks ago had it not been for making a huge mistake and having to rebuild my dresser - more on that in a minute!

So, after many long hours I've finally finished my Georgian kitchen dresser!

It started well.  I made the carcass relatively quickly and then spent some time making the little drawers.  My fiancé then suggested I try it in my dolls house and unfortunately I then discovered my mistake - I'd made it over scale for a small dolls house kitchen.  I have learnt a valuable lesson -be careful when scaling off full size furniture as it's not always meant for small dolls house rooms!

Luckily, I know a man with the appropriate tools and he chopped half an inch off the width and the height so I still had most of my carcass intact and just had to re-glue the base on.  In the end, I also decided to make it shorter as well so I kept two drawers the same size and just made the little one smaller.  I think it works ok.

Today, I finally finished it. It has a chicken coop in the base (for those that are wondering what on earth it's for!) as the Georgians used to keep chickens in the kitchen as they thought they laid better if kept in the warmth during winter

I just need a few drawer knobs and some chickens :)

If anyone knows where you can get realistic chickens please let me know.  I've only found fairly crude ones so far that are too glossy to look real!

This is the chopped down carcass for the base and I've added a top to hide wood edges and finish it off nicely.

Base with scalloped trim.  I cut those with a knife then sanded them smooth.

Top shelf unit with decorative moulding - getting the mitred corners right was tricky.

Base unit with chicken coop - the middle section lifts up to let the chickens out / collect eggs.  The shelf is for them to roost on.
I used small pieces of paperclip wire to hinge the door.

Completed dresser minus the drawer knobs and a few coats of wax.

The dresser in situ in my kitchen.  Thankfully looking the right size now :)

Kitchen Table Update

I have now waxed my table which will protect the wood and brings out the colour.  I don't think these photos show it brilliantly though.

I also received a little parcel in the post today from a guy who I've become friends with recently through a common interest in dolls houses and wood turning.  Some of you from the dolls house forum will know who I'm talking about but for others, he's been stunning us recently with his miniature turnings of vases and kitchen items and has been getting a few commissions as a result.  Mine being on of them.
For anyone interested this is his shop on Etsy (Marketplace for handmade items):  http://www.etsy.com/shop/micklen

He has made me a traditional Georgian mortar & pestle.  We found a photo (very limited information available) and he's made a miniature copy of it for me.
I thought I would share the photo of it in situ in my kitchen and also on the waxed table.

Table Unwaxed

I have 30 followers!!

I just thought I'd make a quick post to thank all my 30 followers! :)
I started this thinking I would get a few and I've been amazed as the number has just kept going up.

I hope everyone who is following has found something of interest and that they enjoy my posts.  I will do my best to update it more often.

I am currently making a kitchen dresser so that may well be the next post on here.

Thanks again,

Jennifer,

Kitchen Table - June / July 2010 (and a little turning for the Dangerous Mezzo)

I'm going against my usual and I'm posting something that's bang up to date!
The last couple of weekends I've been working on my kitchen table.  I ordered the wood a few months ago but had been busy on other things.

It was actually pretty quick to do as I'd ordered the wood from Wood Supplies again so it was all the right size, I just had to cut to length.

I had seen a magnetic jig idea in two articles, one in the free AIM magazine (If you've never heard of it it's quite a good little mag, published monthly online and with articles from members of Artisans in Miniature : http://www.artisansinminiature.com/index.html) and the other was in one of the other dollshouse magazine.

I thought it was a great idea - the very basic version is you get a piece of steel - baking tray or steel tea tray, stick down a sheet of graph paper and then, to keep your furniture or whatever square while it's gluing, you use the graph paper to line it up and then the magnets hold it in place.
I bought some door catches quite cheap from the local DIY store which have a really good pull to them.  Ideal.

In the end I found a shop on ebay selling a magnetic board with grid already marked out which was for crafts, making cards or holding down cross stitch patterns etc which sounded ideal.

It turns out it is perfect.  I stuck some small, but very powerful, magnets we had onto the bottom of two pieces of wood I'd bought to form a right angle corner and then the rest could be lined up to that.

I made the base frame of the table, with the legs first, as Georgian tables usually had a shelf for storage of pots and pans etc.  

You can see the grid of the steel sheet and the magnets in the photo above.

I then cut the pieces for the shelf and stuck those on:

The top was fairly easy.  Cut a sheet and chamfered the top edges then stuck that to the top.

The finishing touch was to add a frame under the top, between the legs:

And there we have it, a basic Georgian kitchen table.  Just need a few kitchen items to go on top!


Now, as a special treat for the Dangerous Mezzo, because she asked, her is a little vase I turned a few weeks ago, that for once, looks like it was supposed to look!
It's made from a small part of a Yew pen blank and polished.  It's actually darker in colour than the picture suggests - a rich brown.  It's not perfect, you can see the edges round the top are a bit chipped, but I'm still learning :)

Into the Fire Part 2 - Feb - March 2010

Firstly, sorry it's been so long before I've finished off this section.  I've been been busy woodturning but you'll have to wait until I produce something decent to see any miniature vases etc :)

I had always intended to make the grander fireplaces from wood and my disappointment in the finish of the plaster ones reinforced the desire to make something better.

I had been recommended a supplier on the dolls house forum: http://www.wood-supplies.com/ who has a fantastic selection of jelutong and other miniature sized wood.

Being a designer by profession I drew up in AutoCAD a design for my fireplace based on a project from a book and then ordered my wood.

I did have a couple of issues as I didn't allow for the firegrate depth properly and had to adapt my design while making it, but I'm sure we've all done that!

This is what I came up with:

The plinths are cut from skirting board (extremely fiddly to get the mitre cuts right) so when flush against the wall the skirting board will appear to run seemlessly around the room, I hope!

It has since been finished with the small gaps filled, sanded and painted with two coats of watered down white emulsion and three coats of Plastikote Satin White spray paint.  It looks really good but I haven't got a photo of it right now so I'll have to update this post later.

In the meatime, this is the fireplace in-situ in my dining room with real marble hearth and iron on floorboards with veneer inlay.