Princess Books

Hello everybody! Hope you're having a good start to this Christmas month. I thought I would explain a bit more what I have been busy with lately.  I have been working on the illustrations (3d sets) for a princess picture book and various activity books with the publisher Parragon Books. Earlier this week I travelled down to Bath where Parragon are based to help direct the photography for the sets as there is a professional photographer taking the photos for these books rather than myself. 

Here are just a few of my own little snapshots I took during my time in Bath- kind of behind the scenes photographs...

It was very interesting for me to see how the photographer worked and how he used all his equipment. There was a lot of equipment! The aim was to get very clean bright images and it was very exciting to see it all come to life like that.  I was hoping I would learn a few things about photography but to be honest I didn't at all- I am one of those people who doesn't really learn from just watching. I have to do the thing.

Also as (I hope!) you can see everything is very sparkly. I have SO loved being able to just chuck as much glitter and as many gems as possible onto the sets. I love love it! It was like the perfect project for me.

I was in Bath for three days (two nights) working solidly during the day so I didn't get to see a huge amount of the city. From what I did see though looks so nice! I want to go back there and visit again some time so I can look around more. There was a Christmas market and a carousel (!!! my fave! though there wasn't time to go on it. Also it looked like it went really fast- extra points for it!) and all the buildings were sort of beige coloured and very picturesque.

It was a very interesting few days and the people at Parragon were all so nice and friendly.  I am now really excited to see the book when it comes out some time next year. Before that though I still have some more sets and characters to make for the activity books. So I had better get back to that...

X

The Sad Picnic

Crown Jewels

I just want to show you this miniature jewel cabinet that I created the other day for my castle.  I'm very pleased with it! 

I had been searching for the perfect jewel cabinet to display all my miniature crowns for a while but with not much luck. I couldn't find anything the right shape or size for what I wanted. I wanted one which was longer horizontally than vertically and that seemed hard to find! In the end I bought this one on ebay which was labelled as being a display case for a shop and decided to customize it myself.  

As you can see it's not exactly the most regal looking thing. Also you can't really tell from the picture but the depth of it was bigger than I wanted too.  Silly me didn't think about the depth when I bought it I just looked at the height and width!  When I put it in my castle it stuck out quite far from the wall which i didn't want. ALSO the crowns were too tall to fit on the shelves!

Well! I decided that I would take it apart and re make it exactly how I wanted it. Henry warned me not to. He said there was no way I could change the depth of the cabinet without ruining it and he said to leave it.  But I am a perfectionist. So I got out my little hand saw and began to saw it almost in half length ways. Then I cut the 'glass' in half too, shifted it down a bit so the crowns could fit in, painted all the wood gold and stuck it all back together with superglue.  And it worked!!! I was so proud! I was secretly quite worried that it wouldn't.

Then I decided to fancy it all up with some gold decoration. I bought these little bits and pieces a while ago. I was originally going to use them to make an ornate little mirror but then decided that the jewel cabinet was a more worthy cause.  

So there you go! A fancy little jewel cabinet for my castle. It's going to sit in pride of place!

Castle progress!

I haven't updated in a while and that's because I've been in the midst of wood shavings, paint and superglue for the past two weeks.  I've been sawing and cutting and measuring- all in the aid of getting on further with my castle.  This year WILL be the year I finish it!  I never put myself down as a 'woodwork' kind of person before but I've actually been enjoying myself quite a lot!

To you it may not look too much different than before but this is now the current state of my castle:

I have wallpapered all of the outsides with stone patterned paper and painted the edges and tops grey (it took me three coats of grey paint to find the perfect shade!).  I have ALSO- and this is the part I am most proud of- made a flight of twisty stairs for it!  (I don't like dollhouses without stairs.) 

To make the stairs I bought a length of wood doweling and chopped it up into three inch pieces. Then I stuck them all together with superglue and voila!

Then came the hard part- how to cut a hole in the floor.  I watched a you tube video and realised it was possible to do with a craft knife.  When I say possible I mean possible if you're happy to sit there for three hours doing it.... Still it was worth it and created quite a neat, precise effect.

I am so proud of myself for doing it!  Since then I have also cut another hole in the floor above (to the top/attic room) and made a little ladder to go up to it. 

I am now very almost (apart from a last coat of ceiling paint) ready to start putting in the carpets and wallpaper and lighting.  I can't wait!

Celestine's snow day

Someone's been having a lot of fun sledging down the slopey roof of the green house this weekend....

Meanwhile Henry and I have also been sledging down Pegsdon hills. I have to say it was a little too scary for my liking.  Maybe because the bits of hills we went on were very very steep and full of bumps and tussocks and rabbit holes and snowdrifts up to our knees.  Henry had to go down most of the hills on his own (I did go down a select few though!)  It was so bumpy that he kept bouncing up into the air on the sledge which was very funny to watch!

Also some sheep started following us... I think they might have been hungry.

Hope you've had a wonderful weekend snow or no snow!