Tuesday, April 1, 2014

An update on the Victory garden

This is a quick update on how I have been getting on with the Victory garden.

I have been making a lot of flowers from kits from the miniature garden and also from online tutorials for the smaller section of the garden . The larger section of garden will be for the vegetables.
I have already started planting some of them.



I made the cabbages from polymer clay, and the runner beans are from a kit from the the miniature garden

Here is another view

 
I still need to fence the chickens in and give them something to peck at.
hmmm... the bamboo on the beans looks a bit bent in this picture I will have to see to that and make it straight again. 
 
I just love my little evacuee with the dog. My little girl evacuee is very sad but I think the little dog will cheer her up.

Thursday, February 27, 2014

The evacuees and residents of my 40's house

Here are the evacuees in part of the Victory garden.
The dolls have all been made by the very talented Joy Cox of Adora-bella-minis. she also made the adorable little dog who is being held by my smallest little boy.
I have always loved Joys dolls as they have such different expressions and they make me smile.
All the residents of my 40s house are by Joy.

 
Joy dressed all the children apart from the little boy on the go-cart who I dressed.
 
Here is another picture of the go-cart which  is absolutely brilliant. It even has a brake!
It was made by the very talented Roberson miniatures
who also make terrific prams too. 
 
 
 
Here is part of the shop with the shopkeeper, the evacuation officer and two of the evacuees 
 
 
 
 
I just love this little old lady and as soon as I saw her I just knew she had to be the evacuation officer
Look at her lovely brooch on her coat. I remember my aunt always wore a brooch on her coat.
 
 
 Here is the home guard (dressed by me)  and air raid warden. I love his face he looks full of fun.
 
 
 
 
Christmas in the 40's house (The old man was dressed by me)
The chairs were made following a tutorial from1inchminisbykris. There are some super tutorials on her blog
 
 
 
Baking day in the Kitchen
This little old lady was dressed by me.
The cooker and water heater  are made from phoenix miniatures kits. The kitchen food cabinet and kitchen table and accessories and the wash board were made from kits by Jane Harrop 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 

The chicken coop

Today I finished making the chicken coop.
I had found the instructions for it from an old dolls house and miniature scene magazine that I had. But I made a few changes to mine as I wanted my coup to look old and a bit shabby.

Here it is made up in wood and painted with a dirty wash of brown acrylic paint
 
I did a little more painting to make the wood  look aged and weathered .
I used a dry brush and some white and green acrylic paint
 
I wanted my chicken coop to have an old corrugated tin sheet roof so I painted some corrugated cardboard in different shades of grey acrylic paint roughed up the edges a bit and glued the pieces to the wooden roof. I then added a ridge also made from cardboard which had been painted in the same colours and then painted several areas with scenic rust.
 
Here it is finished
 
 
 
 
Just some more planting and landscaping around it and then this little area of the garden will be finished.
 

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

Dig for victory

I have started a victory garden for my 1940s village stores. I have so many ideas for it, I just hope that I can fit everything in that I want to make for it.

The garden is in two pieces which fit together as I didn't think the original one piece would be big enough. It will also be easier to move around with it being in two smaller pieces and I am hoping that with some careful planting the join wont be seen.

I started with a board for each piece onto which I glued sides made out of foam core board. I then glued pieces of polystyrene onto the base and card to represent the walls and soil. This was then covered with a coat of household filler, I then added another coat of filler over a stencil to make the stone effect.

This is one of the pieces I know it looks a bit messy now but it does get better I promise.

Once the filler was dry I started to paint it and age it with different colours of paint.You can see the join of the two pieces in this picture which will hopefully be hidden by some careful planting.
 
In this picture you can see my two posts which will be for the washing line. The right hand side of the garden will be where all the vegetables will be planted.





Next came the fun part starting the planting.
 
This is the rockery area and as you can see the join between the two sections of garden has been hidden by the planting.
 
 
 
 
 
The next job will be making all the vegetables to plant.
Then I need to make a chicken coup, the gate and of course the shed to keep all the gardening tools.
 
 
 
*********