Who's Kilmouski?

Kilmouski is my Siberian aristo-cat. No matter how many hours I work, he sits in his chair right next to me. If for some reason it isn't there, he meows and paws me until I go and get it. His "chair" is a kitchen stool with a huge wood tray bungee corded onto it.

When I named him I made up a story about the Kilmouski Family having been the official mousers to the czars of Russia. For that he had to have a coat of arms! From that coat of arms I took the center design (the shield) and made him a sterling silver and gold tag for his collar. The 18K gold star on the tag represents the cattery I bought him from (Starberian). The Kilmouski family motto is engraved along the side of the tag in Russian/Cyrillic script. It translates... Death To All Mice. On the back of the tag I engraved all of his information plus phone number.

I never get to do anything without his strict supervision. Including using the porcelain facilities!

Happy Birthday Kilmouski!!! AKA "Killy" <---- Has never even seen a mouse.

Mail Today

I have been wanting a few books from Treefeathers. They came in the mail today. I am delighted with them. Among others, I ordered the Jane Austen set. Which are personal favorites in real life.

Also my order from Gerd Felka arrived. Four wine glasses that are exactly like my real life ones. Which go nicely with a decanter Frank Whittemore made and the wine bottles I bought from Hanneke that arrived last week.

The painting also came which is going to fit right into a theme I have in my mind about the person that lives in the dollhouse. I have to get started making a miniature pair of English riding boots. The leather for those came last week. I bought that on Etsy.

The Zinnias I made last month from kits.

Why is it when these things come in the mail do they always feel like gifts? I know I am going to get the bill for them. Yes...It is worth every penny!

CORRECTION posted... 05/30/10
I am delighted to be able to tell you that the sterling silver water pot was made by Obadiah Fisher. I have confirmed this.

Gift For Mary

I have an online friend that is making a 1" scale Brambly Hedge mouse house. Today I decided to make her a few things for it out of paper. There are some great prints in the Scrapbook section of crafts shops. Some of them come in card stock weight. The two coats of acrylic paint to the side that wasn't printed and the additional ten coats of clear nail polish made them quite sturdy. I however am still swooning from the nail polish fumes.

Miniature Cat

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This is a miniature cat I have been working on. I am sure my real cat is glad it's finished because I kept feeling him all over. Which I thought was a better idea than shaving him to see what a cat looked like under all that hair.

I made the flock and fur out of Rainbow Gallery Alpaca. His eyes are 2 mm round yellow beads, they have a pupils painted on them but you can't see that in the photos.. Polymer clay is not something I have spent much time playing with, so I am hoping the next cats will be better.

An idea occurred to me about someone having left a drawer open in a bedroom and two or three cats sleeping in it. I want a bit of life in my dollhouse but not people.

PHEW! I fixed his eyes there was too much black around them.

Kitchen Knives

I have been making knives this morning. I found the wood for the handles in my shop but I am not sure what it is. It is much easier to glue the wood to the metal before you cut them out. OOPS!I see have have a bit more polishing to do on the steel. Back to the Flexshaft.

Open Your Mouth Here Comes The Airplane!

Welcome!!!

These are baby spoons I made in sterling silver. One is the British Hurricane and the other one is the P-51 D Mustang.

The planes were cast. The bowl of the spoons were formed from sheet (hand hammered over a spoon stake). The stems were hammered out of square stock I made. They have some file work on them to create a design.

I put them in a show I was in at the National Ornamental Metals Museum. http://www.metalmuseum.org/about_us.html
Much to my amazement, they sold the day after opening night to a Fed-Ex pilot. I still have a few to put together. I love the Messeschmitt, so that is the one I eat my cereal with in the morning

Getting All Steamed Up

Welcome! Please click on any of the pictures. They will all enlarge.

Teapots have always been a favorite thing of mine to make. These teapots and burners are brass. They were gold plated when all the work was finished. I made the stands out of sterling silver and oxidized them black to appear to be wrought iron. The pots were fabricated from sheet and the burners were made from telescoping brass tubes and sheet stock. The knobs and handles are ebony.

One of the things that really bothered me about most miniature metal teapots was that the spouts didn't have a hole through them. That is understandable because most spouts are tapered and would be nearly impossible to bend into the right shape or cast with a hole through them. To solve that problem I decided to electroform the spouts over a tapered core of casting wax.

Electroforming is another process you probably don't want to hear about. It will suffice to say, that once I had built up enough metal on the wax, I was able to burn out the wax core and solder the spouts on the pots.