Deze middeleeuwse dame in haar keuken mocht in de DollsHouse Nederland verschijnen.

This medieval lady appeared in the magazine DollsHouse Nederland

Miniature Wisteria

Welcome to new follower Claude of the Blog
  Patoulliage and Patouilis, I don't know what it means,
but it sounds lovely!

Lovely picture by Jessie Wilcox Smith
 posted on Facebook by Plantdreaming

 One of my favourite climbers in my real-life little garden is the Wisteria. I was thrilled to find a miniature kit to make one for my 1:12 castle garden. You can buy all sorts of flower kits in the shop of Georgie Steeds : TheMiniatureGarden. This is a picture of the finished kit, is'nt it beautiful ?! And also  I add  pictures of my progress so far...

 The tiny green leaves are glued one by one to the wire  with tweezer help, I find this process rather relaxing !

Hand sewing is bliss !

From this Blog Kleidung um 1800 by Sabine, I grabbed a lovely picture with the words :Handsewing is Bliss. I love to handsew the little clothes for my porcelain dollhouse dolls, It makes me calm and I feel I am doing something usefull, do you recognize the feeling ?  I do use Aleen`s Tacky glue though, I am not a saint. But as little as possible.

Dress in progress

Every Edwardian gentleman needs a hobby. This handsome man likes to hunt, his shotgun is not loaded and is "broken". So he is completely safe, and as he is only 16 cm tall he is quitte harmless .

Here is the link to Etsy,

New little girl doll

https://www.etsy.com/listing/580490138/porcelain-dollhouse-doll-girl-dressed-in?ref=shop_home_active_1

Welcome to my last follower: Cristina Horoiu.
New on Etsy , a little porcelain dollhouse doll, she is 10 cm high.

Butterfly girl

This little girl came from the same mold as Fleur, this time I dressed her in 18th century style and gave her a butterfly net to play with .https://www.etsy.com/listing/575469856/porcelain-dollhouse-girl-dressed-in-silk?ref=shop_home_active_1

Where did 2017 go ...

I have no excuse for not posting so long, other than that my partner moved in with me. Because of that there was a lot of moving and selling stuff to make room for him. But the biggest bedroom in my little house still is my dollhouse/dollmaking sanctuary ! I started as a postie for the Dutch postal service on Jan 16th 2017, because staying to much in the house didn`t do my health any good. So now I walk and cycle a lot ! I did make and dress dolls in 2017 and sold them on Miniature shows and in my Etsy shop etsy.com/shop/LaBelleBrigante .
And the first doll in 2018 I made for a very nice lady, and she named the doll Fleur.

* Fleur *

Catootje

I dressed Catootje in pink silk and flowery cottton. Her teenage room is rather messy with a collection of dolls, books, clothing etc.

For the dollshouse magazine Poppenhuizen en Miniaturen I made a little room in a sturdy gift box from Fortnum and Mason .I made a window in the bottom that became the rear wall, painted the ceiling and sidewalls, glued wallpaper to the wall and wooden parquet on the floor. Made the furniture from cardboard kits by Melissa Sipma,  painting it gold and added padding.
Catootje was born in 1736 as Catharina Boreel in The Netherlands. She spent the summer with her family on Beeckestijn .When she was sixteen she fell in love with her brothers teacher: Claude Salgas, but her parents did not approve. She had to marry Jan Bernt Bicker. When Jan Bernt dies,  Catootje is a fairly young widow. Claude has never forgotten Catootje and is now free to marry his first great love.
* A warm welcome to new followers: Claire, Anna FS, Ann J. and Figurettes *

Catootjes kamer

More pictures of Marian and Robin...

Well, this is what became of the stones, they

became a backdrop for the love affair of Maid Marian and Robin Hood..

Medieval work in proces, and welcome new followers.

A warm welcome to new followers Britta and Rhonda.

 I am making a medieval background with the stones from Fennicole and the window from Romney Miniatures. I made some extra stones from selfhardening clay, terra coloured, I will have to wash them with acrylic paints, which I find a bit daunting, but it has to be done for the Fennicole are a nicer colour than my homemade pink stones...

Toys Box Kit

The Toys Box Kit by Jacominis was a little project I could put together while I was waiting for paint to dry on an other project. I like the picture on it a lot: it is the Denton Welch dollshouse. 
Denton Welch was a writer and he found an abandoned dollshouse in the basement of a house he stayed in.
The room in the picture is in my own small dollshouse, made from a kit by Honeychurch called Denton Welch.

New items for new projects

Last weekend Jan and I visited the DHN Show in Ulft , and I bought just a few items with future miniature projects in mind.
Wingbackchair made by Jia Yi,
Walkingstick by Jokra
Medieval wallhanging from Karon Cunningham
Mullion window and hinges from Romney Miniatures.
Silk ribbon from Unicorna
Make your own mannequins from McQueeny Miniatures
Lovely provencale stones by Fennicole
Lavender plant by Jan van den Doel.
A make your own toy box by Jacomine Mink.

Welcome new followers

A very warm welcome to Anna, Soraya and Manuel, my last new followers!

Where to begin when you have not been blogging for over a year ? One of the reasons is my old laptop getting slower and slower, a new tablet might be the solution ! So this is a tryout on my new Samsung tablet. Remember the doll with the robin on her hand? I changed her outfit, removed her hat, added some jewelry and pearls. Over her pink silk dress I added an overlay of antique lace and now she is ready for the ball !

Mini dolls

 Usually I make my mini dolls from polymer clay, wire and wool. This time I tried to make two dolls completely out of polymer clay. The arms and legs connected with very thin wire.
They are about 4 cm high, I can use all my fabric scraps to dress them.

 Different methods of making a mini-doll.

The two largest ladies in the middle of this groupportrait are the ones completely made of polymer clay, which turned out to be rather fragile.
Next time I will try porcelain clay!

Noli me tangere

This weekend we visited the Stedelijk Museum in Alkmaar, there was a beautiful exhibition about Jacob van Oostsanen. I adored this painting which looked absolutely magical in real..

Cut & paste

To send this little Bergere hat on its stand safely all the way to Spain. I had to fit it tightly in the box. Also I wanted it to look a littlebit nicer than just plain cardboard...so a lot of cutting and pasting was done: the oldfashioned way!

Quay Brothers Universum

Now on in the Eye Filmmuseum in Amsterdam is a beautiful, inspiring, dark exibition about the work of the Quay Brothers.

A very happy and healthy New Year for you all, dear followers.

Regency Robin in the garden.

 I thought you might like to see a close-up of Robin`s face, I repainted her with porcelain paints.
in the second picture the focus is on the robin on her hand.
Handmade by Carla Zandvliet.

Welcome by Robin and her pet robin.

A warm welcome to: Krizze, Arantza Martin, Miniluna, Sirkku, Gina, Jennifer. I hope you enjoy my Blog.

Robin dressed in Regency style, and her pet robin say welcome to you all.
The beautiful tiny robin was made by Carla Zandvliet, a Dutch miniaturist who is also famous for her silk flowers.

The colour of her hair..

Even for a porcelain person it makes a big difference what colour her hair is. First I gave Belle a dark brown hairdo . This made her look very pale, so I changed it to auburn, better I think. And I took this picture in an other room , so it looks warmer..

Anne Fairfax

A few years ago Susan Bembridge was my neighbour at the 1:12 Show in Rheda-Wiedenbruck Germany. All the lovely wallpapers and fabrics on her table kept calling me over for a closer look... .
 I finally made a choice, I bought a piece of silk crepe de chine with the name Anne`s bedroom.

Click on the picture to visit Susan`s website

Home in Holland again I searched for this Anne, who was she, what was her story ? She was Anne Fairfax, and she had a rather sad life, losing her mother and sisters. The house were her bedroom was is called Fairfax House, it has its own website www.fairfaxhouse.co.uk .
In her bedroom hangs a sweet picture of Anne, painted in 1742 by Philip Mercier.

Inspired by Anne Fairfax I am dressing  Belle in a 18th century style dress made from the fabric I bought  from Susan.
 I am now trying to get a nice fit on the bodice.

Update

It is time for an update, it is far too long since I posted!

There are four new followers:  a warm Welcome to David Edwards , Las miniaturas y el vintage, Noelle de Terwangne and Yolanda Moran.

I have been playing with my new tiny kiln , trying to make my own dolls, but the results are not very professional ! It certainly is a learning proces. I expected  anything could go wrong: the pouring of the liquid porcelain, the cleaning of the greenware, the painting of the doll parts, the temperature of the kiln, and evereything did go wrong and 90 % of the dollparts ended up in the bin.. A lot of puzzles and questions. I am glad there is a lot of information to be found on the internet, and a lot of helpfull professional generous dollmakers who want share their knowledge.  At the moment I am dressing my first lady doll, she is far from perfect, but I like her.
The face and arms mold I have is Belle from Stacy Hofmann and a legs mold from Dawn Adams:

buttoned boots with a heel.Not suitable for a lady in 18th century style dress. So I scraped of the boots in the Greenware stage, before it is cured in the kiln, when the porcelain is not really dry. And added white stockings and silk shoes with silk bows.

Welcome new followers.

A warm welcome to new followers: Susu, DoF theinfill, Birgit, AnneRie, Shaairah, Annemarie Hovenga, Erika Kraster-de Boer, Ozden Ceyhan, Lina, Susan Maskin, AM, and minis64.
Have a great weekend!
Margot

Beeckestijn

The painting by Jan Davidsz. de Heem 

The photograph by Richard Kuiper

The past weeks volunteers were working  hard on Beeckestijn: an 18th century country estate in Velsen.
We all worked together under the supervision of our new artistic manager: Nathalie Faber.
The exhibition is called Still Life Exhibition. On display are paintings and photographs from the 17th century till the 21th century. Can you see the difference...
The stilllife painting was painted in the 17th century. The stillife by Richard Kuiper is a photograph from the 21 th century, everything in the photo is plastic...