Little Trimmings

Small-scale haberdashery for the miniaturist and doll-maker

Rik Pierce Workshop - May 2008

Christine took the first week in May off to attend a Masterclass in Creative Paperclay with the world reknown master of Paperclay, Rik Pierce.


Here are a selection of photographs of the project we undertook - The Witches House

The walls All the internal walls covered with paperclay and left to dry. It doesn't show up well in the picture, but the surface is dimpled and roughed up, not smooth. The dark patches are pieces of wattle and daub showing through where the plaster has broken away from the walls - probably due to damp, or maybe a witches spell that went wrong.	Building starts Here I have started attaching the walls to the base, lots of glue and masking tape to keep the pieces in place while they dry.
All walls in place All the walls are in place now, no fiddling while it dries, so off to work on other parts. That's Jan (who arranged the course) in the background, she is into her 2nd week so a lot further on with her house.	Roof slats Roof slats are glued, and clamped, in place - note the stained side is underneath, as the top will be covered in 'tiles'. Just got the little bit at the bottom to do, which is over the fireplace.
Dormer window All the roof slats are now finished and the dormer window sides are glued in place.	Chimney breast A close up of the chimney breast with rocks and brickwork, and shows the start of the roof tiles. A few here and there are lifted and broken to add to the dilapidated look.
Front porch Back home, and managed to find a bit of time to paint wash the outside to mucky it up a bit. Also added a well worn porch roof over the front door.	Distressed look I finally got to grips with the various different 'mucky water' washes and although there is still work to do I am happy with the progress so far. And yes the roof is a bit bright, it still needs to be toned down a fair bit.
Front area landscaping The base was covered in a thin layer of paperclay which was sculped to my requirements. Stones border the edge of the display, and a lower area on the front corner will be a pond.	Inside view of the cottage You can just see the light fittings all in place.
Front landscaping painted And some Wisteria vine staring to 'grow' up the side of the porch.	Wisteria A close up of Wisteria flowers, hanging from their vine around the side of the house. Wisteria flowers were make from Lavender Flower Soft (now available from Little Trimmings) I also added moss to the roof (railway grass scatter), and glued all the window shutters in place.
Spell book The spell book and scrolls were a workshop I did with my own local dolls house club.	Distressed chair Another project done with my local club - we took a cheap mahogany chair, sanded it a bit, recovered it, then distressed the new upholstery with brown paint (dry brushed on) and a little roughing up with some sandpaper - Perfect!
Witches Spell table I made the Witches Table at a workshop with Mags Cassidy. This workshop took place the day after the Thame fair in February 2011.	Witches Dresser I took a cheap white wood kitchen table and added the top part, then painted it and then rubbed it a bit to give it that old worn look. The bottles were either hand made by me or collected from other artists over the last few years.
Upstairs This is the upstairs room - still a bit bare, with just a bed, table and the distressed chair - I still have a lot of dressing to do up here.	Downstairs There is a lot more going on in the downstairs room, the table and dresser are in place. I also recovered and then destressed a comfy chair for the fire side. I made the sink out of fimo and a draining board from coffee stirrers, this still needs pots and pans and a fabric curtain..
Still so much to do, and so little time - now I have started the Gypsy caravan, and I am itching to progress with that. More pictures to come as I find the time to progress with this project.